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therewasatale · 2 years

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Mystic Mountain

On Ao3.

Summary: "Your iris filled with so much colours, stunning just like the Mystic Mountain in the Carina Nebula. Full of colours and depths, hiding mysteries within." "I-" but you didn't know what to say.

Notes: Ah, Bedankt. - Ah, thank you. Het spijt me. - I'm sorry. Schitterend. - Wonderful.

No matter how much you wanted to be careful, every step you took echoed in the empty corridor. Although, you wouldn't have disturbed many people in the almost empty base anyway. Winston and the others were all asleep, preparing for the next day, for the next task, for the next battle. Talon was stronger than ever, Null Sector came back with reinforcements, and the second omnic crisis was here and ready to turn the world into a war zone, again.

You turned off the light in the kitchen, and started to walk back towards your room.

Not much have changed ever since at Gibraltar.

As you moved through the long corridor you were able to look out to the other buildings. Couple of years ago half of them would light up and busy people would walk around to guard the place, or just go about their own business. But those times were gone now, wiped with that explosion. Everything changed, over a couple of nights every one of you have turned from heroes to terrorists in the public's eye.

And yet, some of you, not everyone, but a some came back after the call. You and the others answered; some wasn't ready yet, but you knew, in time they will come too. Still, there were times when you had to stop and think - what Jack would say, what would he think about all this.

You turned down a corner, still looking outside.

Everything changed, and now there were new members too, like Echo, or Baptist, or the astrophysicist.

You stopped, a faint light shone from the window of one of the neighbouring buildings.

The astrophysicist. He still needed time to deal with his trauma, and settle himself. Angela wasn't sure if he ever will be completely fine. But he was at least stable since you all managed to rescue him from Talon. Surprisingly, it was one of the easier missions, Athena was able to get inside of their system and download some of their next plans or targets. A surprising back door, they failed to notice, or so Winston thought.

You made your way at the end of the corridor, then turned right at the stairs. After a couple of minutes, the nights breeze made you shiver, and the tall building covered the moon's shine from you, leaving you in deep darkness. You reached the door and listening to your own footsteps approached the office. It wasn't hard to find it, the gentle light shone under the door. You glanced down at the shadows cast by your own feet.

"Let’s see."

After a small knock you waited.

"Yes?"

You opened the door and glanced inside. "Evening, doctor. Can I come in?" You didn’t get an answer.

He floated next to the window, staring out, probably lost in his thoughts. He was in the habit of levitating. He spent most of his time in his office, he either worked there or slept through the day. Watching the night sky can have an effect on anyone. And everyone on the base were aware that he needed some alone time.

You stepped closer to the panel on the wall and dimmed the light in the room so it was almost completely dark.

This got the astrophysicist's attention and he finally turned toward you.

"Ah, Bedankt." He slowly nodded. "When did you come here, (Y/N)? Are you waiting here for a long time?"

"Just a couple of seconds ago, don't worry." You walked closer, on the way you noticed the slowly levitating papers and pens near the table.

The physicist himself was wearing an old overwatch uniform and a top of that a lab coat. It was a miracle that Winston found something that fit him when he got here.

Gently you waved off his questions. You couldn't not notice how lovely he looked in that uniform and lab coat. "Just saw the light in your office and wanted to check on you."

"Keeping an eye on me, eh?" He couldn't really hide the nervousness in his voice. His eyes went over to you, but didn't stay in one place for long.

"It's more like just worrying, we want to make sure you have enough sleep."

"How could I waste my time with such trivial like sleeping, when the universe is waiting for me to find its answers." He glanced over his shoulders, he remained there for almost a minute, his thoughts wandering off again. No one could tell how much damage the original accident, and then again Talon did to him, while they controlled him, and his mind.

"The universe is magnificent, isn't it?"

"Sure thing, doctor." You saw him wince when you spoke up and took a step closer him. "I'm still here, sorry."

"No, no, I have to apologize, I-" with a sigh he slowly shook his head. "I can barely hold my thoughts in one path."

"You need time." Looking into his eyes you leaned against the window frame. “You don't have to rush it - we don't want you to rush it."

The silence wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. If he needed hours to answer you could wait for it.

"The others?"

"Sleeping, Winston could be still up and checking the news. He was always a light sleeper."

"Even when he was little." His voice filled with nostalgia, but soon his eyes darkened. "I couldn't believe I almost hurt him-, all of you. My powers were turned into a weapon, my research almost ended up in the hands of a bunch terrorists. And it would have been me who handed it to them, like a fool who couldn't even tell that he's being used!"

"Siebren...?"

He didn’t notice, but the table slowly began to levitate and so did the papers, the pens and data pad too.

"Hey!" With each second you felt your body becoming lighter, your legs starting floated and you had trouble keeping your balance. "Siebren!" You had to grab his arm, as gravity started to weaken and reverse around you. Your legs were touching the upper part of the window.

He snapped out, and gravity turned back on around you. Objects cluttering to the floor.

"Het spijt me!" Before you would have fell, he took you into his arms. "I didn't even notice-"

"It's fine, it's fine." You let a still nervous chuckle, and smiled as reassuring as you could, but still didn't let his clothes go. "It was a really new experience, and I didn't know you can actually do that. Are you okay?"

"Of course, my mind wandered off to a darker place. I'm so sorry, (Y/N)."

"It's all right. I didn't get hurt and nothing broke, I think." With a smile you gently stroked his arm. "You caught me in time."

"Yes, I got you." Maybe he didn't even notice as he pulled you closer. "I got you." His eyes locked up with yours; he watched you with curiosity and admiration.

With each second another wave of embarrassment washed over you. You couldn't look away, neither he let you, nor you wanted to.

"Schitterend..."

"Yes?" You swallowed, as heat rose in your cheeks and your heart skipped a beat.

"Your iris filled with so much colours, stunning just like the Mystic Mountain in the Carina Nebula. Full of colours and depths, hiding mysteries within."

"I-" but you didn't know what to say.

"Ah, yes, the Carina Nebula, it's filled with such wonders like Homunculus Nebula, or the WR 25, or the Trumpler 14, or or Keyhole Nebula. Have you ever had the chance to see some photos of them? Truly mesmerizing, and makes you think differently of the universe and yourself. So many questions, so many marvels, and yet so little time to discover them. I could spend a lifetime for every star, or blackhole, or any interesting phenomena in our universe."

"Yes, I believe you could." With a gentle chuckle you tilted your head a bit.

"I-" it was his turn to get embarrassed. "Oh, oh, I'm babbling again. I'm sorry." He glanced down, and his face too turned red. "And I'm still holding you."

"Yes, it seems like it, doctor. But I can tell you're doing better. I'm glad."

"Of course, thanks to all of you, now I'm free from Talon. My mind maybe shattered, but I'm not a weapon anymore." Finally, he slowly, gently let you down.

"You're safe here." You looked up at him with an honest smile. "However, you should have some rest, you don’t need to right now, but soon."

"I-" he glanced out the window, but couldn't finish. The gentle kiss on his cheek caught him off guard.

"It's okay, we don't want to control you, just to make sure you're fine, Siebren. But I should go, it's still in the middle of the night."

"Ja."

"Have a nice evening."

"Bedankt."

"And I'll visit you tomorrow night for more of your nebula and star facts. The Carina Nebula sounded really lovely, I'd like to know more about it."

"Of course," finally he found his voice. "I very much would like to tell you everything I know!" His smile was as honest as ever.

"Thank you. Until then, have a nice night." You walked to the door.

"You too, (Y/N)." He bowed his head a bit and watched as you closed the door behind you. Then glanced back towards the night sky, his thoughts wandered again amongst the stars again, but still, somehow, they always found their way back to you.

#Overwatch #overwatch fanfiction #sigma overwatch #sigma x reader #siebren de kuiper #sigma imagine #copper

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lackingspace · 4 years

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Null Moon (Marko x Reader)

Rating: SFW

Word Count:5.5k

Summary: Due to some mad bogus circumstances your hand was forced into relocating to the Santa Carla witch coven. Not exactly where you saw yourself, but beggars cant be choosers or however that saying goes. New coven, new community, no idea how this was going to play out, what could go wrong?

Warnings: Nothing really. Just 80s slang, some suggestive themes, trigger warning for witchcraft I guess, vampire boys doing stalky vampire things, and expanding the magical community at large. Throw in psychic fliting too. The only real warning here is that I wax soliloquy, stopping me is impossible.

So I watched Lost Boys again and Marko just too pretty and wouldn’t stop, so I had to write about it. I’m dedicated to worldbuilding because it pleases me, so no smut yet, but don’t worry, its comin. Enjoy the 80s slang sprinkled everywhere. Out of no where I know, but I hope you all like it ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Part 2: Blood Moon ✧･ﾟ:

Salt was something you’d found yourself trying to quickly get accustomed to. Don’t get it twisted, you weren’t mental and liked it in your food just fine, but it was in everything here. It was bogus, really. None of your new sisters warned you about the mundane annoyances when relocating to their beachfront town.

It was almost insidious how it could worm its way into just about anywhere and everything. Even on days you were a shut-in, your hair still had a salty ocean breeze scent and you swore you’d find grains of sand in the oddest of places. It wasn’t that big of a deal, just another thing out of your control-- one you’d never be able to change.

The atmosphere answered to no one. Maybe this was the ocean’s way of welcoming you into the fold? Taking it as a sign that the gods were pleased with your departure from the Louisiana coven helped soothe the bitter ache.

You had other things to occupy your thoughts, anyway. Nothing exciting, just the very normal, very stressful situations that came with moving. Having a not so smooth departure made your integration into this coven rocky. Trying to smooth that out while accommodating for the new energy and dynamic of the community made things difficult. Stressful? Definitely. Normal? Unfortunately. Hectic? Totally, but still necessary to process.

Getting to know your new coven sisters was also proving tedious, certain views not quite matching up. At least you were kept too busy to really worry over it. Keeping your mind occupied made everything easier. Even if they didn’t know why you’d really been looking to transfer, it was no secret on their end why they’d been so eager to accept you. They’d had a very specific position that none of the current members were willing to entertain.

A major part of the job was the operation of the coven owned metaphysical shop on the boardwalk, night shift specifically. That had a swirl of mixed emotions bristle your senses- excitement just edging out over apprehension. Your old coven hadn't been open to the human public in any way, shape, or form. The practice was sacred and you were taught to keep it that way.

The only non-paranormal individuals allowed within the walls were partners of the community. A werewolf's mate, for instance, maybe suffering an energetic imbalance would be brought in. So dealing with the stuffy clueless human populace nightly? Well, the idea was less than stellar...but survival required adaptation, and you could be flexible. Still, predicting the havoc it’d play on your nerves was easy. Good thing wine existed because having a glass a day was majorly on the agenda.

Oh well, every job had to have something and each place had slightly different energetic needs, different spiritual practices, and don’t even get you started on the nuances of rituals- everyone and their mom have their own twist. Baton Rouge had been a prime example of that- a hotbed for the magical community, it was embedded in the culture. Overflowing with a little something for everyone and then some. Different ailments, practices, people, and best of all different magics.

On the other hand, all that variety came at the cost of a massive headache in interspecies politics. Witches and vampires, weres and goblins, selkies and sirens, demons and wendigos, elementals and everyone, keeping up with who was at who's throat was exhausting. It gave you a gnarly stomach ache frankly, but if that was the price of learning your craft, well, it wasn't that steep.

Headache, stomach pains, whatever- it was a price you'd gladly pay- had paid. Plus, you had loved the community there. Once you got past the politics there was a wealth of knowledge and power just floating around, free for grabs- even when it wasn’t free, there were ways to get what you’d wanted.

Admitting that your departure had left hella bitter resentment towards your previous sisters was something you actively denied. Your new high priestess hadn’t wanted any hexes sent their way following her acceptance of you. Assuring her it was a mutual departure had been easy, they were extremely desperate and hadn’t really gone through all the hoops to look into it. Besides, it was technically true, there wouldn’t be hexes, just bad blood. There wasn’t really a need to let them know they’d be black listed from the area communals. You’d been to enough of them in the past, they weren’t that special anyway.

Here, alone in the dark with your thoughts, you could sit with the discontent. The choice to leave hadn’t been yours, but you could admit it was for the best. When faced with exile you were willing to sacrifice. Resentment notwithstanding, growth rarely happened if you stayed stagnant for too long. This could actually be a blessing in disguise, even with the perpetual gallons of salt. So here you were; New city, new coven, new people, new rules.

A sigh escaped you at the thought as you put on a nice balancing act for anyone watching. The rules were certainly different here.

Less in some ways, more in others- some very curious agreements. Carefully trying, and trying being the keyword, to descend some questionable-looking stairs while carrying delicate cargo. It being pitch black didn't exactly help either, but at twelve am with no flashlight, the darkness was expected.

Not like you could carry one right now anyway and you’d be caught dead before you put on one of those gaudy forehead lights. A distant bonfire, presumably with partygoers, a few miles off was the only source of light outside of the odd shop still lighting up the boardwalk in the distance.

Neither were a help to you here, but the darkness didn't bother you much, it was more the feeling of the wood against your feet that had you on edge. Foregoing shoes had seemed like the smarter choice knowing you'd be walking in the loose sugary sand, but with the way it mixed against the rough wood to scratch against the arch of your foot? Regret was front and center which only exacerbating your already agitated mind.

Catching your toe on an uneven patch in the wood had you hissing in pain. Someone was def getting cursed if you got a splinter. Actually, you'd be surprised if you made it out without one. These steps were legit grody, they barely even qualified as stairs honestly.

Just some half termite eaten planks, driftwood more likely, definitely nothing professional, all nailed together and stuck into the side of a steep sand dune. Falling on your ass at some point was almost guaranteed- You were always a major klutz in these situations.

Shrugging your shoulder and regripping the box, at least the sand would give you a semi-soft landing whenever it happened.

You should thank whatever beachrat made these stairs though, adjusting your grip on the box again had the jars inside clanking together, water sloshing- good thing you'd tightened the lids before leaving the shop. Thanks to these little stairs you didn’t have to miserably fail at trying your luck in midnight sand surfing. If this was midday you’d have trouble with it still- trying sand surfing now? That'd be so warped. Ugh, just imagine having to make your way back up? Now that'd be a real treat- psych.

When both feet planted safely, and surprisingly splinter-free, in the soft sand you shook yourself into focus. No more letting your thoughts drive you, way too much negativity to unpack and you didn't need that energy seeping into your work here. Moon-water wasn’t usually the most influenceable, but you could, and with your attitude the way it was? You’d totally choke if you didn’t check yourself. No need to mess up your first job, right?

Breathing deeply you set about focusing your mind; grounding, feeling yourself coming back to a controlled center was the first step of your job here tonight. Tightening your grip and breathing in had the scent of the ocean hit you full force. With practiced ease, focusing inward had your eyes naturally drifting shut and calm settle over you. It was incredible how soothing grounding- ritual in general really, could be.

Your next inhale highlighted the subtle undertones of the boardwalk overlaid in the breeze, an amalgamation that fused into a scent uniquely Santa Carla. Letting your energy sink deep within you, then lower down still, dropping into the earth, feeling the vibrations of your surroundings- naturally letting it mix with the energies surrounding you. The ocean was a powerful tool, you'd be a ditz to ignore its embrace. There was an unusual magnetic pull in the air, a buzz that licked against your senses.

The full moon was calling, and like the ocean, you were here to answer.

Centered and ready to work you made your way down to the shore. Funny thing about this new coven, part of the new rules was night rituals were restricted to a single practitioner. That restriction had seemed mental to you, and frankly? You still thought they were a bit out there to bend to such restrictions, but once you learned there was a surprisingly sizable vampire pack in the area it had made more sense. Having just one practitioner was easier for accountability and all that, but like, it was still twisted.

Vampires were picky. They claimed a territory and stuck to it. Any other lucky supernatural creature was subject to their "authority". Barf me out with that attitude. If they weren't solitary, it was usually a duo, anything more than a trio was especially rare. Vampires could be mega volatile in general, but especially towards one another. The fact that there were at least four confirmed vamps in the area? Now, that piqued your interest. Their bonds had to be radically tight to stay together with any type of calm.

Unfortunately, vampires and witches? Typically not such a hot mix.

Vampires and magic didn't always mesh well and historically that meant witches and vampires couldn't play nice together. Funnily enough, this coven didn't go against status quo- every sister you'd met so far vehemently detested vamps. Too bad they were smackdab in the middle of fang city.

The location being legit brill had something to do with how docile the coven acted. It said something when witches were willing to take shit and obey in order to practice. Energetically potent, magically powerful, Santa Carla was a delightful nexus. Not to mention scenic too.

The coven was desperate for someone to be the designated night ritualist, working the stores night shift was just a caveat. The timing had worked out because you were just as desperate. You thought the whole vampire witch feud thing was lame, but it’d saved you from ex-communication, so you'd keep that tidbit to yourself.

Vampires didn't bother you really. Well, they could, but not because the vampy bit, just the entitled attitude. Anyone could be a barf bag regardless of what they were. You'd met just as many ditzy witches as narbo vamps. You were more concerned that you'd most definitely have human tourists bombarding you every night.

What got you though was the craziest part of the deal. When within a 15 mile radius of the boardwalk there was a restriction to strictly restorative work. Even being a nexus, you weren’t sure this place was worth neutering yourself energetically for. Sure, vampire's had their reasons, severe sensitivity to magic yada-yada, not to mention if their bond was as tight as you assumed, they probably felt active magic like nails on a chalkboard, but damn.

You couldn’t believe the high priestess would agree to it. It really seemed the witches got the short end of the stick here. You weren’t seeing a lot of benefits for yourself. So far your opinion on the coven was….well, at this point you were half-convinced you’d joined a gaggle of ditzes.

Having taken stock of the ingredients they had on hand a quick glance had made replenishing the monthly moon water a top priority. It was such a simple thing, very useful, super versatile, and no one in the coven had been willing to make a large batch of it. Ugh, imagine letting prejudice get in the way of making such a staple ingredient. There wasn't anything fancy that went into it. A cool head, even temper, patience, and a little prep was all that it needed.

That’s what you were here for now, though. They could keep their dislike and eat their cake too. Still, you weren’t completely obstinate and took their warning to heart, it wasn't just the vampires that made the area witches refuse the night shift.

Santa Carla wasn’t exactly Disneyland. Murder was a thing and it happened here daily. Nexus’s tended to have a magnetic draw. Pulling in powerful things, good things, weak things, bad things- the sheer unpredictability wasn’t a friend in this case.

A random human could decide tonight was beach shanking night and you’d be the lucky victim. You’d like to see them try at least. Maybe one of the vampire pack would break the agreement if they were feeling a bit nippy? Doubtful if they didn’t want a war on their hands, but possible. A stray wendigo attracted to your energy feeling a midnight snack seemed more likely. Could even be a banshee needing a quick meal. Never can tell how things were going to work out.

Knowing yourself though, you’d probably just trip up those hella grimy stairs and break your neck.

You weren’t too worried about being attacked though, honestly. You had wards in place and if it got past that, well, you'd deal with whatever it was then. No use worrying about it now. You were more than happy to take on the privilege to essentially moon bathe on the beach while funneling the energy to the water. It was good on all levels.

Walking to the area you’d scouted during the day set your mind back into focus. Setting the box down, the jars jostling while you grabbed the blanket hanging off the side of the box. Spreading it out and setting up your area had everything falling in place. The jars spread just along the outside of your circular blanket, with that done you sat yourself down in the center.

Determined to do this right you brought back that focused rooted energy. Using this as an opportunity to release some built-up tension would be a good idea too. Let the ocean wash away your bitterness with the tide and allow the moon to shift you into clarity for whatever was to come. Even if you did think your new sisters were idiots, they were to be your idiots and you had to embrace it.

As you laid there working the energy and letting it shift, you noticed a curious sensation at the edge of your perception.

A slight tickling at the fringe of your awareness; soft, so extremely soft and subtle that if you’d just gone about your business and hadn’t been so introspective focused you’d totally have passed it over.

Watched.

The subtle sensation wasn’t threatening as of yet, but you were definitely being watched. By what? You weren’t sure. Getting a firm reading on it was difficult. The more you focused on the energy the further it pulled back. Pursuing it only had whoever it was slyly staying just out of your grasp.

Definitely not human. Wouldn’t be a witch or a medium either, they’d just answer your psychic questioning. Could be a were, you’d heard they’d been in the area recently. The next brush sent a shiver down your spine and had you crossing weres off. It was definitely too silky to be one, they always felt gruffer to you, wilder. Possibly a demon, they had that shade of sensuality and always liked to follow you around in new territory. A quick flash of tightly-wound sharp control coated in a mischievous air finally spit out the answer; Vampire.

Satisfied, you dropped the pursuit and turned your attention back to the sea. Subtle brushes returning, but this time not trying to hide itself or their interest. So one of the new overlords had decided to drop in on their new subject? That was just fine as long as they stayed watching and didn’t interfere.

You’d give it to whichever vamp this was. They had wicked nice energy. Like, once you got a read on that was. Playful, cheeky almost to a fae’s degree, brimming with an elusive danger, while still having a quiet peace underneath. That quiet calm resonated inside your own field and was exactly what you needed to settle back into your space. You didn’t hate the idea of their company so much.

You’d expected a run-in at some point, but right away? They were some go-getters to the max.

Nothing came of it though, the watcher had just been that. A watcher. When three am came, went, and passed, you’d decided to pack things up. You felt their vigilant gaze the entire time. Even after you got in your car and motored on home, it was still with you. It was only after you entered your home did their light press on your awareness leave.

The rest of your week played out much the same. Feeling that attentive gaze in every outside ritual from start to well after the finish. Even while you were working the shop they’d pop in and out of your awareness only to settle when you were locking up for the night.

You’d tried to catch a glimpse of who your designated monitor was, but it proved an impossible task. Stealth was a vampire’s friend and this one was incredibly apt. They stayed just far enough away during ritual and on the boardwalk you were too busy entertaining space cadet humans or dealing with an actual client to seek them out.

On that note, there was a surprising number of shapeshifters in the area, changelings especially had been a nice treat. They weren’t exactly common in Louisiana and working with them was always interesting. They required a delicate eye and full attention when diagnosing their condition.

A shapeshifter’s physicality was entirely based on energy manipulation, so one wrong push or pull and you could injure them more than help. Pinpointing where your attentive observer was out in the crowd became annoyingly out of the question.

They’d turn up eventually. Until then, however, you’d just have to sit tight. Lucky for you changelings had a penchant for gossiping. They’d been kind enough to give you a rundown on the pack and their opinion of them. Changelings weren’t known to have easily won loyalty, so the popular opinion on them being pretty rad, was surprising.

