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theluckyyyoneee · 4 years

Text

antipode | pcy

pairing: park chanyeol x reader

contents: high school!au, soccerplayer!chanyeol, serious!yn, mild cursing, reader becoming very confused and thinks they’re going crazy!seriously reader has minor panic attack:(

word count: 10,2k

summary: AlternateUniverseAU! When the guy you hate—and who you’re certain hates you—becomes your boyfriend after you swore he kicked a soccer ball at your head.

part 01 | part 02 | part 03:finale

You can’t be friends with everybody.

Damned if that wasn’t the truest statement you’d ever heard.

Trying to appear friendly to everyone you met without changing your personality to fit theirs or their expectations they held for you a few moments after first meeting you, you now used that saying as a very important and undeniable proverb to live by at a relatively young age.

You guessed it was a good thing that you weren’t one of those people who needed to be the center of attention or someone who enjoyed being surrounded by people who all pretended to be your friends to your face while insulting you behind your back. So that was why you preferred to keep company in the form of three close friends who were like your own family. Ugh, high school drama.

You couldn’t wait to graduate and spend at least one month relaxing before starting to register and pack up for college, already grimacing at how busy you would be this summer, but at least at college they would treat you more like the adult you were, or at least the adult you felt like, rather than babying you in high school.

“Class don’t forget, I already gave you an extension on yesterdays homework, so I fully expect it on my desk tomorrow afternoon before class starts. Okay?”

Groans erupted from the whole class, save you and a few other students who had actually completed the assignment when it was first issued.

“Ms. Lee, can we just turn it in on Friday please? I haven’t had time to finish it with the soccer practices that I have everyday, I’m sure you know that the game is coming up.” You didn’t even have to look to your right to know it was Chanyeol who was speaking, his smooth and loud words piercing through the noise and the whole classroom silenced at the sound of his voice.

You also didn’t have to look at him to tell that he was giving Ms. Lee his signature kicked puppy expression; wide brown eyes and his lower lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout. Keeping your constant gaze on your teacher instead, you watched somewhat amusedly at the flush that crept on her cheeks you could see from your seat, the way her hands balled into fists at her side then gripped the material of her slacks as she agreed with a shaky tone, deciding that Friday was a better day after all.

As soon as the teacher had turned her back to the students, no doubt fantasizing a scenario that would land her in jail if she acted upon it, given the teacher student relationship, even though you were certain he was eighteen. Chanyeol and a few of his jockhead buddies next to him exchanged high fives, the bell signaling the end of the school day motivating everyone to spring up from their seats and out the door.

“Ugh,” you muttered under your breath, taking a stand as well and stole another glance in his direction, scoffing and shaking your head slightly at his eyes already on your figure, his head tilted to the side as he wiggled his fingers in your direction, his friends watching from the sidelines, giggling at his actions, slapping him jokingly on the arm as they watched you exit out the door.

Idiots, didn’t they have minds of their own? You didn’t think so, since they chose to spend their time with that pompous and self-entitled jerk. No, maybe they were just as bad as he was, but there wasn’t a way for you to know since they had never attempted to mess with you the way Chanyeol adored.

“Wow, so approachable Y/n, no wonder you only have, like, three friends. You know, you should really appreciate me more for even talking to you.” Junmyeon chides, slinging his arm over your shoulder as he appears suddenly at your side in the busy hallway, keeping close to you to avoid getting in anyone’s way.

A genuine smile crept on your lips and you softly jabbed him in the stomach with your elbow, ignoring how solid his midsection seemed underneath his shirt. A huff of air escaped him and he clutched his stomach dramatically, wringing his hold on your shoulders even tighter and you gasped, grimacing as he pushed your face into his chest as he ruffled your hair with his other hand.

“Yeah right, you with your dad jokes, you would just drive them away.” You retorted, pushing him off you as the two of you neared your locker, shaking your head and fixing your nest of a hairstyle thanks to that nerd. Putting in the right combination on your lock, you smirked as you glanced at him leaning against the lockers next to yours and continued, “I swear, sometimes it’s like you’re a middle aged man inside a teenagers body.”

He opened his mouth in indignation, rolling his eyes and scoffed, looking into the distance as a scowl graced his handsome features. “Not my fault that I have a sense of humor too sophisticated for a peasant’s taste like yours.”

Giving him the middle finger with one hand, you shoved your locker shut with the other and readjusted your backpack and walked alongside Junmyeon in the much emptier hallways towards the school’s exit. Running into Yerim and Kyungsoo along the way, the four of you stopped by the doors leading downstairs, conversing a bit before they had to make their way down to the photography room—both of them involved with taking photos for the yearbook.

You couldn’t help but smile a bit at the way she leaned back into his chest as you talked, his arms casually hanging around her shoulders.

They were so cute.

After awhile their allotted time for conversation was up and they waved goodbye and you continued on your way home. You two resided in the same neighborhood about an eight minute walk away from school, so it was routine to walk home together almost everyday when he didn’t have tutoring on Tuesday and Thursdays.

“Leaving for the day? Must be nice.” A low voice echoed out to you and startled the two of you apart, attempting to calm the pounding of your heart you looked behind to where the loud sound had came from and frowned to see Chanyeol bounding about a yard behind you and Junmyeon, a black gym bag draped casually from his broad shoulders.

Long gone were his baggy tee and jeans and his famous soccer uniform adorned his frame now, looking ridiculously even more tall now than he did before. He eyed the two of you with a deep stare, his lips forming a line as you eyed him with a similar hard gaze and looped your arm in Junmyeon’s.

“Uh, y-yeah, we are. Heading to practice?” Junmyeon replied hesitantly beside you and you eyed him weirdly, wondering why he was acting so buddy buddy with him. While you on the other hand, kept your grip on his arm tight and continued to walk without glancing back.

“Yeah. The teacher wanted to talk to me after class and I still had to change before heading over to the field.”

You rolled your eyes, remembering the blush that was distinctly on Ms. Lee’s cheeks and wondered how that conversation went. Chanyeol probably got his way like he always did.

Junmyeon made a sound of acknowledgement, not really knowing what to say in return to Chanyeol’s story, and he opened his mouth after glancing at you, most likely going to utter an awkward goodbye before Chanyeol cut in before he could with—

“Are you two dating? You guys are always together.”

His tone had a certain edge to it that he didn’t previously possess and you frowned at both his nosiness and his hostility. Why did he care? So he could find another reason to make fun of you?

You were suddenly being pushed away with a gentle hand on your arm as Junmyeon explained quickly, “No, no, we’re not dating. We’re just really close friends and have lived in the same neighborhood since middle school.”

You couldn’t have agreed more, but you were a bit put off by how quick he was to deny a relationship with you, were you really that bad, you pondered with a slight pout.

Chanyeol must’ve seen the expression on your face and pounced at the chance—

“Right, who’d want to go out with Y/n.” His words were said with a snicker, having caught up to the two of you in no time and stepping around you to flash you a smirk, glancing up and down at your figure before exiting the double doors.

“Yah!” You shouted at his back, already being able to tell he was laughing at the way his shoulders shook just before the doors shut behind him with a loud noise. You were fuming at his words, fuming at the way he wanted to make you less than average.

Placing your hands on your hips, you blew air out of your mouth and paced around in a small circle, trying to burn this sudden burst of hot energy you found yourself experiencing. You wished you would’ve landed a roundhouse kick right in the square of Chanyeol’s back, but let’s be honest, you would’ve most definitely missed and given yourself an embarrassing cramp.

“Why do you guys do that?” Junmyeon asked exasperatedly, eyeing the doors Chanyeol had exited out of in a quiet curiosity you were used to seeing on his face by the long years you’ve known him.

Your mouth dropped open at his question and pointed at the closed doors. “He obviously started it! You saw, I didn’t even say anything to him and he still managed to insult me.”

“Was it an insult?”

“How was, ‘Right, who’d want to go out with Y/n, har har’, not an insult? Sure he didn’t outright say any demeaning words or phrases, but it was well implied and you know it.” You lowered your voice when repeating the phrase, trying to mimic the deep tone of Chanyeol’s voice with some difficulty.

He titled his head to the side a bit and pursed his lips, walking ahead of you and opening the door and you had to rush to not be left behind, the heat from the sun warming up your skin. “I don’t think so, but whatever you guys want to call it, it has to stop. Just date already.”

“Excuse me?” You all but screeched, looking at him with an expression of disbelief.

He shrugged and held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. “Hey, don’t look at me. You were the one who told me you that he was cute when you first met him.”

“That was before he opened his mouth and I found out what a jerk he is,” you mumbled, heat creeping up on your cheeks as you remembered, yes, technically once upon a time you did find Chanyeol somewhat charming and handsome.

You usually stayed away from the athletes, they created unnecessary attention and special treatment wherever they went. It wasn’t as if you had an interest in things such as football, soccer, diving, track, etc., so you didn’t understand the obsession with these athletes that drove everyone crazy at the mere sight of them.

The first time you had laid eyes on Chanyeol, he hadn’t been dressed in his uniform, looking comfortable as ever in a plain t-shirt and jeans combination, and you could admit it to yourself now, that yes, your heart did pick up its pace a bit at the sight of him, your face heating up as you made yourself look away, being stuck in a daze of just gazing at him for sometime.

It wasn’t as if you automatically had the naive assumption that everyone on earth was an angel or anything of that nature, but you thought that he was generally a good person, seeing as no one seemed to hold any grudges or contempt towards him, always greeted and greeting everyone with a wide smile and the joyous everyone reacted to his presence.

You were fascinated by him.

Did your fascination cross some line into a crush like thing? You weren’t sure. It wasn’t as if you wanted to talk to him and enter his busy world, you were completely fine watching him from afar, your faith in humanity returning the tiniest bit by finding a good young person in this Sodom and Gomorrah that you called high school.

Until you had a personal interaction with him.

It was completely random timing, it was an ordinary day, you were already seated in your chair near the back where Ms. Lee had assigned you at the beginning of the semester. You had your book you were currently engrossed with open on your otherwise empty desk, but you had looked up when you heard someone enter.

Chanyeol walked in with his backpack, that looked practically empty to you, comfortably slung over his shoulder and he sauntered to his seat and you froze as the two of you made eye contact for the first time.

You expected for his eyes to skim right past you, but they didn’t. He kept your stare with his wide brown eyes for a few moments longer before he let his backpack fall to the ground by his seat and slowly sank himself in it, you not noticing his teammates and desk buddies watching the whole exchange, their grins hidden behind their hands that covered their mouths.

You blinked and distractedly returned to your book, not remembering what part you had been on before or the context to make sense of this sentence when a pair of large feet encased in some no doubt expensive sneakers came into your view of vision and you whipped your head up to stare blankly at Chanyeol standing about a foot away from your desk, gazing down at you with a smile.

Your lips began to turn up in response to his, until of course he opened his mouth—

“Don’t you have any friends?” He asked you, his voice the usual amount of volume as it usually was but it felt like he had shouted it, the classroom silencing at his words and chuckles began echoing from your classmates all around you two.

Your skin began to flush with the embarrassment at being laughed at, at being made fun of so openly, an unpleasant feeling settling in your stomach as you eyed the confident smirk that rested on his lips as he stared back at you expectantly.

“Of course I do.” Was all you could think to reply, your tone slightly questioning, wondering what he meant to accomplish by asking you that question.

“Then why are you always alone?

Your features twisted into a glare at his next question. What is wrong with him? Why had he chose this particular moment to ask you a somewhat private inquisition in front of the whole class rather than approach you when there were less students present and at a much less close proximity.

Was what his goal? To embarrass you? If so, it was working, as much as you willed it not to.

It was a reaction you couldn’t seem to help. You were human after all, as much as you were confident in yourself, you doubted anyone enjoyed being laughed at unless they were actually trying to be funny intentionally.

Your lips formed to put your thoughts into words when the bell rang, your mouth still open as you watched him leave to return to his seat in the front of the classroom.

You could feel the stares of the students around you and you used your hair as a shield for the rest of the time. Your eyes fixed on the clock routinely, you began quietly packing up your books and pencils and was the first one out of your seat and out the door by the time the bell rang—not noticing the way he stared at you as you sped out the room at lightning speed.

After that, it was as if he had forgotten your existence, how it had been until that one particular encounter. You had given it a discomfiting amount of thought, the only explanation to his questions was that he was in fact trying to embarrass you, the more you thought it, the more his seemingly innocent smile seemed like a sinister smirk.

It was fine for awhile, he left you alone like he’d always had, but you no longer watched him from afar, you strayed as far as possible from him and his buddies who seemed to always be in a sudden giddy mood whenever they spotted you from across the hall or cafeteria. You could feel his eyes on you, but you tried to distract yourself with engaging into a conversation with Kyungsoo as to why he should bake you a cake this weekend.

Then he somehow decided you existed again and began to make passing remarks to you in the halls.

“Nice hair, sleeping beauty!”

You had woken up late thanks to sleeping right through your alarm and had gotten ready in about eight minutes, your hair drying in an awkward way from the way you tossed in your sleep the night before and had thrown it in a ponytail that barely tamed your natural waves that you were trying your best not to feel so self conscious about.

His comment made your cheeks flame as you registered the snickers that sounded all around you at his words. You made no facial expression whatsoever as you passed each other, determined to maintain your nonchalant and confident facade that crumbled pitifully as you were sure he was out of sight.

“What’s up, nerd?”

Chanyeol appeared beside you, a good foot taller than you, but you managed to hear his words just fine in the midst of a million conversations that were happening all around you. He walked ahead of you, but not before he nudged you with his shoulder and knocked the books you held in your arms down tumbling to the floor, earning attentive stares as they stared you bent over, picking up the strewn books off the floor and back into your arms.

He didn’t even look back, that asshole. Seriously, what was his problem?

Ever since then, you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with Park Chanyeol. Not like your over-exaggerated indifference to his glances and stares, seemingly playful waves and loud greetings of your name in a sugary tone that made people stop and look at you deterred him any.

If anything, your lack of reactions only seemed to encourage him, his voice echoed louder in the halls than before. People were starting to associate you with him, amused smirks creeping on their faces and watchful eyes with just the sight of you wandering down the halls.

You hated the way the rest of the whole student body ate from the palm of his hand, laughing and smirking along to his words.

But all you had to do was continue to ignore him, no way was there a chance in hell that you would ever willingly approach him first.

Or so you thought.

“You’re tutoring Chanyeol?”

“I was supposed to, but I can’t. My grandparents flew in and they can only stay for tonight,” he started to explain, looking the least bit frustrated at the surprise visit but mostly excited. “My mom wants me home early to spend time with them before they continue on their journey of seeing the world or something like that, I don’t know.” He sighed, shaking his head. His expression suddenly changed and he was grinning at you broadly and gave you the notebook that was previously in his grip. “Can you just give him this notebook of notes I wrote out for him, he told me that he has last minute practice anyway so it was fine, I wrote everything very clearly and dumbed it down enough for him to understand it.”

“I doubt that, all he knows how to do is how to kick around a ball and think the world revolves around him,” you couldn’t help but mutter, an impressed expression no doubt taking place on your face as you skimmed the contents of the notebook, Junmyeon was very detailed and if Chanyeol still had no idea after studying this guide, he was an even bigger idiot than you thought.

“Y/n, please?” Junmyeon sighed in front of you, even going as far as to clutch your shoulders in his hands as he looked down at you with a pleading expression. “I know you two don’t get along, but just get his attention for one second, point to the notebook and leave it on the bleachers and leave. I would go myself, but I’m already late going home and the field is all over on the other side of the school. Please, I’m counting on you! Thank you! If I’m any later, they said they would send Minseok out to come get me! I’ll text you later!”

He left you with your mouth hanging open watching him sprint down the street and out of your sight in less than ten seconds, almost falling face first after rounding a sharp corner. The sight of him almost biffing it made you crack a grin, wondering just how secretly scary his slightly older brother was to make him run home like that.

Their parents sure made handsome boys, shame though, you knew just how much Mrs. Kim had always wanted a daughter and got stuck with two boys instead.

A grimace came on your features as you sluggishly began your journey to the field, a sigh escaping you. You thanked your luck that it wasn’t a sweltering day or else you would’ve literally turned around and forgotten about the whole thing, but since Junmyeon had seemed really anxious and pleading, you would do him this favor.

He totally owed you a meal for this.

The walk actually wasn’t too bad and passed far quicker than you anticipated, must have been all those years practicing your fast walk to perfection, and you could hear the whistle and yelling from a distance, only becoming more clear and noisy the closer you came to the field, the rich green turf momentarily blinding you if you looked directly at it.

Tall, lean forms in matching white jerseys and shorts ran along the field, each with their own ball, taking turns taking free shots at the goal net at the other end of the field.

Good, at least you caught him early on in the practice as to not possibly getting yelled at by the head soccer coach that had always intimidated you by his yells you could hear miles away.

Clutching the notebook tighter in your grip, you slowly made your way around the fence, coming closer to the bleachers that held many gym bags along with half filled water bottles and towels laid untidily on the seat, making you grimace at the disorder of it all.

Your hesitant arrival becoming noticed rather quickly, you watched with a feeling of impending doom as the whole team shouted Chanyeol’s name, his head shooting up from his focus on the soccer ball in front of him to you, his face changing from a stoic concentration, to shock, then to a smirk.

You eyed the whole ordeal strangely. Maybe Junmyeon had told him that you were coming to drop off the notebook in his stead and to look out for you when you arrived? You ran through your previous conversation with the man in question, but nothing came up of him telling you that Chanyeol was expecting you other than gaining his attention.

Which you did, in a surprisingly short amount of time and effort. His teammates all had big grins on their faces and were playfully shoving him around and your brows furrowed in confusion at the reaction your presence created.

Just show him the notebook and get out, Y/n, you told yourself, gritting your teeth and held up the notebook in your right hand—Chanyeol still staring intently at you, fiddling with the ball at his feet—and dropped it on the bleachers, not bothering to find his personal bag and felt relieved that you managed to complete Junmyeon’s plea with much less difficulty than you were anticipating.

“Watch out!” He suddenly exclaimed with a yell as you caught the tail-end of his kick, his right leg swinging out in front of him with the force of it.

Eyes widening in alarm, your heart beating at an alarming rate as you realized the ball was heading straight towards you, then everything went black with a thump.

You blinked and all of a sudden you found yourself laying in an uncomfortable bed located in the nurses office. A cold and foreign object being placed gently on your temple that throbbed and hurt like a bitch made you flinch back in surprise and pain, a hiss escaping your parted lips.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” a breathy and apologetic voice sounded from beside you and once again you startled, your heart rate going from a normal range to tap dancing within the confines of your rib cage. You swung your head to the left, only to freeze as you locked gazes with Park Chanyeol, the sight of him and the onslaught of increased pain leaving you to groan, your left hand instinctively coming up to poke and prod at the area causing you so much discomfort.

“Would you stop moving, I’m trying to keep this ice pack on your head.” He spoke again, this time much less breathy and more exasperated, yet still weirdly apologetic, his own hand catching your wrist and gently tugging it back down before you could make contact. He made no move to extract his hand from yours and you eventually pulled away, choosing not to focus on how warm and secure his hand had felt holding yours.

Memories came rushing back to you the longer you stared quizzically at him, a gasp leaving your mouth as the suddenly crystal clear vision of that damned soccer ball zooming straight in your direction, a smirking Park Chanyeol being the one to kick it at you, after all.

“You hit me with the soccer ball!” Yelling only upset your injury more but you didn’t care. You knew he didn’t like you, but kicking a soccer ball at full speed from the other end of a giant field at you crossed the line.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you, it was an accident, I must’ve lost my aim or something.” He rushed out the excuse, his words gaining volume as his expression changed back into what looked like guilt, furrowed brows and he gnawed at his bottom lip as he winced in conjunction as he readjusted the ice pack on your head.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed, letting Chanyeol know that you didn’t believe his sorry story for a second. “Yeah, right.”