They were apparently chill on the authority, which was shocking enough, but they said the pack leader, David, could be hella genial. Vampires weren’t usually described that way. Not outside of the anyone they were glamouring anyway. Maybe the coven weren’t such spazes to reside here.

Friday saw your week coming to a close. You’d woken up ready to put your first week behind you and spend the weekend really exploring the area. There was a nice hiking trail not too far away that you’d really wanted to spend some time at. A few brownies had spirited into the shop and mentioned it as a great area for herbs and ritual during conversation.

Brewing a second cup of tea, calming herbs this time- regular humans really did get on your nerves with their incessant brainless questions and barf bag attitude. There were a few mediums that'd dropped in who you didn't mind, actually really liked, but the rest of the human race made you want to gag. Lumping witches and poor mediums into the same category didn’t seem fair.

The night was steadily cruising along. The humans came in bursts, sporadic, but manageable. Client-wise, nothing too dramatic either, the most interesting case was a few sprites suffering a nasty goblin hex. It was an easy enough fix, orders on how to use the herbs, and a cautionary chastising to leave the gobbies alone unless invited. They giggled their departure as you shook your head, sprites never learned.

The night's energy had you listless. Only a few hours left before you could close down shop and you were antsy. No pressing ceremonies to perform tonight for the coven either, so heading straight home to open that bottle of wine you'd acquired before your arrival was on the top of the to-do list.

Curiously, your nightly specter hadn't visited once. It was surprising how fast you'd gotten used to a vampire’s energy body. If you were honest with yourself, you'd even come to look forward to having it- him, the changelings had listed only male vampires, being a steady sensation on the outer edges of your senses.

The absence of the strange new routine left you with an unsettled itch. Something was off, you could tell, your antsiness screamed of something about to happen, you just weren't sure what.

The answer came not too long after that. With a lull of what you assumed to be the last customers of the night, you’d busied yourself restocking and starting to close down. High on the shelf ladder reorganizing the herb wall. It got so messy with the daily run-through of customers’ grubby hands all over it. Turning a jar forward as the bell above the door sounded.

"Welcome! I'll be-" the energy that zapped your senses had you cut off the greeting with a sharp inhale. Thank the gods you hadn't been holding one of the glass jars, it'd be smithereens otherwise.

The shift had hit you instantly, an electric buzz that lapped against your mental self. Giving you a clear idea of what just walked in. Four of them. They'd all come. Shifting through the sensation, trying to grasp each of their unique patterns had you stopping short when you felt your chaperone's energy reach out to you.

It wasn't just a soft prodding like usual, instead, it was like a full-body caress. More like a lick if you were honest.

Skin tingling, electric sparks sent down your spine settling somewhere you'd rather not question right now, and if your nipples had tightened from it? Well, that was nobody's business. Beneath the shameless lick was an urge of reassurance.

The unspoken highly nuanced language assuring you of safety. Thank the goddess you were fluent. It was odd, really, a vampire reassuring a witch of their safety? You weren't prey, not if they wanted the coven to stay placid. Even if they’d decided to attack you weren’t helpless. The kiddie gloves would come off quicker than lightning and then they’d see what was up.

They’d definitely break you, but you’d do some damage. So there wasn't any rhyme or reason to make you feel safe or calmed. Nothing you could think of except for your own peace of mind. It had a giggle bubbling up, but you clamped down before it could escape.

You appreciate the sentiment regardless and dragged your energy against his in return, showing your mirth, and if he was apt enough to recognize the instant anxiety their entrance caused, he'd feel the praise underneath.

Taking a deep inhale before steeling yourself. You'd anticipated that it was only a matter of time before a meeting. The high priestess had said it’d come at some point when they felt ready, so you were decidedly not going to freak out and treat them like any other customer. Even if one of them had already made your nipples pebble.

You were also so ready to end the mystery of what your babysitter looked like. Putting a face to, well not a name, but an energetic signature rather. Stepping down from the ladder you made your way towards the front counter.

They were milling about between aisle shelving so getting a clear look wasn’t working. You could see bits of hair, flashes of leather, and hear their banter- typical dudes messing with each other. You were right, hearing how affable they were with each other solidified that they def have a legit bond.

Waiting another minute behind that counter still hadn’t made them come to you. Sighing before you decided to speak up, "What can I help you with tonight?" That had the laughter in the back trickle off before a rumbling voice spoke out, "Many things, maybe nothing. Depends on what you're offering." He hadn’t needed to emerge from the aisle for you to feel the leer paired with that statement. Ah, so David was the edgy type. You could work with that.

What you might stumble over though, was just how pretty they all were.

Don't get it wrong, Vampires were supposed to be attractive, it was part of their thing. A magnetic and alluring shift happened to them all when they were turned, but this? This was on another level.

The vague memory of lessons from your old covens compendium on vampiric lore came to mind. It’d stated the first vampire came into existence born by way of an incubus mingling in a maenads rites with a medium. Their resulting child the first vampire.

Who knew how accurate those stories were, the compendium was specific to each coven; an enduring collection of their line of knowledge, but authenticity was always questionable.

Looking at them all as they emerged- really made you believe there was some weighted truth to the legend. Incubus certainly seemed like it was mingled up in them. You’d been gifted by a few incubi once upon a time and the similarities between them and these boys? Striking. Between their movements, their magnetic presences, and the brazen way they gazed at you.

The vampires in Louisiana were all charming, but it was all a subtle compulsion. It didn’t help that they typically had a bad attitude mixed with antiquated style. They just never appealed to you.

This pack, however, seems like they’d had no problem keeping up with pop culture. Embracing it wholeheartedly, one of them looked like he moonlighted in poison for crying out loud. Maybe they were young, but you got a vibe that hinted otherwise. More like they were adaptable.

Trying to keep a straight face, professionalism and all that, was difficult, but doable. At least you thought it was, but once you locked eyes with a pair of soulful hazel- there was no doubt that they all felt the psychic warble you let slip accidentally.

He’d been the elusive watcher this week. There wasn’t a question about it, a perfect face to match his auric self. The breath you’d been holding choked out when he broke into an impish grin followed by what was essentially another playful full-body kiss.

You swore you could hear a purr resound in your mind. The three subordinates chuckled when you drew in a sharp intake.

“Marko.” David's tenor was soft, but firm. Marko? Cute. Without breaking eye contact, his smile widened mischievously while he raised both hands in surrender. The undivided attention was unsettling in all the right ways.

Sparking a heat that undulated throughout you. Tabling that information to the back of your mind, you broke the gaze. Needed to if you were going to have any kind of brain function for conversation.

Turning to the de facto leader you sized him up. Or tried to. Definitely threatening, actively making it hard to read him. On the surface he felt like a cold blade; sharp, decisive, piercing.

Good qualities for a leader you supposed, but like, damn, that didn’t sate your curiosity. If he wasn’t going to work with you then that only left the boring way, “David, I presume?”

He raised a brow with a pleased look, “Good. The little crone knows who matters around here.” Bo-guuus, edgy with an attitude. Those changelings either lied or were talking about someone different because genial? You weren’t seeing it. Aiming an unimpressed look paired with a, “Mmhmm” brought a chuckle of his own.

Waiting for him to speak again seemed like the best option, you weren’t very good at small talk, and Marko was still so very distracting. After David’s chiding, he really hadn’t let up much. He might not be doing that lick thing with the delightful heat, but what he was doing wasn’t far off.

Going out of his way to make sure a large portion of your attention was still focused on him by continually baiting you; almost like energetic petting. If you weren’t trying to have a serious conversation you’d bask in the new attention. You weren’t a cat, but you imagined this is what they must have felt like. Psychic flirting was always fun, but his attention had it quickly becoming your favorite.

With him doing it in front of his pack though? Any sensible person, witch especially should be uncomfortable. Totally pissed if not outraged- it was definitely a claim, unnervingly possessive, and you shouldn’t like the blatant territorial display, but for some reason, it stroked something deep in your harebrain that majorly worked for you.

Before you could drop down that rabbit hole further David brought you back, “You’ve been a busy little witch this past week.” Annoyance fluttered in, what’d he expect? There hadn’t been a night ritualist for over a year. There was a lot of work to do, some things just couldn’t be done during the day.

You shrugged “Ha, massive understatement. New coven, new clients, way too many neglected things to catch up on. Seems like you should thank me for taking over.”

The look he gave you was piercing and indiscernible. You weren’t really sure where you stood with him. You hadn’t done anything to step out of the bounds they’d placed on you, but somehow with the look he was leveling at you begged the question, had you?

Mentally retracing your week yielded nothing. Hadn’t even tried to hex anyone, even that human who’d cut you off on your drive in Wednesday night, now that’d been difficult. Was this why you’d had such heavy surveillance? Not that you’d minded, but here you thought it was just your shining personality.

“Keep it up. The community needs a witch with some spine.” Maybe you’d spoke too soon, he might not be so bad.

“I wasn’t so sure about you. Word on the street and all.” That had you freeze. Not even Marko’s continued attention phased you. There was no way he knew anything. That was impossible. Your new coven didn’t know, your old coven wouldn't dare let anything slip- it wouldn’t just be you who lost face.

There was no way anyone knew anything about you or why you’d moved. It had to be a bluff, a well aimed taunt. It was common knowledge that witches rarely transferred covens, it happened for a multitude of reasons- good, bad, ugly. He was just being a dickhead, a nosy dickhead.

Forcing a calm mask even though you were sure they could all hear your rapid heartbeat, trying not to play into his bait, “Oh? Word on the street? I have a rep already? Bitchin’.”

Anxiety was a mega issue for you, so not having a cow and playing it as chill as you did? A total moment for you. clammy hands, rapid heartbeat, clenched jaw and all. That pulled a laugh out of Marko and the hair band look-alike while David and the clydesdale in the back wore smirks.

“Word is the new witch isn’t from the clique. Never can tell what you little hags are planning, bringing in new blood?” He leaned forward across the counter catching you with his piercing blues, “That has trouble written all over it.”

You were slow to process what he’d actually said, too caught up in how the light glinted off his pretty eyes. There was no denying it, so you didn’t try, “For sure,” but on second thought you didn’t want to make it sound like you were here to start shit, “but change isn’t always bad.”

He tapped the glass of the counter before he pushed off, “We’ll see about that, little hag”. That must have been the signal to leave because he’d started walking towards the door with the silent type in his shadow.

Marko hadn’t moved, hadn’t dropped his attention and you were nervous to return it. Too likely to get caught up in something now that they were all leaving. You liked it, but it was still like mega nerve-racking.

Before you could work up the confidence to engage with whatever that was, the taller blonde slapped his shoulder, “I like this chick! She’s got some spunk!”

He made to push away from the vampire still comfortably leaning against the counter, but something had caught your eye. Without thinking, your hand shot out like a viper to grip his wrist before he could walk any further away, “Wait up!” Marko’s purr, or whatever that buzz he was coating you in suddenly sputtered out.

With everyone’s attention returning, you dropped the skin contact and made your way around the counter. Standing in front of him while quickly giving him a psychic once over. His tallness made it very inconvenient to look for the physical indicator of what you suspected. With a yank to his shoulder you spoke before you really thought how it’d be taken, “Bend down and show me your teeth.”

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arigatouiris · 5 years

Text

reserved only for you // bakugou katsuki

Author’s Note: Soft Bakugou is my life. Soft Bakugou is who he is okay? I really like this idea idk where I got it from, but I’m so glad I wrote it down. This is how I see Bakugou respond to a crush and if that crush like him back! Hope you like it!

Word count: 3046

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Gentle! Reader

Warnings: fluff, angst, soft kacchan

❝

You did not know how it happened.

You rushed back into your room, right after that, and shut the door behind you. Your dorm was dark, considering it was over 2 a.m., in the night. You let out a sigh before feeling how warm your face was, how erratically your heart was beating, how wide your eyes were and how your lips were quivering. Instantly, upon realizing these facts, your hands shot to your face and you let out a quiet squeal.

Bakugou Katsuki, your biggest crush for the past few months, had confessed to you.

The initial few hours after accepting a request such as this one sends anyone’s hearts to the skies, but you were fragile already. Katsuki didn’t exactly ‘ask’, it was more of a ‘demand’ but a softer one, one that you understood rather well. You felt your knees grow weak as you slid down on the ground behind your door.

Katsuki-kun... you grumbled in your mind, your face still red hot.

You could remember the very first time you met him and not feeling the same excitement. He was brash, angry even, and didn’t even meet you in the eye. Apparently, you were an ‘extra’—something he’d called everyone in his class already. However, it was Mina Ashido who had discovered that something lay beneath Bakugou Katsuki’s many layers, and as intrigued as you were, you intended on finding out exactly what that was.

Perhaps, the universe gave you a chance to do so by seating you beside him. Initially, it shocked you at how diligent he was as a student; he seemed the sort who’d never pay attention, who’d not give a damn as to what the teacher had to say. Instead, he went against each and every single one of your expectations and threw them in your face.

And you let out “You really are amazing, Bakugou-kun...” without realizing.

He looked at you, from the corner of his eye, half-annoyed, and half-amused, a look only he could pull off, before shrugging your words off and minding his own business. In Bakugou’s language, that meant he didn’t mind what you said.

Days after that became rather easy. You actually looked forward to class more and more, and you could even remember the first day you greeted Bakugou in the morning, shocking the rest of the class when he actually replied.

“Good morning, Bakugou-kun!” You chirped, sitting in your desk, looking at him with a sweet smile.

“Hey.”

Ashido instantly married you two off in her mind, Kaminari sulked in the corner that you seemed more excited to see a porcupine than a lovable battery, Midoriya did what Midoriya did best—he cried, and Todoroki found his books fascinating. Your growing friendship with Bakugou was something everyone noticed, but no one really thought it could lead anywhere.

The ‘die! die! die!’ boy whose primary focus was to be the number one hero didn’t have time for stupid little crushes or playing house. You told yourself this multiple times, yet, your crush never stopped growing in intensity. It was then you told yourself that it’s completely alright to have a crush on someone as unattainable as Bakugou Katsuki because it’s as if you had a crush on a celebrity like Hawks (who is a celebrity hero, and you did like him). Expectations took a backseat and this was something the whole class noticed—you’d greet him every day, but you wouldn’t approach him more so just because of your growing friendship. You didn’t try finding too many things in common, and you’d not try to keep a conversation going if it was fading out.

Your attempts at wooing Bakugou were null to zero—the whole class knew you were not attempting at anything. It was something even Bakugou noticed. He’d watch as you interacted with faculty members regarding the nature of your quirk, he’d notice how you’d interact with his fellow classmates, how you’d turn other boys down, how sometimes you’d stare at him while he did something absolutely mundane like reading or writing or even eating, for that matter.

Bakugou Katsuki knew what effect he had on you yet, he was impressed at your restraint. Maybe one day you’d burst and tell him about having a crush on him, maybe one day he’d actually get to turn you down—

He stopped at his thoughts. As he was writing, he paused... He blinked twice before analyzing from the corner of his eye at what you were doing. You were humming a soft tune, almost inaudible, and as Katsuki’s eyes traveled to your book, he noticed how you were completing homework. It was a free period, Aizawa-sensei was sleeping in front of the class, and there you were—instead of chatting or doodling or reading manga or some shit, you were completing homework.

It was a second after that did his eyes dart to your face. You didn’t have a smile exactly, but it wasn’t a frown either. Your hair sat so perfectly at your face, and he noticed when you paused—your eyes scrunched up just a little bit and you popped your tongue out before letting out a soft curse.

His eyes darted back to your book before noticing your sum. You had written down the right formula, but you were working on it incorrectly.

Clicking his tongue, Bakugou smoothly moved his pencil over to your book before raspily saying, “It’s like this.”

It was the smallest of movements, little to no significance. Classmates help each other out in situations like this one, but your heart couldn’t take it. Your eyes grew wide as Bakugou solved the sum for you, no curse word, no insult—just helping you, generously. You gulped before looking down at the book, trying to focus on the sum he was working on.

“T-Thank you...” You let out, knowing you sounded stupid.

He didn’t say a word but just nodded once before minding his own business again.

It was a few days after that did you notice something else. He yelled a little less often, he still cursed a lot—but his yelling almost ceased. It was as if the image he had built for himself was slowly fading; he was no longer angry Bakugou Katsuki but was unapproachable and serious Bakugou Katsuki who, in very, very rare moments, was nice and kind. He was trying to be something and it was a gesture almost everyone noticed.

“So Bakugou’s been rather... soft these days.” Sero brought up once, right in front of Bakugou.

You smiled at Sero, then looking at Bakugou who was at your side, before feeling a sweat drop at your forehead. You knew Sero was merely pushing the blond to react.

“Actually, now that you mention it, he has gotten quieter these few days. What’s up, Bakubro?” Kirishima asked, blinking.

“Is it because of a crush?” Ashido sang, bringing her hands together.

“Psh! Bakugou? A crush? Pigs can start learning how to fly before that happens.” Kaminari said, rolling his eyes.

“And what girl can like him anyway?” Mineta suddenly spoke, alerting everyone.

Even the gang thought what Mineta said was a bit rude. You initially just intended on sitting down there, not saying a word—letting them tease their friend. You knew in your heart Bakugou didn’t mind the teasing, he cherished his friendship despite being so aggressive, but Mineta’s comment threw you off guard.

“I can.” You said, shocking the entire class.

You were smiling at Mineta, a soft smile that sent shivers down his back. Everyone else merely stared at you as you said it so confidently as if you weren’t ashamed of it. No, it was quite evident that you weren’t ashamed of it at all, in fact, you wore this fact with pride.

“(y/n)-chan, you—”

You interrupted Kirishima and nodded, “I like Bakugou-kun. A lot. Let’s keep our rude thoughts to ourselves though, okay?”

No one could understand how confident you were at that second. It was a bit sad, seeing how you barely expected a response to your indirect confession—how you barely expected anything out of having feelings for Bakugou in the first place. It was as if you were crushing on a fictional character, but there he was, sitting right next to you.

“Oi, Bakugou! (y/n)-chan just said—”

“We have class now!” You said chirpily, before alerting everyone to Midnight-sensei who just entered class.

What you or anyone else in the class had failed to notice was Bakugou’s expression at your abrupt confession. He was wide-eyed, almost as wide-eyed as he was learning Midoriya’s secret. He couldn’t bear to look at you right then, he couldn’t bear to think of anything at the moment. He knew you were growing soft on him, but to think you’d stand up for him and say it like you owned it?

No, you did own it. Damn, you owned the stage so hard right then.

He felt terrible, though. He knew you didn’t approach him because he was focused on his hero training. He felt terrible because he couldn’t even give you even a slight bit of hope that he did in fact like you back—and you could, in fact, approach him and confess. Instead, you were swallowing your confession deep inside your heart, hiding it from him so that he could succeed. He clicked his tongue and frowned hard, and for the first time, he wasn’t sure what he had to do.

After school, Bakugou would usually train with his classmates. But, that day he wasn’t anywhere to be found. You wanted to find him and explain to him about what had happened—hoping that he didn’t take it the wrong way. There was no wrong way, you knew now you had to tell him what you were feeling and it wasn’t as if you were hiding it. You were more than happy to let him know.

But, maybe, liking someone had some sort of expectation attached to it as well. You felt your spirits lower down as time passed—tired of asking anyone and everyone if they had seen Bakugou. No one had, he had simply vanished—it was strange, almost.

Maybe, he’s just so done that he couldn’t face this... You thought before heading over to the dorm.

You shut yourself in your room and didn’t come out for the night. Mina called you out for dinner, but you couldn’t show yourself—not after what had happened. You texted her saying you weren’t too hungry and that you were feeling a bit ill. Mina understood right away and left you alone.

However, she had a bone to pick with Bakugou and she didn’t care if Bakugou Katsuki was a scary person.

You were the gentlest soul anyone had the opportunity of knowing. Learning how Bakugou had treated you—by not even acknowledging your confession. During dinner, Mina rushed to where Bakugou sat and slammed her hand on the table, not even alerting him.

“Bakugou!” She looked angry, a look that didn’t exactly fit Mina. “(y/n)-chan doesn’t deserve silence!”

Almost the entire class of 1-A watched as Mina reprimanded Bakugou, almost everyone expected him to snap and scream at her or try to blast her away. Kirishima was even ready to grab his friend away before any harm came her way, but what shocked everyone and even Mina for that matter, was how he just sat there and... took it.

“You... You... Bakugou...” Mina blinked, running out of breath.

He was quietly eating, or that was what Mina thought he was doing and the second she noticed his full bowl of rice, and the curry untouched—her eyes widened. She turned to look at her classmates and shrugged, knowing Bakugou wasn’t feeling himself either.

“Just...” Mina didn’t know what else to say, “Just tell her already.”

“I know, dumb alien.”

It was then everyone left Bakugou alone, almost surprised at how much he had changed the past few days. No one could understand why romance was so complicated for him, but it wasn’t just romance anymore. It had a lot more to do with how you understood things—the way you didn’t approach Bakugou. You had invariably put him first over yourself, which isn’t what people usually do.

This was the very thing Bakugou wanted to address.

That night, Bakugou decided to not head back to his dorm right away. He lounged on the couch, lying down on it, sitting on it, resting his neck on the armrest—nothing was comfortable. Was he expecting you to turn up? He wasn’t sure—he wasn’t certain you would come, considering how you hadn’t eaten dinner, he assumed you could come down for a snack but you were probably asleep too. He checked the time and it was close to 1 a.m., and he groaned.

What the fuck am I doing?

He rubbed a hand across his tired face before getting up to drink some water. Walking over to the kitchen, he froze when he saw a shadow.

“Please, please, please...” There was no mistaking it, it was you.

Bakugou didn’t turn on the light, but took out his phone and threw the torchlight at you, causing you to almost shriek but he instantly put his hand on your mouth, swallowing your shout. Bakugou’s eyes darted to what was in your hand, a jar of cookies—unopened, and you seemed to be struggling with the lid.

How the hell did I not notice her? Bakugou wondered before letting you go, once he was certain you wouldn’t scream. Must be that quirk of hers...

“You want me to open that for you?”

You gulped before handing the jar to him, “Yes, please. I have bu—”

“Butterfingers. I know.”

Katsuki could open it in one try, and you blushed at how easy he made it seem. You mumbled a small thank you before placing the jar back on the counter, taking one cookie out.

“Bakugou-kun, I—”

“Katsuki.”

Your eyes widened before feeling the blush increase, “U-Uh... Yes, okay... Um, Katsuki-kun, I... I wanted to explain what happened. You weren’t anywhere to be found after school and I thought I’d offended you. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not going to bother you with these feelings. They are my feelings and I won’t burden them on you.”

He was looking straight at you, your eyes had somehow adjusted to the quasi-dark setting of the kitchen.

“Why?”

“Heh?”

“Why won’t you,” he rubbed the back of his neck, finding this a bit hard to say, “Why won’t you, you know, burden them or whatever.”

“I mean, I was trying to—”

“They’re not a fucking burden.”

He looked visibly uncomfortable, and you hated yourself for doing that. Your heart went out to how hard it may be for him at that second and you let out a sigh.

“I’ve never tried hiding the fact that I like you, Katsuki-kun. You inspire me and you’re just very kind.”

“Bullshit—”

“You really are! I can fight you for it.” You giggled, sending his heart shooting to the skies.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Bakugou asked, feeling so vulnerable, he felt nauseous.

“Because I also want you to be the number one hero.” You said, smiling at him, tilting your head to the side.

A second later, Bakugou Katsuki did what Bakugou Katsuki did best—reveal what he felt through action. He walked over to you, his hand flying to your hand before pulling you closer to him. His other hand wound itself around your waist before pressing your form to his chest, embracing you in a tight hug. Your eyes were wide and his chin now rested on your shoulder. A second later, your hands pressed on his back and you could feel your heart pounding.

Actually, you weren’t sure if it was your heart or Katsuki’s.

“I’m not good at any of this,” He admitted, shutting his eyes, “But I really don’t find you annoying. Not one bit.”

You felt like you were going to explode. Was this his quirk?

“Katsu—”

“Let me finish, dumbass,” It was perhaps the first time he threw a half-hearted insult at you in days, “I’m not saying I’m going to do this... I’m saying... Fuck, I’m saying I’ll try, got that?”

Your grip on him tightened and you hugged him back tighter. Bakugou’s eyes widened with that gesture.

“You really don’t have to.” You said, softly.

“I want to, (y/n). I like you.”

When you two pulled away, Katsuki darted his eyes away from yours and looked at your cookie. You followed his gaze before letting out a small squeak and eating it in one go, causing the blond to rub your back and call you a dumbass.

“Katsuki-kun!” You whisper-yelled, “Does... Does this... Does this mean we’re—”

“I suppose it does.” He said, rubbing the back of his neck, not looking at you.

“We’ll go at your own pace!” You said, smiling at him.

Katsuki took one look at you before saying ‘tch’ and gulping. That was enough of an answer.

Which led you back to your current predicament, as you struggled to maintain your composure. You wanted to see him again—and oh god, you wanted to seal the entire deal with a kiss. You were half-terrified if Katsuki woke up in the morning and realized he wasn’t going to do this—which would never happen, he never went back on what he said.

You covered your face in your lap but almost shrieked when you heard a knock sound on your door. You quickly opened the door to reveal a red-faced Katsuki.

“Katsu—”

“Don’t fucking say anything.” He said.

“Say anything to what—”

In an instant, Katsuki leaned forward and kissed you squarely on the lips. It was awkward as if he didn’t have a clue what he was doing—neither did you, for that matter, but his lack of experience or previous interest was evident. Your right hand flew to his check and you held him, enjoying the feel of how soft his skin was. A second later, he pulled away, your hand still on his cheek.

You had never seen Bakugou so soft before. It almost broke your heart.

But, it was a sight only for your eyes. When you smiled at him, he knew and you knew—that Bakugou Katsuki’s softness was reserved only for you.

And there was no other way you’d have it.

❞

#katsuki bakugou #bnha bakugou #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #Katsuki Bakugō #bnha x reader #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #boku no hero headcanons #boku no hero imagines #boku no hero fanfic #mha bakugou #katsuki bakugo x reader #baku #katsuki #mina ashido #midoriya izuku

3K notes · View notes

ironmandeficiency · 4 years

Text

visions

pairing: plo koon / reader / wolffe

word count: 3291

summary: there’s a game you and plo will play sometimes during briefings that tend to alleviate some of the monotony. neither of you knew that your commander was force-sensitive and knew everything about the past-time until you and your husband offered him a place in your bed.

a/n: force sensitive!wolffe just kinda happened and was not even on the list of ideas for this fic, but i’m so happy i thought of it. it gets real wild real quick and only gets crazier from there. also, i accidentally wrote plo/wolffe in this so if it isn’t your cup of tea, i’m warning you now

warnings: inappropriate use of the force might as well be the title, implied masturbation (m), implied dick riding (f & m), ummmm implied threesomes

“could this be any more tedious? my patience is wearing thin.”

“they most certainly can get more tedious when you say things like that, dear.”

“oh, pardon me for wanting to reward my favorite general for his bravery on our previous mission.”

“a reward, hmm? maybe you could describe this reward to me to pass the time.”

wolffe hadn’t been more grateful to have his helmet since he lost his eye. four months ago the wolfpack was assigned a second jedi general and ever since you arrived on base, general plo has been happier than any of the men had seen him. at first wolffe thought it was because he was finally able to have the same camaraderie with one of his own that the men shared with each other. it was a simple explanation, one that made sense.

then he attended briefings with the both of you and quickly learned there was something much stronger than camaraderie between the two of you. he could hear the playful flirting, the endearing i-love-you’s, the scandalous dirty talk that had wolffe itching to remove his codpiece and slip a hand between the waistband of his blacks. he heard everything through the force, felt it vibrating through his veins all the same. it was that day he thought of the jedi with something more than professionalism for the first time.

weeks have passed since the two generals had enough opportunity to physically show their love and the tension between them was driving wolffe up a wall. it wasn’t enough that his brain had to work doubletime to hide his impure thoughts of his general’s riduur when the nights were lonely, but neither of them bothered to mask their sexual tension through the force because they simply saw no need.

he was losing his kriffing mind.

subliminal images of you riding the kel dor as if he were a racehorse flooded his head mid-sentence, the commander having to obnoxiously cough to cover up the moan that nearly escaped at the sight. your chest was heaving with every bounce and head thrown back in ecstasy, a slick sheen of sweat making you glisten. this was a new image for wolffe and it would be thoroughly enjoyed for months to come.

some days it astounded him as to the ability the two of you had to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was happening through your bond with each other. from what he’d seen, he was the only clone in the 104th that was force sensitive, judging at the way none of them visibly reacted when the generals were having telepathic sex. he had no other names for the sensation and there would be no way for him to ask either of you without raising red flags.

if you or plo found out that he knew about the conversations, wolffe knew there would be consequences. he didn’t know what they would be or whether they would carry over to his duty or to his brothers, but he decided long ago to carry this secret on his own. there was nothing to validate needlessly risking his brothers’ safety all because wolffe couldn’t keep his mouth shut. so keeping his mouth shut was what he did until he got to his private bunk and let himself imagine that it was him you were losing yourself to.

“wolffe, are you okay?” your voice was smooth like honey when you said his name, the concern permeating through the force.

he forced his voice to return to its normal cadence. “i’m perfectly fine, general. little bit of dust just got through the filters is all.” there was no suspicion from either you or plo at the blatant lie, which he was grateful for. this briefing was not the time to reveal his secrets like blacks hanging out to dry after laundry day.

the meeting continued as protocol for a few moments before the dirty talk picked back up, to wolffe’s both detriment and pleasure.

“what a shame our dear commander was losing breath to the dust instead of-”

“not here, dear one. leave our wolffe from our thoughts when he hasn’t consented to be there.”

“he can’t consent if the question is never posed, plo.”

consent? consent to what? wolffe was plenty concerned about what you two could possibly be implying and had to work extra hard to maintain his shields to keep from alerting the jedi to his worry.

“when we’re back on coruscant. he needs to rest before hearing what we have to say.”

“thank you, my love.”

at least wolffe had a timeline for when his fate would be sealed. with that last little bit of security to cling to, he continued with the briefing as if fear wasn’t burrowing into his chest the more time passed between now and arrival to the triple zero.

the arrival into coruscanti airspace thrummed with anticipation, the stale recycled air seeming to know how pivotal the next few hours would be. you had long been teetering on the edge of impatience when it came to the idea of being shared between your loving husband and dutiful commander. it was absolutely unreal how many times you and plo would be just about to bring it up and be immediately silenced by shit luck.

that wasn’t going to happen again, you weren’t going to let it. your patience has been tested for far too long in regards to this matter and even plo would get ruffled when the conversation was stalled yet again. you typically refrained from using the force to guarantee privacy (plo was better at it anyways) but today you were going to pour everything you could into ensuring that the nagging proposition would finally be given.

several hours passed before you and plo were able to free yourselves from the responsibilities thrust upon you both as members of the council. the ‘pack had long since been starting to unwind, many of them wandering to 79’s or to another battalion’s sector of the base to mingle. you looked to your husband, silently asking him to check his bond with wolffe to gauge his location. hopefully he hadn’t slipped to 79’s yet or else the evening’s plans would be tabled for yet another unknown period of time.

plo confirmed that wolffe was in his temporary quarters, thank the force. “is it time?”

“i think we’ve waited long enough.”

wolffe couldn’t believe his ears. he was stunned, his brain running on overdrive to even comprehend the severity of what he was just told.

he already knew that his generals were something more than comrades in arms and that they were secretly married against the confines of their order that they were leaders of. of course he didn’t tell him that he knew already, little gods no, there would be no explaining his way out of that one. there were intimate details about their relationship that he didn’t intend to know, that were just shoved through his mind; even though his shields were some of the most fortified of any clone, he had force bonds with the both of you that apparently ran deeper than he thought they did.

see, a normal force bond between a force-sensitive and a null were as such: a force-sensitive would only be able to project such vivid imagery with someone who was also force-sensitive, the null partner being able to only pick up the feelings behind the image rather than the image itself. when you two were having telepathy sex (and sometimes actual sex), you both took great care to make sure the feelings of the images didn’t leak into your other bonds. but wolffe? he could see the images clear as day and came to his own feelings about them. since you nor plo knew that he could see said images, you both thought you were getting away with something.

these were all things that wolffe knew, knowledge that he could confirm quite easily, information that didn’t betray him.

what had caused wolffe to short-circuit as if he were a measly droid was the way you expressed desire for both your husband and him. your words were beginning to meld together in his ears, none of it making sense. and how was general plo okay with this? he was listening to his wife talk about how she wanted to have sex with another man, a clone no less! most nat-borns would bristle and lash out at even the idea.

he had to get out for a moment, make sure this isn’t some strange and elaborate dream or advanced form of seppie torture. this couldn’t be real. it couldn’t be. so he made his way into his ‘fresher and splashed water on his face, pinched his arms, his cheeks, even nicked himself with the small razor he used to keep his face neatly groomed. every experiment led to the same conclusion: this was real and he was just invited to your bed.

a third in the bed of not just one, but two jedi generals. he, commander wolffe of the one-oh-fourth battalion in the grand army of the republic, was offered the opportunity to sleep with two jedi at once. two jedi that apparently loved him how they loved each other.

he could sense plo approaching him where he stood in the ‘fresher, the mirror being an extra giveaway to his presence that wasn’t particularly needed. “did we make you uncomfortable?” plo was very concerned over wolffe’s wellbeing and the way the normally composed soldier was losing the cool exterior he kept in front of nearly everyone he knew. it was a sight that unnerved the jedi when in the escape pod and when he lost his eye to ventress, and it had the same effect on him right now.

you moved from your seat on the corner of wolffe’s bunk and joined the men in front of the ‘fresher sink. “if this isn’t something you’re okay with, we can pretend this never happened and-”

“no,” wolffe’s voice was louder than he intended for it to be and quickly schooled his emotions before continuing. “you didn’t make me uncomfortable, i just-” a deep breath in through the nose and out through his mouth. maybe he should tell them here that he knows about all of the erotic conversations and images flashed through the bonds, but something stops him.

he decides to give you a small twist of the truth to hide his force sensitivity. “i’ve thought about doing things to you, things that only lovers do, and now that you’re here offering the chance, i don’t know what to say or where to start.” it isn’t like he was completely lying, he had plenty of thoughts of you when not in briefings that counted toward his half-truth. you just didn’t know where or when the thoughts first began.

plo approached wolffe slowly, resting a taloned hand on his shoulder. your husband’s tone washed waves of comfort over wolffe as he spoke, the kel dor’s low timbre having the desired effect. “we can help you with that, wolffe.”

“how?”

“let’s start with simple questions. do you want us to leave?”

“no,” wolffe gripped the feelings of calm sent his way in a vice grip to keep from erupting once more. “ not at all, ge-.”

the honorific being used in such a raw moment set plo off, the jedi’s hand gripping wolffe’s shoulder tighter in warning as he admonished the use of his senate-given title.“you will not address us by rank here in your private space. use our names just as we use yours.”

this was a side to plo that wolffe had never seen in person, this authoritative and borderline furious (and lustful? was his hearing okay?) dimension being unfamiliar territory. it stirred something in wolffe that was achingly familiar yet obscenely foreign; the feelings were similar to those he felt for you, but they ran deeper into a part of himself he didn’t acknowledge much.

it reminded him of the ache in his lungs as the droids began to take apart the escape pod, the unrelated catch in his throat at the way his general was so willing to do whatever it took to save his brothers. when wolffe was a cadet he bristled at the idea of belonging to someone he didn’t know, someone that didn't understand who he was or who his brothers were.

those apprehensions melted away as plo left the relative safety of the pod to defend him and the last two surviving members of their battalion. in that moment he was proud to say he belonged to plo, not just as his commander but as someone who had softened his edges.

this bond only grew the longer wolffe served under plo, and then wolffe met you and it seemed that his heart was capable of being shared between two people. two people that loved each other as deeply as the galaxy was wide. two people that would never hesitate to lay themselves down to protect their lover or their battalion, that treated every living thing with a reverence wolffe didn’t know someone could show.

those very same people were now at his sides, offering him a place of his own with them, space in their bed. and he was yearning for them both.

wolffe was sure of what he wanted. figuring out how he wanted to proceed was the easy part compared to articulating said want. inhaling deeply, he tried to form the words, construct sentences to flow freely from now parted lips. he spent moments trying to calculate the best way to convey the thoughts that led him to his decision but nothing sounded right in his head. he didn’t want to ruin the moment with poorly-chosen words or stumbling over his thoughts as if he were a bumbling drunk.

then a gentle nudge in his brain reminded him of a way to communicate with his jedi that didn’t need words. just his feelings, that’s all he needed right then. so he reached into the force and gripped those feelings like a cadet would a favorite older vod’s leg, and sent them towards the two people in this galaxy that he would do anything for.

wolffe’s silence was both relief and nervous impatience because there was no way for you to know what he was thinking. he had nearly impeccable shields that you had attributed to both his status as a commander as well as your husband’s fierce protection over him, having been the one to fortify them into something so formidable. it was a fortress you weren’t going to penetrate without either permission from wolffe himself or intentionally tearing at his protection, the latter something you’d rather die than even ponder.

he was taking his time with his thoughts, trying his best to not let his confusion turn to frustration and anger. you studied his form and debated whether taking his hand in yours was a good idea before noticing the way he was white-knuckling the sink, taking it upon yourself to save the fixture. the slightest whisper of his hand tightening around yours relaxed you marginally; at least he was acknowledging you despite his deep and almost painful-seeming concentration.

then you’re suddenly hit by something in the force you don’t recognize. they’re emotions, wild ones, and despite their barely-tamed nature they’re safety and devotion and trepidation and love, a love directed towards you that wasn’t from plo. his love for you felt different in the force, much more calm and peaceful after years spent together. this was from someone else entirely, someone who was new and inexperienced in these matters yet determined in expressing them, someone-

wolffe.

how was he projecting like that? only force-sensitives had the ability to transmit emotions like that directly through bonds, but yet it came close to knocking your feet out from under you with the strength. your eyes went to plo and you could sense his own surprise and confusion.

wolffe could feel the way his jedi were shaken by the torrent of his emotions washing over them and the guilt was instant. he turned away from the sink and began to apologize profusely but you silenced him before they could be heard.

his lips were supple and his skin flushed from the sudden closeness. it took the blink of an eye for him to reciprocate the kiss, the hand holding yours lacing your fingers together. you could feel his emotions double in strength through the kiss and the intensity would have taken you to the ground if it weren’t for plo moving to stand beside you.

there were many questions swirling madly through your mind but the most prevalent was “why didn’t you tell us?”

wolffe’s eyes shot to his feet, ashamed of keeping such a big secret from the two of you. “i… i see your thoughts during briefings,” he paused to gauge your reactions, whether he should shut up or explain himself, but he didn’t know which would be better. he felt waves of embarrassment from plo and… wait, you thought it was funny?!

apparently so, seeing as you were now laughing at the current situation, of all the reactions you could have had this was not expected.

if you didn’t laugh at wolffe seeing every dirty thought you’d sent your husband’s way during briefings there’s a good chance you would have cried. how long had he been having to pretend like he was okay during briefings?

you tilted the commander’s chin up and locked your eyes with his, slowly starting to let your feelings seep through your bond. “wolffe, just how much do you know about the relationship between plo and i?”

only a fool wouldn’t be able to sense the lust slowly creeping its way through the bond. plo clearly was beginning to feel it, if the taloned hand creeping along your waist was any indication. it filled wolffe with a confidence he hasn’t felt in hours, since the two of you mentioned him in your thoughts.

he decides to go with it. you and plo both have told him that he was wanted, so it wasn’t like anything bad was going to happen after he does what he’s about to do. wolffe leans in close to you, hot breath fanning along your neck as he begins to speak in a velvet husk. “i’ve seen enough to know how much you enjoy it when he drags his talons down your back, to know how eager you are to please him night after night,” a hot, wet kiss is placed below your ear and the hand holding his grips hard.

plo enjoyed the sight in front of him, watching you slowly starting to submit yourself to wolffe. but that wasn’t tonight’s goal; tonight was about the two of you showing wolffe how much he was appreciated, how deeply he was loved by the two of you. “you are right, she is always eager to please. but tonight is about you, wolffe. let us take care of you the way you deserve to be.” the kel dor glides a talon along wolffe’s jawline and enjoys the lust permeating the latter’s force signature.

your husband’s voice snapped you out of the trance wolffe had you under. he was right, this was about wolffe. so you took the hand he still held and guided him to his bunk, plo close behind. the next several hours were spent worshiping wolffe in all his glory, letting him learn the two of you just as you learned his body. it was the first of many nights spent holding your men as close as you could, knowing that duties would take them away come morning light.

#star wars reader insert #star wars fanfic #star wars imagines #star wars the clone wars #star wars #plo koon #plo koon x reader #commander wolffe x reader #plo koon x commander wolffe #commander wolffe x plo koon #plo koon x reader x commander wolffe #commander wolffe x reader x plo koon #would you look at the time! it’s loving plo koon hours #it’s loving plo koon hours

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haikyuuwaifu · 4 years

Text

Rockabye

Genre: Angst, Drama, Fluff

Warning: Swearing, Violence, Group Therapy Session

Masterlist

How They Met

Shoto didn’t understand why he had to be here, he didn’t know these people. He couldn’t really find it in him to care about them either. So he sat there, arms crossed staring blankly out the window. Silently counting down the minutes until he could leave. The chair next to him scraped across the floor as its new occupant sat down. He was blonde, and he was angry looking. With a snarl on his face he looked like he didn’t want to be here either. Next to him sat a purple haired boy; with severe eye bags. He didn’t look like he had a violent bone in his body. With scoff Shoto turned back towards the window.

Ten minutes later a man walked into the middle of the circle. “Hello everyone! My name is Michael and I’ll be leading these group sessions.” he stated, annoyingly chipper Bakugo thought, snarl deepening. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shinsou trying to hide a snicker behind the sleeve of his sweater. The dual dyed boy next to him looked just as put off by “Michael”. With a scoff Bakugo thought, that these stupid sessions would be entertaining, if the look of silent rage in the eyes of the dueled boy next to him was anything to go by.

It had been a full hour of session and all Shinsou wanted to do was gouge his own eyes out. He couldn’t fathom why all these people were actually here. One child’s parents enrolled him in anger management for saying “shit” one singular time. He couldn’t fathom what their lives were like if “shit” was the only form of anger they had ever shown. Rolling his eyes he focused them back on the counselor… “Michael”. What kind of name was that anyway? Michael...he looked like that weird guy from those halloween slashers his dad told him not to watch. A snicker beside him told him he had voiced his opinion out loud.

With a clap of his hands Michael finger gunned Shinsou. “Thanks for volunteering buddy!” Shinsou hung his head as the two boys to his right snickered quietly. With a sigh, he began. “Hello...My name is Shinsou Hitoshi and I have anger issues.” an echo of “Hi Shinsou” was bellowed back at him. “And what brings you to us today Shinsou?” Michael asked hand waving around the circle. “It was advised by my school counselor that I attend anger management or I get expelled.” Taking a much needed breath Shinsou started his story. “ Honestly, it wasn’t even my fault. I wasn’t doing anything but minding my own business taking a nap during recess.” he stated staring at his feet. “If it wasn’t your fault then you wouldn’t be here.” Michael stated matter of factly. “ Yeah, well if you could actually deal with adults then YOU wouldn’t be here dealing with a bunch of kids.” he huffed. Shaking his head, Shinsou continued; “ I was taking a nap, and these kids started poking me trying to wake me up. I ignored them, so they started throwing stuff at me...by this point I had already been woken up.” he mumbled. “I stood up to go somewhere else when one of them made a comment...about something they had no right to say. Then his friends repeated it.” turning to face Bakugo, Shinsou grinned. “ Then Katsuki came over and we beat the shit out of them. Cause that’s what those pussy’s get.” he crowed. Katsuki couldn’t hold it in anymore and busted out laughing. Michael seethed in annoyance.

“As funny as you two find this, some people are actually here to fix their anger problems...since your issues seemed to be associated together, we’ll get back to you Katsuki.” turning Michael motioned for Shoto to go next. Rolling his eyes he stood up. “I’m Shoto Todoroki, this entire thing is stupid and I had a justifiable reason for going into a rage.” He declared his voice completely null of emotion. “And what reason is that?” Michael asked with a sigh. “ Some kids were being rude to my best friend, and it is a known fact that absolutely NO ONE messes with Y/N.” he stated matter of factly. “ And Y/N couldn’t defend herself from the bullies?” Turning back to Michael, Shoto scoffed; “Clearly she wasn’t there when it happened; they said things about her that weren’t okay.” Turning to the folder in his hand Michael pried it open. “ According to your paperwork; it says that you dragged the biggest one by the hair across the black top, before slamming their face into one of the swing poles.”Shoto nodded, confirming that he did in fact do that. Katsuki and Shinsou looked at him thoroughly impressed. “ Then it says you went on to give him a wedgie so bad he urinated on himself.” with a shrug Shoto turned towards Katsuki and Shinsou. “What did you do?” Before they could answer, Michael interrupted, “ Has anyone recommended more than anger management Shoto?..There seems to be a lot of deep seeded issues here.” he muttered looking down at the paperwork. “Look hollywood slasher murder, it’s this simple...don’t fuck with Y/N and my siblings and I don��t fuck you up. If you can’t follow that simple rule, then that’s it.” he muttered, turning back towards Katsuki and Shinsou. “Now, I want to know how YOU handled it.”And from that session on Shoto, Shinsou, and Bakugo bonded over their shared love of anger and violence. Michael literally hated them and cried tears of joy when they “graduated”

@dabilove27 @abyssmium @amarillyis

#katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugō #katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki #hitoshi shinso x reader #shinsou hitoshi #shinsou x reader #bnha smau #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #bnha #smau

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #242: “EASY COME... EASY GO!”