“What?”

“You totally meant to hit me, there’s no way your aim could’ve missed.” It wasn’t like you were on the actual field standing in front of the net or anything, you had been standing in front of the bleachers.

His mouth flew open and a noise of assault exited his mouth, eyebrows shooting clear up to his hairline at your use of his own words against him, his tone becoming more desperate with each word he spoke, eyes fixed earnestly on yours. “It did! Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because you hate me, that’s why! You’ve probably had this planned for a week, but it backfired because you know I know, and that’s why you’re taking care of me—give me this.” You snatched the ice pack away from him, the movement causing your head to hurt even worse and you reapplied the ice pack to your temple with a groan and a death glare.

Chanyeol was looking at you like you had just eaten the last slice of pizza after taunting him for ten straight minutes, the hurt and betrayal clear in his expression, his dark eyes wide and mouth turned down into an obvious frown as his gaze roamed over you repeatedly.

“Why would you say that? Are you okay? Why on earth would I hate you?” You hated the way those words sounded coming from him. How would he expect you to understand something like that?

“How the hell should I know? You tell me.”

“But I don’t hate you! I love you!” He seemed especially and genuinely earnest now, even more than a few moments ago, going to grab your hand in his once again, but you retreated before he could, a look of hurt crossing his features, and then you registered his sentence.

Well, you weren’t expecting him to ever utter those words in response to yours. “...What?”

“Of course I love you, you’re my girlfriend.”

“WHAT?”

The two of you stared at each other unblinking for a few moments, before you broke it with a tired sigh and shook your head the tiniest bit to as not to upset your headache and injury even more. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but it’s not working, so you can stop. I’m not in the mood for this right now.”

“Stop what?” He seemed confused at your words, large frame scooting closer to yours on the bed, to which you scooted back with a questioning gaze.

You stared at him in all seriousness then and answered with a sneer, “As if we would ever date.”

You had to give him credit, he was keeping his character for longer than you thought he would, and his face still held that expression of bewilderment and concern as he continued to study your face with his wide eyes, his mouth turned down at the sides in a frown.

“Y/n, this isn’t funny, okay? I already feel really bad about hurting you, I get it. You don’t need to pretend to not know who I am.” Gone was his faux concern and in came his signature eye roll that you’ve seen many times, relaxing from his alert position to lean back in his chair.

You squinted your eyes and continued to look at him weirdly, wondering if he was the one who got hit in the head and not you, what with his sudden strange behavior and all. But after a few more moments, you realized you really didn’t care, and just wanted to go home and maybe set up a doctor’s appointment to get your bruise looked at by a professional. It didn’t hurt as much as it did at first, but your head still throbbed from the collision.

“I know who you are, obviously, but we’re not dating—you know what, I don’t really care, I’m going home now, thanks for nothing... except for possibly giving me a concussion.” You huffed as you slid off the bed slowly, shrugging off Chanyeol’s helpful irksome hands as he tried to help steady you, scowling in irritation at how annoying and clingy he was being, deliberating on taking the ice pack home with you but deciding against it and placed it in the sink with a small shrug. Your house wasn’t far from here, surely you would survive the walk. Spotting your bag strewn on the floor by the entrance, you bent down to pick it up, but was beaten to it Chanyeol. He hurried to open the door for you with watchful eyes.

You were beyond annoyed but didn’t have the energy to deal with wrestling it from his grasp and opted to exit through the door, knowing by now he was going to follow.

“Are you being serious? Let me take you to the hospital, I really think you should get your head looked at.” He followed behind you like a lost puppy as predicted, and you wanted to scream.

Why couldn’t he just leave you alone?!

You were about to yell your thoughts at him when two identical uniform clad goofs you recognized as his two buddies who he was almost never seen not by his side came bounding to the two of you, concerned expressions adorning their surprisingly—though not so surprising—handsome faces.

Both of their gazes were intense, but the one closest to your right was even more so, the furrow of his eyebrows made your heart rate increase, you would not want this man to be upset with you. But you were the victim here!

You recognized their faces, but had never gone through the trouble to remember their names. Your eyes narrowed at the unexpected close proximity as they hounded you with questions.

“Y/n, are you okay?”

“Are you dizzy?”

“Dude, I can’t believe you actually hit her with the ball!”

At the last comment, you turned your attention back to the guilty giant on trial, giving him the meanest and hardest glare you could muster up before continuing on your way home.

“What’s going on? Did you guys fight?”

“Jongin, she’s sporting a head injury from being hit in the head by a flying soccer ball, genius. Of course she’s upset.”

Ah, so the less intimidating one was Jongin—wait, why did you care?

“But it’s not like you did it on purpose, have you apologized yet?”

“Of course I have! Like a hundred times, I don’t know why she’s suddenly saying that we’re not dating,” Chanyeol piped up behind you, still trailing behind you, albeit at a safe distance. You could imagine his pout in your mind without having to look back at him, convinced his friends were in on this prank he was trying his best to pull off.

Hell, they were probably silently giggling behind your back at this very moment. Mouthing their rehearsed script as to not mess anything up.

You couldn’t trust them, you needed to call Junmyeon. He would assure you this was just a stupid and juvenile attempt to further aggravate you, which reminded you to take your bag back from Chanyeol.

“That’s an indirect way of saying, ‘Let’s break up.’“ Those words were spoken with a laugh.

“Sehun!” The voice you now recognized as Jongin’s whisper-yelled from behind you as you halted in your stride and heaved a sigh.

Enough.

“Y/n, are you really breaking up with me? I already told you it was an accident and that I’m really sorry. That’s not a reason to break up, right?” His eyes were wide when you turned around, lips parted looking very concerned and stared at you as you stepped closer, looking the exact definition of a kicked puppy that only served as more irritation for you.

“We’re not breaking up,” you huff out exasperatedly, stopping in your stride long enough to take your bag back from Chanyeol’s loose grasp, his shoulders drooping with what seemed like relief judging by the sigh that escaped him and the smile he gazed at you with. That quickly faded with your continuation of, “because we never went out in the first place. I told you, I’m not falling for this.”

Turning back around you felt around in the first pocket for your phone after realizing it wasn’t in your pocket, while they continued to discuss among themselves in quiet voices as you grasped the familiar object, not knowing how it got there but didn’t really mind as long as you held it in your hands.

“Do you think she should go see a doctor?”

“Yeah, what if it’s amnesia? That has to be why she can’t remember your guys’ relationship!”

“I’m standing right here, and I’m lea—” Your next word cuts off as you press the home button, as your eyes land on the picture of your wallpaper, brows furrowing and heart beginning to thunder in your chest as you tried to make sense of this.

Replacing your wallpaper of one of your favorite artist’s albums was a photo of Chanyeol. He was obviously posing for a picture, eyes closed and a smile on his face, little stickers and emojis of hearts decorating the space around him, your facial features scrunching up into a grimace the longer you eyed the cursed image.

What the hell?

Were you really—the thought made you gag internally—dating Park Chanyeol?

The thought made you laugh out loud at the absurdity of it, causing the guys to look at you with wide eyes.

Of course you weren’t dating Chanyeol, you would’ve remembered making such a stupid decision. He must’ve been the one to sneak your phone in your backpack after finding a way to change your wallpaper.

To think you nearly fell for this stupidity.

You studied the photo and sighed, wondering if he was really narcissistic enough to take a picture of himself like this and add hearts on it himself.

Who were you kidding, of course he was.

He was willing to go this far for a stupid prank that wasn’t even working?

Feeling much lighter, you showed them your wallpaper with an unimpressed expression on your face. “Ha ha, very funny. How did you change my wallpaper you creep?”

“Creep?” Sehun couldn’t help but let out a giggle at your words, earning a glare and a slap to the arm from the boys by his side and an eye roll from you, a small huff of pain escaping you as the pain in your head from that move, and moved to enter your passcode and frowned as it told you that you had entered it incorrectly.

Typing the numbers in slowly and carefully, you sighed when it told you it was still incorrect, making Chanyeol freeze in his stride towards you as you shot him a glare, immediately jumping to the conclusion he changed it along with your wallpaper.

“And you changed my password, too? Unlock it.” You held your phone out to him with a hard face, just wanting to go home and forget about this.

“I didn’t do anything to your phone, Y/n.” His lips were turned down as he slowly took it from you, then smiled a bit as he gazed down at your screen—most likely at the picture of him. “I didn’t know this was your wallpaper, though. You’re mine, too.” He fished his out from his back pocket and held it out to you, that small grin still placed on his lips, and you frowned at his words, nonetheless taking his phone from his palm.

“Ugh, you damn lovebirds make me sick.” The one you now recognized as Sehun moaned, fake gagging as Jongin laughed along to his words.

Blinking at the picture of you, you couldn’t help the confusion and the bit of panic that hit you. It was a photo you had no recollection of, but you seemed ridiculously happy judging by the wide smile on your face, your face tilted to the side and braced against the palm of your hand, eyes shining brightly as you stared into the camera, bright neon pink blush effects placed on your cheeks with similar heart emojis surrounded your face.

Your breathing became a bit heavier, you continued to look at the picture, heart rate picking up in your chest.

How did he have this picture? When did he take this? You didn’t remember yourself taking a picture like this, you’d never smiled so big like the one on the screen.

This was obviously you, why did you have no memory of it? What was going on?

Placing your thumb on the screen of his phone so the screen wouldn’t go dark, you continued to stare lost at the picture, trying to decipher the background, your clothes, anything that could tell you when this was taken.

The bright lights behind you were hazy and unfocused, no major landmarks or buildings behind you to clue you into where the hell you were.

But you had more pressing thoughts rather than where that picture was taken.

Was it possible the two of you were really dating? That this wasn’t all just a poorly executed endeavor to prank you? Did you really gain amnesia over being hit with the soccer ball and just didn’t remember? How else would him having a picture you didn’t remember being taken—when you could clearly see you willingly posed for it—be explained somewhat logically?

You needed to get out of here.

“...Y/n? Shit, Y/n? Are you dizzy? You look really pale, let me take you to the hospital, I think you should really get checked out.”

Flinching and shying away from the hand he attempted to lay on your shoulder, you noted once again the flash of hurt that passed through his eyes at your actions, but it wasn’t as if you could help it.

Your mind was racing with all these confusing thoughts, and his reaction to your reaction didn’t make anything easier for you, only adding onto it if anything, your expression worried as you tore your eyes from him to flit over the empty hallway, attempting to ignore the concerned gazed of Jongin and Sehun.

“No, I’m fine. I’d rather go by myself...” you trailed off, sluggishly handing him his phone back and exchanging it for yours, forgetting that he still hadn’t told you your passcode to unlock it, but you’d figure it out later.

You just needed to get away from this before you lost your mind, though you felt that it was a bit too late for that, your headache coming back tenfold.

Chanyeol on the other hand, shook his head at your words, a determined expression taking hold on his face and moved with you towards the exit, along with his two lackeys from the sound of six feet following you. “No, I’m not letting you go alone, it’s not safe. You might have a head injury.”

“I have a head injury, thanks to you.” Your harsh tone was a striking contrast from his, your patience running thin from humoring this prank for so long, a weird pang of guilt hitting you as Chanyeol flinched slightly at your words, hearing the halting footsteps of the two behind you.

“Please, Y/n. I would feel better if you let me go with you.” His phrase was delivered with a desperation you just didn’t understand and that fact made you even more upset.

“I’m not going to the hospital with you, I don’t even know you or like you. I’ll just call Junmyeon when I go home and see if he can take me.” Your words were uttered in nothing less than a frustrated growl, causing the words Chanyeol was going to say to die in his throat, his pleading and anxious expression transformed into a much harsher one.

His eyebrows narrowed and his mouth formed a tight line as the two of you continued to stare at each other, neither one blinking as if willing the other one to give up first. Then a sigh escaped him, “Fine.” With that he marched ahead of you in angry steps, leaving you behind to stare at him, not wanting to examine the feeling in your chest as you watched him walk away at your words.

Sehun whizzed past your figure without a second thought, running after him. Yet for some reason Jongin hesitated by your side, noticing your slight wince and how you clutched your head, exhaling a steadying breath. “He’s just worried, you didn’t need to yell at him like that.”

That wasn’t yelling, you thought. But you didn’t voice your thoughts and said instead, “Regardless of what you guys tell me, I don’t recall ever being in any type of relationship with that jackass. I’ll be fine getting home by myself, I’m not a little kid.”

His expressions changed many times during your speech, and he seemed like he wanted to something but chose not to, opting with, “Just text us when you get home and what the doctor says, we’ll be worried about you.”

Your brows furrowed at his words and followed slowly behind him towards the exit, nodding a bit in thanks as he held the door open and looked back a few times as he stood in the same spot, like he was making sure you got home all right without being overly pushy like Chanyeol was.

His words confused you, since when were you two so close?

Your mother greeted you from the kitchen and had audibly gasped in horror when she saw the giant bruise forming on your temple, questions of what happened and are you okay all jumbled into an incoherent stream as he ushered you right back outside, stopping to let the backpack fall from your shoulders to the doorway before sitting you in the passenger seat as she called your father on speaker, telling him you were going to the hospital and that she would give him more details when she could.

Since head injuries and head traumas were taken very seriously, you were taken in to get some tests done that were more meager than they were annoying. You had wanted to get into the doctor’s office earlier, but now all you wanted to do was go to sleep and forget this whole confusing and tiring day happened, relieved once they told you they weren’t going to keep you awake, certain you didn’t have a concussion, but were puzzled at the fact you lost memories of only thing; or person, chalking it up to temporary amnesia.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, okay?” The handsome doctor Mr. Jung told you as he laid a reassuring hand on your shoulder—and for some reason, you were reminded of how you shot down Chanyeol when he tried the same thing, that same pang of guilt hitting you right in the chest. “You’re an intelligent young lady, I know this must be driving you insane, and it might feel as if you’re actually going insane.” The two of you share a small laugh and you nod, wondering if he could read minds as well.

“Just remember to rest and to not push yourself to remember too hard. Take part in hobbies you enjoy or take a nice walk outside. If you experience any pain, feel free to come back for another check up to make sure everything is doing fine. Okay? Okay, I’ll see you no sooner than two weeks I hope. Feel better!”

Did you really have amnesia? It would make sense to trust your doctors words, even your mother was surprise you didn’t ‘remember’ your relationship with Chanyeol, apparently the two of you had been dating for around six months.

You about spit out and choked on the water she had you sipping on after the two of you had gotten home a good almost three hours later, well into the night and your father was out at the store getting the prescribed painkillers your doctor had prescribed you. She even told you he had called her in a panic while you were getting your tests done, begging for an update, and she told him that you were fine but that it was maybe best if he stayed away for at least tonight.

But your mind was stuck on the six months part.

Six months? Surely your mother wouldn’t lie to you, so then it must be true, no matter how much something inside you told you it wasn’t. You opened your mouth to ask her some questions when there was loud pounding on the front door before the person remembered they had a key and let themselves in.

Junmyeon came barreling in, eyes locking with yours and immediately sprinted in your direction, hands coming to grasp your shoulders as he looked you over with wide eyes. “Are you okay? You remember me, right? There’s no way you’d forget about me... right?”

“Of course I remember you, you dummy. And I’m fine... mostly. Just here icing my bruise.” You took his hands off your shoulders and motioned towards the ice pack sitting on the kitchen counter.

“You’re not fine, you have amnesia.” Junmyeon told you and you rolled your eyes, but stiffened when he said, “Chanyeol called me earlier.”

Suddenly becoming very aware of your mothers presence, you tilted your head in the direction of your room, smiling tightly to her as she gazed encouragingly back at you.

“Chanyeol called me about an hour after school ended, saying he hit you in the head with a soccer ball and that you couldn’t remember him or something like that, I don’t know, he was freaking about it I couldn’t really understand him all that well on the phone, saying that you two weren’t speaking at the moment and asked how you were doing, I just updated him vaguely about five minutes ago thanks from the details I got from your mom. She already gave him an update at the hospital, but I guess he just wanted to be sure. He told me he’s called you like twenty times and you haven’t answered.” He tells you, eyeing you as you pat your back pocket at the remembrance of your phone in your back pocket, taking a seat at the edge of your bed as you followed his actions.

“Which I guess makes sense since you don’t really remember him, but you could at least text the poor man back and tell him your doctors visit went fine and you’re home safe. You might think you’re strangers, but he really loves you.”

Your brows furrowed with his lecture, ignoring his last five words and played with your phone, sighing as you stared at the picture of Chanyeol as your wallpaper. “I don’t know the passcode, I think he changed it while I was knocked out.” You mumbled quietly into your chest as you refused to look at him.

His hand swipes it from your grasp and you watch as he types on your phone, not expecting him to be able to decipher whatever random code Chanyeol must have put to have your mouth hang wide open in shock as he hands it to you once again, your home screen in full view.

“What the hell? How did you know what it was?”

“He didn’t change it, you created this passcode. It’s his birthday.” He said simply.

“Chanyeol’s birthday?” You placed your phone back in his hands to re-enter the passcode so you could change it to something you would actually remember, opting to change your annoying wallpaper later.

“Yep.”

“I’m really dating him?” You had to clarify, even though you’ve been told you were by literally everyone, letting your phone drop onto the bed in your lap, questioning if you were really the type of person to put in your partners birthday as a passcode, please—you so hoped that wasn’t you.

“Yep.”

You groaned. “Why? Do you not remember how mean he was to me?”

“What?”

“Oh come on, those snarky comments he’d always say to me in the halls? That was not flirting, I don’t care what you say.”

“What are you talking about?” Junmyeon’s face was scrunched up in confusion at your words, and your face scrunched up at his words and were about to clarify, when he continued. “Y/n, I think you’re remembering things differently, or else you had a weird dream yesterday that’s got you confused after your accident, but Chanyeol has never said anything even remotely mean to you. He’s basically been in love with you since you two met earlier this year.”

“What?” Now it was your turn to be confused.

“Okay, let me fill you in a bit since you can’t remember for yourself how the two of you started dating.” You narrowed your eyes at him as he shuffled closer a bit, looking like the epitome of seriousness as he stared at you, then awkwardly avoided eye contact as he began to fill you in on your lost memories.

“Let me see,” he murmured with pursed lips as he thought about where to start, a slight furrow to his brow as he began, “Um, you two shared a few classes together last semester, I think—yeah, you did. Because I remember you rambling to me about this ‘cute guy’ that you shared classes with.”

You strangely did remember that, but you had thought it was only that one class, with Ms. Lee? But along with that memory, came the onslaught of his comments that would continue for the next months that angered as well as embarrassed you, so something was not adding up.

“Wait—“ you held a hand up to pause him, squinting your eyes at him. “I know, we literally had this conversation earlier today.”

Junmyeon’s brows furrowed as he blinked at you, eyes narrowing as he studied you a bit more closely. “Y/n, we’ve barely talked at all today, and it certainly wasn’t about you and Chanyeol. I was busy tutoring, remember? Oh right—” he paused to giggle at his own joke, “the amnesia.”

You in turn did not find his mediocre attempt at a joke amusing and you noted internally that today was in fact Thursday, one of the two days of the week he tutored for some extra cash, his words seeming like they should make sense or strike a chord with your messed up memory, but you couldn’t shake this—weird—feeling.

But Junmyeon continued on without seeing your turmoil. “Then maybe a few weeks after classes had begun, he approached me out of the blue and outright asked me if we were dating.” He started laughing at the admission and your eyes narrowed as you experienced a bit of deja vu—certain you had a conversation of this manor before.

“And I told him there was no way in hell that would happen,” he paused to gauge your reaction and you scowled at him to which he sent you an over dramatic finger heart. “Sorry, you know I love you, but you’re not my type.”