April, 1984

“Okay Avengers, the party’s over!”

Being a buzzkill, party-hating Cover Vision!

Hmm. Something about this cover makes it feel like from an older era. The returned Mighty Avengers logo or maybe the inking? Or perhaps the Silver Age DC superdickery energy to it? I can’t put my finger on it but this feels like a cover you’d see in the 70s instead of the 80s.

Last time on Avengers: Well, they went to San Francisco for a two-parter where they fought Morgan Le Fey to save Jessica Drew’s soul. As ya do.

Vision has also been a tube boy after he walked into a null field. Starfox hooked him up to the Titan supercomputer and that didn’t fix him, it did overclock his robot brain and let him broadcast giant holograms of his own head. That’s almost as good.

This time:

Some guy: “HOLY GEEZ!”

An interesting note, this guy has only ever seen Quinjets in pictures and never thought he’d see one in person. Tells you how often the Avengers hang around Ottumwa, Iowa.

We start with the Avengers in mid-return from California.

In one of the Quinjets, She-Hulk is telling Starfox that she wished they could have spent more time before returning to New York so she could have shown him LA.

Starfox: “Ah, well... I’m sure another opportunity will present itself, She-Hulk! Besides, the scenery around her has plenty to offer!”

Wanda looks like she’s trying to astral project away from Starfox putting his hand on her shoulder but she’s really just distracted thinking about Vision.

The Avengers on the Jessica Drew mission radioed back to the Mansion that they were bringing Hank Pym home but Wanda suggested that Hank could examine Vision and maybe fix him. But Vision rejected the idea and Wanda is at a loss for why he’s determined to overcome his robo-paralysis on his own.

I’m also a little confused why they didn’t call on Hank Pym sooner to examine tube Vision but then again that would have been super awkward for Wasp and Reed Richards, that hack, said Vision should have recovered quickly.

Speaking of super awkward, Hank and Wasp are alone together in the other Quinjet.

Hank is also baffled that Vision turned down his help. He repaired him once before! Remember? He got super tiny and had a fantastic voyage inside him? In Avengers #93?

Jan comments that she hasn’t heard Hank sound so confident in years and he confirms that devoting his time fully to SCIENCE and taking superheroing off the table as an option has done wonders for his emotional outlook.

He also reiterates that he never felt cut out for the superhero life. Aw, enjoy it while it lasts, bud.

And he thanks her for calling him Hank instead of “Dr. Pym” like she did at the hospital.

Wasp: “Oh... That. Well, when you flew out at my request to help save Jessica Drew’s life... after all we’d been through... the divorce and all... I’m afraid I slipped into my stuffy Avengers chairwoman voice. I thought it might make things easier, but it didn’t... For either of us. I’m sorry, Hank.”

Hank Pym: “That’s okay, Jan. I understand. Your ‘stuffy chairwoman voice,’ huh? Heh-heh. How often do you have to use that?”

Wasp: “Wellll... Most of the time the others will go along with ol’ ‘dingaling Jan’ -- but sometimes, I have to get tough. That never fails to grab their attention!”

Hank Pym: “No doubt! Once, I was the only Avenger who knew how tough you really were! I’m glad the others are learning.”

Wasp: “I guess that none of us are ever too old to learn, Hank.”

Feels like Hank is rewriting some things in his memories since Jan often had to diminish herself to make him feel better but then again it didn’t always work so maybe the idea is that he knew all along how strong she was?

Either way, nice to see these two interacting so amiably.

Also, I like that she’s able to be an effective leader while still being ‘dingaling Jan’ since it doesn’t change how smart and capable she is. And the contrast if she has to get serious only helps.

I think overall I like that her leadership style is so uniquely her and that when her character was retrofitted to operate outside of being ‘Hank Pym’s partner’ she still remained recognizably her.

We have a whopping several women on the Avengers at this time (glorious) and Wasp, She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, and Captain Marvel all feel like different characters.

Since Vision declined Hank Pym’s help, Wasp drops him off back home in Central Indiana.

Once these two were husband and wife, friends and lovers. But they were very different people and, without meaning to, they hurt each other very much. Today, they have perhaps put a small bit of that hurt behind them. Today, they have again become friends.

Daaaaw. Friends.

Wasp returns to Avengers Mansion to discover there’s a full-on party going on. There’s even streamers and a Captain America who seems incredibly enthusiastic about streamers.

(In another fun bit, Monica knew about the party already because she flew ahead to the mansion before joining Wasp in the Quinjet after she dropped off Hank. And she was bursting to not tell Wasp what was going on as they landed.)

Wasp is even more surprised when she learns that the party is celebrating Hawkeye’s marriage.

Wasp: “Barton? You mean Hawkeye? Married?!?”

Hawkeye: “‘Fraid so, Jan! I’d like you to meet my bride... Mockingbird.”

Mockingbird: “How do you do?”

Wasp: “Oh... fine. You’ll have to excuse me. This is... quite a surprise.”

A reaction that Mockingbird says she’s getting used to because she’s seeing it from all of Hawkeye’s friends!

Hah!

Hawkeye asks Cap on the sly whether he made the right move, getting married, but Cap is very supportive, saying its the most responsible thing he’s ever done.

Hawkeye: “What?! Cap, you cut me to the quick! Haven’t I always acted in a mature, responsible manner?”

She-Hulk: “Look who’s talking... the man whose proudest achievement is the invention of the water-balloon arrow!”

Provided She-Hulk isn’t just making stuff up, there’s some serious off-screen shenanigans that we didn’t get to see, possibly involving Hawkeye shooting water balloons at She-Hulk all day.

But... CLINT. YOU INVENTED AN ANTI-GRAVITY ARROW!

Why am I the only one who remembers that?

Thor shows up at the party next, back from his own solo adventures, and offers his own congratulations to Hawkeye.

Mockingbird is undergoing some culture shock here, as she’s astounded that Hawkeye calls Thor “Goldilocks.” And when Thor turns his Thor charm on her, and blesses their wedding, she’s rendered briefly speechless.

Its fun that we get this side of her. I think she was similarly blown away when they met Cap on the subway.

But even though she was a SHIELD agent and then a freelance superhero, she doesn’t seem to have a lot of exposure to your Avengers types so Hawkeye pulling her into those social circles is a lot of fun.

She’s going to get used to it though. I know that she Avenges herself in the future.

Also, look at Thor’s flagon of mead. Holy shit. Its as big as his whole torso.

Jarvis is really dedicated!

Over in a quiet corner of the party, Wanda tries to convince Vision to let Hank Pym take a look at him but Vision dismisses the idea.

Vison: “Please, Wanda, let’s not spoil this happy occasion! Surprise parties are all too rare, and few of them are party to as many surprises as this one!”

And instead of explaining what he means, he turns his hologram off.

Well, okay.

AH HA HE WAS REPAIRED AND JUST DIDN’T MENTION

For reasons of surprise.

What a whimsical turn for the Vision.

Aw, that panel of them kissing and everyone cheering is sweet. That’s how I like to remember them. Not, err, later developments.

(I also like Mockingbird being confused whether or not he’s still a hologram because of his intangibility)

Everyone congratulates Vision for being bipedal again.

Vision: “It’s good to be moving, Jan. But my recovery shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise. As I told you a few days ago, it was just a matter of time before I isolated the cause of my body’s motor dysfunctions -- and initiated the proper repair systems.”

But he tosses some sweet cred to Starfox, for hooking up to an alien supercomputer. It’s like matchmaking but with networks.

The surprise of his surprise recovery pales compared to his next surprise, as he announces (without consulting Wanda at all, geez) that its imperative that she and him stay with the Avengers full-time.

All I’m saying is communication is important, Vizh.

And maybe you should have brought this up with Wasp too? She is the chairwoman and as Cap points out, the team is already pretty packed, especially with Hawkeye and Thor back.

Vision: “Yes, the ‘chairman’s privilege’ limit! But you’re not the leader now, Cap... the Wasp is! And she’ll just have to change that limit -- or the membership roster -- to include Wanda and myself! We will be needed in the upcoming emergency!”

Kinda dropping a lot of surprises on this surprise party, Vision! I don’t know if you really get the concept wholly? You’re not supposed to save up all the surprises for this one day.

Also, Vision’s speech bubbles have changed. They’re still rounded rectangles but they’re not yellow anymore and the font is a bit italicized. Hm. Wonder if that means anything.

Anyway, Vision announces that while he was a tube boy, he detected two major fluctuations of Earth’s electromagnetic fields by some “unknown energy of near-infinite power.”

He’s secretly been working with Reed Richards on this and neither of them have been able to track down what this nonsense is. But until this malevolent mystery is uncovered, he and Wanda as two of the more powerful reservists must obviously be active Avengers.

But how does he know its malevolent if he hasn’t been able to uncover what it is? Deductive reasoning and intuitive presentiment!

Pffffft.

I think this might be my favorite recent punchline from this book.

But Vision has more than just bad vibes to be given a frighten by this upcoming ominousness!

Vision: “The energy I detected goes beyond the limits of any known to man! The power flux showed on our screens for a mere fraction of a second, and then disappeared without a single trace. That concerns me... And it should concern all of us! If we cannot discover the source of this energy, there could be catastrophic consequences!”

And to show how seriously he’s taking this, he makes this horrifying face.

He looks like he’s trying to eat Wasp.

I do not care for this. Either the specific panel or the overall idea of someone eating Wasp.

Anyway, Vision and Scarlet Witch goes off to check the super advanced equipment he installed in the monitor room without asking anyone. He’s doing that a lot lately.

Wasp is both annoyed that he went over her head and impressed with his initiative in doing so.

But she has other matters to attend and asks Thor and Cap(tain America) head down for a private meeting with her.

And now the party is kind of over!

Yeah, you ruined it, Vision! You put too many surprises on the surprise party! You could have saved some for later!

Vision and Scarlet Witch went off to the monitor room. Wasp, Cap(tain America), and Thor went off to have an executive meeting. And Hawkeye and Mockingbird slipped away from their own party not long after that!

Leaving Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Starfox, and Jarvis to stand around awkwardly wondering where the party went. They didn’t even cut the cake yet!

Dammit Vision!

Hawkeye snuck out to the garden behind Avengers Mansion that’s been there all along. And Mockingbird followed to see what’s bugging him.

Hawkeye: “I’ve always loved this spot. Great tree, isn’t it? Ya know, it’s not easy to get an apple tree to grow this big in the city!”

But Mockingbird sees through that and asks what’s really his beef.

Hawkeye: “Aw, it’s just that I can see another membership shuffle in the works!”

Mockingbird: “So?”

Hawkeye: “So, I’m the one most likely to get bounced!”

I like the range of Hawkeye emotions here.

Hawkeye says that since he has a life (marriage) outside the Avengers now, he doesn’t mind so much being cut from the team. But if they’re going to be facing the latest and greatest menace of all times, he wants to face it with them!

Mockingbird: “That was pretty profound... for a guy who’s supposed to be a butt-head!”

Hawkeye: “Well, thank you, Mrs. Butt-head!”

Aww.

This is a fun bit too.

Mockingbird asks if Hawkeye wants to go inside and get some cake but he shoots an apple from the tree and offers Mockingbird one.

Pretty slick, Clint.

Over at the monitor room, Vision is really into monitoring whatever is upcoming. Super into it. So Wanda has to ask a question.

Scarlet Witch: “Darling... Are you sure you’re all right?”

Vision: “What sort of question is that?”

Scarlet Witch: “You’ve been acting so peculiar lately!”

Vision: “Wanda, how do you expect me to act? I’ve just recovered from spending what seemed like an eternity in a life support tube, able to move about only as a holographic image! Before that, my body was possessed by the dying sorcerer, Necrodamus. And that was almost immediately after I’d gone through the agony of losing an arm. Thankfully, the Inhuman scientists of Attilan were able to restore my limb. But you must admit we’ve both been through a score of trails these past few months! And now, I’ve detected something which could be the biggest menace we’ve ever faced! All things considered, is it really so surprising that I’m acting this way?”

Huuuuuh. I mean, he has a point. That’s a lot of shit in a very short time frame to endure.

This could very reasonably be a reaction to it all.

That’s a very unnerving smile though.

Over at the not-secret but private just Wasp, Thor, and Cap(tain America) meeting, Wasp, Thor, and Cap(tain America) are meeting.

Well, really, its more that Thor is recapping the tale of Beta Ray Bill for the other two. But we, the readers, just get an editor’s caption telling us to read Walter Simonson’s Thor (and I don’t need to be told twice) and Thor summing up to the salient point that Donald Blake is gone forever and is definitely never going to come back multiple times.

What Cap takes from this is ‘hey i hope that means you’re back on the team then!’ which Thor affirms.

Thor: “Aye, Captain America! Some of my finest hours have been as an Avenger. It would be the greatest honor to continue my service in your company... if you will have me!

But Wasp isn’t going to dump Thor from the roster!

Problem being, what the heck is she going to do with the roster? She doesn’t want to dump anyone off it, she doesn’t want to tell Vision to eff off, but she doesn’t want to lead an unwieldy team either. Six is a good number of Avengers!

I love Wasp’s note paper where she’s scrawled various roster ideas, clearly getting more and more frustrated with the exercise.

Cap suggests that maybe a temporary expansion would be the best move, if there even is a menace!

He’s somewhat doubtful of Vision’s story but wouldn’t you know it, as soon as he says that, the priority alarm goes off because Vision has detected the Ominous Energy Readings again.... IN CENTRAL PARK!

And lest anyone doubt Vision this time, an enormous and blinding flash lights up the Manhattan skies.

Cap: “I... believe you, Vision.”

Hah.

The Avengers head for Central Park with devices that Vision has created that will help them trace the energy but he could have saved the time.

There’s a big obvious structure that wasn’t there before. Odds are pretty good that that’s the anomaly.

Hmmm... Y’know, that structure looks familiar. As if I’ve seen it somewhere... But wheeeeeeeeeerre. I guess its a secret to everyone.

The sudden appearance of a large structure right after a massive flash isn’t even the weirdest thing going on. As Reluctant Science Guy Starfox waves around the detecting device, he realizes that the Ominous energy isn’t coming from the giant structure. It seems to be coming from everywhere. But it dips as you get closer to the structure.

Starfox posits that the energy is being focused on the ring from another location.

Curiouser and curioserer.

The Avengers poke around some more. Hawkeye calls attention to an arch built into the wall of the structure. It’s just real interesting. It’s super, incredibly interesting. Plus, the air is nice in the arch.

And it’s an arch. It looks like it’d be a doorway or tunnel to the middle of the structure but it doesn’t go anywhere.

Huh.

How fascinating.

She-Hulk, Cap(tain America), Captain Marvel, Wasp, and Thor join Hawkeye in the arch and agree that it’s a pretty interesting arch.

Perhaps this arch was made for them.

As soon as they join Hawkeye in it, there’s another blinding flash of light and those Avengers vanish in a curl of smoke.

Wow.

I can’t believe Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Captains America and Marvel, Wasp and Thor are dead.

Huh. And Wasp was just complaining about having too many Avengers!

Everyone is appropriately shocked by this, especially Vision because there were no energy emissions coming from the thing so it should have been inert.

Scarlet Witch and Starfox wonder whether the missing Avengers have been teleported somewhere, into some other story... or destroyed.

But before they can investigate the structure for clues, or see if it’ll strike again?, the whole thing vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

The plus side is that it makes Starfox lean toward ‘teleported’ which still doesn’t answer where the Avengers have been taken or who would do it.

If it’s the Collector again, I swear!

Here we go... Follow @essential-avengers because I thought I had more time! Oh geez, I don’t know how I’m going to handle this... Also, like and reblog because I like to think I do good work.

#Avengers #Ominous Energy #the Wasp #Captain America #Captain Marvel #monica rambeau #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #Thor #She Hulk #Hawkeye #Mockingbird #Starfox #Vision ruins a party but not how you'd think #Jarvis is the world's best butler #Everyone's shock and alarm that Hawkeye got married #frequent culture shock for Mockingbird #Essential Avengers #essential marvel liveblogging

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40sbarnes · 4 years

Text

Medici: Spymasters of Florence

Chapter 7: Gone For A Swim

Part seven! Sorry it’s a little late, I might edit it slightly in the morning I just wanted to post it! (Please excuse any typos!)

Also wanted to say tysm for all the support on previous parts! It’s really inspiring and it’s so overwhelming to see that people actually enjoy my work!

tw; mentions of blood

Parings; lorenzo x reader, (friends) francesco x reader

Tag list; @brynthebulldozer @mythicalamphitrite @nana035 @valravnsraven

Also credit to @heyrowena for making the cover pic for this chapter!!! It looks so profesional I’m in love anyways..,

The splash of the water quickly faded in with the rain pouring down onto the crashing waves. You remained at the end of the dock for a moment, studying the water, as if your victim would be reanimated by the water, and come back for revenge. Contrary to your imagination however, the rocks you'd desperately shoved into his clothing had been effective.

You took another deep breath to steady yourself. You were still soaked in his blood, although it was almost dried now, even beginning to flake on your skin. You had considered the thought of washing up by the ocean but you decided it was best to flee the scene while you still had the chance. It had to be just midnight, and the possibility of some drunkard seeing you wasn't null. Not to mention the literal blood trail leading to you. You had to think quickly, you didn't know whether someone would come looking for him, or if somebody already was. The Pazzi home was so close by, and you knew you could always seek refuge there, Francesco would never turn you away, but turning up at this hour, covered in blood, minutes after their messenger left, they'd have connected the dots by the morning, and you'd be joining the messenger by noon.

You considered just going home. It was your first instinct, but it was too far. You'd have to cross half the city, not to mention how most of your neighbours would be up at this hour. And the minute Pazzi started looking for information on tonight, they'd all be telling tales for the reward. There wasn't a real sense of community there. You knew a handful of holes in the wall within the city that you could hide out in, but you'd run into the same problem again.

There was one place you could go. It wasn't too far and you could dance around the outside of the city to reach it. It had decent security, sure you knew how to sneak by it but hopefully others couldn't. If anyone happens to track you back there, it wouldn't be an awful shock that it was to the Medici home, and it definitely wouldn't point them in the direction of y/n Bellondini. You began heading there, Lorenzo wouldn't be home anyways, he had made it painfully obvious he was going to Lucrezia tonight. You would have until morning to clean up and rest, and you could explain it to him then, when you had perfected your story.

This has all gotten so terribly out of hand so quickly. You were supposed to do a simple lift. Of a piece of parchment. How did it all go so wrong? You gritted your teeth as a steady stream of tears made their way down your cheek, slipping through the cracks in the blood.

You pulled your cloak tighter around your body, feeling the night as the adrenaline wore off and guilt crept in.

That man had thought he was making a simple delivery. He worked for the Pazzi's exactly as you did. Conversed with Francesco as you did. You wondered how close they were. If Francesco would grieve him. You took some solace in that you had only seen him in the courtyard the once. Although it's not as if you often crossed paths with other Pazzi spies. You didn't have a weekly catch up to gossip about Jacopo's new hair style. How much easier life would be if you did. The simple thought was amusing, until you imagined the man at the bottom of the ocean giggling over your bosses ponytail.

You quickly pushed the thought out of your mind, watching as the Medici home came into your view. Each of your footsteps became precise, your tears stopped falling. You couldn't imagine your fate if you were dragged into Lorenzos office by guards, let alone appearing the way you did right now. It probably wouldn't even be Lorenzo, perhaps his mother or brother, who had no motive to not turn you over to the authorities. You steadied your breathing, you were just raising your own anxiety levels. You were well able to sneak in, you had done it before. No matter how much Lorenzo liked to tease you otherwise, you were a good spy. Such a good spy, you murdered another one. No. You didn't have the time for this now. You did what you had to do.

The grass softened your footsteps as you snuck through the gardens outside Lorenzo's window. There was no one about, what with it being midnight and lashing rain. You skipped across the paths to reach the stone walls, reaching up to grab one of the protruding ones. The wet cobble made it much more difficult to get a proper grip, but you were determined. The sky kept pelting down on you and you climbed, ignoring all thoughts of exhaustion and weakness, willing yourself on. It took you almost double the time it usually would, but you reached Lorenzo's window, and desperately pulled yourself up onto the sill.

You sat there for a moment, collecting your breath, shaking as the sky continued to open itself onto you, the wind feeling harsher at this height. After a few seconds passed, you moved to open the window before freezing to death. You peered into the room quickly, knowing Lorenzo was probably already with Lucrezia right now, but just having the instinct to check. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the fire crackling in the corner, but no one was there. Thank the lord. Your fingers curled around the window frame, attempting to pull it open as you always did, to find it wouldn't budge. You tried to look at it from the inside, unable to get a clear view. It must've been locked. All your effort, to sit on a window sill. You glanced back down at the ground, unsure if you had the effort to make your way back down. Where would you even go once you made it down? You just wanted to close your eyes, they were desperately trying to get you to do so, but you knew you couldn't. Your brain searched for a solution, but you didn't know what to do. You let your head rest against the window pane, your knees huddled into your chest, contemplating just smashing the glass and praying for Lorenzo's forgiveness later. But that would make an awful loud noise... you were running out of options. Your eyes fluttered closed, you knew you couldn't fall asleep here, but you couldn't hold out any longer. A glimmer of light forced your eyes open. They focused on the door opening within the room, Lorenzo had entered. He quickly grabbed something off the desk, clearly having forgotten it, before going to head back out. Your initial instinct was to hide, to not let him know you had failed so badly, but you knew it wasn’t an option right now. You couldn’t choose your pride over your life. You mustered all your energy to knock measly on the glass. Lorenzo froze in his tracks, unsure of what he heard, until you knocked again, this time with more force. He turned, and saw you sitting on his window. He closed the door instantly, shocked, and crossed the room to unlock the window. You tried to move to climb in, his arms moving to your waist to lift you in as you did.

You fell inside, straight into Lorenzo’s hold as he helped you, your hood falling as you burrowed your forehead into him, both of you kneeling on the ground by the window, the rain trickling in. It was as if you crumbled completely beneath his touch. Finally feeling safe enough to do so. You forced yourself not to let any more tears fall, already feeling weak enough. Lorenzo simply held you for a few moments, as if he could feel how badly you needed it.