“You’re not my type, either. Every time I look at you I still see naked Junmyeon from the seventh grade.” You retorted and shivered in response to the image you conjured up with your spoken words and giggled when he jumped back.

“Yah! You should’ve known to knock by then, especially if I told you I was getting ready to shower.”

“Who doesn’t lock the door when they’re about to shower?” You smiled as you spied the barest hint of pink gracing his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

“Whatever. We’re not getting into this right now.” He glared at you, seemingly blaming you for getting off track and you shrugged and he cleared his throat and continued. “Where was I? Oh yeah, and he seemed really relieved and said thanks and left. Then you told me that you gave him your number a few days later and the rest is history.”

You blinked at his triumphant expression, wondering why he was acting like he did this big thing, when all he really filled you in on was something you could’ve gotten from almost anybody. “You told me nothing.” Rolling your eyes, you shook your head at him and eyed the phone in your lap silently.

He shrugged from his spot across from you. “You guys like each other—no, I’m pretty sure you guys are crazy in love with each other. I don’t really know much about anything else about your relationship details, other than you guys deserve to go jail from the amount of cutesy shit you pull out in public.”

It was unsettling to have him talk about you about events that you didn’t remember and decided to distract yourself with the phone that seemed so foreign and held it in your hands.

Your eyes grew wide at the number of calls and texts you received, your lock screen keeping your messages and caller ID’s hidden and you typed in your new passcode, studying the picture on your home screen you were registering for the first time, unlike the first time when you were so fixated on changing your passcode.

Again, it was Chanyeol, but it also had you in it. The two of you looked like to be in front of a building that you didn’t recognize, wearing casual street style clothing and had your arms around each other, cheesy wide smiles on your faces as you looked at the camera.

Seeing a picture with you in it, yet having no recollection made your skin crawl a bit and wondered if you could find anymore.

You grow silent as you somehow find yourself clicking on your gallery, scrolling through what seemed like hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of you and Chanyeol. Varying locations and all different types of photos greeted your vision; ones where you two smiled at each other, faux seriousness, ones where the two of you gave each other piggyback rides, ones at the movies, the arcade, the fair, wrapped up in each others embrace, there was even one where you had your arms around him after what seemed like a pretty intense soccer match, his hair matted to his forehead with most probably was sweat.

It was definitely you in the pictures you were staring at, but it seemed like a completely different person. This person on the screen looked so happy, so content, so carefree. That wasn’t you. Your gaze shifted to Chanyeol on the screen, always by your side, with his arms wrapped securely around you. Were you the one that put that wide smile on his face? So many memories shown, but you couldn’t account for any of them.

“Look don’t worry about it too much, okay? It sucks that you got hit in the head with a soccer ball and that you got amnesia from it,” he starts to chuckle in between words and tries to calm himself once he sees just how not impressed you are with his amusement. Clearing his throat, he tries again, “But you were really happy with Chanyeol, you were always telling me that he was the love of your life and that you were going to marry him one day, it was really disgusting.” A small smile came onto his lips at his words, seemingly reminiscing in the past.

“And you don’t have to jump back in if you don’t want, okay? Just... Just text him, at least. Tell him that you’re okay, he’s really worried and I had to convince him at least a dozen times to not stalk your house. I know that hearing you’re okay from you will really help calm him.”

Remembering all the missed calls and messages you had waiting for you, your eyes widened at the majority being from Chanyeol, some from Yerim and Kyungsoo, and weirdly, Sehun and Jongin.

Eyes furrowing at the name you had Chanyeol saved under, you began reading through his numerous texts.

Chan❤️

[3:40 PM] i’m so sorry y/n i shouldn’t have left you to go home all by yourself, even if jongin did it on my behalf. I just felt so guilty and upset at the way you were reacting to me

[3:43 PM] saying that we weren’t dating and that you didn’t like me, and refusing my help like i was a stranger

[3:46 PM] and you looked so scared and confused, i’m so sorry again, it really was an accident i would never hurt you on purpose, you know that, right?

[3:47 PM] I love you so much, please be okay

[3:55 PM] Just please answer your phone or answer my texts so i know you’re okay

[4:05 PM] I called Junmyeon and he said he didn’t know anything about you going to the hospital???

[4:00 PM] Please tell me someone took you

[4:00 PM] Your mom filled me in a bit, saying it’d be best if I stayed away so I wouldn’t stress you out more.

[4:01 PM] Which is smart.

[4:02 PM] The last thing I want is to stress you out even more

[4:03 PM] Which means I should probably stop sending all these messages.

[4:05 PM] Remember to get lots of rest and stay hydrated and to get plenty of protein and nutrients, okay?

[5:30 PM] If you could, please just let me know that you’re doing okay. Please.

Your lips quirk up a bit at the absurdity of everything and nodded to appease your friend, thinking that it might be the least you could do.

Chanyeol did seem genuinely concerned, after all.

Seeing you nod seemed to please him and he patted your shoulder twice before standing up, telling you that he’d better go home and tell his parents and Jooyeon that you were fine.

“Jooyeon?”

“My younger sister?”

“Oh, of course.” You shook your head and he laughed at your silly question and told you to get some rest and he’d text you tomorrow, you had the Friday off as orders from the doctor so you had a long weekend to look forward to.

But you couldn’t help but frown as he closed the door softly behind him, hearing him say goodbye to your mother before he left your house.

You could’ve sworn he had an older brother, not a younger sister.

tag list: @rashidamesrur @totallynerdstuff @organic-hemp @etaerealboy @yasmini24 @imlonelysometimeshappy @rpavlxk

this was so much fun to write, i didn’t expect this story to be as long as its turning out but im happy w it nonetheless! didn’t want this to be a monster lol so i am splitting it into 3 parts!!!and i hope you all like it! as always i love feedback so pls show this some love <33 if you’d like to be added to the taglist just say so down in the comments or shoot me a dm!

#exo #exo au #exo angst #exo au scenarios #exo chanyeol #exo fic #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #exo fluff #exo park chanyeol #exo scenarios #exo scenario #exo x reader #exo x you #park chanyeol #chanyeol #pcy #exo pcy

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tigerseye46 · 3 years

Note

Some peachpigshiping with B6/13/58/60 and C30/41/60, please?

B6. “What if I told you that there’s a surprise for you outside?” B13. “I’m not the person you want in your life.” “Yes you are.” B58. “You look amazing.” B60. “I’ll continue doing this until you smile.” C30. “I love you, but I wish I didn’t.” C41. “Fuck you! Get out of my house!” C60. “Oh, now my opinion matters? I wish we had never met!”

I had fun with this one, here's some jealous Pigsy content!

Pigsy watches carefully as the two disguised monkeys interact with each other. Wukong says something snarky that the pig can barely catch, Macaque stutters and blushes then the king’s hand goes up to his mouth as he lets out a laugh. The scene makes Pigsy’s hand clench around the spoon he’s holding, tempted to throw it in between them.

Macaque has been around them for months, forced by MK and Wukong to join the group. At first the shadow monkey obviously loathed the idea at first, citing that being around the group was a fate worse than death, but he had gradually warmed up and repaired his relationship with Wukong.

Now the two monkeys were side by side most of the time, rarely did Pigsy see them alone together and he hated it with a burning passion.

He told Wukong that it was a bad idea to bring that monkey in and despite the fact that Macaque has changed, he still didn’t trust him. In fact, he wanted to murder that monkey when he had learned what he did to Xiaotian. That monkey could betray them at any moment! No way was he letting his guard down.

Although, he would be lying if the kid was the only reason he refused to trust Macaque. Wukong was his main reason. He had fallen hard for the king months before the other monkey had shown up.

They clashed for a long time, mostly due to Pigsy’s anger, before they were able to reach an understanding. He found things about the king that made his heart flutter, how beautiful poetic verses would slip out of his lips, how he was surprisingly thoughtful at times, his care for those around him, his determination and so many many things that showed why Wukong was so amazing, why he was so beloved.

But unlike most people, he saw Wukong, not just as a hero, but as a person.

He really likes the king and all he wants is the feelings to be returned.

The pig is brought back to reality when he hears more laughter, he lets out a sigh and furrows his brows.

Tang taps him on the arm. “Pigsy.”

He stares at the scholar. “What?” He hisses under his breath.

Tang giggles and comments, “If looks could kill, those two would be dead by now. Although, I’m sure Macaque is your intended target.”

“What are ya talkin’ about?”

The scholar places an elbow on the table, a hand underneath his chin as he gives a wide smirk. “That you like Wukong.”

He stomps his feet. “I do not! Shaddup, Tang.” He’s already told Tang about his feelings in private but no way is he letting Wukong overhear.

“You do,” Tang teases in a sing-songy voice.

“Quiet! They could hear!”

“Hear what?” Wukong questions as they walk up to them. Beside him, Macaque has his arms crossed, his chin puffs out and on his face is a smug smile. Pigsy growls, of course that six-eared bitch heard it.

“Nothin’,” he answers, sending the six-eared monkey a threatening look.

“Alright. When will the kid be back?” Oh, that’s right, the two had come here so they could get MK for training.

“A few minutes. The kid should be finishing his last order soon, if he doesn't get distracted, that is.” He chuckles then gestures to the seats next to Tang. “Sit down. I’ll make ya somethin’.”

“Okay.” The king’s smile makes his heart skip a beat. He turns around, not noticing the way the king gazes at with complete adoration and appreciation.

“Peaches,” Macaque starts, “remember that time we stole a whole bunch of candy and random items from that human village?”

Wukong snorts. “I remember. Didn’t one of those villagers throw a shoe at you?”

“And a barrel of hay!”

They laugh together which makes the pig fume. As he’s cooking, more stories and inside jokes are shared between them that he (and well, Tang) will never get. He wonders how many memories they’ve had with each other, he knows part of their history, how Macaque tried to replace Wukong to get him back for leaving, along with trying to replace his friends.

“You chose them over me?!” Macaque shouts with his teeth bared. “They’re pathetic!”

“Maybe so but they’re my friends! I won’t let you touch them!”

“You consider them your friends?” He gestures to four on the sidelines. They are a monk, horse, fish demon and a pig that has an aura that reminds him of his own. The group’s faces are a mix of panic and fear. “You’ve really downgraded, Peaches.”

“More like upgraded. Now, are we going to do this or not?”

The other monkey doesn’t answer him and instead wraps some shadows around himself, turning back into the perfect reflection of Wukong. They lunge at each other, confusing the others about who is who, the fight goes on, destroying rocks and creating cracks around their area.

At a certain point, one of them looks back at the group, concern and worry present in his eyes, and for a second, Pigsy can tell that’s the real Wukong. The scene feels so familiar, like he was there but that’s crazy, right?

He is brought back to reality when someone snaps their fingers, he turns and sees Tang with his fingers touching. “Uh, earth to Pigsy, you were kinda just standing there. You okay?”

“Hm? Yea, I’m fine.”

Wukong tilts his head and says, “Really? Because you haven’t even paid attention to your soup.”

“What?” The pot is almost whistling and the broth is bubbling way too much. “Oh shit,” he mumbles and lowers the heat. He finishes it quickly, pours it into two bowls, and adds the noodles. The smell wafts in the air. He passes it to the two monkeys. “Here.”

“Thanks, Pigsy,” Wukong says with a smile that shifts Pigsy’s cheeks to a tint of red.

“Yea, thanks Pigsy,” Macaque repeats with an eye roll. Pigsy ignores him.

They continue their stories while eating, Tang nods at certain points, laughing with them and commenting about different aspects. Pigsy enjoys getting to know more about the king but at the same time he’s boiling, like a volcano about to burst, it’s not a new feeling by any means. It’s probably the most familiar feeling out there for him, besides protectiveness, begrudging acceptance and masked contentment.

This whole thing is a reminder that he will never have this with Wukong. The king hardly notices him, sure, they talk and they understand each other now yet to the chef, he’s only a small presence, just acknowledged as the kid’s boss and not much else, barely a friend. He’s positive the king doesn’t give him much thought and that hurts the most, remembering that he’s considered one of the million unimportant people in Wukong’s immortal life. All he wants is to be part of Wukong’s world. A world that scarcely anyone is let into, somehow that includes Macaque, stupid monkey.

“Hey! I’m back,” MK greets as he walks into the shop and waves.

Wukong waves back. “Hey, bud. Ready to train?”

“Yep! Is that alright with you, Pigsy?”

The pig bobs his head. “Yea, go ahead, kid.”

“Thanks, boss!”

“Mhmm.”

Macaque ruffles the boy’s hair. “Can’t wait to kick your butt in training.”

“Bring it!”

Wukong rolls his eyes. “Try not to hurt each other too badly.”

“I’ll try, Peaches.” They both ruffle the kid’s hair again and Pigsy notices how they look like a happy family, he absolutely despises it so much so that his knuckles turn white.

He hates Macaque, if he gave the monkey a chance maybe he would like him but he doesn’t want to. The pig is clouded by jealousy. Wukong and Macaque’s closeness makes him sick to stomach. The king is sentimental, blind to the fact that the six-eared monkey will no doubt stab them in the back, maybe he needs another reminder.

He grumbles as Macaque leaves with the kid while Wukong lingers. Wukong spins around and takes something out of his pocket, money. He holds it out for Pigsy. “Huh?” Since when has the king paid before? Delivery orders aside.

“It’s for the noodles.”

“Ummm… ya don’t have to do that.” Maybe not having to pay for noodles will make Wukong happy, it’s a small gesture.

“Really? Aren’t you the one who complains when people don’t pay?”

Tang slams his bowl down with a thud and whines, “Yea! You always get mad at me for not paying.”

“That’s because you’re a freakin’ freeloader, Tang,” he snarls. “It’s on the house, Wukong.”

Wukong raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Are you sick or something?”

“No, just in a good mood.”

“Yea, I can tell by the bright smile on your face,” the king jokes.

The pig emits a small ‘tch’ noise. “Wow, you read me well.”

The monkey grins at that comment and leans over to hug him, he sucks in his breath. Tang sips his soup in the background, letting them have their moment. The hug is warm and gentle, the chef’s stomach does a light flutter, briefly he can pretend he matters to Wukong. He doesn’t notice when the other slips the money in his pocket, preferring to focus on the warmth and his imagination. For a moment, he can think I matter to him. He cares about me.

That is broken when Macaque peeks his head in and calls, “Peaches!”

Wukong separates from him, he holds in his disappointment, his fingers twitching to pull the king into another hug. He receives a playful wink. “See you!” The second monkey puts an arm around the king’s neck and leads him out.

Pigsy scowls and grips the inside of his pockets, when he feels something foreign, he takes it out, rolling his eyes fondly when he finds the yuán Wukong slipped in. He goes back to work, attempting to push down his anger and longing then receiving a small jab to his chest when he remembers again about how he doesn’t matter to the king.

Weeks pass by and the longing continues, growing stronger with each passing minute, each passing day, as it has been for a while. He dreams of finally having Wukong’s smile, yearning for the day the king will call him his, that they’ll get closer eventually, at least enough to finally matter to Wukong. It blinds him to Wukong’s loving gaze along with the small and soft touches.

Despite Pigsy's gruff nature, he is a pure softie underneath, he makes sure to give Tang an extra bowl of noodles if the scholar is having a hard day, never kicking him out of the shop. He takes it easy on Xiaotian, making sure the kid takes care of himself and so many other things. That same softness applies to when he’s in love.

One day, all of them decide to hang out together and unfortunately, that includes Macaque.

They’re walking together, Pigsy is in the back with his arms crossed while Tang, Sandy, Xiaojiao and Xiaotian are in the middle and a disguised Macaque and Wukong are in front, smiling and laughing. The pig is absolutely glowering at the pair, his eyes soften when Wukong turns back and shoots the group a small smile because no way is it directed solely at him. The monkey goes back to focusing on Macaque, the pig’s stomach twists and turns.

He balls his fists and lets out a low hiss. He watches as Macaque nudges the other monkey, whispering something, how the monkey’s cheeks shift to pink and a triumphant smirk appears on the six eared monkey’s face.

Pigsy decides at that moment to storm off, he can’t be there, he can’t watch as Macaque flirts with Wukong.

He misses it when Wukong glances back again with his brows raised.

Pigsy goes far away from the group, getting lost in the crowd of people. “Pigsy,” a familiar voice yells. He shakes it off and keeps walking. “Pigsy! Pigsy!”

He growls and spins to see Wukong running up to him. “What?”

The monkey stops in front of him. “You okay? You left without saying anything.”

“Fine,” he answers while his teeth grind together in anger. He stomps towards the direction of the shop with Wukong following.

“Really? You seem angrier than usual.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats.

“Uh huh. Someone’s grumpy.”

He huffs. “Not in the mood.” Go away.

A look of concern flashes across the king’s feature before going to a wide and charming grin. “You know I forgot to say this earlier but you look amazing,” he compliments and gestures to the blue flannel.

Pigsy’s pulse quickens and he suppresses the rosy red. “Thanks,” he mumbles, a frown still present.

“What? That didn’t make you happy? I’ll continue doing this until you smile.”

“What? Botherin’ me?”

“Exactly. Now come on. Let’s go back to the others, it might cheer you up.”

He grips the pig’s hand, Pigsy gasps and yanks it away. “Don’t touch me,” he hisses.

The king’s palm remains in the air, his mouth agape, he shakes it off. “Sorry. So where do you want to go? We can go anywhere you want.”

“I’m goin’ back to the shop by myself.”

“Sounds boring. Hang out with me, just the two of us.”

Just the two of them? No, he’s not going to stay. “I… I’m good.”

The king seems almost disappointed but why would he be? “Come on! It will be fun! We can spend some quality time together!”

He opens his mouth to reject Wukong again when a “Peaches” rings in the air. Macaque is a good distance away from them.

Wukong gives him a small wave and a gesture to stay where he is. The pig scoffs. “You should go to him. After all, I know how much he matters to you,” his voice drips with venom.

“Huh? Of course, he matters to me, you all matter to me.”

“Yea, right.”

Wukong lifts a brow. “Pigsy, what’s wrong? You can tell me anything.”

“Why do ya care?”

“Because you matter to me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Huh? You do. Is something wrong? I can make it better. I promise.”

He reaches for the pig again and the pig growls, “I said, don’t touch me!”

The king swallows roughly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you hated being touched. I’ll try not to do it again.”

Pigsy fumes, “Oh, now my opinion matters? I wish we had never met!” The last part slips past his mouth and he bites his lip.

The monkey’s ears droop. “Wh-what? Did I do something to upset you?”

No turning back now. “Yes!”

“What did I do?”

“Everythin’! Like makin’ my kid your successor and puttin’ him in danger!”

“Huh? I thought we were over that.”

“I thought we were too and it’s not just that. It’s every little bit of the things you’ve done. It’s how you laugh, your smile, your humor, every bit about you, includin’…” He clutches his chest. “Includin’ the way you make me feel. Bein’ around you makes me feel happier than I’ve ever been but at the same time it hurts. Knowin’ that ya don’t feel the same and never will. That there are a million other people you’d let into your world before me. That I’m so unimportant to you. That you look at Macaque more than you do me… that’s part of the reason I didn’t want him around because I knew you would rather be with him and I couldn’t bear it. Because… I love you but I wish I didn’t.

Something tightens in his gut at finally admitting this. He wrings his hands, focusing only on Wukong’s slacked jaw and widened eyes, not seeing the looks from people passing by them or Macaque’s smirk and crossed arms, head tilted in amusement.

Wukong is still like a statue and Pigsy feels like sinking into the ground where the king will never be able to find him. “Aren’t you goin’ to say anythin’?”

The king opens his mouth slowly. “Pigsy, I…” then he closes it.

Pigsy scoffs and lets out a laugh. “Gods, I knew it. I knew it would be this way.”

“No! Pigsy, I…”

“Don’t worry about it, Wukong. I already know your answer. Just confirms what I knew.”

“No! I-”

“It’s okay. I’ll… see you.” He rushes off, tears of frustration prick his eyes. When he gets back to his shop, he leans his head against the counter and sits there for ages.

Wukong doesn’t come to the shop for a few days and Pigsy’s mood sours significantly. He snaps more than usual and despite the others’ best attempts, he doesn’t open up to them, won’t smile.

He was aware of how Wukong would react, doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Pigsy is in his apartment when he hears knocking on the door. He growls and rubs his eyes. Who could be knocking at this time of night?

“Alright. I’m comin’. Hold your horses.” He opens it to reveal Macaque. He hisses, “Get out!”

“Nice to see you too and nice pajamas.” He snorts then pushes past Pigsy, he observes the place. “Interesting decor. We need to talk.”

He narrows his eyes and slams the door shut. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You don’t have much of a choice. Peaches is upset.”

“So? Shouldn’t you be with him then?”

“No. I should be with you. To tell you how stupid you are.”

Pigsy balls a hand into a fist. “Screw you!”

Macaque puts his hands up in defense. “Calm down. I meant no disrespect, well yes I did but that’s besides the point. You couldn’t have waited for Peaches to answer you?”

“I already knew his answer.”

“No, you didn’t. Peaches is an idiot. He wanted to answer but didn’t know how to start. Now he’s moping. It’s pathetic honestly. He misses you.”

“Why should he?”

“Because he likes you, idiot.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does. Look I don’t get what you and Peaches think I have.”

“A relationship obviously. You like him, he likes you.” Macaque roars with laughter. “Why are ya laughin’?”

“You- you think Peaches and I are together? Oh my gods. You really are an idiot. No wonder Peaches likes you!”

He stomps his feet and points towards the entrance. “Fuck you! Get out of my house!”

Macaque cackles and wipes a tear. “Hear me out first. Look, I know you don’t like me but what I’m saying is the truth. Peaches likes you, gushes about you all the time. He and I are just friends. All we’ll ever be. But you, he loves you.”

He rolls his eyes and yells, “Sorry if I don’t believe the monkey who clearly has a habit of lying!”

“That was before. I’ve changed, I promise. And I’m trying to pay back Peaches’s kindness. He loves you a lot. I don’t think I’ve seen him happier.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s not. What if I told you that there’s a surprise for you outside?”

“A surprise?”

The six-eared monkey swings the door open to reveal Wukong on the other side, his tail and ears are droopy and his gaze cast down on the ground. “Peaches!”

Wukong perks up, his golden orbs sparkle when he fixates on the chef. He lunges forward to wrap the pig in a bone crushing hug. “Pigsy!” His tail thumps to the ground.

Pigsy’s face flushes and he rests a hand on the king’s back. “Wukong…”

The king steps back and rubs the back of his neck, Pigsy holds back a whine at the loss of warmth. “Sorry! You said not to touch you.”

Macaque watches them then shrugs his shoulders. “Alright. Have fun. I’ll be off.” He walks away, leaving them to their own devices.

They exchange glances. Wukong starts with “Pigsy, I missed you.”

The king missed him? “I… ummm…”

“Can we sit down?”

“Huh? Oh! Uh. Sure.” They sit down on the couch. “Wukong. I…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry. Did I really make you feel that way? That I didn’t care about you?”

“Well… ummm… Wukong. It’s not that you didn’t make me feel that way. It’s just I thought ya didn’t. It’s silly.”

“It’s not silly. Why did you feel that way?”

“Well, look at me. I’m not you. I didn’t go on a journey, become a hero. I’m just some angry pig demon that runs a noodle shop. I don’t have any amazin’ powers. I’m nothin’ special. I’m not the person you want in your life.”

“Bite your tongue! Yes you are. I don’t care what powers you have. You’re amazing just as you are and you are a hero. I hear what you’ve done for the kid and the others… and you’re great. Really. You mean a lot to me.”

“I do?”

“Yea. I think of you a lot. Too much if you ask me. Despite your grumpiness, you have a great heart and… you aren’t afraid to tell me when I’m wrong and stuff. And I like you a lot. When you mentioned that there are people I would let into my world before you, that’s so untrue. You are one of the people I let see the real me.”

“Wukong…”

“I love you, Pigsy. I really do. I’m sorry I didn’t say it back before. I was surprised. I didn’t think you felt the same way. I tried to show I was interested. Did you never notice the way I looked at you?”

Pigsy blinks slowly, recalling everytime Wukong has ever looked at him, it’s more than he thought, there was always something unrecognizable in the king’s eyes and now notes it as pure love. “No, I didn’t.” He smacks his forehead. “I’m… I’m an idiot.”

Wukong laughs, his laughter sounds sweet. “Yea, you are, my dear idiot.” Pigsy flushes slightly at the affectionate tone that comes with the nickname. “But I am too.”

“I’m sorry I got jealous and snapped at you.”

“Pigsy, it’s okay. Your jealousy was kinda cute, hot even,” he adds with a wink.

“Sh-shush. Gods, I feel stupid now.”

“Oh, you should.” He receives a smack to his arm and he laughs again. “After you confessed, I was thinking a lot. I wanted to give you space but I got sad at the thought of you never wanting to see me again since I never responded. I’ve been wanting to confess for a while and I bought you this.” He pulls out a box and unlocks it to reveal a round golden bracelet with two gems.

Pigsy is amazed at the object. “Wow. This is gorgeous. Is this a courtship bracelet?”

“Yep. If you want it that is.”

“I do, it’s absolutely gorgeous but are ya sure you want to give this to me?”

“There is no one else I would rather give it to. May I?” The pig bobs his head, the monkey slides the bracelet onto his wrist and holds his hand. “Beautiful. It looks wonderful on you.”

“Tha-thanks. I love it.”

Wukong kisses his head. “I’m glad.”

“Ummm… Wukong, you kinda missed.”

“Oh?”

Pigsy cups his cheek. “Yep.” He kisses him on the lips, he can taste the peaches that no doubt has resided on the king’s mouth.

“Mmmmmm.”

They separate and lovingly stare at each other. “I’m sorry again.”

“Don’t be. I love you.”

“I love you too. Y’know maybe I’ve actually started likin’ Macaque after all.”

Wukong chuckles. “He’ll be glad to hear it especially now that I’m not “moping” as he puts it.”

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Wukong mimics and smooches him for a second time, his tail swishes from side to side. “You mean the world to me.”

“You do too.”

They kiss a few more times and as Pigsy leans against Wukong’s chest, it fills him with unspeakable joy to recognize how much he matters to the king, his boyfriend.

#lego monkie kid #monkie kid #peachpigshipping #peachpig #monkey king #sun wukong #monkie kid wukong #pigsy monkie kid #pigsy #six eared macaque #macaque #jealousy #my fic

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stellarune · 4 years

Text

kotlc yt au hc bc i want to write but cant *actually* write so its the next best thing

biana makes historical versions of famous costumes (disney, barbie, you name it) shes basically the cosplay queen. she did a lot of stitching by hand before her accident which cost her her arm, so now she mostly does it with a machine (look, amputee!biana is in every single on of my human aus). her videos are very chaotic bc shes mostly just making it up as she goes, but in the end, she gives a proofed step by step how to for the dress/coat/wtv. since shes so rich, all of her paterns are free as well. she has around 3m subscribers. she does charity streams.

dex is a maker. he does reproductions of weapons he likes from video game, movies, animes you name it. he has an ongoing series called “will i finally manage to make a lightsaber this year ?” it comes out every year in july, and is one of hs most viewed videos. he also works to make his own patinas and experiment with different kinds of finnish for his pieces. he took a year off off youtube at one point to learn how to make jewellery, and now hes back with a store, and some custom rings ! he has around 1.5m subs, but some of his videos can get as many as 10m views. he never monetizes his videos.

fitz is a baking youtuber, in theory. the first few years on his channels were basically just baking tutorials without voiceover. but he did one live strem for 100k and the fans were absolutely shook at his voice and face, and he just never could go back to anonimity. how did he get that many subs ? well, all of his videos had the fuck ups included, and step by step guides on how to fix these mistakes. also the editing job was flawless. now he does baking experiments, and some cakes on request. he has a few monetized videos, but only with small companies that really need advertizing, or ridiculous products. (hes been known for doing a video sponsored by chin workout equipent) he has around 3m subscribers as well.

keefe is the random guy. he does art challenges, and trends, and just videos that seem pulled out of nowhere (”i set up a fake shower in the middle of the street lol”) he takes part in drama, as in he watches from the sidelines, then makes a shitty edit summarising the whole thing. hes never pretended to eb serious, and the people watching him know hes not. hes released one song on spotify that is just a compilation of everytime katherin bennett said urinoirs in That Video. hes fairly unproblematic though, and everytime he sets up soemthing crazy like the bathroom stall, he finds a way (legal or not) to let anyone that might need it use it. he has arund 6m subs, and definitely does big charity dnations

linh and marella are gamers. they dont have the same channel, but their content is fairly similar, even though their approch to it is wildly different. marella always tries to follow the rules so much she creates chaos, and linh generally gets distracted by side quests for a whole episode. theyre mostly known for their extremely different DBH gameplays, with marella ending up with the bad ending somehow, even though she mostly followed the good storyline, and linh killing way too many people unnessessarily by panicking. they both have around 5m subs

tam and sophie both are editors. theyre the ones that make the videos. sophie works with biana keefe and fitz while tam works with linha and dex. marella has jensi. theyre the ones that get the crew together.

linh and marella decide to do a collab, but jensi cant edit marellas half, since he has to leave for college or wtv, so sophie, who watches a lot of tams side videos (conspiracy theories) sends him an email being like “hi, i heard you needed an editor, and i dont sleep ever and editing keeps my mind off things i dont wanna think ab, so im here if you need me. oh and btw, links to the channels im the editor of”

since sophie is a vv good editor, tam answers like “oh yeah thatd be great heres my number !” and now theyre chatting, both for work and just as friends.

then comes the actual collab

its nothing special, ut its a fan fave, both linah and arella win a ton of subs from it

then fitz, one night, is like “oh, btw, do you know anyone who lives near **** bc im looking for a roommate” and sophie is like “yeah i gotchu, y cous dex lives nearby, and hed appreciate a bit of help for the rent so ill hook u up”

anyways, theres a small “wait youre THAT sophie ????” from tam, but it doesnt matter, fitz and dex move in together.

soph and biana are long suffering parents looking at their children who have a crush on each other, without realizing they also are the children who have a crush on each other.

marella and linh get together quite easily, comparing to the rest

they simply did a qna; and one of the questions was like “are you dating ???” and marella is like “nah, i wish” and linhs like “id be down”. and thats it.

dex and fitz egt together after an accidental kiss

sophie and biana are tipical oblivious wlws, and start dating after a kiss to piss off homophobes (its in character dont @ me)

no one knows wtf keefe and tam are. they dont know if they are dating, or hate eachother, or have the bromance of the century. its confusing to everyone and they like it that way.

does anyone want a part 2 ??

#kotlc #keefe sencen #dex diznee #fitz vacker #biana vacker #sophie foster #linh song #tam song #marella redeck #headcanons #youtube au #detz #fedex #kam #sobiana #marelinh #gay kotlc #lgbt kotlc

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tonystarktogo · 4 years

Text

(this could’ve been) a villain’s origin story -- KHR remix

[this fic is my first attempt to write in the KHR fandom. i apologize in advance.]

II.

The first time it happens, Tsuna doesn’t see it coming at all. It’s not the kind of thing one sees coming.

He’s following up on one of the many, many anonymous tips they receive daily, about villain movements, suspicious sightings, potential collaborations, the works. Nowhere in the official Vongola Inc. recruitement speech do they tell you that working for the world’s largest superhero organization mostly means digging through trash and interviewing witnesses, rather than bashing a supervillain’s head in.

Granted, most teams go out and get at least some action and technically Tsuna’s team is no exception. Tsuna is, though.

“You’re more likely to get one of us killed than be of any help!” Mochida had snapped when he’d seen Tsuna trott after the others on their way to the briefing room. “Make yourself useful for once and stay out of the way.”

[continues under the cut]

[In all honesty, Tsuna can’t blame his squad leader. He never thought he, Dame-Tsuna, always too slow, too clumsy, too useless, would get recruited by Vongola Inc. The best, most powerful, most feared superhero organization the world has to offer and they wanted Tsuna.

Of course that turned out to be bullshit. Tsuna should’ve expected nothing less. Should’ve seen it coming. Why doesn’t he ever learn? But he’d been so shocked, so gratefulrelievedelated to know that someone saw something in him. That someone wanted him.

If he’d known all Vongola wanted was Sawada Iemitsu’s son -- his bloodline -- well. Tsuna knows himself well enough to realize that it probably wouldn’t have changed a thing.

But that doesn’t stop him from wishing it had.]

Mochida is cold and cutting and often cruel, but he’s not a terrible team leader. He takes his responsibilities seriously. And even though Tsuna knows the man doesn’t like him, sees being saddled with Tsuna as some kind of creative punishment by his superiors, Mochida doesn’t let Tsuna’s inability to walk a straight line without running into a a door and his utter lack of super abilities get in the way of their job. It usually ends with Tsuna being sidelined and manning the coffee maschine or the phonelines -- wherever he can cause the least damage -- but Tsuna doesn’t mind much.

Sure, it’s not glamourous, but it’s still little things that need to be done and Tsuna is glad he can be of help, even if his co-workers rarely appreciate it. Mochida doesn’t expect much of anything from him and sometimes that hurts, but he never sets Tsuna up for failure just to have something to laugh at either -- and that means more to Tsuna than it probably should.

Besides it’s not like spending yet another endless day at work, following up on various anonymous tips, 98 percent of which always turn out to be a useless waste of time, is a bad price to pay for a steady job in a respected profession.

It’s only in retrospect that it occurs to Tsuna that what happens next is not at all surprising. That it is almost inevitable. Because no matter how many crazy, paranoid or joking people call the Vongola Emergency line, sooner or later Tsuna was bound to stumble over a nugget of valuable information. That this was why they kept a tip line in the first place -- because it occasionally proves to be useful.

In Tsuna’s defense, he’s pretty sure none of the others expected today’s calls to be real either. They sure wouldn’t have sent him out otherwise.

But here he is. Searching -- read: stumbling through -- a long abandoned warehouse that Tsuna just knows would have Hana sniff in disgust at the utter cliché of it all. Without back-up or any particularly useful weapon.

[His team learned in their first month together not to arm Tsuna with anything he could use to hurt himself with. Or them.]

Staring in horror at the supervillain staring at Tsuna with equal surprise.

At least I’m not the only one caught off-guard, Tsuna thinks hysterically. And he’s allowed to be hysterical when he finds himself trapped alone and unarmed in an abandoned warehouse with Skull De Mort of all people.

[Tsuna doesn’t have many hero-like qualities, but he’s got a lot of free time on his hands when manning the phone lines and pulling graveyard shifts on days where even villains prefer to catch a break and sleep in. Tsuna also, by virtue of his heritage, has access to the kind of high-level intel most field agents can only dream of.

As such, Tsuna has a better understanding on the recently active and inactive supervillains than most.

Whereas the average newsreporter likes to scoff and sniff derisively when Skull De Mort pulls one of his outrageous attacks that always mean impressive amounts of property damage and no civilian deaths because Skull is just an ambitious, loud-mouthed thug with ideas above his station as far as the general public is concerned, Tsuna knows better.

Skull De Mort is an Arcobaleno. As in one of the seven most powerful villains in the entire world. He might not drown the city in blood, but it’s sure as hell not because he can’t do it.

Sure, Skull baffles Vongola Inc. regularly with his antics, but his name is spoken in the same breath as Reborn, Fon or Viper and the point is oh god, Tsuna is gonna die here.]

With perfectly reasonable, if unhealthy amounts of panic and horror fighting for dominance within him, it takes Tsuna several long seconds to realize that Skull isn’t launching into one of his infamous supervillain speeches. Isn’t even throwing glitter bombs at Tsuna -- and those glitter bombs might not kill anyone, but walking into Vongola HQ and leaving a trail of glitter everywhere just might.

Hibari-senpai -- who isn’t even Vongola, is the definition of unaffiliated asset everyone is too afraid to alienate -- hates glitter.

Tsuna is so dead.

Except he still isn’t. He’s been standing here, gaping and panicking for close to five minutes and Skull still hasn’t made his move. In fact, now that Tsuna pays attention, it’s not just his breathing that’s unnaturally loud and heavy in the empty hall. And-- Tsuna squints. Skull doesn’t seem to be leaning against the wall so much as clinging to it and he’s watching Tsuna with a look that no one has ever directed at Tsuna in his life, something that almost looks like, like wariness and--

“Are you okay?” Tsuna blurts out before he can think of all the reasons why starting a conversation with an Arcobaleno is a terrible idea.

It’s just— this is a supervillain and that’s terrifying and Tsuna should probably call someone more qualified to deal with this situation, but also this is an injured supervillain and somehow that makes all the difference.

Skull scoffs, ironically putting Tsuna a little more at ease. People always scoff or scowl when he reminds them of his existence, this is no different. Besides it’s hard to take the villain’s derision seriously when he promptly sways on his feet. He’s not wearing his helmet, either, and despite being dressed in the usual black motorcycle suit, Tsuna is pretty sure his violett hair is matted with blood.

“You’re hurt!” he exclaims, horrified. Promptly drops the taser he’s been trying to pull out of his overstuffed bag with shaking hands and rushes towards the villain’s side, who’s eyes widen in alarm as Tsuna approaches.

Somehow that makes it easier to breathe, but it’s not enough to distract Tsuna from the long cut along the man’s temple and the dark bruises on his jaw.

“The Great Skull-sama is fine!” Skull protests frantically.

He’s clearly not, considering he promptly loses his balance when he tries to take a step back. Instinctively, Tsuna reaches out to catch him, realizing a second too late that one, he doesn’t have the strenth to keep the taller man upright and two, Tusna is a walking, talking disaster who inevitably trips and brings Skull down with him. They hit the ground hard enough to knock all the air out of his lungs and land in a graceless heap on the floor.

“Sorry!” Tsuna squeaks, breathless from where his face is smushed against Skull’s padded shoulder. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me, Skull-sama!”

Kami-sama, he’s knocked the poor, already injured man over! Trying to untangle them immediately, Tsuna accidentally rams his elbow into Skull’s side, which earns him a pained groan and Skull another flustered apology.

This is why his team doesn’t take Tsuna on missions. He’s a hazard not just for himself but everyone around him.

Scrambling away from Skull before he manages to kill the guy through sheer clumsiness, Tsuna forces himself to take one deep, steady breath — only one, though, else he’ll have time to think about how stupid what he’s gonna do in a moment really is — and starts to unpack his bag. Tsuna might not carry as many weapons as a Vongola Superhero on duty technically should, but his emergency kit would make any aspiring doctor proud. And Nana too, but that’s because Tsuna’s mom thinks he’s healing the innocent bystanders — "My Tsu-kun has such a gentle heart!" — not himself.

"What are you doing?!" Skull asks while slowly pushing himself off the floor and into a sitting position.

"I’m just looking for the— there!" Tsuna knew he still has one of Irie’s newest ice packs. He kneads the white package for a few moments to activate it, then holds it out to Skull. "Here. Hold this to your jaw for at least ten minutes, but no longer than thirty. Ichi’s still working on some issues long-term use has on human skin."

Tsuna babbles like he always does when he’s scared. [It drives Mochida crazy sometimes because Tsuna is scared most of the time and Mochida hates babbling.] It doesn’t stop him from noticing the odd look Skull shoots him, a bit like he’s measuring Tsuna’s worth. Except that’s a look he’s intimately familiar with and would recognize anyone, so it’s something close, but not exactly that.