You pulled back, Lorenzo still holding your arms, “What happened?” He took in your state fully.

“I’m sorry,” you instantly began with, not looking into his eyes, “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Y/n,” his hands moved to hold your face instead, forcing you to meet his gaze, “where are you hurt?” His eyes scanned your blood-covered body, looking for a wound he wouldn’t find.

“It’s-“ You sighed, watching as he continued his search, lifting your hand to sit atop his on your cheek, “it’s not my blood.”

Lorenzo froze, staring at the floor beside you, deep in thought. “Good,” his eyes flashed back to yours, as he gave you a flicker of a smile, “what did you do?” His voice had lost any hint of softness, and you remembered who you were dealing with.

“The messenger...” you chose your words carefully, “attacked me,” you lifted your chin to the ceiling, hoping the choke mark was still visible beneath all the blood. Lorenzo’s hands fell to your sides. “I had no choice,” you croaked out, your mind taunting you with the thought of whether or not that was the truth.

Lorenzo stood up, turning away from you, uncharacteristically quiet. “You killed him?” He asked, peering over his shoulder to gage your reaction. You nodded ever so slightly, dropping your head afterwards, as if you were hearing the news yourself for the first time.

Lorenzo’s footsteps padded across the oak floors, until you heard the door creak open. He’d left you. He was going to tell everyone. You shouldn’t of trusted him. You spun to face the window, the rain pouring down even stronger than before. There was no way you made that trip safely. What did you do?

The door opened again, and Lorenzo was back, with a bowl in his hands. Your eyebrows furrowed, he hadn’t gone to yell your crimes to all of Florence? He set the bowl down beside you, before kneeling in front of you. Without a word, he reached into the dish, which you could now see held water, and pulled out a piece of cloth. He rinsed it, letting the majority of the water drip back in, before lifting the fabric to your face, gently prodding at the blood. You despised how you leaned into his touch. His other hand positioned itself under your chin to hold you steady. You closed your eyes, not being able to look at him. This was certainly not what you expected from him. The soft crackling of the fire was the only noise in the room for a few moments.

“I got it,” you spoke up, desperate for him to not view you as a complete failure.

“Hmm?” He stayed focused on washing your face.

“The message,” you reached to retrieve it to give it to him.

“Thank you,” he took it from you and placed it behind him. His lack of interest almost offended you, but you caught yourself, as he refreshened the cloth in the water.

“Where is he... now?” Lorenzo questioned tenderly.

“Swimming,” you replied instantly, your voice steady as you kicked his lifeless body off the dock all over again. Lorenzo let out a light chuckle, before moving down to dab at your neck. You winced without thinking.

“Sorry,” his movements became much more gentle, you couldn’t believe how he was acting so kind.

“It’s fine,” you assured him, tipping your head back slightly to make his job easier. You readied yourself now, willing yourself not to flinch. And you didn’t.

“No one saw you?”

“No one.”

There wasn’t much to clean after that. It was all over your dress and cloak, but on your actual skin there was just your arms left. He brought your hands into the bowl to clean them, both of your attention being brought to his ring which you still stupidly hadn’t taken off. You gently took the rag off of him, finishing rinsing your hands. He smiled, although there was no happiness in his eyes. He got up once again, heading for his wardrobe, pulling out one of his undershirts.

“I’ll get you something proper in the morning, but you can sleep in this,” he passed the garment to you.

“Thank you,” you graciously took it from him. You knew he had to do all this, so he wouldn’t suffer the consequences when people found out who you were working for, but he didn’t have the usual bitterness he carried around you. It was strange, but you invited it. He picked up the bowl off the floor as you slipped your cloak off, moving it to his desk, turning away from you. “Two nights now in my room, y/n, people will begin to talk,” he teased, still looking away from you. You took the opportunity to change, although Lorenzo didn’t face back until you spoke.

You moved past his comment. “What of my clothes?”

Spinning to meet your gaze, he took the aforementioned clothes from where you’d dropped them on the floor. “I hope they weren’t your favourite,” he huffed before tossing them into the fire. You watched as the flames struggled to catch them, until they were fully engulfed.

“Get some rest,” Lorenzo tilted his head to the bed.

“I really am sorry,” you promised him, he had been too kind to you, you didn’t trust it, you had expected a far harsher reception.

“It’s as you said, you had no choice. We’ll talk more tomorrow. For now, rest.” He spoke calmly.

You just nodded in gratitude, climbing into the soft sheets for a second night, your mind wandering as soon your head hit the pillow. You wondered if he was just rushing you so he could go meet up with Lucrezia already. You had certainly made him late. Or if he was waiting to suffocate you in your sleep. You shouldn’t of slept either way, but you couldn’t help it. Exhaustion was too quick to take over, your body desperate for a moment of relaxation.

In your last moments of consciousness you wondered how long it would take before Lorenzo left you, rushing to Lucrezia, choosing her. Although, it didn’t take him any time, as he didn’t do it. He stayed there, sitting on the same chair as the night before, all night. He chose you.

#daniel sharman #daniel sharman x reader #lorenzo de medici #lorenzo de medici x reader #medici #medici fic #medici: masters of florence #medici: spymasters of florence #francesco pazzi x reader #francesco x reader

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sailingintothenight · 4 years

Text

“WANNABE.” T.H. Imagine.

And what if after years of chasing each other like a cat and mouse, you and Tom started to wonder if you wanna be something else in each other's life?

A/N: I am posting a one shot after weeks of writer's block. I hope you like it. It's 9:30 pm in Peru and it's still April 28, so it's still my birthday! Give it a try. Pleaseeeeee! And yes, I borrowed a scene from Mean Girls (Because I loveeee that movie)

“Hello God, it's me again, (y/n). What's up? I know we haven't talked much lately, but, hey, listen, I have a favor to ask you- I have behaved well, I haven’t gotten drunk at any crazy party of any Hollywood star and I haven't accepted drugs, ever: I'm afraid my grandmother will appear in my room as a ghost and pull my blankets in the middle of the night, plus, I haven't make out with any Stone-cold Hollywood hottie, and trust me, I've had more than one chance. Anyway, about the favor–”

"Yes, but (y/n)'s grandfather invited us to his birthday party..."

Tom's voice startles you and cuts off your internal dialogue, turning you back to the reality.

It’s 6 am. The sun shines in the clear sky, and you are on a flight back to England in a luxury privet jet that is about to arrive at the airport, while Haz, Harry, Tom and you are sitting in comfortable velvety seats, with the view of morning sky on your left side.

The exciting memory of your last recording still seemed to run through your veins, too exciting to let you sleep. Because that was the end, the goodbye after incredible months. All your efforts from the past months were hidden behind that last performance that looked like a fantasy, except for the kiss, ugh, you had to erase it from your mind. But now, you're going back home, ready to take a break away from the set-up bridge and blue and green backgrounds, away from the makeup artists who gave your face the final touches of the magic of Hollywood, far from the suit of a superhero who had just won her last battle and who got the cute boy, Peter Parker.

But not far away from Tom Holland.

Because evil takes a human form in Tom Holland, your lifelong neighbor.

How do you even begin to explain Tom Ho– Stop, people say that if you pronounce his name 3 times a curse falls on you.

But fans say Tom Holland is flawless, you heard his curly hair is insured for 10,000 dollars, his favorite movie is “Spider-man Homecoming”, duh, and very soon, “far from home”. One time he met Robert Downey Jr. in his own village and he started hyperventilating, and once he threw a fan's phone on the floor and she said it was awesome.

"Please don't tell me you're going to his birthday party." You complain, because you can't help it.

"Would that bother you that much, darling?" Tom smiles, tilting his head back so that his tender smile fits perfectly with his tender face. “Then of course I will go. Also, your grandfather still has the hope his granddaughter would get a man like me.”

"Ew. Why would my dear grandfather want me to be with someone who enjoys keeping a frog in his mouth?" You ask, earning yourself an Oscar for best actress with the innocence you exude and the seriousness you manage to put on your face, even when Tom's eyes narrow from the attack you just launched, while, enjoying the show, his friend and his younger brother laughs, shaking heads with a familiar expression on their faces because of the familiar discussion between you and him that happens, every two or three days. "Seriously, Tom, give the poor Henry a break."

"Henry?" Tom asks with real confusion, his accent thick, while the other male voices ask it in a collective whisper too.

"I named your frog Henry, hope it doesn't bother you." And you laugh, victorious to feel how Tom exhales the air through his nose.

“Seriously, (y/n), when will you confess that you are in love with me? You don't have to be so shy, darling.” Tom laughs too, using his finger to tap your nose, because he knows perfectly well that you don't like that, just as you don't like being called darling anymore. “Ray is a wise man, you should listen to your grandfather."

"Yes, if you like skinny ones."

"I'm not skinny. I have the perfect body.” Tom defends himself.

"For now, but in a couple of years you will named your big belly as your dad does after drinking with mine." You laugh like a little girl because you love Dom, because he's warm and funny, because he loves his wife and children, and because of how funny he is when he and your dad have had too much alcohol, like the time they started a cartwheel contest in the middle of the street. "Who's there? It's Dom Junior.”

"Shut up! My dad is still sexy!” A heavy silence falls over the small place as everyone looks at Tom with furrowed brows and true confusion, but that's when he realizes the choice of words he used to refer to his dad. "That's not what I meant!"

You raise your hands in a sign of peace, your gaze avoiding his as you stop yourself from laughing and mocking him.

"That's so wrong, Tom." Harry says, with a certain bittersweet taste on the tip of his tongue. "Now because of you I won't be able to see dad's belly the same way."

Harry and Haz chuckle at Dom's expense.

But when the jet landed smoothly on the headlight-lit runway in the early hours of the morning, the heavy hours from the past months feels now as if they weighed the same as a feather, pain and exhausting sleepless nights disappeared in the blink of an eye, and now, there is no oceans that could make you feel far away, because in the end, you always came back home.

"Besides..." You say to finish that conversation, your backpack on your shoulder before making the victory path towards the stairs to get off the plane. "I would like a boyfriend who can grow a mustache, not like the failed attempt on your face. Thank you very much."

"Hey!" Tom frowns as you pass him by, and his voice rises even higher than it already is. "My doctor says it's just a hormone problem."

"Damn, bro..." Harry laughs as he puts an arm around Tom's shoulder, giving him a brotherly hug before walking out to the car waiting outside. “(Y/n) will be hard to catch, you know? But try it, maybe you will make it in this century."

Harry laughs, and then, walks out of the plane.

"What does that mean?" Tom asks Harrison, who is still waiting by his side.

"I think he meant that you are in love with (y/n), but you haven't noticed it yet."

Harrison chuckles, but after patting Tom on the back, he rushes to place a hand on his best friend's shoulder to stop him.

“Hey, mate… you, uh…” Tom's eyes soften, almost to the point where his brown eyes resembled the gaze of a little 5-year-old boy, sad, and lost. “You haven't told anyone why we came back, right?”

“Of course not.” Harrison says, and his gaze smiles just like his lips. “Don’t worry about anything, okay? We are home, you are home. You can take the time you need to rest.”

Tom nods, unsure, but tries to be strong as they both get off the plane.

The gray autumn clouds hang with invisible strings in the sky as Tom Holland, actor, handsome, wealthy, and the loneliest person in the world, releases a deep breath that is lost among the sounds of the world, because his world is no longer sparkling or velvety thanks to the cameras or a red carpet, and while his new movie is a box office hit that never in his best dreams he would have imagined, something wasn't right for him.

That’s why he is back home.

The car ride is silent as some sleep, except you and Tom, because your eyes seem to recognize the streets you grew up in, because your hearts recognize your home. But for Tom, he recalls tilting his body to the left and a camera captured his best actor pose a week ago, but since then, his body has felt null, as if floating in the air and no longer responding to his orders. He was crystal clear, but a few people seemed to see clearly through him. Tom tries to convince himself that the tickling in his hands is his body's response to tiredness and not his anxiety, because he suffers it too, but he feels that something is eating his soul.

"Are you okay, Tom?"

Among a sea of people, Tom Holland has always pretended to be an interesting person, but now, he takes a deep breath and looks at you, nervous, lost in the middle of that huge world, but you, looking back at him gives him peace, because he doesn’t feel alone anymore.

What did you think? That someone is interested in knowing if you are really okay? Of course they care, right?

“Of course, darling.” Tom smiles, as if in a snap of fingers, everything is fine.

But there, he catches a movement of yours.

You tilt your head to the side, like his beloved Tessa when she is curious about something, but he doesn't say it out loud because you would take it the wrong way, but the movement in slow motion worthy of a Hollywood scene and the serenity of your gaze makes Tom hold his breath, that breath that previously didn't fit his chest with so many problems that he carried inside.

But suddenly he can breathe again, finally.

“Okay.”

The minutes pass until the car stops on a street that you two recognize perfectly. When everyone is out, the car leaves, but because your favorite boys are about to leave, too, you hug everyone as the promise to celebrate Harrison's birthday next week hangs in the air. You love them so much, because they are beautiful people who helped you to save yourself from the storms of doubts and fears, each of them in their own charming way, and for that, you were grateful.

"My friend Danielle is coming so I would like you to meet her, Haz." You chuckle adorably before leaving, noting that Harrison's smile is as real as his desire to meet her.

"I'm looking forward to it, darling."

"Wait, why he can call you darling?" Tom says, and for a second, you see a sparkle in the brightness of his eyes, but as the door of his house opens and his beloved Tessa runs to receive him, the confusion disperses like the morning haze.

"There she is the only darling you will ever get, Thomas."

And the moment you turn around, because the door of your house opens too, you lose sight of Tom's honest smile and the question that he hides behind his sweet eyes. Was he in love with you all this time without realizing it? And what if he wanna be your boyfriend?

Oh, right. The favor that you were going to ask God for? To get you a boyfriend, a cute one, a hot one... maybe like Tom. Weird, isn't it?

Tag list: @galaxies-of-the-heart

#tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fluff #tom holland spiderman #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Scandal Scandal

Adrien is willing to put up with a lot if it means not making unnecessary waves. But everyone has their breaking point, and after Lila pushes a bit too far....

Well, she'll find that even the most tolerate cats have claws.

links in the reblog

Two months after the start of their agreement, Adrien was getting really, really tired of Lila.

At first, it hadn't been awful. Sure, she was clingy and annoying and manipulative and attention-seeking, but Adrien could tolerate her presence at his photoshoots. His photographer seemed to pick up on the fact that Adrien didn't like Lila hanging over him, and so he always made sure to pose them in positions that weren't touching, not giving Lila any ground when she tried to cajole him into putting them in closer positions. Adrien was used to putting up with unwanted attention, too, so that was hardly new.

But Lila wasn't so easily deterred. She would cling before and after photoshoots, pushing at Adrien's boundaries almost all the time. The constant suggestions that they should work on their homework together afterwards at his house- always approved by his father, if he happened to drop in on the photoshoot and overhear Lila's suggestion- were irritating, and Lila was always far more of a hindrance than anything else during their study sessions. On top of that, he had finally had to refuse to let her in his room, because she didn't seem to understand the concept of no snooping.

(Thank goodness for the Gorilla being firmly on Adrien's side, or else Lila probably still would have tried to drag Adrien up to his room to do their homework.)

Adrien always ended up having to stay up late those days to actually finish his homework and do his studying. As one of the city's superheroes, he shouldn't be doing that. He needed his sleep, and he needed to be able to get his homework done in a reasonable amount of time in case of an akuma attack.

But they were at an impasse. If Adrien didn't keep publically acting as though Lila were his friend, then she would start targeting Marinette at school again, and he couldn't let that happen. Adrien was worried that if he pushed back too hard when Lila pushed at his boundaries, she would consider their "agreement"- that she wouldn't try to get Marinette in trouble and that he would (at least publically) pretend to be her friend- null and void and go after Marinette again.

It was a frustrating place to be in, and Adrien's patience was fast wearing thin. His tolerance for Lila- for acting like they were friends of any sort, for ignoring it when she snagged him close for the sole purpose of pressing a lip gloss-sticky kiss to his cheek for a picture to post online, for even being near her- had gotten worn down to the point where Adrien was starting to wonder about looking into other solutions to the Lila problem.

And then Lila went too far.

There had been rumors about them before, of course. Lila's sudden constant presence at Adrien's photoshoots hadn't gone at all unnoticed, and the fact that they sometimes left photoshoots together- when Lila and Mr. Agreste forced study sessions on him- had only added to the rumor mill. The rumors had never been addressed, though.

Until now. Lila had apparently been approached, and she had decided to confirm to a reporter that she and Adrien were a couple. The news had zinged across the city, and Adrien had found out on social media that he was apparently one-half of a couple that he had never agreed to being part of.

And he. Was. Fuming. His patience was gone, snapped, the last strands so far gone that he couldn't even see them anymore.

"If she thinks that I'm going to keep playing along, she's wrong," Adrien told Plagg, pacing back and forth in his room. "She probably thinks that I'll just lie down and agree to play along, but this is too much. It's too far. I'm not- the very idea of being in a relationship with her makes me sick, after what she tried to do to Marinette."

"Some of your fans want you to have a photoshoot where you kiss," Plagg said unhelpfully, scrolling through Adrien's phone. "Or an announcement photo, because they think it would be cute."

Adrien tried not to gag at the thought and snarled instead. "Not happening. Not. Happening." He sighed. "At least Marinette knows why I've been letting Lila come to my photoshoots. Otherwise, I bet she would be feeling pretty betrayed and I don't- I don't want her to feel like that."

Plagg zipped around his head. "Are you going to just ignore the news, then? If your actual girlfriend knows the truth, it doesn't matter what the rest of Paris believes?"

"No way. If I don't stop Lila now, she's going to expect that I play the role of a boyfriend all the time, even if it's not true." Adrien scowled into the air, then the second part of Plagg's words sunk in. "And Marinette is my friend, Plagg, not my girlfriend."

Plagg only sniggered. "So you always say."

Adrien rolled his eyes at his kwami. This was not the time, really. He had too many other things to worry about-or, well, only one thing, really, and that was Lila's lie.

If Adrien didn't want to be forced into playing along, he would have to act. He hadn't wanted to before- confrontation normally wasn't his thing- but now...

Determined, Adrien headed for the door, a plan already starting to take shape in his mind. He was at least a bit famous, and the news about him dating was fresh and apparently exciting. That meant that if he could get outside, he would no doubt be approached by someone- a fan or a reporter, it probably wouldn't matter in the end. They would no doubt ask him for a statement and he could refute the news then, and it probably wouldn't be long before that news spread and got some attention.

Hopefully.

Partway across the atrium, Adrien paused when he heard his name come from his father's office. Curious, Adrien crept closer, crouching down behind a column and listening.

"-not what I anticipated her doing," his father was saying. "But I can't say I entirely disapprove. We'll have to give Adrien instructions to go along with it, anything else will just end up with a lot of backlash and bad press. A couple months of dating minimum, I'd say, depending on how reliable Miss Rossi is."

Adrien's stomach dropped. No, no, no, this wasn't what he wanted happening! He- he couldn't stomach fake-dating Lila, he really couldn't. Surely his father had picked up on how uncomfortable she made Adrien. Or if his father hadn't, Nathalie-

"Shall I tell him now?" Nathalie asked, cutting that thought off mid-sentence. Adrien could hear her take a step towards the office doors. "I can run up before the meeting."

"No, it can wait," Mr. Agreste decided after a heart-stopping pause. "We've neglected preparation for this meeting, so we need every minute. Adrien isn't going anywhere, and if he's doing homework as he's meant to, he won't find out about what Miss Rossi said until later anyway."

"Understood, sir."

Adrien had heard enough. As soon as the conversation had turned away from him and towards their upcoming meeting, Adrien made a break for it as silently as he could. Across the atrium, out the door, catch it before it could slam, close it carefully and then run down the steps and out the gate. Adrien glanced back for a second, hoping that he hadn't been seen and wasn't being followed, and then dashed for the park near the school.

If he was seen before he could talk to anyone, it would all be over. Adrien would be forced into dating Lila and wouldn't be able to do anything about it. If he tried, his father would know that Adrien had directly disobeyed orders and would be absolutely furious.

Thankfully, Adrien didn't have long to wait. Within minutes of him arriving in the park, Madam Chamack materialized practically out of thin air and approached him with an eager smile. Behind her, her cameraman and sound person were trotting along, trying to keep up. She made a beeline towards Adrien, no doubt very interested in getting the scoop on his formerly-secret relationship before anyone else did.

She was going to get a scoop, all right. Adrien was still too furious at Lila's manipulation and his father's plans to dictate his life even more to have any sense of filter anymore, and he was going to absolutely rip apart all of her lies and firmly slam the door on any chance of him being forced into a relationship with Lila.

"Adrien! We just heard this morning that you and Lila Rossi are dating!" Madam Chamack started, beaming at him in a way that was probably meant to look friendly but came off as more feverishly over-eager. "Congratulations! We would love to hear more about how you met, how you got together... I was wondering if you had a minute to spare to chat a bit?"

"Certainly," Adrien said politely, flashing his own smile. It was a little dangerous, a little too full of teeth. "And actually, Madam Chamack, that news was a surprise to me, too. I never asked Lila out, and even if she asked me, I would never agree. Lila is a selfish, intolerable, manipulative serial liar, and I only tolerated her to protect my friends."

This time, Adrien wasn't going to hold back. Lila had pushed him to a breaking point that he hadn't even known he had, and the kid gloves were coming off, and coming off hard.

Lila had wanted to be famous, and over the past couple months, she had gotten her wish. Now she was going to learn the hard way that sometimes, there were downsides to that fame.

Ten minutes later and no small amount of questions and explanations later, Madam Chamack had thanked Adrien and went on her way with her cameraman. To the best of Adrien's knowledge, the interview had been live, and Lila would no doubt be feeling the effects of her empire crumbling around her ears shortly. Adrien had torn her apart to the point that, unless Mrs. Rossi lived under a rock, there was no way that she wouldn't hear about Lila's lies shortly.

Everything had come out. All of Lila's lies that she had told about her life, all of the disabilities she had claimed to have, the incident where she stole his father's book from him and then threw it in the trash (which he had learned about several weeks earlier after finally asking Marinette how she had learned about Lila's lies), all of her attempts to manipulate students and teachers alike to get what she wanted, the months of "traveling" that she had supposedly done during the school year, the charities that she had supposedly founded, her blatant disregard for his personal boundaries and insistence on hanging off of him and forcing unwanted kisses on him, the attempt to get Marinette expelled and how that led to Adrien cooperating with her in order to get his friend's name cleared.

Madam Chamack had looked torn between absolutely shocked and absolutely delighted to get all of the information. It was a real scoop, and it was bound to get her a lot of viewers.

Which was exactly what Adrien had wanted. More people knowing the truth meant that there was less chance of Lila getting away with anything like she had been pulling before.

In one final fit of lingering anger, Adrien had called out the adults who had fallen for Lila's lies- the teachers and principal, mostly, but part of it was aimed at his own father. All of them were supposed to be protecting him and Marinette (and their other classmates, too), and they hadn't. They had sat by and not followed procedure for expulsion (which Adrien had looked up after that incident, in case Lila decided to try again) and not checked out Lila's claims at all or stopped Lila from hanging all over him or- or anything.

Adrien was pretty sure that he would regret at least part of what he said later, but he was just so angry about- well, everything about the whole situation- and he had just remembered Marinette's frustration and all of the comments Plagg had made about Lila, and everything had come out in a rush.

Still stewing, Adrien glanced around the park. There was no Gorilla in sight yet, which meant that his father and Nathalie were probably too busy with their meeting to notice Adrien's absence or what was bound to be a sudden and even larger spike of activity in his hashtag. That was likely to not last for long, though, which meant that Adrien should probably consider leaving the park.

Where he should go, though, Adrien wasn't sure. The school was closed for the weekend, and he didn't really want to deal with Chloe's clinginess, either, and the library was a little too far for him to be able to go without getting caught.

Before he had too much time to think about it, Adrien spotted Marinette across the park, hurrying towards him. He headed towards her, eager for some decent company, and then let out a surprised yelp when Marinette didn't even slow down, positively barreling into him to wrap him up in a hug.

"I saw the broadcast!" Marinette told him at once, beaming up at him. "And so did everyone else in our class, I think- my phone is positively blowing up with notifications, and- Adrien, you're shaking!"

Was he? Adrien refocused on himself, and- yep, Marinette was right. Now that the adrenaline high was wearing off, the full impact of what he had just done was setting in. There were going to be so many people hurt and confused and angry and his father was going to be furious, Adrien knew it already, and-

"Okay, let's move inside," Marinette decided, linking her arm through his and gently tugging Adrien towards the bakery. "Then there won't be anyone approaching you, and I'll make a cup of tea and Maman can bring up some croissants or a baguette or cookies."

Adrien let himself be led, more than willing to follow Marinette. They headed across the park, into the warmth of the bakery, and up to the Dupain-Cheng living room, Marinette leading the way.

Her arm through his didn't feel constricting or possessive like it did when Lila or Chloe did it, Adrien noted absently as Marinette led him to the couch and released him, letting Adrien seat himself while she went to put the teapot on. She didn't hold on as tight or drag him around or towards her. If Adrien had stopped or decided that he wanted to let go, he would have been able to.

There were a lot of things that he liked a lot better when Marinette did them, really. Her hugs were the warmest he had gotten in ages, her arms wrapped around his chest to give the most full-bodied hug she would instead of hanging off of his neck like- well, like both Chloe and Lila and the occasional fangirl who decided to ignore his personal space, and the occasional cheek kiss that he got from Marinette felt like it was for him, not self-serving and for show like the cheek kisses Lila forced on him always were.

Marinette was more genuine, that was for sure. When she did things for him, it was because she truly wanted to help, not because she wanted to be seen with him and get famous.

"Oh, I forgot to switch off the TV before I headed out," Marinette commented as she came back over to rejoin Adrien on the sofa. She tucked her phone into her pocket as she settled down on the couch next to Adrien, and Adrien caught the flash of her text messages inbox on her screen. It looked like Marinette had a lot of unread messages. "I just saw the news about Lila online, and then spotted you on the TV, and headed straight out."

"It's okay," Adrien managed, catching Marinette's wrist before she could grab the remote to turn the TV off. "I kind of want to see what's going on. I might as well be prepared, at least, and see what people are saying."

Marinette nodded, sitting back as Adrien released her wrist. "I guess it's good to know what's going on. Not that we can really change much at this point, I guess."

"Yeah, I might as well have started an avalanche," Adrien admitted, keeping one eye on the TV. A muted commercial was playing right now, but he was sure that the news would return soon enough. "But I just got so ticked off at Lila for trying to pressure me into a relationship by announcing that we were dating, and then I overheard my father talking to Nathalie and he, well..."

Marinette looked absolutely horrified, clearly anticipating his next words. "Was he going to go along with Lila's lie? Oh, Adrien-!"

"Yeah," Adrien confirmed, unable to help but feel validated at Marinette's response. "And with both of those together..."

"You'd want to slam the door on that possibility as fast and as hard as possible," Marinette finished, as though she was reading his mind. She reached over, squeezing Adrien's hand. "Don't doubt yourself, Adrien. Whatever comes next, Lila deserves all the bad press and publicity that comes her way. She's the one who put herself in that position, what with all of her lies and manipulation."

Adrien flashed a grateful look at Marinette, unable to be anything but grateful that she had pulled him inside. If he had been by himself right now, his guilt and second-guessing himself would be eating him up from the inside.

As it was... well, Adrien was anxious about what the fallout was going to be, that was for sure. Lila probably wasn't going to be the only one to get in trouble, and Adrien hadn't even checked his phone since getting inside, too nervous about finding a message from his father, furious at him for doing an interview that definitely wasn't approved.

At least everything would probably be worth it in the end. He wouldn't have to deal with Lila anymore, Marinette wouldn't have to deal with Lila anymore, and he wouldn't have to worry about being forced into a relationship with one of the most manipulative, deceitful, and downright unpleasant people Adrien had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Adrien spent the rest of the afternoon at Marinette's house, curled up in a cozy blanket with his phone muted as they switched between ignoring the world while playing video games and watching the unfolding news coverage- and there was a lot.

Madam Chamack had taken it upon herself to make a beeline straight over to the Italian Embassy, where she had spent the better part of an hour camped out on the steps before being allowed inside and confronting Lila's very harried mother, who clearly had heard the news and was not coping well with it. Adrien felt a little sorry for her- Mrs. Rossi's coworkers were giving her rather dubious looks from their desks in the background- but seriously, how had she not managed to pick up on the fact that her daughter was such a liar?

Across town, Alec Cataldi had managed to hunt down Mr. Damocles and had followed him for a bit, trying to get his questions answered until the principal finally was able to duck away into his apartment building. There had been a lot of "no comments" or "that's classified information" or "we'll be looking into everything on Monday" in response to Alec's comments. That had only resulted in a fair bit of speculation on Alec's part as he re-stationed himself and his camera crew right outside of the Agreste mansion, clearly hoping for a statement about how Lila had started modeling for Gabriel and if she would be continuing but not quite daring enough to try the buzzer.

There was absolutely no sign of Lila at all, which was odd considering that (at least according to social media), she had been out on the streets, soaking up the attention that came with being Adrien Agreste's "girlfriend" only minutes before Adrien's interview aired.

Something told him that she wasn't going to be bothering him for a while. Even if her mom didn't immediately ship her out of the country, the legal trouble that Lila was going to be getting into was more than enough to keep Lila occupied for the near future.

Maybe Adrien would still have to deal with his father's displeasure about the press fallout from his impromptu interview, but, well, that was a problem for Future Adrien. For now, well, Adrien was more than content enough to spend as much time as he could with Marinette and her family.

He was free from Lila at last and honestly, Adrien couldn't be any more relieved.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng

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ofwolvesandbutterflies · 4 years

Text

problem #7

Pairing: Johnny Seo x Reader

Genre: like a dash of angst

Tags: college!au, mathmajor!johnny, unrequited!reader

Warnings: lil bit of language.

day 14 of 30 days with NCT

Synopsis: in which nothing makes more sense than you and Johnny... except you’re the only one that see’s it.

// why must I fall for you? // (x)

[16:03]

You couldn’t do it. Not again. But you also couldn’t afford to fail math this semester. And it hurt being stuck like this. Fuck, it hurt like no one’s business.

Calculus didn’t hurt, no, you weren’t frustrated at the math. Granted, math had always hurt your brain to a certain extent, but it wasn’t the center of your misery this time. Still, at this point, the only thing you could do was smile, endure it for a little bit longer while you sat beside him. The movements - smiling and nodding as if you were actually listening, as if you could just listen - came easy now. Another thoughtless smile, just another hollow nod, really all you had to do was occasionally look back down and rewrite whatever nonsense Johnny had just spewed about definite integrals, pretending with all remaining strength in your exhausted body that you could survive this.

When you had first complained to Taeil a couple weeks ago about not understanding any of the mathematical concepts presented during your ‘stupid math class, why am I even learning this? I don’t need integrals for what I’m planning on doing during life’… you hadn’t expected him to shoot you an unfamiliar cell phone number. He had followed up the untitled contact saying that one of his friends was a math major, and worked by appointment as a tutor.

Initially, you had been more than ecstatic. God forbid you fail another math class. So, upon bidding your older friend a grateful farewell, you pulled your phone out, number already dialed and saved as ‘math tutor’. But, once the third dial tone stopped mid-ring… only to be replaced by the same, unmistakable voice of… Of him.

Part of you wanted to hang up the moment he spoke into the receiver. In a flash, the day’s optimism ran sour and all your civil sense for pleasantries disintegrated. “Hello?” And oh, his voice sounded just as suave, just as chivalrous and polite as the day you last saw him. Every memory of him from his laugh when you said something silly to the times he’d walk you home late at night or let you borrow a sweatshirt because you so conveniently ‘forgot one’... All of the hurt you had tried so hard to forget, suppress and push away the last couple years came rushing back in a torrent of mind-numbing pain. Your fragile heart clenched, almost daring you to hang up, stuff it all back into the cold heart you had yet to let anyone touch, and yet you still answered. Told him very bluntly a ‘friend’ had recommended him for tutoring. Briefed him on the concepts you were struggling with and when you were free. Asked him what his rates were.

Fortunately or unfortunately (you didn’t know which was more appropriate), he recognized your voice and chuckled. “Y/N? Oh man, it is you! How you been? Damn, it’s been so long since I’ve last heard from you and the first thing you ask about is how much it’s gonna cost for tutoring? I’ve been doing well, thanks so much for asking. Man, I thought we were friends, bro.” Again, the sour taste of melancholy filled your mouth. Friends. Right. Just as you were all of two years ago, Johnny still considered you one of the ‘bro’s’. Jaw clenched and lips pressed into a firm line, your grip on your phone grew tighter until your knuckles turned white. “But, absolutely. Totally available to help a friend out. I’m free most afternoons and don’t even worry about the money. Anyways, does tomorrow from around 3 to 5 work? We can meet at the coffee shop in the student center.”

With no other choice for academics and an overwhelmingly unwillingness to look for anything else, you agreed.

Johnny Seo didn’t know he broke your heart. Or, at least, you never told him your heart ever belonged to him and you had never told anyone else, so there was no chance he could have known. It had been a couple years prior the day you first met Johnny. Like everyone else, you were younger and you were much more confident in your ability to recover from the bitterness of rejection. Tall, handsome, bilingual, and muscular, you were immediately taken by his grace and charm, his easy going nature and well balanced personality. He was easy to talk to, he radiated confidence, and he made you feel at home. Johnny was home to you. At least, until he introduced you one day as one of his ‘best friends’ to a beautiful young woman around his age, smiling brightly as she released her hand from his to shake yours.

The first time you met up for math had your shoes dragging along the pavement and your shoulders hunched over. Your stomach had tied, unraveled, and re-tied itself in knots the longer you sat there, hair brushed and slightly styled, face partially made up, and clean clothes wrinkling under your clenching fists. He appeared out of nowhere, strolling happily up to the table with a freshly pressed cardigan and collarless button down that made him even more attractive than you remembered.

And it was as if nothing ever changed. As if your feelings had never existed. As if the couple years you had gone without him were void and null. Johnny was as bright and helpful as always, the best teacher, patient and understanding. It made you feel worse. But your understanding in the outlandish concepts of higher maths improved somewhat, so you met him again, finding - with disdain - that the beat of your heart seemed to speed up the more seconds passed by as you stood in front of the library, wrapped in a cute dress you remembered was his favorite color.

But the more you met up, the more you saw the ways his eyes scrunched up into little crescents every time he smiled, the more you found yourself laughing with him when he botched an explanation... the more you realized… you had never been able to move on.

He texted you, one afternoon, a few days ago, that he would have to reschedule your meeting to today. His girlfriend was flying back into town and he needed to pick her up from the airport. All you could really do was reassure him that it was okay. You understood.

And yet here you were. Biting back tears as you nodded along, gaze trained down towards your paper. You hadn’t bothered with make up or a cute outfit today. Your hair - though brushed - hung loose around your face, shielding you from his terribly oblivious gaze. You swallowed another looming sob. At least you wouldn’t fail math this semester.

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

Text

15. I Trust Him With My Life

The smell of flowers stirred her up. Flowers, coffee… and… books? She must have been dreaming, as those were a few of her favorite things. Her eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes to see a few fuzzy images - Sunny and Simon in her hospital room, both with a book in front of them, but neither reading. Instead, they had been bickering softly and now, they were watching her, but neither of them moved.

See, Grace had done this several times in the days following her surgery - fluttered her eyes, even opened them, only to lose consciousness again a few moments later and well, after a while, they stopped rushing to her bed. But, this time, the eyes were focusing on them and didn’t appear to be closing. “It’s happening,” Sunny said, shutting her book and getting up. Simon waited, though.

Grace took a deep, pained breath and looked at her hand. His note was still there. For a moment, she smiled a little, and then she remembered all over again that she had been shot. She gasped and reached for her wound, then winced in pain when she moved.

Simon shut his book now, too and set it aside and rushed to help Sunny adjust the pillows beneath Grace’s body. He grabbed a thermos and told her, “Doctor said that you could have a little coffee, so I picked up your favorite kind from the bookstore, some books from your yearly goal list… And flowers from your florist. Everybody was really helpful and sent their love and their get well things.”

She turned around to look and noticed the warm colored vibrant assortment of flowers. “Thank. Goodness. You didn’t get red poppies again.”

Sunny tilted her head and looked at Simon, “You got red poppies? Why on earth did you get red poppies?”

“I saw her with them before, so I thought that she liked them.”

Sunny winced. Saw her. She knew exactly what that meant. Whenever he was stalking her and either was too insecure or she didn't strike him as interested enough, he spied on her and misunderstood something that they used to mourn.

'Flower Boy' Heath used to steal them from stores and gardens whenever they lost somebody on the streets. He'd seen them at his father's funeral when he was little, and told his mom that they were super pretty. Why was she crying so much when so many people were at his Daddy's Going Home Celebration, and who could cry while such pretty flowers were everywhere? “That only had made her cry harder,” Heath would tell whoever was asking about why he stole flowers for dead friends. "I didn't get it. Death isn't pretty. It's cold, sad, and lonely. That’s why she was crying. But my dad embraced his death whenever he signed up for the military, and I like to think he met it with a brave heart and courageous mind. I'd like to think that we all will meet it that way. I don't like to cry about it. Instead, pay respects." And, he sort of… kept that tradition up over the years and spread it to his friends.

Whenever they went to pay their respects, they did so with red poppies, in memory of their friends. Most of them didn't even like to see red poppies any other time, because they were flowers they had associated with deceased friends for many years.

Sunny shuddered at what Grace must have felt when this boy handed her some of those damn flowers… “You’ve… researched them since then though, right?" She wondered.

“I have.” He leaned next to Grace on the bed and offered her a little smile, “I hope I've done well this time.”

But, she wasn’t looking at the red, orange and gold arrangement as she cooed, “You were amazing.” He blushed. Sunny rolled her eyes off to the side, out of both their view.

Simon rubbed the back of his neck and smiled, “I did what anybody who cared about you would do.”

“Who’d have thought that I, of all people would need a white knight?”

He scoffed, “That’s not what happened at all. You’re a warrior queen, who just so happened to need a general in that moment, when your… Court fled . May I just say this? I really think that you should reconsider the policy of leaving each other to die in the event of a life threatening injury.”

“Simon…”

“Grace…”

“One fallen soldier can’t compromise the entire troop.”

“You’re not some fallen soldier, Grace.” He looked very serious for a moment, as his fingertips seemed to ache to touch her, but he denied himself that.

They had a lot to go over before he could touch her again. There had been some betrayal, invasion of privacy, abandonment, and general toxicity between them. Sure, he saved her life. He loved her, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that wasn’t just going to fix everything that had occurred between the two of them.

Even if just this once, his obsession worked out in her favor; she had been upset by initially finding out the extent to which he had been following and watching her and he had not come through with a justification for this. Nor could he think of one, and as much as she wanted to trust him again and to love him openly, he knew that would always be in her mind. But, she was not "one fallen soldier."

“When we’re out there, yes I am.” She seemed to think that was the end of it.

He fumed, “I refuse to accept that.”

She frowned and looked down at her body, “Hardly matters now. I won’t soon be back in the field.”

“You deserve a break,” Sunny chimed in. Grace and Simon both looked at her, like they had only just remembered that she was still there.

“The fact that the X gets a proper sending off instead of a sentence in the Field of Nulls makes me want to break something…”

“Everyone needs a break,” Simon said, turning his attention back to Grace. “That detective definitely is suspicious of us. I think that they’ll be watching, waiting, and pounce on anything we do.”

“We?” Sunny said, and scoffed a little, before looking at Grace with a confused expression.

“We.” Grace and Simon both said it at the same time, then smiled slightly at each other. Grace turned to Sunny and said, “I know that we don’t usually allow outsiders with us, but considering the circumstances - how Simon has helped us over the past few months and him literally saving my life, I think that as the leader, it’s my responsibility to make sure that he’s taken care of, just like the rest of us.”

“You trust this O as an ally?”

Grace voice was stern. “His name is Simon, and I trust him with my life.” Grace reached for Simon's hand and his entire countenance shined as their fingers met, testing each other's tips before sliding into place, woven together. Sunny stared at their hands and quickly went through a range of expressions as she tried to access what the appropriate reaction was to this. Uncertain, she forced a smile and bid them farewell. She had no idea how she might present this change to the group, but she at least knew that she would have to speak to Xander, immediately.

Grace had bigger changes on the horizon. For one, Her parents put her up in their guest house for her recovery, with a nurse on hand, and Simon was the only person who visited her every day. She forbade everyone to come to the guest house while she was in this state, but as per use, Simon didn’t respect that request, and she wasn’t going to tell her parents about their… questionable beginnings, so she decided that it was easier to just let him come around whenever he pleased, as she wasn’t in any condition to fight with him. She wasn’t even in condition to walk. She would do the minimum recommended to keep her from getting blood clots, and the rest of the time, she spent in a chair. Simon was there every moment that he could be and became her only real contact for the moment.

Grace tried to be flippant with him, to ignore him at times and even snap on him to get him to back off and leave her, but it didn’t prove to be working and she only felt bad later, when she realized that she was hurting him for nothing. Simon wasn’t about to turn his back on her. She would have to break some type of key rule for that to happen, and why did she want him to leave so badly, anyway? Why was she so committed to pushing everyone away and withering in this place with a hole in her body?

What was making her feel so alone and detached? What was making her accept that feeling and embrace it? She had nightmares every night, but now, she would wake up in a frenzy AND in physical pain. Simon would wake up too, do everything in his power to help her calm down and get some more sleep, to help her address her wound and get some pain relief… to help her feel cared for, and safe, and not alone… It didn’t feel fair to her. It felt… like she had taken a lot from this person and was still taking from him. The worst part was that she felt like she needed to take more. She couldn’t do this alone.

Whenever Simon woke up in the morning, Grace wasn’t in bed. He furrowed his eyebrows, looked at the openness of the windows of the guesthouse bedroom, and noticed that her chair was gone.

Whenever he found her, she was in her meditation garden, sitting with her feet in the dirt and Samantha and Hazel were both with her, eating the kinds of grasses they liked. She had been mindful to make sure there was stuff that they could eat there and added more that she felt that they might want to try. Simon was going to leave, but she sensed him coming and turned suddenly, of course, hurting herself as she did. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you…” He looked around, “Where is your chair?”

“THE chair,” she corrected (not her chair, she hated that thing), “Is in the lake.” Simon looked towards the lake that her parents’ estate was near. It was close enough for him to walk, but it was further than Grace tended to walk in her condition. Still… if she was frustrated and determined enough… maybe. He went to check. It was… near the lake, but not in it. He went to retrieve it and realized it was stuck on some rocks. Just as well. Sure, Grace’s parents could afford replacing anything, but replacing something that was perfectly fine felt wrong. Especially because she needed it all the time.

The last time Grace tried to walk further than usual, she became lightheaded, lost her balance, tripped, fell, vomited and angry cried that she had such a bad reaction to pushing herself beyond reasonable limits. Then, she was upset and didn’t want him to help her, but had to let him because she just… couldn’t. She locked him out of the guest house. He camped out on the veranda and worked on a new story.

After three days, she unlocked the door and when he came in to check on her, she told him he smelled bad and needed a shower. After the shower, she began talking about art and wouldn’t let him get a word in to ask her about her feelings. Since then, Simon noted that she didn’t let him see her out of the chair and he presumed that she was too worried about another situation where she would look weak or get sick - so the fact that she had both rolled her wheelchair down this hill and went elsewhere was hard to believe and a little bit troubling. She was clearly having one of the episodes that had come along with her injury. They were exhausting, but Simon at least felt needed whenever she had them. The more that she insisted that she didn’t need him was usually the more that she did.

He dragged the wheel back to the garden, wondering if maybe it had gotten stuck and she didn’t have the strength to pull it up, therefore presumed it rolled into the lake, or if she was so disgusted with it today and that tried to send it splashing into the lake and it got stuck instead. At any rate, she looked like she didn’t want to talk about it and she was at peace for the moment, so he just put it where it usually sat when she was in this little garden. He noticed some damages that were probably brought on by her beating the thing with a weapon, as she was known (by anybody who watched her obsessively) to do. He figured he could fix it. In the meantime, she had a stick that she was calling a cane and she was using that to help her around.

“Good news! It didn’t go into the lake.”

“Yayyy…” She said sarcastically and scooped up Hazel. She grabbed her “cane” and began to walk back towards the guest house. Samantha followed behind her and Simon came in with the chair. Just that walk made Grace tired and she set Hazel down on the floor and went to wash up and check her wound. When it came time that she needed help, she cried as quietly as she could, and heard Simon knock softly. Of course he was right outside waiting for her to need him.

“Come in,” she said and they didn’t talk about what went wrong or the fact that she absolutely was doing too much and that was why she needed help getting out of the bath and into her clothes right now. They just… went with it. The first couple of times had been a little awkward, but Simon was very mission oriented and rarely made her feel the way that he knew that she felt.