"Please take it, Skull-sama." Tsuna shakes the ice pack lightly, pretends like his hands aren’t trembling when those bright, violett eyes fixate on him. "That looks like it really hurts."

[He’s not sure if all Arcobaleno carry their superpowers on the outside. If it’s part of the costume, colored contacts and all, or if their bodies are brimming with power to the point where they’re overflowing, where it pours out of them in any shape it can.]

Slowly Skull takes the ice pack. Looks at it as though he doesn’t know what to do with it.

"H-Hold it against your chin, please, Skull-sama." Tsuna busies himself with sorting through his various bandages and tries very hard to pretend his voice isn’t shaking and squeaky like a frightened mouse. "It’ll help keep the swelling down."

"…The immortal Skull-sama heals fast." Skull says the words like a question. Tsuna doesn’t look up, but he can feel the weight of the man’s stare.

Hunching his shoulders, Tsuna pulls what little courage he has together, and stutters, "That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, Skull-sama. Please, can you just take it? I— I don’t like seeing people hurt."

Skull is still staring, Tsuna can tell, but it feels less like he wants to lean over and rip Tsuna open to figure out what’s inside, and more like he’s just watching Tsuna drop the disinfect spray for the third time. After a moment, he presses the ice pack to his face and even though Tsuna’s still trembling a bit, he smiles.

"Thank you."

Skull doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t protest when Tsuna tells him to disinfect the gash above his eyebrow — not deep enough to need stitches, thankfully. He draws the line at more bandages, though, which is worrisome. Tsuna is pretty sure the man has at the very least bruised his rips, but Skull is a supervillain, not runaway kitten, and maybe that means he knows what he’s doing.

That would at least make one of them.

Finally convinced that there’s no other injury Skull will let him help with, Tsuna carefully packs up his things again and bids the villain a hesitant goodbye. Which brings up a somewhat awkward point.

"I have to go back to work now and someone might ask where I’ve been." Eventually. Maybe. Tsuna rocks back on his heels, not sure how to put this. "If they ask, they might come here. And you— might not want to be there when they come," is what he settles on.

Skull’s watching him with another strange expression, both eyebrows raised as he watches Tsuna make a fool of himself. "Why?"

Tsuna eeps. [It’s not a full-on shriek, thankfully, but it’s far too close for his comfort.] There’s an intensity to Skull just now that has the hairs of the back of his neck stand up and reminds Tsuna rather violently that he’s talking to an Arcobaleno. That he’s been treating an Arcobaleno’s wounds. For a moment, Tsuna sways on his feet, as though his body wonders whether it should just give up on him completely.

"Ireallyneedtogonow!" Tsuna rushes the words out so fast, they trip over themselves, grabs his bag and high-tails it out of there. "Please take care of yourself, Skull-sama!" he adds over his shoulder, almost walking into the door as he does so.

It’s not until Tsuna is sitting in his comfortingly safe work chair that it occurs to him that not once during the entire, surreal encounter [he still can’t believe he was in the same room as an Arcobaleno and survived] did it occur to him to call Vongola. Even now Tsuna is hesitating to speak up, to tell one of his co-workers. Because while his gut feeling tells him that Skull got out of that warehouse as soon as Tsuna turned his back on him, he isn’t one hundred percent sure and what if they catch Skull because of him?

Tsuna resolves to spill the whole story as soon as someone asks — he’s a terrible liar and he never promised Skull he wouldn’t tell, not that the man asked himto — and tries not to think too much about the many crimes he committed by letting the chance of catching a supervillain of Skull’s calibre go to waste. Not that anyone would expect Tsuna to catch a supervillain, but still.

[His team returns two hours later, bright-eyed, bruised and breathless with the enthusiasm of a successful mission tangible in the air around them. Mochida even greets Tsuna with a smile and doesn’t scold him when Tsuna drops his tea cup in response and Haru tells him all about the exciting and ultimately successful arrest they’ve pulled off.

No one asks Tsuna where he’s been or if anything interesting happened while they were gone.

Tsuna tells himself he’s relieved, for Skull’s sake if nothing else, because the pang he feels at the thought that no one would miss me if I was gone has gone beyond pathetic a long time ago.]

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wedreamedlove · 5 years

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Li Zeyan In Love - Character Study

I sat on this because I wanted to get more dates done but, after seeing people bring up this one poem that is the epitome of Li Zeyan in the aftermath of 34, I decided to finish this. This essay has been brought to you from my occasional bursts of frustration at Elex LOL.

First, I need to acknowledge that I'll be pulling comments from others who have made their own amazing discussions about Li Zeyan's charcter. PS. Thanks for inspiring me and giving me points to think about!

SPOILERS to Chapter 21. Plus CN card lines up to Chapter 34.

THE ENDLESS SEARCH

(Sorry, Luoluo, I still have no good essay thoughts on you yet.)

It's amusing that if Bai Qi's love is in the form of "all roads lead to you". He can see where MC is standing and he is moving towards that point, struggling through all the obstacles in the way.

And Xu Mo's love is in the form of the red string of fate. No matter how much they hurt each other, walk in opposite directions, or try to tangle it up, they are forever connected to each other.

Then Li Zeyan's love is in the form of searching for a needle in the haystack. The needle being MC and the haystack being all possible worlds and universes in space-time.

Li Zeyan has tons of quotes about time, staying beside each other, and searching:

[Winter Infatuation SSR] "No matter the distance or time, nothing can prevent me from keeping you by my side."

[Time's End SSR] "I'll find and bring back the past you."

[Tour to Deep Space SSR] "No matter where you are, I will always find you."

[CN Silent Twilight SSR] "You are the only predestined ending I believe in." and "I will cross countless spaces of time to look for an ending which has you."

[Main Story 18-16] "I will definitely find and bring back the past you."

[Main Story 18-23] "Don't make it hard for me to find you, understand?"

This is reflected so painfully in [Dim Light SR] where MC takes Li Zeyan to light lanterns and he writes a poem on it. Elex didn't translate the poem and, at the time, I was somewhat lenient. But after seeing references made to it... ELEX, COME OVER HERE. I JUST WANNA TALK.

So, Li Zeyan wrote:

The last line about his wish having come true already is the same in both CN and ENG.

He wrote the last line of this poem by Xin Qiji, one of many great poets in Chinese history. Here I have provided Irving Y. Lo's translation of the poem from "Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry".

The Night of the Lantern Festival, to the Tune of ‘Green Jade Table’ - Xin Qiji [1140–1207]

One night’s wind made a thousand trees burst into flower, And breath down still more Showers of fallen stars. Splendid horses, carved carriages, fragrance filled the road. Music resounded from paired flutes, Light swirled on water-clock towers. All night long, the fabled fish-dragons danced. Gold-threaded jacket, moth- or willow-shaped hair ornaments Melted into the throng, giggling, a trail of scents. In the crowd I looked for her a thousand and one times, And all at once, as I turned my head, I was startled to find her Among the lanterns where the candles were growing dim.

The bold is Li Zeyan's lines in Chinese.

@love-p typed up an amazing post about the context of this poem:

Regarding Xin Qiji, and the political context of this poem—he was a military general during the Southern Song dynasty, sidelined due to the policy of appeasement against the Jurchen.

The poem reflects his unfortunate political circumstances by contrasting the brilliance and liveliness of the Lantern Festival and the single-minded search of the narrator for just one, special, woman, ultimately finding her in the darkness with the dimming lights.

To the writer, the brilliance and beauty of the festival pale in comparison to his goal. He is not swayed by all this finery, and in fact is willing to reject the light, for what he has held in his heart all along.

Xin Qiji was a deeply passionate patriot, which ultimately led to his discharge and suppression in the changing political tides of the era. He spent decades in seclusion pretending to be indifferent to the world, but he never lost his love for his country, and held fast to his beliefs, even when they could (and did) cost him heavily.

There's other romantic interpretations of this poem, such as the woman deciding to stop and wait when she realized this man was looking for her. She is willing to be with him.

Another interpretation is that, these two are already lovers, and when he turns his head and sees her it reflects how your happiness was right beside you all along and you just needed to turn your head, instead of searching ahead desperately.

So, back to Li Zeyan and MC. He is quoting a poem from someone who suffered for holding fast to their beliefs and who can still ignore everything around him, even the light, to find what he's held in his heart all this time. HM.

@unluckysatellite also pointed out something great, which I bolded for emphasis:

I realized this just now, but MC and Victor have this narrative theme where they keep losing and finding each other, both in the main story and in their dates. The main story plays this out pretty seriously: Victor and MC meet as kids, and then Victor loses MC because of Black Swan, which causes him to search for her the next 17 years. Victor and MC meet in chapter 1 and then Victor loses MC in chapter 18 and he vows to find her again. Victor finding MC in that HBS trap during chapter 10 and nearly losing her at the end of the chapter (with the added irony of him realizing that she was the girl he was looking for all this time). YMMV if you consider MC losing Victor in chapter 14 since a black hole sent Victor traveling into the future, but both managed to keep contact with each other in the time he was away.

BTW the reference is that his [Dim Light SR] was released in 2018 for the real lantern festival holiday. Then in 2019 all the men send gems as gifts during the holiday. Li Zeyan sends mail with the title of "Turning My Head" and the body of the message is him promising to go to the lantern festival with MC this year too, but he reminds her to stay beside him and don't make it so that when he turns his head he can't find her.

THE CONSTANT

Now another common theme that appears over and over again in Li Zeyan's character arc is him being a constant amongst all the change.

[Main Story 11-19] MC confronts Li Zeyan about his overprotectiveness: "It doesn't matter if it's the previous me, or the me in the present, all of them are [a single] me. Do you understand?"

[Winter Infatuation SSR Sinful Late-Night Snack Call] "Of course I'm me. No matter when, the person at your side is always the same me."

@sharinluna wrote a great section about Li Zeyan in Chapters 19-21 and IMO these chapters just hammer in this theme more. Even in a world where none of the men remember MC, Li Zeyan still cruises along (mostly) the same as usual. He really is a steady constant when everything's gone topsy-turvy for the poor MC.

I commented about this in my post on Chapter 19's use of horror but hilariously Li Zeyan is the most normal out of the rest of the men. If the MC weren't around, it's likely he wouldn't be involved in so much craziness. This is reflected in how the MC thinks about how he'd be better off without her in [Main Story 20-4] and her dream version of him in [Main Story 19-6].

However, I always end up thinking about Alfred Lord Tennyson's quote on this topic: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

I honestly think this is one of the themes of the game too, shown at the end of Chapter 19 where MC doesn't regret holding onto her memories and experiences with everyone, even if that means going back to the cruel real world.

Because the game (hopefully) isn't going to invalidate our experiences with everyone that means that Li Zeyan is not better off for not meeting the MC.

IMO love doesn't have to do something monumental like change your world but I think it adds something to our experience as humans (no matter its form: platonic, romantic, compassionate, selfless, etc). This is why I love this game so much because it's all about love in its entirety.

So, even if Li Zeyan's character isn't changed in any earth-shattering way from meeting or not meeting the MC the fact that he chooses MC again and again over everything else means something. He is willing to sacrifice everything to find her, no matter how long it takes him or how many worlds and times he has to traverse. His constant state is choosing MC.

I'm so scared about the Banquet of the Fallen Moon. Why did he turn into a demon lord SOBS when he promised his father he wouldn't go down that path? If it's connected to MC... OOF.

THE LOVE AND SUPPORT

Here we reach the relationship the two do have! Uh, I swear I wasn't intentionally picking the sad quotes...

[Main Story 6-16] "In your eyes? Am I that unapproachable?" He says this but then grabs her hand and holds it through his company, not caring who sees them.

[Main Story 10-25] "I'm sorry, I came late. I won't lose you a second time. Nothing will be able to hurt you again. In the future, let me fight your battles for you, just like how you protected me that year, alright?"

[Main Story 11-14] "I won't hesitate to pay any price in order to let you avoid all dangers and affairs... The things you wish to do, I will release you and let you do them. However, now isn't the time. That's why, you need to be a bit more obedient."

[Chapter 11] in general shows his protectiveness over MC and consideration for her. From caring for her in the hospital, to sending her between work and home, and even the SP detail (even though it became overwhelming).

[Main Story 18-3] "... Every time I call you dumb isn't to insult you. [...] It's acknowledgement."

IMO these are all more examples of how Li Zeyan is like a steady mountain or a tree that provides a canopy and safe harbor for the MC to take her time growing up under. He wants her to better herself because he cares for her (like a quintessential Capricorn) but at the same time he knows when to back off and let her go at her own speed.

Li Zeyan will be there every step of the way with MC, just a little bit ahead of her so she has a direction but always ready to catch her should she fall. Unlike a certain BS liar COUGHS.

@sharinluna also wrote this great post on Reddit about how the dates reflect Li Zeyan's patience and awareness of the imbalance in his and MC's relationship. Chapter 11 shows this too where he realizes he was overwhelming her and brings back the "old" Li Zeyan to wait for her to make a decision on her own feelings.

Finishing off this essay with some quotes:

[Instant Moment SSR] "There is no such thing as eternity, only every single moment together with you."

This is so cute since it's said by the man who can traverse time. It's the little snapshot moments he can get with MC that mean the most to him.

There's actually another related quote which comes from [Winter Infatuation SSR Sinful Late-Night Snack Call]. This happens when they're talking about the meaning of the Ephemere shop and Li Zeyan quotes a poem about mayflies.

The Chinese line is from the poem "Former Ode on the Red Cliffs" by Su Shi:

"We are like mayflies enjoying a flicker of life in this world, and as infinitesimal as a grain in the sea."

Ironically, Li Zeyan is not asking much at all of the world. He is someone who has everything but all he wants is just a peaceful life with the love of his life and he has shown again and again that he's willing to give up everything for her...

But the universe spits in his face (because tragic Chinese archetype of Crown Prince/Emperor LOL) and makes him suffer so much just for wanting some fleeting moments of joy in this flickering human life they both have.

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #mlqc victor #mlqc li zeyan #love and producer #love and produc(ing) meta #ELEX I WILL BURN YOUR COMPANY DOWN ONE DAY!!

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elizabethemerald · 4 years

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Talks of Trauma: Jlaireby

Team Trollhunters discuss some of the shit they’ve been through.

AO3

The three Trollhunters made their slow way up the stairs. All three of them were exhausted. Even Toby could barely lift his legs now that his adrenaline had worn off. Claire and Jim had forgotten that his battle with Morando had only been a few days ago for him, even if it had been over a week ago for the others.

When they got to the top of the stairs Jim stuttered to a halt. He stared through the open door of the room he had grown up in, where he could see several bassinets for the familiars. Claire nudged him gently and Toby guided them all into Barbara’s room.

Jim toed off his shoes then slumped into the bed. Claire pushed him until he rolled into the middle of the bed, before she did the same. She sat leaning against the head board watching the other two. Jim was just about to doze off while Toby was working to untie his shoes.

"I know we're all tired, but can we talk?" She said softly.

Jim rolled onto his back, then with a slight groan pulled himself into a sitting position beside her. Toby froze, one shoe half on.

"What did you want to talk about, Claire-bear?" He asked with a forced chuckle.

"Well, about us."

Toby stood ramrod straight for a second before nervously grabbing the shoe he had already taken off, leaving the other half on.

"If it makes you more comfortable I can sleep downstairs or go over to my Nana’s."

"Toby take off your shoes and get into bed." Claire snapped.

Toby saluted, kicking off his shoe and dropping the other one. He then climbed across both of their legs, drawing giggles and groans from them both, before he settled on Jim's other side.

"What's this about Claire?" Jim asked. His voice was low and his eyes were a little unfocused.

"We've gone through some crazy stuff and we need to actually talk about it. And talk about how we are each feeling, after everything."

Jim’s eyes focused more.

"Good point. How have you been holding up Tobes?"

"I think she was talking about the person who died earlier today, nice deflection though."

Jim sat up straight, looking both annoyed and more awake. Claire put her hand on his arm before he could speak.

"Jim it was a deflection, but it is still a valid question. How have you been TP?"

Toby's eyes flicked rapidly in between them, his body almost trying to curl into a ball. Then he sat up straight again and plastered a wide smile on his face.

"Everything's been great for me! Not a single worry or care."

He looked like he was about to turn the question back on Jim when Claire growled and pressed her nails to her forehead.

"This is serious you two!" She moved on the bed until she was sitting at the foot facing the other two. "Fine. Since getting you boys to talk is going to be like pulling teeth, I'll go first."

She took a deep breath, her eyes closed, before she opened them and focused on the others.

"I'm scared." She said softly. "Not just scared, I'm terrified!"

"Of the Arcane Order?" Jim asked.

"Yes, a little, but I'm way more scared about us."

The two boys glanced at each other, before refocusing on Claire. They could both see how scared and serious she was.

"Toby I met Morgana while we were in the past. I talked with her. I could only watch as she fell to her death."

"I've been so afraid, ever since she possessed me that i would end up like her. That I would embrace the darkness and welcome its corruption."

"The Morgana I met back then was so different from the one who had possessed me. She was kind, and cared for magical creatures enough to protect Jim and I, again and again."

"She loved Guinevere and Arthur. She even loved Arthur after he cut off her hand. She loved her brother so much that she died to stop him."

"And yet, despite how much she loved him, I could sense the darkness within her. Her anger at the mistreatment of those like her. There was a time where she saw everyone around her as an enemy.

"I could sense Arthur's grief at the loss of Guinevere as well. And he turned that grief into hatred of anything different than himself."

Claire pressed her hands to her mouth, muffling a sob. A few tears crept down her face. Jim leaned forward and put a hand on her knee. Toby did the same with her arm.

"Claire you're not Morgana."

"But don't you see how easy it would be for me to be just like her?" Claire cried, tears flowing faster down her cheeks.

"I'm sixteen years old. I've already held the body of one of my boyfriends in my arms sure that he was dead. Twice! I've been possessed, my soul cast out and banished, almost forced to kill you, and I met the witch who possessed me and served her tea!"

"It would so easy to turn that grief and fear into something evil. To lash out and hurt the people I care for most."

She leaned forward and put a hand on each of the boy's cheeks. Jim put his hand on her own cheek and wiped away a few tears. Toby leaned into the hand on his face and began rubbing small circles into Claire's shoulder.

"Arthur and Morgana never talked about their grief from losing Gwen. Morgana never talked to him about how much his hatred towards magic, an intrinsic part of her, hurt her."

"I'm terrified that we will end up just like them. That we'll lose ourselves in the face of everything that's happened to us. That we'll lose each other."

Claire broke down sobbing completely. Jim and Toby gently pulled her back to the head of the bed, now between them. They both held her as tightly as they could, trying to reassure her with their arms around her. She cried in their arms, her hands holding their shirts like she thought they would slip away from her at any moment.

“Claire. We won’t let that happen. We won’t let each other fall like that.” Jim said softly, his hand in her hair.”

She looked up at him, tears still rolling down her face.

“How can you be so sure about that?” She asked. “You died today. Fully died. And I- I some how brought you back. I don’t know how but I did, and I don’t know if I can do that again. I don’t think I can go through that again.”

The boys were both silent. Neither of them knew how to respond to that. Instead of saying anything they just held her tightly while she cried. In time her tears slowed, until she could wipe her eyes and take a deep shuttering breath. Jim held her still, while Toby leaned back, his face deep in thought.

“I guess-” Toby hesitated not looking at either of the others. “I guess I’m afraid too.”

Claire leaned back so she could look at Toby and Jim shifted sideways on the bed so he could too, though he kept an arm across Claire’s shoulders. Toby sniffed loudly, glancing at them before looking away.

“I’ve always been afraid. Since the very beginning. I’ve been afraid that I’ll never be someone’s first choice, or that I’ll be left behind because I’m not good enough.”

“Jim I’ve had to watch you almost die so many times, I can’t even count them all. Each time I have to sit on the sidelines not being useful, just watching you get hurt. From the first time we ran away from Bular you faced him by yourself while I ran with Blinky and Aaarrrgghh.”

“And that kept happening!” Toby put his head in hands, frustration tinging his voice. “I watched while you fought Bular by yourself, and Chompsky and Draal, and Strickler and Angor. I had to watch you get pummeled again and again, I was never able to stop it. And each time I felt like it was because I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough to fight alongside you, to help you.”

Toby lifted his hands to look at Claire.

“And when you joined our team, I was so scared that you would split us up. That you would replace me. We talked about this, you know I was jealous of you.” Jim made a surprised noise at that. “But really I was afraid. You were so cool, and awesome and pretty. All the things that I wasn’t.”

“I thought the time had finally come where Jim would leave me behind. Leave with just you.” Toby sobbed, tears starting down his own face. Claire’s tears started afresh as well. “And it happened! You went into the Darklands by yourself. And I saw how hurt you were when we got you out. Then it happened again, when you both left me here in Arcadia while you went to New Jersey. And then again when you both fell into the past without me. And both times you were hurt and I couldn’t do anything to help.”

“Its like I keep reliving my same terror from when my parents died.” Toby’s voice cracked and broke as he shouted the words. Then his voice turned quiet again. “I’m so afraid that one of these days, I’ll be left on the sidelines, or left behind. And you won’t make it back. Either of you.”

Claire wrapped her arms around Toby, and he held back just as tightly. Toby cried softly in her arms. She leaned around Toby to look back at Jim, who was staring at a wall. She tried to make eye contact with him, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

“Jim?” She finally asked.

Toby wiped his eyes and looked at him. “Jimbo?”

At that, Jim stood up from the bed with a grunt of pain and looked at himself in the mirror above his mom’s armoir.

“Jim? Is that who I am?” Jim said, still staring at himself. Toby and Claire immediately looked at each other with concern. “Sometimes I don’t even know who I am. Who I’m supposed to be. What I’m supposed to be.”

He turned back to face them, tears now glittering in his own eyes.

“Toby I left you behind again and again. Claire I shut you out, and pretended like I could handle everything on my own. And you know what? The trolls in the Void would have celebrated that choice.”

Jim turned back away to look at himself. Claire and Toby could both hear anger in his voice as he spoke to his reflection.

“Kanjigar always said that I would have to push away everyone if I was to be a good Trollhunter. And so I did. Again and again and again. I pushed you away and closed you out, because I thought it was my job to take the hard blows. It was my job to die to protect you two.”

He put a hand up to the mirror, tracing his own reflection, like he didn’t recognize what he saw.

“At first I thought that would have been the only way the other trolls would have celebrated me, if I died. They all hated me so much when I was first called. Vendel. Draal. Nothing I did was ever good enough. None of them believed me about Killahead or the changelings. And Gunmar was almost released.”

“I think in the end I was afraid. Afraid of losing myself.” Jim growled, the noise not quite a troll growl, but certainly not a sound they would expect a human to make. He turned back and crawled into bed with Claire and Toby. “I was afraid of losing the two of you.”

“And it came so close. So many times. I went into the Darklands because I didn’t want to lose you. And then Gunmar escaped and you were possessed trying to get us all away from him. Toby I left you behind in Arcadia, hoping you would be safe from whatever found us on the road, and than an alien general made himself a god and tried to kill you.”

Jim grabbed Claire and Toby in a hug, his face pressed to Claire’s shoulder.

“I couldn’t protect either of you. And each time I tried to save you I gambled my own humanity. Facing the beast in the Deep, I saw that fear made real. Then I threw my humanity aside when I stepped into the tub, hoping that as a troll I would be strong enough to save you. I was able to kill Gunmar, and then I almost died to Morgana and the Green Knight. And I lost myself when I tried to buy you time.”

“It made me sick, to see that fear in your eyes, when you saw me. I was so terrified that while I was out of control I would hurt you. How could I have forgiven myself after that?” Jim looked up at them both. Tears now flowing freely down his face. “How could I live with myself if I killed you?”

Claire maneuvered them until they were laying down in the bed. Toby covered them with the blankets. Jim cried softly, still speaking past his tears.

“Even now, I don’t know how to protect you both. I don’t know how to protect myself. How can we keep going like this? How many times can we keep doing this?”

They lay on the bed in silence for a few minutes. Each filled with their own thoughts and the words of their lovers. How could they survive together when there was so much in the world stacked against them? It was Toby who finally took a deep breath, breaking the silence that hung over them.

“I- I guess, we were all scared of the same things. Losing each other. Losing ourselves.” He sighed and nuzzled closer to Claire’s shoulder. She in turn pulled Jim closer so they were all a tangle of limbs in the bed. “I don’t know what will happen in the future. But-but at least for now, we have each other?”

There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Jim reached across Claire’s body to grab his hand.

“We have each other.” Jim confirmed.

“After everything we’ve been through, we still have each other.” Claire said.

Slowly one by one their eyes started to droop. One by one sleep came for them. They had faced the end of the world, several times. Their exhaustion was complete. Emotionally drained from their trials and their conversation. Physically drained from fighting to save the world. Fighting to save each other. Fighting to save themselves. Whatever may come, in this moment, they have each other.

#Trollhunters #tales of arcadia #toa wizards #claire nunez #toby domzalski #jim lake junior #jlaireby #writing emerald #please reblog

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brotherhand · 4 years

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t100 spoilers // or whatthefuckever.

anyway. i haven’t been on here in years. i’m pretty sure most of y’all moved accounts or whatever. but anyway i am fucking angry. i’m not even caught up on s7 but i know what happens and i’m fucking angry.

bellamy blake deserved better.

but you know what, i am not surprised. the 100 has had a history of killing off its lgbt+ and poc characters and this is not surprising. ESPECIALLY when it comes to men of color. wells, a black man, was set up to be the male lead. then he got killed off not even THREE episodes into the first season after being constantly used to prop up clarke white savior griffin. only for him to be replaced by finn fucking collins as the resident peacemaker? lincoln, another black man was killed off just because jroth is racist lmao. jaha, yet ANOTHER black man (a fucking pattern if i’ve ever seen one) whose character went from being a well-written, multifaceted leader and engineer to “lol haha that’s just crazy ass jaha” then was killed off to prop up yet ANOTHER white savior. monty was killed off-screen (but at least his death wasn’t demeaning and it ACTUALLY served a purpose so.... i’ll give them that ig.) and let’s not forget about miller who has been there since season fucking one but never even became a main character while roan, a white dude, who was only around for a season and a half, became a main character -- and mind you, he was killed only a few episodes after being made a main. jroth had the brilliant idea to make s3 a political commentary on xenophobia and decided “hey! i think i’m gonna make that black man the fascist! and then i’m gonna make that brown man his supporter! and let’s make those white people in brownface the good people!”

but anyway. back to bellamy.

i have been watching the 100 since season two first aired. i was in the 100 fandom for maybe one or two years then realized this isn’t really the place for me so i dipped but continued watching this shitshow. i watched the 100 writers, for SEVEN SEASONS, constantly sideline his character development in favor of propping up other character’s (usually clarke, again, a pattern) he was supposed to learn from his mistakes and grow into the leader he had the potential to be. that was the natural progression of how his character was set up from the very beginning, he should’ve grown into leadership. but he never did. every time clarke comes into the picture, his character development is hindered. (one of the biggest reasons as to why i dislike bellarke imo) every time they need someone to bear the brunt of their shitty ass plots, they turn to bellamy. (like s7... when they... made him join a cult lmfaoooo) he should’ve grown into leadership, he shouldn’t have been reduced to a “knight”, he shouldn’t have had to constantly bear the brunt of shitty writing. he should have been his own, well-rounded character. and he was on the way to that in season five, i believe, then they went and ruined that, too. i wanted to watch him grow into a leader who can use his head and his heart, i wanted to get invested in his platonic or romantic relationships with other characters, i wanted them to address the trauma he had endured as a child due to the fact that he had to raise a child when he was A SIX YEAR OLD BOY. i wanted them to address the issues that came with his mother basically throwing octavia at him and telling him she’s his responsibility, i wanted him to emotionally grow up and i wanted him to put himself first. i wanted him to learn to love himself and not base his self worth on other people. i wanted to see more of him with his family -- with echo, raven, monty, emori and murphy. i didn’t want him to fucking die because of fucking shock value.

you know what i also didn’t fucking want? i didn’t fucking want to watch the show runner CONTINUOUSLY whitewash him, use a white actor to play him as a kid and then later on call him a white male. i didn’t want some parts of the fandom to pretend he was white because then he’d be another straight white dude and not actually a man of color who is integral representation to so, so, so many people. i watched some of y’all say shit like “well, he’s not CANONICALLY brown <3″ and get away with it. i watched both sides of the fandom treat the character in a really, really racist and shitty manner. with some c/lexa stans thinking it’s okay to call a brown man a fucking monkey. some b/ellarke stans thinking it’s okay to reduce him to clarke’s “knight” not noticing how many racist undertones exist in such a dynamic. at times, it seemed like some of you went out of your way to villanize him. (calling him abusive when you didn’t give clarke OR octavia that treatment, even when octavia fucking beat him to a bloody pulp when he was chained to a rock and when clarke shot AT him then later shot HIM. the excuses were always there for them but not him, huh.) and at times, it seemed like so many of his “fans” only liked him when he was clarke’s inferior. keep in mind that, yes, clarke and lexa were both in brownface at some point in the show. and yes i am brown so please don’t try to tell me it was a tan. as a brown person i know what brownface on white people looks like. (if you’re bipoc and youdisagree, we can have a civil conversation about it -- but if you’re white please do not pretend to know better than me.) keep in mind, i’m saying SOME. not ALL. don’t take this as an attack against you specifically but at the same time if the shoe fits wear it. bellamy deserved better than to be treated like shit by the creator, the writers and the fandom. bellamy deserved better than to have been played by a biphobic abuser. he deserved so much fucking better and i did not know upset or hurt i was by this until i started writing this.

but anyway. he’s dead now. so pce out.

#the 100 spoilers /#the 100 #long post /#bellamy blake #anti clarke griffin #anti bellarke #anti the 100 #ig #idk #and idc! :D #also please dont take this as me defending OR supporting b*b #fuck bob morley always #and fuck isiah washington #im STRICTLY talking about the mistreatment their characters were given #if you can't separate character from actor that's on you #also i talked abt the treatment of moc specifically because bellamy is a moc #but they treated woc like SHIT as well #also before anyone comes @ me im a fucking c/lexa stan and i definitely like them infinitely more than blorke lmao #im bisexual but im also brown and i never felt welcome in either fandoms #im ngl #and i never admitted it because i thought it was all in my little oversensitive head #but it wasn't #and the behavior some of you exhibited or enabled was not okay.#i came into this fandom when i was struggling with my sexuality and what it meant in regards to the color of my skin #and yall made that struggle.... infintely worse. lol.

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okimargarvez · 4 years

Text

REVERSE - 21

Original title: Reverse.

Prompt: Penelope is the new girl on the BAU team and Luke tries to treat her cold.

Warning: A.U., possible OOC.

Genre: drama, romantic, family, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, BAU team, Derek Morgan, O.C. Sam Cooper’ team, Roxy.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 62 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💑😘👓🔦🐶❗🎲🎈👻🎬🎵.

Song mentioned: Amici per errore, Tiziano Ferro.

Reverse- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

This part is dedicated to @londonrosebooklovingwitch and @inlovewithgarvaz ^^

21 # It's another journey, put it in this way...

It is another hug to upset the balance laboriously reached by Agent Alvez. However, the female protagonist is different. He is drinking a coffee when he recognizes the sound of those steps. Low-heeled shoes. Since she became a mother, this is the best she can afford. How many times has she complained to JJ and the two laughed at it, together. He looks up at her but shakes his head in disbelief. It must be a vision. She is beautiful, dressed entirely in various shades of gray, trousers, naturally; she never loved skirts. The first thing he notices, when he realizes that she is real, is that she has cut her hair. Then she literally jumps on him. -Luke, oh God, Luke, you are okay!- she hugs him so tight that it takes his breath away. He does the same, feeling safe, serene, stretching his nostrils to pick up her scent... that has changed. He strokes her back, then gently detaches her from himself. However, she instantly kidnaps his hand.

-Of course, I'm fine, but what are you doing here?- Chrissie nails her nails into the soft flesh of his palm. -Not that I want to complain...- here, already better, her clear, cerulean eyes seem to warn him. She finally leaves him free. Not that he wanted it, as he said... it's just that it's strange. He struggled to get used to her absence.

-I received a message from Emily telling me that you had been injured and you were very serious.- she says, starting to breathe normally, now that she is sure that he is well. If he hadn't been so fond of risking, of being on the front line, perhaps she would have hesitated a little more. -I called you and you didn't answer.- Luke lifts his cell phone, screen black. She shakes her head. He will never learn to use chargers correctly. -I ran to Quantico, even if there was something that didn’t convince me...- or rather, precisely because there was something unclear. Why pretend she doesn't miss working for BAU?

The brunette lifts her phone and shows him the text message, as well as the sender. She leans against him, naturally. It is certainly not the first time and Rich has learned not to be jealous of it. Because then it seems... no, wrong would be a blasphemy. But it's not strange either, the right adjective. It's different. But it should be there another woman so calmly in his arms. He knows exactly who, but he'll continue to play the role of the dumb, at least for a little while longer. -No, it's better to discuss it with the rest of the team.- this time he's taking her by the hand. -Come on.- they cross the bullpen.

A cry is heard from the balcony, where the offices of the highest members are located. -Christine!- the woman runs down the stairs. Luke smiles, witnessing the repatriation.

-Emily!- another hug. -You really deserved to become the boss, I've always seen you well in the leadership roles.- the two immediately begin to chuckle, as if it were not true that they haven't seen each other for years. -JJ, my beloved blonde.- the former expert in communications with the press and media joins them.

-Chri, how nice to have you here!- comments the latter, with shining eyes.

She is much more cold; she always has been. So deeply similar to him, so deeply opposed to... -Same.- she then turns to the other man. -Rossi...- who shakes his head, dragging her into his arms.

-My little mouse who is too busy to write to me...- it is an affectionate rebuke.

She smiles and shrugs. -I'm sorry, I’m guilty.- she declares. One person is still missing, except for Spencer who cannot be present, even if he is finally out of prison. A nice relief. - Tara, how's your brother?- she asks.

She knew what happened in these months even though she wasn't here, mentally notes Luke. -Better, thank you and your Lise?- the pride of a mother paints her face.

-Oh, it's a little monster, she makes us despair, Rich and I don't sleep for more than two hours in a row...- only one can really understand her. It is she who comments.

-But it's still worth it, isn't it?- only then the man realizes that Garcia, Penelope, deliberately remained on the sidelines, probably feeling excluded from that parenthesis of joy. He can't help feeling a wave of sadness, but he doesn't do anything to change things. Stephanie is distant too, but she seems less affected by the whole thing.

-Every day.- she answers, becoming serious. Then she shows the same message to others.

Prentiss forces herself to take matters into her own hands. -Unfortunately, Christine is not here for a pleasure visit.- she says and everyone goes to the round table room (as Reid's mother had called it the first time she entered, after all she was an English literature teacher). Penelope comes in last.

Christine sighs, preparing to explain. -I received a message from Prentiss that made me believe that Alvez was injured during a mission.- she senses everyone's eyes on himself. She was no longer used to it, but it's a good feeling. -Someone must have hacked her cell phone and since I made it 99% secure, as much as mine... It must be a genius in my field.- she concludes.

-Seems like the typical skill of Scratch.- Walker reflects aloud.

Luke nods. -Unfortunately, Chri was unable to trace the address from which the hacking was carried out.- the blonde with glasses tries not to focus on the amber hand that is affectionately stroking his best friend's arm.

She sighs, seeing that nobody takes the floor. -I could try to give you help... Together we will surely make it.- she smiles, but looks only at the woman.

-Penelope Garcia, right?- she approaches her, to shake her hand. - It's like meeting my favorite Rockstar.- here she managed to make her blush. She hears giggles, one is Luke's. -It's nice to meet you, although I would have preferred a different circumstance...- she nods. They are so different that it’s impressive. Agent Alvez seems to be living in a parallel reality. His best friend and his... his nothing.

-Same.- she gives her an open smile. And then, she says it. -I've heard a lot about you.- with that cheeky tone. Chrissie glances over her shoulder.

She purses her lips in an amused grimace. -I bet I can guess the source.- Garcia laughs at her joke. He knew they would like each other. It was so obvious.

But it still bothers him that they joke in common on him. It is too strange. -Could we go back to Scratch?- he asks, sounding a little too desperate.

Emily gives him a hand, for other reasons. -Well, now we'll leave Christine and Garcia to work at the address.- the two nod in sync. Then she spreads her arms. -We can't do anything else.- all of them go out, except the nominated ones.

Christine touches her shoulder. -Can I be excused, Penelope?- the blonde nods. She closes her eyes once, driving away the tears. She knows perfectly well where (by whom) she is going.

She finds him exactly where she had imagined. On the balcony, watching the weather become progressively wintery. Luke turns to look at her. -Hey, honey, shouldn't you take care of the source?- his tone is sweet. She nods.

-Yes, but I must also tell you something else and I am sure Penelope will be well for five minutes.- as she could do it all alone, but she doesn’t add it.

He takes a moment. -She's not as good as you are.- he says stubbornly. Chrissie shakes her head in open disagreement.

She points a finger at him, accusingly. -Here, you see, that was what I wanted to say.- he swallows. -Em' and JJ told me.- here's the real source, thinks a crazy part of his brain, trying to escape from the moment of truth. -Don't you think you could be a little nicer to her?- there is no self-control when he is with her. He opens his mouth wide like a teenager caught smoking marijuana by his parents. -Come on, did you see her well? She is a ray of sunshine, the most sensitive and affectionate person in the Bureau, if not the entire universe.- he rolls his eyes, annoyed by the fact that she is so much right, yet this is not enough for him.

He sighs, before making his admission. -Yes, but... She's not you.- she nods.

-One more reason to do it.- she pushes him amicably. -Luke, you know I miss you very much too, but I saw how you look at her, you know? And how she looks at you.- and it's not even her specialization, analyzing people's behavior. -I don't need to be a profiler.- she reads his mind.

This doesn’t mean that he will give up without a fight. -You won't want to insinuate... No!- he shouts, frightening a sparrow resting on the ledge. -I can hardly stand her, she with all those trinkets on her wrists, on her hands, that golden hair and her inappropriate and out of place jokes...- Christine shakes her head, giving him a (weak) punch on the chest.

-Alvez, you really are a fool about women.- it wasn’t the first time she told him. -Do as you like, now I have to go back to the office.- she starts and then stops, turning to look at him. -But you know that you're throwing a wonderful opportunity in the toilet... And all because she took my place.- she loves her refined way of expressing herself. As Orpheus should have done to bring his beloved Eurydice back to the world of the living, she doesn’t look back. As soon as she enters the round room, Garcia gestures for her to join her.

She indicates the screen. -Hey, maybe I found a way around that block.- she says shyly. She is quite convinced that much of the blame lies with that idiot of her best friend. But if he thinks she will sit idly...

-Penelope, you are a true genius.- she gives her a quick hug.

-Thanks, I...- she hesitates. -I'm going to tell the others.- Christine gives her the approval. It is up to her now. Just two minutes and everyone is there again, even the jerk.