She was trying to get comfortable, but there weren’t many options on that front. Having actively avoided guns for years, she had never known the extent of the damage that they could do. She��d seen gun violence, but it had been shoot to kill situations and as far as she knew, those who survived, she never talked to about these things OTHER THAN the burning hole in the flesh. The tissue, muscle, and bone damage one little bullet could cause when ejected from such a dangerous little contraption. She had been terrified of them after Todd’s execution. The PTSD of seeing that flooded over her after Heath’s. But THIS, she figured that even if her body ever went back to some semblance of normal, her brain never would.

Why couldn't she be as desensitized to gunshots as she was to murdering Xs? She felt like that should haunt her more, but it never had. The stewards were never real people. They were, but they weren’t. They forfeited their humanity when they dehumanized the children that they stole, bought and sold. But those children, in her mind, would always be human. Nothing that any of those Apex kids could ever do to strip them of the humanity they fought tooth and nail to reclaim after being product, and when they bled and died, it was tragedy. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself, but the fact that the man who introduced her to such a hard reality was able to injure her felt like injustice. It was an insult added to the injuries from a universe that seemed to hate her… and her friends had turned against her, too. Those were the thoughts that she let lull her to sleep.

Whenever she had gotten into bed, he was reluctant to leave her by herself. The next day, he would move some of his things in. Fortunately, he always had a couple of weeks worth of things in his car, waiting for when he needed them here. He brought everything he had in the car in whenever she went to sleep and began to personalize the spaces that he usually occupied whenever he was over.

Grace noticed the next day, and he could have sworn he saw a little sparkle in her eyes whenever she did. She didn’t comment about it beyond, “Somebody’s getting comfy.”

Grace still didn’t completely feel that her Apex family could be trusted. After everything that went down behind her back while she was in Canada, she was still in the mindset that she didn’t know what any of them were thinking.

She often woke up crying, admittedly, because of the thoughts she allowed to settle in her mind before she went to sleep. It was all so, so… exhausting to face. She wanted to have something to center her thoughts, if nothing could take them away, and all that would happen was she would push them out of her reach until she was too tired to move, then they would all just trickle back down and engulf her, more powerfully than before. Hearing her cry, Simon stirred she shuffled away from him, trying to get out of bed and away from him before she woke him up too. She was nearly there when she felt his hand catch her wrist. She gasped and looked at him. He was holding her a little too tight and even in just moonlight, she could see his features, though she couldn’t tell what kind of expression he wore. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. He let go and turned over on his other side. That was… odd, but maybe he was just not fully conscious.

She went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror for longer than she planned. Not crying or thinking about hardships, just noting her features.

Eventually, his soft knock came on the door. She cracked it open and saw him, concerned and fully awake now. “Do you need anything?” He wondered. Meanwhile, Samantha crept through the opening and climbed on the sink, to look at herself, too. Grace collected her and handed her to Simon.

“I just wanted some time to myself.”

He looked hurt, but he said, “Okay. Want us to go home?” She bit her lip and looked off to her thoughts. She was weighing what that would mean. She would have some alone time, but she still would be restless and more than likely, Simon probably had cameras in this place, too. He wouldn’t go home. He’d probably go to the apartment and keep watch. Even if he did go home, she would presume that he was in the apartment watching her, and that would be worse than him being here.

“Do you have cameras in here?” she finally asked. She turned and stared at him, bracing herself on the sink. He froze and was holding Samantha a little too tightly. To the point that she screeched and hopped out of his grasp and rushed into hiding. Grace’s face softened and she came closer, cooing, “Hey. It’s okay. I get it. Your love language is a little bit different than what a lot of us are used to. It’s not like you spend every moment of every day in front of those cameras. But, here’s the thing, Simon…” He stared at her, being mindful of every word that she was saying, grateful that her reaction wasn’t anger… because truth be told, he really shouldn’t have brought cameras in here and he really didn’t mean to, but she was injured and she wasn’t in the best headspace. Keeping an eye on her was crucial! Sure, he had an excuse for every time he wanted to spy on her, but this was different. This really was different and he felt honored that she wasn’t going to fight him on it. “I need some real and true alone time. Not very long, but long enough for me to work some things out. So, how about this? I’ll go to your house tonight and you stay here. That way, I can get some rest in a familiar space and you can be away from your surveillance station.”

“That won’t work.” Just agree to it! “I have access to my cameras here and I have cameras in my house..” Why would you make this harder?

“If you tell me that you won’t look at them, I’ll believe you.”

Just agree to that! “I can’t tell you that. I’d be lying. If you’re in a house that size, by yourself, with this injury and your stubbornness to take the proper care of yourself, how can I not check in?” She looked angry. “I’m not going to lie to you, Grace. I mean… not on purpose… Not this way.” This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up………………………… “I can’t let you get hurt again.” He started crying and stepped back, to leave and give her some space. She found him on the stairs, getting into his shoes and sniffling.

“What makes you feel like you’ve gotta keep me from getting hurt, Simon?”

He blinked away some tears and shook his head, “The reason that I gave myself for ever resorting to cameras was because I needed to make sure that you had proper support. I told myself it was for your safety, and if I enjoyed it along the way, well, that was simply a nice reward for making sure you were protected. And… I didn’t even protect you. You were self isolating, your friends alienated you, and you were so in your own head from this X that I brought you that you weren’t thinking clearly. I should have been there with you, not lurking in the shadows, and not waiting until it got bad. I should have did the thinking. I should have plotted something out. I knew that your team was shaky and I knew that you were rusty from your hiatus. I should have done more. I’m not gonna do that again. I’m not talking myself out of what makes sense to me just to get nuggets of satisfaction and crumbs of pleasure.”

She sat next to him on the stairs and placed her hands over his, making him stop with the shoes. He looked at her and she was just looking at his feet, unable to make eye contact just yet. “I made promises too. I made promises to about a thousand kids, and in the past few years, I’ve only made good on a few dozen. I’m at a point in life where… I don’t think I will make good on all those promises. I don’t think that I can. So, I get it. I understand how stressful it can be to take up things and be expected to handle them. But, Simon…” She finally looked up at him, “You made that promise to yourself. We’re the easiest people for us to lie to. Because, if we don’t reach our goals, we know what it takes to forgive us. We aren’t constantly battling for acceptance from ourselves the way that we do for others. So, maybe you didn’t do what you intended to, what you promised yourself that you would do, but you did more than you should have, and to be honest, you might not have protected me - which is already a fool’s errand - but you fucking saved me.

When I went down, my thought was - this is it. I’m dead. I knew that they would leave, as is the procedure, and I knew that I would die there…. Then, I didn’t. Because of you. You don’t owe me anything else. You don’t owe yourself anything else. Some things are just out of our control.”

“Is that the advice that you’re giving yourself about those thousand promises you made?” She pulled him towards her by the hand and wrapped him around herself like a sweater. “Because, if it applies to me, it definitely applies to you. You never did anything to hurt those kids, and the moment that you were able, you tried to. You deserve to never have to think about it, ever again.”

“They deserve something. If not justice, vengeance, if not vengeance, closure, if not closure, compensation, but they deserve SOMETHING for the years that not only the stewards took, but the ones that I took. Why… why didn’t we just disband? Why did I think that when the stewards were gone, that meant that it was up to me to lead them?”

“Because you were a kid and the past previous years had changed you in ways that children shouldn’t have to be changed.”

“If they had gone elsewhere when the warehouse fell, instead of staying with me… Todd would never have been killed. His parents wanted him back. If I had brought him to a cop or something, he might have been able to go back to them. He would be getting ready to go to college. Jalicia would have probably been able to go to real school early enough to actually KNOW material. Alexandria would have had art teachers through school and probably went to art school, like she wanted to… Xander wouldn’t have tried so many drugs…”

“You don’t know those things. You don’t know if any of that is true.”

“Anything had to be better than living on an abandoned train with me for years and then me vanishing for a year, leaving even more of them confused. Some of them left then, found homes, or were picked up and placed. Fortunately, they got Lucy and Lindsay out pretty early. But, a lot of them just deferred to Xander, and when he was unable, they deferred to Sunny. I had to come back and tell all of these kids that I was wrong, that we had been doing things in a misinformed way and I couldn’t even be there with them to help them figure out their own paths. I failed them all, and myself, and the one thing that I agreed to do to make it right, to give them SOMETHING for everything that I got wrong for them… That’s been cut short.”

Simon wrapped his arms tightly around her. “I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to get this burden off of your heart…”

The group knew that they wouldn’t be going on any missions any time soon, but while on hiatus from hunting Xs, Simon’s ultimate goal was to make them all the best that he could make them at their responsibilities. Simon had been entrusted with touching base with each member of Grace’s “court,” so to speak, in order to help them better do the things that they were tasked to do.

The first day that he walked in, they had been texted by Grace of the when and where to meet - the bungalow, at a specified time, but they had not been briefed that Simon would be there, nor that Grace would not be. So, whenever he entered the bungalow, with a key they all stared at him for a moment, expecting maybe Grace was right behind him (as they had known that she was shacked up with him), but Simon went directly into speaking, “Okay, so tonight is gonna be short and simple. I’m sending out the training schedules and drill runs for the next month, and answering whatever pertinent questions you may have about the operation so affectionately called Date Night. I intended to have something like a syllabus prepared, but Grace has been having some trouble sleeping, making that our top priority during this portion of her recovery process…” He looked over at Jalicia, who had her hand raised. “Is that what we do? We raise hands to speak?” They all just looked at each other, except for Sunny. She was still staring at Simon and the key that he was still clutching as he spoke. There were Apex members who didn’t even have a key to this bungalow. ONLY her closest members. Her most trusted companions. Her Court, as Simon called it… Where did he fit in on that court?

Jalicia was asking questions about what type of training and drills would they be expected to learn, as she had spring semester to think about and her agenda was a little bit more full than last fall. She was treating it exactly like she was in a classroom or something, because she was confused about what was happening, and he sounded pretty certain.

Simon spoke pretty gently to her, looking over the schedule in her phone with her and pointing out where he had already gotten that information from Grace and had taken it into consideration whenever he had set the training schedules. “Mostly, I’ll need maybe a week or two for you to show me what you do and how you do it, and I am gonna take what you’ve shown me, sprinkle my… intellectuality onto it, and then help you to optimize your technique. Disposing of Xs is not a life sentence, Apex.” Xander twitched when he heard Simon say that word. “It's something that none of you seem to wish to walk away from, but it should have an expiration date, and all of you should be able to live lives outside of the shadow of these things. For the time being, I’m here to help reach that goal, but I can’t be positive of how long it'll take us, until I’ve evaluated everyone’s contributions to the operation and established an endgame.”

“That sounds like a lot of power to be given to an O, just for catching one body in Grace’s name…” Xander said.

Simon stepped towards him and he rushed towards Simon, but Sunny stepped in front of Xander and tilted her head at him. He paused, considering whether she was taking Simon’s side or protecting him.

“He has a key to the bungalow, and it sounds to me like he also has Grace’s ear and her tongue. You’d better think real hard on whether or not you want that back, and act accordingly,” Sunny warned.

Simon smiled, “Thank you, Sunetra.”

“We’re here for Grace, Timonthy.”

“We’re sticking with that one, I guess?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Mr. La’Dont.” Xander sulked, but knew that Sunny was right. To Xander's begrudging satisfaction, Simon was more efficient in some of the areas they needed help with, and Grace had clearly sent him to represent her wishes for this meeting.

Sunny was still giving him shit, obviously, but she knew when to listen up, because Simon speaking is basically Grace speaking, now. She knew that it might take Grace a moment to let them back in after December’s antics. The best way that she might get back to good with Grace was starting to look like Simon. “At any rate,” she added on, after teasing him, “Whatever you need, you may know that Xander is Grace’s right hand and I am her left. Whatever she has you doing, I know that I’ll be backing you and I’m sure Xan will do it too.”

“I’ll hate every moment of it,” Xander admitted, forcing a smile.

“Growth can be painful,” Simon said.

Ignoring the sound of rustling as Xander advanced on him again, with Sunny and Jalicia physically intervening, Simon asked the only one who hadn’t reacted or said a single word, “Alexandria, anything that you need to express concerns about?” He turned to the quiet tattooed woman and she looked nervous to have attention on her. “We were a little bit curious about why you hadn’t come to the hospital or the guest house yet.” 'To see Grace' was implied.

“She doesn’t want to see me. The rest of them are on her nerves always trying to grovel for her, and she doesn’t want to see them, either. That’s why you’re here. When Grace wants to see me, she’ll send for me.” She folded her arms, flustered by the attention on her. She figured that Simon probably HATED her for the fake art trap, but Grace may be mad about a lot of things, but she wasn't going to let anybody punish her friends.

Nobody but her, that is - with her silence and refusal to see them. With sending him, HIM of all people to run point with them in her absence… maybe even HE had taken control of the Apex, completely. Grace flitted from thing to thing and paid or assigned others to do stuff like planning, but she usually approved every plan she believed in and none of this even sounded like her. "She knows where to find me whenever she needs me. She always knows."

"Fair enough," Simon said. He didn’t want to even be here with these people after how they had tried to set him up, but Grace loved them and the same way that she wasn’t going to allow them to hurt him; she wasn’t going to allow him to hurt them either.

But, seeing Alexandria's face and having her acting like HE did HER something was frustrating and the last thing he was going to do while assimilating them to getting used to him as virtually Grace’s second in command, was to be angry at each other, argue, or fight. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

“Whoa, that’s it?” Jalicia wondered. “How’s Grace?”

Jalicia was the one that Simon was the LEAST irritated with. He knew that she wouldn’t have left Grace of her own accord and he didn’t really believe that she had anything to do with setting him up for Xander, either. She was the only person in this room whose teeth he didn’t want to kick in for… everything that had happened. And after watching her and seeing her constant pain, the only one that still he felt bad for. “She’s recovering. She loves all of you.” He gave her a squeeze to the shoulder and Sunny noted that maybe Jalicia would be a doorway back to Grace. Simon had pretty clearly favored her tonight.

They hung back to discuss what had just taken place. The last thing that Simon heard was Xander fuss, "She's shutting us out!" Simon could not help but to smile to himself about that.

She was curious to know how it went and Simon gave her all of the details, sprinkled with his own disdain, accordingly. He still was angry with them for leaving her. Even though he wasn’t saying that, Grace knew.

She didn’t blame them for leaving, at all. Had they brought her to the ER, or stuck around, it might not have been as easy to get the stories straight and to get them out of trouble, the way it was for Simon. He had more privilege when it came to legal matters than anybody in that van, and with their past records and their deviations from normalcy, not to mention they weren’t financially elevated like the Monroes or even Simon… It was the smart thing for them to leave, and it was why that WAS a rule, in the first place. It was far too risky to everyone else and the entire operation if they all faced charges because one person fell behind.

But, she couldn’t shake the fact that she had felt so compelled to rush towards the X and risk it all, because she thought her time with the Apex was beginning to wane. She couldn’t help but blame it on her state of mental confusion and distraction from the mutiny of them trying to hurt Simon. Then, that reminded her that one of the main reasons she was even away for weeks, was because they had such strong opinions of how unsafe Simon was and that she had followed the advice from her friends and let go of someone who literally became a murderer to keep her safe.

That shouldn’t feel so good. She knew that, but… the people who were willing to kill for her had all been so fucked up for so long that she… well… she still felt like they were human, but like they were… humans who were set apart from ones like Simon. Simon was supposed to be part of a completely different world. Simon was supposed to be good and wholesome, but because he made some… poor choices, she had turned on him and he was the only person who cared about her without being tied to the same trauma… and… now… he was tied to it.

“I hope you aren’t thinking about me while making that face,” Simon interrupted her thoughts. She glanced at a nearby mirror and saw how wrinkled her forehead was, then took a deep breath and forced a smile. Simon wrapped his arms around her ankles and rubbed her foot, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I’m sorry that I’ve pulled you into… my world.”

“I pushed my way in,” he said. She pulled her feet back and held her wound. He quickly let go and worried that he might have hurt her.

“You tiptoed in, and I left the door open, hoping that you would.” She laid on her side, facing away from him. “I turned you into a stalker and a killer in less than a year’s time.”

Simon snuggled up to her and wrapped an arm around her, speaking directly into her hair, “You’ve helped me to become a hero. I protected a queen, and I slayed a dragon.”

“We aren’t in Esmoroth, Simon.”

“Damn straight, we aren’t. These monsters are real.”

“I’m no queen. I’m an angry girl that wanted revenge and I got my dumbass shot.” She sniffled, “I almost died, I can’t walk, and I don’t know if my friends still want or need me.”

“You’re justifiably angry, and I’m thankful that you didn’t die, but I would be lying if I said that I’m not a little bit happy that you…” She turned around quickly and winced, but kept her focus on his face. “Happy that you are taking a break from battle. I hate that it happened this way.” She snuggled into him and let him hold her until she fell asleep. She was too tired to respond to that yet. At least she was starting to get some sleep at night.

16. Faith in Grace

#AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics #People Watching

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statticscribbles · 4 years

Text

Abandoned 4

Summary: Riverdale Magical AU!; Written as an idea for the Halloween Challenge, pairing currently undecided

This is the fourth in the Abandoned Series the continuation of this imagine can be provided by: A Support My Writing Donation (with the request in the note section) with any ship being able to be worked into this

“So what’s his specialty, all witches have specialties right?” You tilt your head down the hallway, looking back to Betty. “Who?” “That black haired footballer.” You nod your head towards the black haired boy, Betty wrinkles her nose. “Reggie, really good at healing. Surprisingly gentle with his magic.” Betty smiles patting your shoulder. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have Veronica and Archie help with your tour, being Grimms I’d assume you all have to stick together?” You shake your head, biting a scream when Jason Blossom walks by trailing after his sister. You stare at him a second too long and Betty looks worried. “You see something?” “No, just haze I guess?” You watch Cheryl walk and Veronica appears next to Betty looping her arm in hers. “Cheryl is closer to Fae, well a witch who specifies in Fae spells, her father dabbles in Necro apparently.” Veronica states. “Necro?” You tilt your head and Archie glares at Veronica. “Necromancy, the most expensive magic.” You snort shaking your head. “Necromancy isn’t expensive at-“ You quiet at the shocked looks they’re giving you.

“What the hell are you talking about Necro is like the most expensive- Kevin! Kevin tell her about Necro!” You turn to the boy who walks up smiling. “Kevin Keller, Sheriff’s son, what’s this about Necro?” You shrug waving your hand. “I’ve been misinformed about the price apparently.” “Necromancy is the most extreme magic one can use, the only way to have it done properly is to have a banshee.” You still turning to him. You can hear your father screaming for you to play dumb. “A what?” “A Banshee, to call the dead back. It makes the price null apparently. Well it means if the person you bring back dies again the Banshee can’t bring them back ever again. But a Banshee’s scream is said to be so powerful it can bring back anything, even reverse aging” Kevin shrugs. You bite down the comment that your singing is what reverses aging; your scream only calls back souls.

You’re in the locker room, and feel a hand against your back, ice cold, you know it’s Jason. “Yes?” He laughs in response humming, his hands drifting against your bare shoulder laughing as you swat them away. “I’m changing.” He laughs again, his voice soft and sad. “I miss her. Cheryl, can you give her a message, please.” You scowl but nod holding your hand out as he places his palm against yours in promise. He mumbles into your ear humming softly, you let him finish his message palm pulling backwards as he finishes.

You catch Cheryl at the end of practice and she scowls as you step nervously up. “Cheryl, can I-“ “Whatever you have to say you can say it in front of everyone.” You swallow as Jason nods giving you a thumbs up. You wrinkle your nose. “I’d really rather not, it’s personal and involves Jason and-“ She turns away from you, hissing as she stomps off, Betty and Veronica glare at you, and you glare at Jason who laughs. You watch as everyone leaves. Turning to Jason who smirks playfully. “Fucking dick, you knew she would-“ He puts a finger to his lips and you stamp your foot snarling. “No you don’t get to-“ You freeze as he walks through you, well more like stumbles but you catch the meaning whirling around to see Kurtz staring at you. “Hey sis. You handling it okay?” You snarl and he laughs. “Aww is it a boy?” You roll your eyes. “Yeah the dead one.” He snorts and you smirk. “Come on class now. Be a good girl.” He laughs more and you smack the back of his head. “You’re still a ghoul in every sense of the word. Don’t forget I can still call you home.” Your smile darkens and he nods ducking his head in apology. “Dad doing okay?” He nods and vanishes as you step towards your next class. He appears in the back, the teacher scowling. “Kurtz, please use the door next time.” He laughs and you turn pretending you’ve never seen him before as you look confused to Betty who shakes her head. Shooting a glare at him as he grins stretching it slightly too wide to be human.

Lunch is a relief; you’re sitting on the couch in the student lounge, waiting as Cheryl breezes by for the familiar cold of Jason as his fingers drum the side of your head, you’ve learned to ignore him but you lean over to Betty, out of his way. “What is Kurtz?” You cast your eyes over to where he’s appeared. “Oh you wanna know what I am?” He laughs stepping forward before appearing in front of you leaning over smirking. “Kurtz is a nightmare, a ghoul, a spectre pulled from death and given a human form. A necromancer brought him back. Malachai, you should do your best to avoid both of them.” Veronica glares at him. You roll your eyes, before you feel Jason’s lips on the back of your neck, you jump up slamming into Kurtz and growling, as you whip around, about to yell at him, before he passes through you. “What happened?” “Sorry I thought I saw a spider.” Cheryl laughs and you glare at her as Jason joins in. You catch sight of another kid, and you jerk your head back, scream bubbling in your throat.

“I have too; go, I need to leave. Fuck, shit, shit.” You turn to the door stumbling forward but cringe when someone’s hand grips your wrist. “Please let me go. Please.” You turn to see Cheryl smirk on her face. “Oh no, you little liar,” She turns to the rest of the group shoving you back and you panic staring at the kid, thankful you don’t know his name “Liar?” Betty looks worriedly at you. “She’s not a Grimm, can’t you sense the magic around her? It’s so different than anything we’ve seen. What do you think Daryl, since you’re so good at deception spells, is she familiar?” You look in horror at the boy Cheryl named. “Yeah Daryl wanna play a game?” You glare at Kurtz, panic rising as you cover your mouth. “Please Cheryl, please let me go.” She laughs and shakes her head shoving you back towards the couch. You close your eyes refusing to look at Daryl, confused when you can almost feel the tickling of a spell, some sort of truth charm you think, you open your eyes sigh, swallowing back the scream you so desperately want to unleash, instead smiling tightly. “Daryl taught me how to use a gun, illegally.” You fake a look of shock glaring at Cheryl.