-Now we can catch him.- Emily announces. -Wheels up in 5.- the strength of habit prevails, even when it is not necessary to use the jet, as in this case. He goes out, followed by the rest of the team. Even Chrissie is preparing to imitate them.

A hand around her wrist stops her. -Hey, where are you going?- she smiles.

-Lise and Richard are waiting for me.- she observes him nodding. -I just wanna say hello to Reid, I'm so mad that he didn't tell me anything about what he went through, even if I understand it, in a way.- they hug. She places her head on his chest. Facilitated by her tallness and by not wearing high shoes. -Try not to get yourself killed, okay?- she whispers.

And Luke replies with the same sentence as always. -I'll do.- she comes off first.

-Luke, you have three minutes.- she winks at him, pointing to the watch on his wrist, before disappearing into an elevator. He sighs, shakes his head, still feeling her perfume... but it's the wrong one. As he walks with the intention of preparing himself, he is caught by a sort of vision, which however in his head he renames as a presentiment. He sees himself dead, a corpse on the asphalt, thrown away by a terrible accident, but he is much higher, he is pure spirit and is tormented by a single regret. Die without ever knowing. His feet quickly change direction, while the awareness of not having enough time grows. He reaches the security door and opens it wide. Penelope is there, curled up on herself in an almost fetal position, her face covered with her hands and her hair's a little messy. For the first time, he doesn't give a damn about how she is dressed and her accessories. He no longer needs that spiel to stay. He observes her body shaken by sobs, hearing her groans of pain.

He clears his throat. -Garcia. What... Why are you crying?- she lifts her head, not masking the tracks. Big tears run across her cheeks. He stretches out his hand with the intention of drying them, but remains so, without completing the gesture.

However, she doesn't mind. -I'm... I'm just afraid.- she squeezes her hands until she cut herself with her fingernails and make blood come out. He doesn't seem to notice this either. A red spot adds to the colors of her dress. -I wish I hadn't found that damned address.- she confess. She certainly never held back as much as he did, but this, of course, is her moment of total openness. -I'm afraid something bad might happen to you all.- she adds, while the lower lip begins to tremble. Luke takes another step in her direction.

-You know it can happen every time we get out of here.- he points out, but his tone is low, calm, not to blame or as if to tell her to open her eyes and notice where they are. He is definitely late. If they don't wait for him, it must have been the fault of fate.

Penelope echoes him. He can no longer think of her as Garcia. Not only. -I know.- she hugs herself, but it is his arms that should comfort her. -Fears are not rational.- he nods. She stands up, taking off her glasses and wiping her face with a tissue. -What are you doing here? Aren't you going to leave?- she asks. She is trying to get rid of him. A step. Another. Another one. One more.

-Yeah.- he's practically on her. -I just needed to do one thing first.- he sees with the eyes of his mind Chrissie and his abuela cheering. -You never know.- he slowly approaches his face, lowering himself. She is hardly breathing, probably considers it more likely he is about to slap her, rather than what is about to happen. She finds partial confirmation when she sees him raise his hands, which however rest on her face, still wet and red. He scrutinizes her reaction for a moment, then nods to himself, bends over what little separates their lips and kisses her. He doesn't give her many seconds to kiss him back. Maybe he still has time to reach out to others. -I will come back and we’ll talk about it.- it sounds like a promise. It will be better for you, thinks Penelope, wearing headphones and preparing to play her part in this mission.

TAGS: @martinab26 @thinitta @shyladystudentfan @pegasus-scifichick @paperwalk @the-ellen-stuff @astressedwriter @symphonyashley @kofforever @myhollyhanna23 @tootsienoodles @centiaaa @penelopesluke @dumbdraws @onefail-at-atime @reidskitty13@adorarapril @princesstreaclefanfic @glocknade111-blog @magiunific @fallen-novak @dreatine @hopelessdayydreamer @racing-against-the-sunset @majo0803 @vickyd-2012 @writing-whats-that @wearejuststars@klngzeewp @heylittlehollywood @kirstenvangsness @blu3crush@futureperfectmedia-blog @jade-cheshire3303 @life-between-pages @tooshorttobeanadult @xxlonelyghostxx @honeydoodles @pennypeabody @alessiapolimeni @bbyxk @full-on-fangirl @catlynhoss05 @lushmp3 @glittergunshots @tinymiko @baby-i-am-fireproof @unpensieroabbandonato

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #tara lewis #david rossi #spencer reid #o.c.#penelope x luke #luke x penelope #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #a.u.#tiziano ferro #amici per errore

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jemelle · 4 years

Text

these are ties that bind (4/8)

you can also find this story on ao3!

fandom: criminal minds

rating: t

(chapter) word count: 2,469

masterlist

summary: emily and hotch must pretend to be in a long-term relationship in order to foster carrie. shenanigans and serious conversations alike ensue.

a/n: this was supposed to be pure fluff, but emily and hotch have a way of getting in their own way. (also, if you want to be on a taglist for this story/my writing please let me know!)

four.

Before long, the Hotchner-Prentiss household had settled into a routine. Hotch got up early, getting ready before anyone else was even awake, while Emily and Carrie both preferred to sleep in as late as possible, rolling out of bed just in time to get ready for the day ahead. On the days he slept at their house, Jack woke only as the smell of breakfast drifted into his room. They ate breakfast together and Emily, no matter how tired she was, always made sure to see Carrie off to the bus.

Hotch and Emily took turns driving to work. On their drives, Emily discovered that Hotch had a soft spot for classic rock, and he in turn was privy to her truly awful taste in both acoustic pop and the punk bands of her youth. If anyone asked them why they had arrived together, they played it off as simply carpooling, and the ban on inter-office profiling stopped any outward questioning.

One thing the rest of the team did notice was that their working relationship was better than ever. Hotch looked to Emily when he needed an extra opinion on something in her wheelhouse and Emily, noticing this, worked on turning her combativeness into constructive suggestions. “Worked” being the operative word. There were still days where neither could see eye to eye, days when Hotch told Prentiss to “remember her place,” when Emily started sentences with “respectfully, sir” and didn’t mean either word. The drive back those days was silent.

Regardless of how the day went, they ate dinner together every night. Emily wasn’t a great cook, but she could make simple dishes and Hotch taught her how to saute vegetables and prepare meats other than chicken. Carrie, who had joined various activities at school, would come home just in time to set the kitchen table.

The structured routine irritated Emily at first. Her parents had mostly given her free rein until the “incident,” and the only time they ever got together as a family was for formal functions. Slowly, though, she found she appreciated the way it allowed them to connect. They avoided talking about work, but Carrie told them about school and they all talked about sports and books and movies and the news. It was mundane conversation, and although Emily knew they would have to confront Carrie’s trauma eventually, she supposed this was progress for all of them.

On weekdays, Hotch and Emily finished their paperwork in separate rooms. He had picked up quickly that if they worked side by side, Emily couldn’t help but feel as though he was assessing her. Now they only interacted when Emily asked Hotch questions from the other room.

When Emily was done, she headed upstairs. Hotch, as she had previously noted, spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, so she liked to get there first. After getting ready for bed, Emily usually laid in bed with a book, waiting for Hotch.

The shared bed had been awkward, initially, with Emily building a dividing line of pillows down the middle, but now they stuck to their respective sides without the barrier. She wouldn’t have hesitated to throw Hotch out if she detected any hints of inappropriate behavior, but he was (as always) the perfect gentleman. Now, although she’d never admit it, Emily enjoyed the saccharine ritual of reading quietly together before one of them called it a night.

On one of those nights, Emily was busy making a list. One of the strangest things about living in suburbia was her inability to walk to the nearest store. When she lived in her apartment, both the workers at the corner store and the nearest Chinese takeout knew her well. Now, though, all shopping trips had to be planned well in advance. She understood now why housewives went crazy; there was no room for spontaneity in their lives.

Hotch peered over her shoulder, and Emily resisted the urge to pull the piece of paper to her chest. She watched his face as he scanned the simple list she had compiled: toothpaste, deodorant, Advil. Being responsible for others still wasn’t her strong suit, but she could at least handle a trip to the drugstore.

“You forgot tampons,” he said, tapping the paper. “We’re almost out.”

To say Emily was surprised by Hotch’s reaction would be a gross understatement. In her experience, it was a rare man who was comfortable acknowledging the existence of periods, let alone saying the word “tampons.” The more she learned about Hotch, the more his brusque work self felt like an elaborate facade (not that she could judge).

“Thanks.” She noted it down, an idle thought escaping her mouth. “I’m surprised you noticed.”

He froze. Emily had spent enough time with Spencer to know that people only made that expression when their minds were going a mile a minute.

“Just… leftover from my marriage to Haley, I guess.” His voice shook a little.

Emily nodded, nonplussed, before returning the piece of paper to the nightstand and picking up her book. She didn’t feel comfortable probing the source of his obvious discomfort, but if she curled up closer to Hotch as she read, noticing the way his breathing steadied as she neared, well, the rest of the team would never know.

Toddlers are not at the most coordinated stage of their lives, as Emily quickly learned. Jack could walk and run well enough, but seemed to not possess the balance necessary to kick a ball or throw with any accuracy. To his credit, neither of those facts seemed to dampen his enthusiasm.

Saturday morning found them all at the local park. It was early, so the park was mostly deserted. Scattered parents watched kids swing on monkey bars and play in the sandbox, but Jack had a different mission in mind. He made a beeline directly for the soccer field, tugging Carrie behind him. Hotch and Emily followed, leaving Jack’s stroller on the sidelines.

As a result of spending much of her childhood in Europe, Emily’s soccer skills were passable, although in no way comparable to JJ’s. Hotch was no better, though, and they spent a great deal of time chasing after the runaway ball.

Judging from their matching grins, Carrie and Jack were both having a blast. As an only child, Emily had often wished for siblings, and she felt an echo of that longing as she watched Carrie pass to Jack, careful not to give the ball too much spin. Carrie still hadn’t opened up about her family, and Emily wondered again what her relationship with her brother had been like. There was something about her interactions with Jack that suggested the need for atonement.

Emily shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts. It wouldn’t do to mar their outing by bringing up Carrie’s past. She headed over to the sidelines of the field, noticing another woman watching their little game.

“Yours, I assume?” the woman asked, gesturing towards Hotch, who was now doing a very exaggerated slow dive towards Jack.

Emily nodded, slightly uneasy. Working at the FBI did no favors when it came to seeing danger around every corner. Still, idle curiosity could be just that.

“Is your family here?” Emily kept her tone friendly.

The woman pointed to the playground, where two girls were chasing each other around. The younger one, who looked to be a little older than Jack, got tagged and shrieked, before reversing direction and taking off.

“The older one is Evelyn and the younger one is Julia,” she said, pride evident in her voice.

As if on cue, the girls turned as another woman called their names. They ran to her, giggling as she picked them up one at a time and swung them around.

“And that’s Amy… my partner.” The woman looked at Emily, gauging her reaction. Emily had been the one giving that look far too many times, wondering if what followed would be disgust or understanding. She made sure to telegraph her acceptance with a kind smile.

“Oh, and I’m Edith.” The woman visibly relaxed, and Emily mirrored her, certain now that she harbored no ill will. Edith turned to her, obviously expecting a reciprocation of introductions.

Emily obliged, pointing out Carrie, Jack, and Hotch in turn (although this time she remembered to call him Aaron). She and Edith chatted about their families until Jack came to ask Emily to rejoin the game. As Emily let Jack lead her away, the two women exchanged numbers and promised to schedule a playdate, an almost surreal parody of suburbia.

Upon reflection, Emily was surprised by how little jealousy she felt. Here were two women, happily living a life her younger self didn’t even dare to dream of, and yet Emily couldn’t picture herself in their place. Loath as she was to admit it, she had always been in search of a perfect someone. That hope had kept her from settling down, every girlfriend just not quite the right one.

In a way, Hotch was the perfect choice. He had given her the chance to have a family without having to worry about happily-ever-afters. Or rather, she supposed, watching Jack nap in the back of the car as Carrie played with her phone, he had given her the possibility of a different kind of happy ending.

When they got home, Hotch slipped off to take a shower while Emily shepherded Carrie and Jack into the living room.

“Emily, can we watch a movie?” Carrie asked, having settled herself on the couch. Jack was sitting at her feet, happily entertaining himself with a dinosaur.

“Sure, sweetheart.” Emily didn’t miss the way Carrie smiled at the nickname. “Your pick.”

Carrie scrolled through various options before settling on some new action movie and turning to Emily for approval. It didn’t look too violent, and Emily figured Jack wasn’t paying attention anyway, so she okayed the pick and they began watching.

It was in fact a fairly tame movie, and Emily was right in her assessment of Jack’s lack of interest, but (of course) Hotch walked in just as the violence started.

He took one look at the screen before scooping up a now very sleepy Jack and carrying him out of the room. When Hotch returned, jaw set and face stony, he didn’t mince his words: “What were you thinking? Jack shouldn’t be watching this.”

Emily crossed her arms, getting up to face Hotch. “Jack’s two, Aaron. He won’t remember any of this. He wasn’t even paying attention.”

“It’s my call. What do you know about childhood development?” Plenty, Emily wanted to retort, mostly in the vein of “how to be an absent parent who still manages to ruin your child’s life.” She opted for a simpler response.

“Don’t pretend you’re some kind of expert on it either.” She was willing to bet Hotch had done all the required reading leading up to Jack’s birth, but reality was always more complicated.

“Either way,” he said, and Emily thought for a brief moment she had won before his next words came crashing down. “I’m his parent and you’re not.”

Emily could hear the blood rushing in her ears, but what could she say to that? It was easy to forget that she and Jack were technically bound by nothing, but Hotch was right, though she hadn’t expected him to use it against her. She opened her mouth to retort, not sure of her next words but with a sinking feeling that they were likely to tank their whole arrangement, when Hotch spoke again.

“Carrie, are you alright?”

At his words, Emily spun around, anger temporarily forgotten. Carrie had slid off the sofa and was sitting on the floor with her legs pulled against her chest, hands over her ears. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Please… please don’t fight.”

Emily and Hotch were both by her side in an instant. Wordlessly, they split the job of comforting Carrie, with Emily rubbing soothing circles on Carrie’s back while Hotch helped her get back on the couch. Carrie was apologizing now, tears threatening to spill out at any moment.

“It’s okay. No one’s mad at you.” Emily murmured. Internally, she could feel her anger returning: how could Hotch have allowed Carrie to feel she was at fault? Rationally, she knew that Hotch hadn’t blamed Carrie at all, but anger was a better option than helplessness.

They sat together, Hotch and Emily glued to Carrie until her breathing began to even out. “I didn’t mean to cause this,” she said again, sniffling slightly.

Hotch took one of Carrie’s hands in his, guiding it away from her face. “I know, and I wasn’t upset with you, not even for a moment.” Carrie gave a shaky nod but Emily could tell she didn’t really believe him.

“Let’s just watch another movie, okay?” Emily suggested, flipping the channels until she reached something fluffy. Carrie curled up into her side, seeming much smaller than her fifteen years.

Hotch was hovering awkwardly, and Emily found herself watching him instead of the movie. Her anger still simmered, compounded with the fear that Hotch was right, but she could see fear in his eyes as well. He was scared that he had messed up, Emily thought. She remembered the forgiveness he had extended her and knew she would have to do the same, provided he apologized. And if he didn’t, well, there would be hell to pay.

Thankfully, Hotch was the kind of person to know when he was in the wrong. His apology came that night as they laid in bed. Emily was preparing to turn off the light when Hotch rolled to face her and started speaking.

“Emily, I’m sorry. I acted condescendingly and I was wrong to imply that you don’t care about Jack. You’ve been really great with him and I’m thankful every day that I don’t have to go this alone.” Although the apology sounded pre-planned, his tone was sincere, and Emily supposed that was what counted.

“I just need you to believe that we’re both trying our best,” she replied, voice insistent. “We’ll both end up making mistakes, but if we can’t communicate we’ll never be able to fix anything.” She had enough first-hand experience in that to last her a lifetime.

Hotch was silent for a moment before he spoke again.

“I can’t promise to be perfect,” he said, words measured. “I’m so used to being the leader that it’s hard for me to let others make the key decisions, and sometimes I scare myself with how strongly I react, but I always respect you and I’ll do my best to make sure that we can work together instead of pulling each other apart.”

It had to be enough.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #queerminal minds #*mine #*fic #these are ties that bind

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this-is-what-makes-us-fandoms · 5 years

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Phobia Factor |Total Drama Island|

Summary: Duncan helps you with your fear of confined places on Phobia Factor.

Pairing: Duncan x Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 2.8K

The screaming gophers team members walked towards your team, who were all still feeling the loss of the challenge. Courtney took a stand and confronted them on them being here, thinking they were here to gloat. They tried to play it off as being nice by offering dessert but in reality, they were just out here to air out their cabin. Which Owen, their teammate, had stunk up with his disgusting gas fumes. Beth walked up to Courtney, showing her that they, however, really did bring dessert for them. She held a plate of green gelatin in front of Courtney's face, making her yelp and take a few steps back.

"No! I mean, no thanks. I'm good," She said calmly, trying to play off her disgust.

"What, are you on a diet or something?" Duncan asked.

"No, I just don’t like green jelly, okay," She replied,

Beth shrugged her shoulders and moved onto the other "campers", sticking the plate right in front of DJ's face. DJ shrieked when he saw the gummy worm inside, thinking it to be a snake and smacking the plate out of Beth's hands. It landed right by Cody's feet and he picked up the candy worm inside of it, showing that it's just candy and not an actual snake.

"Sorry for tripping, snakes just freak me out," DJ explained.

Tyler patted DJ's back as he sympathized on his fear. "I feel you, chickens give me the creeps, dude."

"You're afraid of chickens?" You remarked, giving him a look.

Duncan chuckled at that confession. "Wow, that's—that's really lame, man."

And just like that you were all having this big bonding moment with everyone spilling what they were afraid of. Like Beth went on and on about how she was deeply terrified of being covered in bugs. Harold shared that he was afraid of ninjas, which you didn't believe to be honest. Considering how he’s always doing something ninja-like or bragging about being a skilled martial artist. You were really shocked when Heather admitted she was afraid of something, the girl is her own type of scary, you found it difficult to believe that she had a fear. But I guess even monsters have their nightmares. She admitted to being afraid of sumo wrestlers, her confession making you stifle a laugh with your hand. She shot you a glare and would’ve said something but the conversation quickly moved onto Gwen. Lucky for you since you weren’t really in the mood to deal with Heather.

"What's my worst fear?" Gwen questioned. "I guess being buried alive."

You shivered a little, yeah, that didn’t sound like fun but you weren't afraid of that.

"Walking through a minefield...in heals," Lindsay said after Gwen finished.

"Flying man, that's some crazy stuff," Owen shared, Izzy nodding her head as she agreed. "I would never go up in a plane."

"I'm scared of hail, small but deadly," Geoff said.

"Being left alone in the woods," Bridgette confessed.

Beside her, Sadie, sniffled before sharing her biggest fear, she hated bad haircuts. Lindsay gasped and changed her fear, she agreed that bad haircuts were the worst thing ever. Cody went next, his biggest fear was having to defuse a time bomb under pressure.

"I'm not really afraid of anything," Courtney said smugly.

You and Duncan both coughed, calling her out on her bullshit. "Yeah right." "Baloney."

"Oh really? Well what exactly are your phobias, Mr. And Mrs. Know-It-All," She scoffed.

That was your cue to look away and pretend like you had no idea what just happened. Duncan looked like he had just been caught doing something embarrassing as he looked around to the others. They were all waiting for him, and you, to share their biggest phobia. Mostly because they wanted to know what the big bad Duncan was afraid off. And you, Miss Mysterious, seemed to know a lot about everyone but hardly anyone knew a thing about you.

Duncan sighed and gave up his fear. "Ce-Celine Dion music-store standees."

Beside him, he heard you stifle a laugh before his attention turned to Cody who spoke up. "Ex-squeeze me? I didn’t quite get that."

"Dude, did you say 'Celine Dion music-store standees?'" Trent asked.

"Ooh, I love Celine Dion," Lindsay cheered. "What's a standee?"

"You know, that cardboard-cutout thing that stands in the music store," Trent explained.

"Don't say it, dude," Duncan said with a groan.

"Kind of like a life-size but flat, Celine," Trent went on.

"So, if we had a cardboard standee right now," Courtney went on before being cut off by Duncan.

"That's kind of pathetic," You chuckled.

"Oh yeah, and what are you afraid of?" Duncan challenged.

"No offense, you're all pretty cool people, some more than others. But you're not the only ones listening in and I'd rather not tell the world what I'm afraid of," You said.

And just like that they all realized they were on TV. "Uh, well, I've got nothing to hide. I hate mimes, like a lot." Trent shared.

"Okay Courtney, you're afraid of something," You said, trying to get her to spill.

"Nope—Nothing," She said, that smug smile still on her face.

"That's not what she said last night," Duncan laughed, making you roll your eyes and divert your gaze.

You liked Duncan, that much you knew, since the beginning you two just clicked. But you had no idea how he felt about you, sure you had your moments but he loved to mess around. And he seemed to have a thing for Courtney, you weren't about to interfere with that. You saw Courtney stand up and leave, completely missing out on what happened. You looked at Duncan, no doubt that he had something to do with it but he just shrugged his shoulders. After that, everyone decided to head back to bed, wanting some rest before another gruesome challenge tomorrow.

You walked next to Duncan in silence before the two of you reached the cabins and went your separate ways.

You sat at the table that held all your teammates, eating Chef's "food" as Chris announced the next challenge. He announced the next game to be a game called 'Phobia Factor' where everyone would be facing their greatest fears. And this right here is exactly why didn't share what your greatest fear is, and why you never will.

He pulled out a card, announcing Heather as the first victim in this challenge, facing her worst fear; sumo wrestlers. He called on Gwen next, she was going to be buried alive, making her gasp loudly. This is when everyone figured out that everyone was actually facing off their biggest fear. And now everyone thought you were a complete genius for not sharing your fear.

"Chef Hatchet, didn't you have a special order for Tyler here?" Chris said.

Chef nodded smugly as he presented Tyler with a whole fried chicken. Tyler picked it up and brought it to his mouth, biting the head off, only for a live chicken to pop out. Was that even possible? Tyler freaked out, of course, but ultimately setting off the game.

The game went on pretty okay, with everyone being presented their fear. Beth was shown a large pool of bugs in which jumped right in and swam around. Nice one Beth, way to set the bar so high! Sadie and Lindsay were both made to wear mullet wigs all day to complete their part of the challenge. Izzy and Owen were taken up on a plane that was being driven by Chef. Harold faced off ninjas, or at least tried, he ended up smacking himself with his own nunchucks. Why did he have nunchucks at the ready? Lashawna ran away from Chef dressed as a spider, coasting her team a point. Heather went up against a sumo wrestler and actually won, by total luck though. But it made the score 2-0 with the killer bass, your team, losing.

Bridgette was lead into the woods to begin her six hours of total solitude. You watched in slight horror as Gwen was being buried, poor girl. DJ eventually scored a point for you team when he conquered his fear of snakes. But you were still one-point behind so not much of a victory for you guys.

Cody was let somewhere where a garbage bomb was planted, one he had to defuse. As Trent was being chased by a mime, the rest of you moved onto the next fear. Duncan's Celine Dion music-store standee phobia, all of you stood in front of cardboard cutout of her as Chris explained what you had to do.

Duncan stood there with a terrified face as you helped him out. "She's pretty, she's nice."

"Just one hug and you're done," Chris explained.

"That—That looks really real, man," Duncan said, fear evident in his voice.

"Dude, she's made of cardboard! Get in the game!" Tyler yelled from the sidelines.

"Hey, it's okay if you can't do it," You told him gently.

He sighed and reached out for your hand, causing your heart to skip a beat. "Fine, I'll try." He said, giving you a smile. He took a deep breath before running off towards the cutout, arms outstretched to give her a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug, scoring the bass another point. You smiled widely, ready to give him a hug but someone beat you to it. Courtney wrapped her arms around Duncan, cuddling up to him and cheering. That's right, he and Courtney had a thing that you weren't about to get in between.

You and the others walked over to him and congratulated him for his big win. The score was tied until Trent faced the mime and scored the gophers another point, leaving the score 3-2. Next up was Geoff with a mini cloud of hail just for him to pelt him with hail. But this reminded Trent about Gwen being buried alive, but she completed her task and the gophers now had four points while the bass had two. Owen and Izzy also survived their plane ride, scoring their team another two points. Looks like your team lost another challenge, even if Sadie, Bridgette, and Tyler completed their tasks.

Speaking of which, Lindsay and Sadie conquered their fears and went the whole day with bad haircuts. Making the score 7-3, let's hope Tyler can get over his fear of chickens and win your team other point. But with Tyler being the last challenge of the day, what hope did you team have? Especially since Bridgette lost and ran out of the woods before time was up.

"Actually, we have two more challenges," Chris announced.

You looked at him in confusion, you and Courtney both refused to say what you were afraid of so what could they actually do? Chris brought everyone over to a tub of green jelly for Courtney to jump into, after they deduced that she was afraid of green jelly. That was probably more pathetic than Tyler's fear of chickens but when she explained why you saw her reasoning. It did look like snot, it made you shiver as you thought about it.

"Ugh, that is just cruel! It's probably warm by now, warm green jelly. Snotty, bouncy, ugh!" Gwen said, trying psych Courtney out.

Courtney stood at the top, looking down at the tub in disgust. "It's okay if you can't do it, Courtney." Duncan said.

"It is? But won't we lose?" You retorted.

In the end she chickened out, walking back to her team in shame, while the gophers cheered. "Not so fast gophers, I said we had two challenges left." Chris said as he looked at you. "On this show, we like to do our research, and since you didn't tell us your fear we had to dig it up. Thanks for that, by the way."

"And what did you find?" You asked cautiously.

"Absolutely nothing!" Chris sighed. "Which is why, if you tell us your fear and complete it, I will give you triple points."

You felt everyone's eyes on you, while you looked at Chris with a harsh glare while he smiled smugly. What were you going to do? You could do the challenge and score three points or leave it as is. But three points wouldn’t give you the win, so either way your team still loses.

"That'd still be 7-6 though," You said.

"True, but at least your teammates can't say you didn’t try," Chris said. You gave him a look which made him roll his eyes and speak up once again. “Fine, I’ll also throw in immunity for you and another camper of your choice.”

Your teammates all looked at you eagerly, hoping that you would take the deal. And they were all hoping they were good enough friends with you that you’d consider one of them for immunity. But let’s be honest, even if you did do it and win, you’d choose Duncan as your immunity buddy.

You sighed heavily. "Fine, I don't like small spaces."

"That's it?" Someone from the gophers remarked.

You turned to look at them with a glare, pointing a finger at them. "You try spending two hours in a small closet because your so-called friends forgot to find you during hide-n-seek!"

And then is where your fear of confined places stems from, all because of a small incident when you were six. Chris chuckled in the back as he started to set everything up before leading you to your challenge. You started to quiver as the lot of you walked with him, the last time you were stuck in enclosed area you had a massive panic attack.

Everyone looked at you as they waited for you to go into the small spaced area Chris had set up. You couldn't do it, you really just couldn't, it was too much for you.

"Hey, psst," Duncan whispered beside you.

"Uh, yeah?" You said.

"Shh, keep it down. Take this," Duncan slipped you something before you were pushed into your small space.

The last bit of light was shut out before you were in complete darkness and confinement. You just had to be in here for ten minutes, you could do it and score you team three points. "Hey, you listening?" A voice came through somewhere, more specifically through the device Duncan slipped you, a walkie-talkie.

"Yeah, what's up?" You asked.

"Figured you might need someone to talk to while you did this," Duncan said.

"Yeah thanks," You replied.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" Duncan asked sincerely, shocking you that he was being nice.

"Wow, it's not like you to be so nice," You teased.

"Keep doing that and I'll leave," He threatened.

"Sorry!" You yelped, not wanting to think about being alone. "So, uh, you and Courtney huh?" Now was your time to find out how Duncan felt about Courtney.

"What about me and Miss Loud Mouth," He spoke.

"You two are a thing, right?" You asked.

"No! What gave you that idea?" He asked.

"Well, you two seem so close and you ended up sleeping together on last challenge," You explained.

"Okay, that was a total accident and I don't like Miss I'm A CIT. I just like messing with her, she's too easy," He told you, laughing on the other end.

"Oh," Was your reply.

"Why the sudden interest, princess?" He asked.

"No reason, just trying to keep my mind off of other things," You said. "So how much longer?"

"You've got five more minutes. Anyway, no reason isn't a reason, why the question?" He pressed.

"It is a reason, geez, can't a girl ask a question," You sighed.

"Alright whatever," He replied.

Silence overtook the atmosphere, your fear creeping back up quickly. You took deep breaths as you tried to calm yourself down, you weren't going to lose, not like this. "Duncan, you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here," He said.

"Okay good," You said, letting silence take over again for a few minutes. "Hey Duncan?"

"Yeah?" He asked.

"I like you, a lot," You confessed.

"I know princess. I actually like you too," He said.

You smiled to yourself and snuggled into yourself, waiting patiently for the end of your challenge. When you got out, everyone was waiting there for you, cheering at your successful challenge. They had to give it to you, having to spend ten minutes in total confinement was unthinkable. None of them wanted to do that, so yeah, kudos to you. And Duncan was waiting for you there as well, actually impressed that you did it. You lost the challenge but you conquered your fear and perhaps got a boyfriend too.

#oneshots #oneshot #one shot #one shots #total drama island #total drama island one shot #total drama island one shots #duncan #duncan one shots #duncan one shot #total drama island duncan #total drama island duncan one shots #total drama island duncan one shot

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the-starsabove-you · 5 years

Text

The Spotlight

Chapter 17- City Lovers A/N: A very long chapter! I hope you guys enjoy and thanks for liking this story! I really love writing this story and have no clue when it will end. But there is gonna be moments where you’re gonna wanna strangle me. But we got lots to cover! Reviews are welcomed! Any certain things wanted in the story? Suggestions are welcomed!

A phone went off and Michelle groaned when she opened her eyes as she was very tired. She reached over the phone but she felt an arm around her waist pulling her closer until her back as against a bare chest. She looked over and saw Mat’s eyes were half open and he had a face on as he clearly was annoyed with the alarm clock. “Morning skate” Mat muttered before Michelle reached over to the phone to turn it off but Mat shook his head “Snooze it, I’ll get up in a couple” He said as he snuggled more into her and she chuckled before hitting snooze and she placed the phone near her pillow as Mat rested his forehead on her bare back and was relaxing. The two were enjoying the silence and both were starting to fall back asleep until the phone went off again. Mat groaned and he reached over to get the phone and he snoozed it. Michelle turned over to see Mat looking at her. She smiled and he sighed “I’m not ready to get up, you just got back yesterday” He muttered and she pushed his hair out of his face and she smiled “You didn’t have to come pick me up, I was perfectly fine taking an uber to your house” “Well I couldn’t wait to see you and what boyfriend would I be if I couldn’t pick up my girlfriend at the airport” Mat grinned and Michelle chuckled and they intertwined their fingers together. After the dance and they stayed at the hotel, Michelle had to go to LA for an interview and photoshoot before rushing back to New York so she could be with Mat. “I know I usually stay around and go be a tourist. But I had a reason to come back to New York sooner” Michelle said and Mat narrowed his eyes playfully “You’re cheesy” “Besides, I’m not going to spend New Years Eve without you.” Michelle said and Mat nodded “It sucks that we can’t go back to Canada for today. But I’m excited to spend it with you” “Let’s go, Wilson and Barzal Adventure!” Michelle said and Mat nodded and looked at her “Do you mind if Tito joins? He’s bummed that Emily stayed in LA to be with her family but he’s happy for her” “Tito can join! It’s about time we have an adventure with the three of us” She said and suddenly her phone rang and she turned around away from Mat to get her phone before she looked over at his phone “Alarm is gonna go off soon” She said and he nodded “I’ll get up soon” She saw it was Marie, her agent and she picked up “Hi Marie! How’s everything?” “Michelle, I just wanted to call you wish you a Happy New Years Eve” Her agent greeted and Michelle smiled at that. No matter how many people have said Marie was harsh or cold. She cared about her clients and had a soft spot for Michelle. “Thank you Marie, any plans for today?” She asked and Marie sighed “I’m here in the office. I need to book things for you and the other girls for the future. I can sense we are gonna have a good year” She said and Michelle grinned “I’m sure looking forward to it” “Plans for you today Sweetheart?” Marie asked and Michelle sighed “Um.. Going to spend the day with Mat and his friend Tito” Marie was silent, Michelle swore that she thought Marie had hung up on her. It wasn’t until Marie spoke “We’re going to have a talk about this Mat, sooner or later.” She said and Michelle was silent and Mat could tell something was wrong so he wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her towards him. “Yeah.. Okay” Michelle said and Marie sighed “I don’t want to be the bad guy, Michelle. You know I hate that” “I’ll talk to you later Marie, I’ll call you after midnight” She said and Marie sighed “Alright, remember to call your family too. I know your mother must be wondering what you’ve been doing” “I will” Michelle muttered before she said her farewells with Marie before Mat started kissing her shoulder “We’ll go out and have a great night. Promise” He said and she grinned before the alarm went off and he sighed “Well, that’s my cue to get up and get ready” He said and he got up and Michelle couldn’t help but admire his body and he saw that and laughed “You know I see you looking” “Does it look like I care?” Michelle said and Mat narrowed his eyes playfully “Don’t follow me into the shower because I will get yelled at for being late.” He gave her a pointed look and she pretended to look innocent before she went on her phone. Mat came out of the shower after a while and he was drying his hair with a towel, sweatpants and a sweatshirt on him and he looked at her “You’re staying here? Or heading back to your apartment?” “Going home, I need to find a dress for tonight. Gotta dress to impress” She winked and Mat grinned “Oh yeah, who are you trying to impress?” He asked and she looked at him with a smirk “Just Ryan Seacrest” “Oh you’re so full of it” Mat laughed before she broke into laughter too and he shook his head before she quickly went into her suitcase and hopped in to take a quick shower. She quickly placed a hoodie over her head and finished putting on her jeans before Mat was grabbing his keys and they walked out of his apartment. Mat was walking towards his car “I’ll see you later, I’ll come pick you up” “Tell Tito to come meet us as well” She said and Mat nodded before he leaned forward to kiss Michelle who was smiling into the kiss before she broke it “Okay I’m not trying to get your coach to murder me. Go!” She said before he chuckled and got into his car while Michelle had called an uber to get home. It had been a couple of hours and Michelle was looking into the mirror, finishing her make-up before she heard a knock and she was looking at her dress which was black and had some sparkles in it. She thought it would be nice for a New Years party. She made her way towards the door and saw it was Tito and she opened the door and grinned “Woah look at you Tito!” Tito narrowed his eyes playfully “Yes, I look hot. We all know this” He said and Michelle hit his shoulder with her hand and he chuckled. “You look stunning as always” Tito said and Michelle had bowed “Thank you, I’m trying to look cute for my date tonight.” She said and Tito laughed “Mat would think you’re hot in a potato bag” “Oh, I wasn’t walking about Mat” She sand Tito raised an eyebrow “Whose the lucky man that’s not Mat?” He asked and Michelle looked at him proudly “Chris Evans” Tito laughed at that and shook his head “You’re crazy” He said and she grinned “Thanks, I’m trying” “So where’s my hot date tonight?” She asked and Tito looked at the phone “Coming in a few, he’s stuck in traffic. So we’ll just meet him downstairs” He said and she nodded before smiling “I’m really happy with him Tito, never been this happy before”She said and Tito couldn’t help but smile “Trust me, I haven’t seen him this happy either. The man adores you” He said and she blushed and looked down before her phone rang and saw it was Mat “Speaking of the devil. He’s probably downstairs” “Ugh, I’m gonna be third wheeling tonight” Tito said and Michelle shook her head “If anything I’m going to be third wheeling you guys” She said and Tito sighed “I already miss my girlfriend!” “Okay Romeo, she’ll be back tomorrow. You gotta deal with us!” She said and Tito looked at her “I’m expecting to be dead then” They made their way downstairs and Mat was waiting in the lobby and his eyes widen at Michelle “Oh my god, you’re stunning” “I’m stunning too Mat!” Tito said pretending to be dramatic and Mat narrowed his eyes playfully before he held out his arm and Michelle took it as they were walking towards the city “Hopefully we don’t get jumped by fans.” Tito said as they were rushing through the streets. Mat and Michelle were hand in hand before they made it near Times Square. They found the building and Tito whistled “Ladies and Gentlemen. Here we are!” Michelle didn’t really know who was hosting this party, it was some famous person that Mat and Tito knew. But, she was happy to spend time with her boyfriend and best friend. Tito and Mat had said their hellos to the host and they took pictures with her. Michelle was on the sidelines and was even taking pictures on her phone of them. Mat saw her and took her hand and pulled her towards him so she could join the pictures. She knew Marie would be having a word with her after this. Once the three of them had gotten inside, Mat had an arm around Michelle’s waist as all three of them were talking. Michelle asking Tito about stories of Mat when the two guys were younger. Tito giving all the stories despite Mat’s pleas. Michelle and Mat were looking outside and into the city. Tito smirked and he made sure to get a couple of good pictures of the couple from the back. Mat wrapping an arm around her waist until she had rested her head on his chest. The three were having a fun night with the food. Michelle found a chocolate fountain and had ran towards it. She somehow got Mat to eat something with the chocolate fountain and Mat pretended to look annoyed but he was happy with the sweet treat. Michelle also got Tito to eat something too and they were literally laughing when Michelle grabbed a couple of Strawberries on the way out. It was half an hour until midnight and the start of a new year and new decade. Michelle had grabbed Mat and Tito’s hands and led them through the crowd. There was a certain closed off space for the party. They could see the ball and Michelle was literally bouncing with excitement. Michelle turned to see that Mat and Tito were taking a picture and she grinned. She was happy that she was able to spend the day with Mat and Tito. Soon Michelle was taking pictures with Tito and Mat and all three were pulling funny faces before having nice ones. Mat taking pictures of Tito and Michelle and Tito taking pictures of Mat and Michelle. “The ball is gonna drop soon” Michelle said as she saw that Post Malone was finished with his performance and she saw the time. Mat was grinning “Anything you want for the new year?” “Many more adventures with you and in general. That you have an amazing season and we’ll last long” She said and Mat smiled at that before leaning down to kiss her “Same, I want those countless adventures with you too” “Ball is gonna drop” Tito said as he had an arm around Michelle’s shoulder and Mat having his arm around her waist. Both of Michelle’s arms around each guy as they were looking on, excited and all three of them screamed when the ball began to drop. They were counting down, it felt like it took forever. Mat turned her towards him and they were both smiling. “To a new year of adventures and happiness” Mat said and Michelle grinned before she leaned in and kissed him, he smiled and melted into the kiss and suddenly they heard the cheers and the screaming of the ball had finally dropped and they had entered the new year. Michelle and Mat broke the kiss and they were both smiling at each other as the confetti had covered the streets and both of them looked up and were smiling before they both turned and were hugging Tito. Tito grinning and hugging his friends back before all three of them watched everything happening around them. It was going to be quite a year for everyone.

#mathew barzal #mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #nhl #nhl imagines #nhl imagine #hockey #hockey imagines

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