“Good job covering up that one, I’m sure Daryl is pissed at you now though.” Jason winks from behind Kurtz and you glare at him. You swallow once more jerking your arm from Cheryl’s grip and sitting back on the couch, Kurtz vanishes reappearing somewhere nearby, you can still feel him. Jason hovers next to you hand brushing your wrist tracing shapes on your skin. You know the ruin’s he’s inscribing, the ones that bind Kurtz to Malachai, you roll your eyes, turning back to everyone talking about going to Pop’s later. “You’re welcome to come of course.” You smile nodding. “I’d love to.” You move to go to history with Veronica and Reggie, you’re seated next to him and you frown for a second, noticing the shimmering around his eye, a concealment charm to cover bruising. Jason scowls from where he sits on the desk miming a punching himself in the eye.

“His father. Thinks healing is a waste of magic.” You smile in thanks turning to Reggie and sighing and running your hand through your hair. “What’s wrong?” You shake your head. “Nothing, I just realized I’m in a little over my head when it comes to some of these classes, and the whole ‘magic’ school aspect.” Reggie laughs nodding. “It can be a bit overwhelming, Archie almost flunked out twice but Betty helped him a bunch. It’s harder for Grimms cause you can’t actually practice the magic, you just have to memorize facts about it.” You shrug. “I think it’d be easier memorizing but what do I know.” “I can help you cheat, since Cheryl is one of the top students.” Jason winks and you smile fondly. “Reggie, do you think you could help me study, I’m really nervous about all the healing stuff. I just, I never understood how you can just fix stuff.” Jason snorts. “Course the banshee can’t figure out how to fix shit, you just kill it” Jason responds before drifting over to Cheryl.

“Betty!” You call out and she turns smiling, Jason turns pushing his focus onto you. “Yeah what’s up?” She nods as you duck your head nervously. “I was in the library and-well anyways, I heard your sister, Polly is pregnant, and if it’s weird just let me know but would it be okay if I gave her a blessing, I know it’s kind of-“ “Oh she’d love that! So many people are against her and the babies, so I’m sure she’d love it.” Betty nods and you try to focus on the directions she’s giving you with Jason screaming and hugging you at the same time.

You don’t tell him what you’re going to do; the knife is warm in your grip when you smile at Polly, Betty having gone downstairs. Jason hovers next to her nervously. One of his hands reaching back as he moves in front of her. “Just give me a second, I sort of lied. It’s not really a blessing, more like a present. Hand.” Jason hovers his hand out as you cut yours dropping the blood onto his palm. Polly to her credit doesn’t scream as Jason solidifies. He smiles reaching out to brush her face when she grips his hand. Jason screams and you can’t help but laugh as Polly hushes him. “Only you can hear it, well me and you.” You smile she’s ignoring you and you sit content to wait out however long Betty gives you to “bless” Polly. It doesn’t take long for you to start to feel dizzy. You try your best to hold off but you can’t help the yawn, the way your powers pull Jason back to the inbetween.

The bell rings and you watch everyone gathering to go to Pop’s, Reggie waves you over and you laugh when Jason scowls, before waving as well. “Polly. Please talk to her, please. Polly. Polly. Polly.” Jason repeats just as he had been for the past two hours. You nod. “Hey do any of you guys know someone named Polly by chance?” “My sister.” Betty nods and you tilt your head as Jason grips you shoulder. “Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?” Jason repeats hissing into your ear. “Oh, is she joining us at Pop’s?” Betty nods. You smile when you meet her letting Jason’s hand overlap yours as you shake hers in greeting. She looks concerned for a moment, before she smiles back at you. “Pleasure. Your hands are cold, is it cold outside now?” You can feel the truth inflection in her words, so natural you can’t help the smile on your face. “No I just have poor circulation.” You respond, Jason laughs as you sit across from her, Reggie at the edge smiling.

“Polly is really gifted in truth spells.” Jason nods almost prideful as Betty talks about her sister. “She was pretty incredible, managed to use her gift to help uncover a few of the teachers smuggling in dark magical items.” Polly looks embarrassed but still smiles. “Betty and Jughead helped me out with that. They deserve as much credit.” You nod ordering a shake as everyone else orders food. Jason shakes his head at you and you wrinkle your nose. “You’re not getting a burger?” Veronica questions. “No, I usually have dinner at like eight so I’m not really hungry right now.” Jason rolls his eyes. “Liar. You should eat. It’s safe here.” He nods to you and you huff pulling your shake over as everyone starts to eat.

“So what brings you to Riverdale?” Betty asks and you swallow. “My uncle moved out here for some magic work, he thought it would be a good way to get me involved, both my parents died when I was younger, he’s basically raised me.” You don’t mention you killed your parents, or how your uncle is technically your grandfather. “Oh you picked a hell of a time to come to Riverdale then.” Kevin laughs and you tilt your head. “There’s a new necromancer, since Malachai went underground. His name is Edgar and he says he can do Necro, without a banshee and bring the dead back.” You snort shaking your head. “That’s not possible, he must be charming the people somehow.” Cheryl scowls. “I’ve seen it work, he let me talk to Jason.” Her voice is quiet but you watch Jason as he shakes his head, tapping on the side of his. “You were drugged.” You state and Cheryl snarls. “ I wasn’t drugged!” She snaps and you arch an eyebrow. “I can prove it later tonight if you want, if we can use the speakeasy as a stage.” You turn to Veronica who nods, you smile.

“I should go, to get ready to prove this new Necromancer is a liar.” Cheryl nods scowling as you stand and leave. Kurtz appears the minute the door closes. “Yes ghoul.” “You’re going to bring him back? To prove Edgar isn’t a true Necromancer?” “No I’m going to kill Edgar, I know what he’s doing, charming and numbing them. It upsets the balance, you’re welcome to help me if you-“ “Please.” He hisses and you smile, carefully holding his arm and tracing your fingers over the ruins carved into his, before doubling over them and tugging to lift them from his skin. His eyes widen, flexing his fingers as if moving them for the first time. “What did you do?” He stares shocked as you smile. “I brought you back. Unbound. Well Unbound to any other than me.” Kurtz laughs smirking before he pulls you into a hug, you return it kissing his cheek. “Now, go have some fun, they can’t trace you anymore.” You wink and turn back into Pop’s “Hey sorry I just realized I don’t need to really get ready, I can do it whenever.” Cheryl smirks.

“Fine we’ll go down there now and you can try to prove whatever you want.” You look to Veronica who nods as the group sits down among the chairs and table you look at the stage. “Can any of you sound proof this? Like the speakeasy, I’d hate for anyone to hear what we’re doing. Might scare them, yeah?” Veronica and Betty nod, Polly stands helping her sister cast a sound numbing charm, you watch Reggie and brush your hand under your own eye, swiping his covering charm off. “Now, is everyone ready? Cheryl if you’d please step up here, I can tell you things about yourself only Jason would know, to prove you’re not really speaking to him as Edgar tells you and-“ Kurtz appears smoke wafting around him and he beams. “Hey, did I miss it?” “No, you’re early did it really take that little time?” He grins showing rows of fangs. “Being unbound is great.” You roll your eyes as Cheryl steps forward. “This is a private séance.”

“Séance?” Kurtz laughs, “Is that what you told them you do?” You roll your eyes. “They assumed I though it only fair.” “Prove to them what you are then.” “if you’d shut up for five minutes I could.” You snort and he huffs sitting down. Cheryl turns smiling at you. “Well go on, let’s see then.” She waves her hand and you smile nodding. “Jason.” Your voice is quiet compared to your normal scream, you can see him standing next to Cheryl and you speak his name louder. “Jason Blossom.” You state and he nods, hand reaching out, Cheryl stares at it, you know it’s only a faint shimmer to her, she reaches to touch it but hesitates. “Would you like to hold him once more?” Your voice is quiet, and Cheryl nods. “Cover your ears, all of you.” The group nods looking from one another, Cheryl covers her ears and you sigh letting the screams you’ve bitten back bubble forth.

“JASONNNNNNNNNNN.” You close your eyes as he forms fully, you’ve never liked seeing all the living parts reconverging, you open them and he smiles back at you. “Do we need to dance?” He asks half whispering. You kiss him on the cheek. “No, not yet, you can-“ He doesn’t wait for you to finish arms wrapping around Cheryl, you notice everyone has their eyes closed, hands over their ears cringing. Cheryl screeches when she opens hers, when she feels Jason hugging her. Everyone else stares shocked. “How did you?” “Banshee.” You sigh relaxing finally able to speak what you truly are. Kurtz snorts. “Does that feel good then? Telling them what you truly are?” “Shall we then ghoul?” You hold your hand out and Jason grips his hand in yours. “Just a quick dance to solidify you and-“

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marukrawler · 4 years

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bakugan battle brawlers episode 28 liveblogging

- this is the only recap i need lmao

- also we’re watching this with firefox bc the subs are hella small on chrome for some reason

- intro now includes joe. just vibing.

- into the doom dimension we go. which honestly kinda reminds me of the null void.

- reaper nooo. though im def digging the missing eye, it looks like he’s wearing an eye patch lmao

- the dan and drago reunion was p sweet ;w;

- what kinda title

- dan’s mom is really treating the frog phone accessory she got from dan for her birthday as if its like. the greatest thing she’s ever gotten. ma’am it probably cost 5 dollars.

- shun sleeps with his hair down too, what’s with these long-haired members and not sleeping with their hair tied up??

- masquerade just goes into peoples bedrooms and slips his challenges into their pockets instead of just?? sending those ppl a standard message?? on bakugan myspace?? he’s doing too much

- when dan’s mom eavesdropped on dan talking to drago, couldn’t she hear drago talk?? or

- i was thinking this angst over where dan is could have been avoided if they’d said that dan was staying at marucho’s place but at this point, they all think he’s dead or at the very least, that he’s never coming back. so lying would be pretty pointless huh

- completely forgot that tigress calls runo my lady

- social distancing pros

- julie going ‘im sorry’ might just have been her first english line ever

- gosh

- bro he’s in the shadow realm. that place has lousy wifi connection.

- bakugan: *leaving the room to discuss serious matters*

- joe:

- never change, joe

- bruh evening in what timezone?? you have a least four hours if its not winter time rn what are you talking about.

- sir is this the first rollerskate prototype?? what kinda design

- going to vestroia hOW

- lowkey we need a ‘the bakugan are left to fend for themselves’ type of episode.

- golem and his ‘i stand on solid concrete, therefore i am’

- thanks bro

- what a total tsundere. dare i say shundere.

- when does the sun set here?? 3.30 pm??? during summer????

- its actually p clever what they’re doing here. they’re reassuring their families and saying they’re going to stay at marucho’s for a while in case their return home drags out but also saying goodbye and having one last conversation with their loved ones in case they never come back.

- oh u know his grandpa will

- alice conveniently staying behind. as usual.

- runo was actually doing more harm than anything with that last video call to dan’s mom lmao

- an ‘ok gay boy 🙄’ seems very appropriate here

- did this dude marlemade forget he sent drago and dan to the shadow realm RIGHT IN FRONT of his four friends

- what makes you think runo’s still here though??

- bruh could you imagine if dan’s mom was part of this arc though

- a strangely dressed teenager makes four of your son’s friends disappear and when you ask him where everyone went, he says ‘death dimension’ and leaves. and somehow you still think everything is all dandy??? ma’am if you don’t pinch this blonde boy’s ear and make him tell you where your son is

- you let them know

- alrighty, so the trials officially begin in the next episode. can’t wait! i believe the first trial is julie’s? i’ve seen hers enough times as a kid to sorta remember what its about but im excited for it anyways!

#aisha watches bakugan battle brawlers #bakugan #episode 28 #liveblogging

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calpalirwin · 4 years

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B.U.B

Summary: Everyone got more than they bargained for when Ashton started dating Sam.

A/N: Ugh, this is such a bittersweet moment. The official end of my brain child with @creator-appreciator and our new trope: back up boyfriend (BUB). But what an appropriate note to end on: a wedding! If you haven’t read it, or need a refresher, be sure to catch all 5 previous parts of BUB under the miscellaneous portion of my masterlist!

Disclaimer: Not a poly!sos series!

Content: General bub tom-foolery wedding edition!

Word Count: 2k on the nose!

And away, and away we go!

Part 6

“Lazy day?” Ashton asked from his spot on the couch next to Calum when Sam came downstairs in leggings and a tank top.

“Nope!” she grinned at him. “Going dress shopping with the bubs and the girls.”

“Is it really a bub outing if I’m not there?” Calum asked.

“Wait, you’re not going?” Ashton asked, looking over at his friend. “What are you doing here, then?”

“Misery loves company?”

“Oh, you are not miserable!” Sam scoffed. “You’re just pouting because I told you you can’t come.”

“I don’t pout. I just find it unfair that you banished me from a bub activity.”

“It’s not a bub activity. It’s a wedding party activity. Of which, you are not technically a part of.”

“Princess, you’re forgetting a crucial piece of intel. And it’s that I am the party.”

“You’re still not coming, bub.”

Calum narrowed his eyes at her. “Have fun talking Luke out of glitter.”

“Have fun not knowing what the dress looks like,” she taunted back. Sam swiftly pressed a kiss to Calum’s cheek before kissing Ashton. “Have a good day, boys.”

“Bye, baby. Have fun,” Ashton told her while Calum sunk lower in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

~~~

“So, these are the colors,” Sam explained, pictures spread across the kitchen table, everybody listening intently. “The girls got their dresses and they are stunning! But all four of you still need to go get your tuxes. And when you do, take this color! This is the color!” She held up the photo in question, looking around at who she trusted most to hold on to it.

“I got it,” Calum said, snatching the picture out of her fingers. “Is there a different color you want Ash’s? Or mine for that matter?”

“No. Same color’s fine for you and Fletch too.”

“You don’t want him to match your dress?”

“Oh, her dress is beautiful!” Luke teased, seeing his opportunity and taking it. “Makes her look like a princess, Cal.”

“A queen, dumbass…” Michael sighed.

“Whatever. Point is, it’s a beautiful dress, and she looks amazing in it!”

“If you’re not this excited when we get married, I’m leaving you at the altar,” Sierra teased.

“You should leave him now,” everyone joked.

“Hey!”

“Oh! And Fletch! The flowers. Can you give this to Bryce down at the shop?”

“Yeah, I’ll give it to him next time I see him.”

“Good, good. And when is your family getting here?”

“Not til like the week of the wedding, wh- oh shit, Harry’s suit. Uh, I’ll tell him to go to a tailor to get his measurements and I’ll bring that with me when we all go get fitted.”

“Which you’re doing when?”

“When would you like us to do that, baby?”

Sam grinned, “You're so smart sometimes, Fletch. Can you guys go soon? Like next week?”

“You got it,” the boys saluted her. “Anything else?”

~~~

“Fletch!” Sam hollered from the backyard.

“What?!” Ashton asked, running to her, only to find her sitting beside the garden he’d been planting. “What are you doing?” he giggled.

“Trying to teach myself how to garden,” she stated.

“Mhm… why?”

“Because, Fletch!”

“Do you need help?”

“Yes! None of this makes sense!”

“What do you mean it doesn’t make sense?” he giggled again, coming to sit beside her.

“This!” She flashed the packet of flower seeds in her hand. “Plant in the warm season. What does that even mean? It’s California! It’s always warm season!”

“Why is this something you want to do?”

“Because it’s something you like doing, and I thought I would surprise you by doing it with you.”

“Aww! You don’t have to.”

“But I want to! It can be our thing!”

“So, if I take you to Home Depot right now, we can put some gardening stuff I’ve wanted on our wedding registry?” Ashton asked hopefully.

“Who needs fancy china anyway?”

“God, you’re the best! Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Call the guys. We might need help.”

A half hour later Sam was talking the ear off of a Home Depot employee. “So he wants to plant like real stuff. Like tomatoes, you know? But I think other stuff would look really good too. Like regular flowers and such. So, my question to you, is what would be the best things to plant if we were going to plant them, say, later this afternoon? What would we need?”

“Uh… I can show you what’s popular?” the clerk offered, either feeling completely out of their element or intimidated by the woman with all her questions and posse of 4 giant Aussie men.

“Lead the way!” Sam chirped.

“Oh, um, you wouldn’t happen to have those scanners for wedding registries, would you?” Ashton put in as they all started walking across the store to the garden section.

“You want to register for your wedding at Home Depot, sir?”

“Yes, please.”

“You don’t want to register at IKEA, or like a Target?”

“Nope! You guys got some great stuff here.”

“Okay…”

The wedding registry aspect of it proved to be useless as anything Ashton scanned, Calum, Luke, or Michael immediately grabbed with a “What? I want one too…”

“So, this is probably a crazy question, but c-can I be invited to your wedding? Like… nobody's going to believe me that this happened. That a couple registered here. I just… I gotta see what type of wedding would be thrown by people who register at Home frickin’ Depot,” the clerk asked as they rang everything up.

Sam hummed as she dug around in her purse, pulling out a small card and handing it over. “Yeah! Of course! I didn’t end up liking this design, but it’s got all the important information on it, so I hope this’ll do.”

“Holy crap, thank you!”

“Of course! Thanks for dealing with us.”

“You just carry invitations around in your purse?” Ashton asked Sam.

“You don’t?”

“I don’t have a purse… I have pockets.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Just help the bubs.”

~~~

“Okay, my bachelor party and your bachelorette party,” Ashton started. “How do you want to do this? Cuz I know I have groomswomen, but I want my boys there too. And I imagine you probably want the same thing of wanting your bubs and your girls. So… separate weekends or joint party?”

“Joint party would just be a regular hang out.”

“Yeah but like… in a cabin in the mountains. Away from everything. Or separate weekends. You get everyone to do your thing with. Then I get everyone to do my thing.”

“But then we don’t get each other. And with a joint party we do.”

“I think the point of bachelor and bachelorette parties is so that way we’re not around each other, baby.”

“Then why’d you suggest a joint party, Fletch?”

“I didn’t. I was just laying out all the options.”

“Mhm… sure. A likely story.”

“Okay, I might be hoping that you pick a joint party because I think that’d be fun. A nice getaway with my closest friends and future wife. What could be better than that?”

“You do make a pretty good case.”

“So, joint party?”

“Joint party!”

The end of the month found the eight friends and Harry standing around in a cabin. “First order of business!” Sam declared. “Room assignments. Ashton and I get the master room. The rest are up for grabs. Second order of business! Once you find your room, come back with all the blankets and pillows so we can make our fort.”

“A fort?” Harry snickered. “What are you, twelve?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Ashton nudged his kid brother. “You’ve seen the pictures of our forts, haven’t you?”

“Oh, that’s like a for real thing? Thought it was a joke.”

“Fort Luke Sucks Balls is most certainly real. And for this weekend, you are an honorary member,” Sam told him with a bright smile.

“Uh… thanks? I think?”

~~~

“Mike… you were right,” Luke breathed as Sam turned around in her dress. “You do look like a queen, sweetheart.”

Sam blushed. “Thanks, partner.”

“You saw her try it on in the store last week,” Michael told Luke. “Idiot…”

“Well, yeah! But not with her hair all done up, and make up.”

“You’re right. Still an idiot, but you’re right. Wanna make a bet for when Ash starts crying?”

“Hmm…” Luke thought. “Tears up when she walks down the aisle, full on sobbing through his vows.”

“Oh, definitely with you on him tearing up when she comes down the aisle. But I’m betting he just does that thing where he clears his throat a lot rather than the blubbering during the vows.”

“Alright. So if I win, we have to change Fort Luke Sucks Balls.”

“And when you lose, a name change can never be proposed again by you.”

“Deal.”

The blondes shook hands to cement the agreement, each one certain they’d win while Sam rolled her eyes. A bet the was rendered null and void when Ashton A.) teared up when Sam came down the aisle, and B.) cleared his throat a grand total of 107 times (Michael counted) before quietly breaking down during Sam’s vows.

“I now pronounce you Hubasaurus Fletch, and Wifeysaurus Babe,” Calum announced. “Now kiss your bride before you start crying again.”

Ashton gave a half sobbed laugh, before cupping Sam’s face in his hands and ducking his head down to give her the world’s most heartfelt kiss.

~~~

“Alright,” Calum said into a microphone, getting the toasts started. “Hi, everyone, I’m Calum Hood. The wedding officiant, and only guest speaker for this evening.”

“The sensation!” Michael called out loudly, his hands cupped around his mouth.

“The bodacious!” Luke joined in.

“Ccccccaaaaaalllllllluuuuummmmmmm Hhhhhooooooooooooodddddd!” the group of friends all whooped, drumming their hands on the table.

“Okay, thank you!” Calum said with a squishy cheeked grin. “So, as you can imagine we all love Ashton and Sam so much. And when deciding this part of the night, we all wanted a chance to say something. But, we ultimately decided that a lot of our stories would overlap and that it would be too long, so I’m doing it on behalf of all of us. So, it goes without saying Ash, that you’re like a big brother to us guys. I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to say that we wouldn’t be the people we are without you in our lives. And we’ll never be able to thank you enough for accepting a random Facebook message from a kid you didn’t know and helping us become what we are. And then there’s Princess Sam. Sorry, Queen Sam. I have never been happier to be proved wrong in my entire life. I’ve never been happier to have been wrong about thinking you were just some girl that wouldn’t matter in a couple of months. And I deeply apologize for everything I did in those first few months. In these last 5 years I’ve gotten to know you, it’s very easy to see the woman that stole my best friend’s heart. Because you stole all of ours too. And if I say anything else, I’m gonna end up like Ash here, so I’ll just end this by saying that I’ll forever be grateful that you two found each other, because it’s been nothing short of incredible. Here’s to the best years.”

Calum raised his glass, everyone else following suit, while Luke and Michael hopped up on stage next to Calum. Michael grabbed the microphone out of Calum’s hands while Luke got situated with a guitar. “Perfect toast for a perfect couple, Cal. And perfect segway into the newly announced Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Irwin’s first dance! Hit it, Luke!”

While Luke started strumming the opening chords to Best Years, Ashton led Sam out to the dance floor, spinning her in a slow circle before pulling her close. “I love you so much, baby,” he whispered for only her to hear.

“I love you too, Fletch. So fuckin’ much.”

Tag List

@frontmanash @goeatsomelife @flameraine @creator-appreciator @cxddlyash @1-irwin-94 @sparkling-calm @tea4sykes @youngblood199456 @5-seconds-of-obsession @gosh-im-short @aquarius-hood1996 @talkfastromance4 @itjustkindahappenedreally @philthepegacorn @ashtonlftv @miirandaaa @karajaynetoday @myfavfanficsever @stormrider505 @cashtonisruiningmylife @another-lonely-heart

#BUB #ashton irwin #ashton irwin fic #calum hood #luke hemmings #michael clifford #5sos #galcal irwin

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