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honeyabyss · 3 years

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Phone calls after Mc returned to the human realm

Lucifer:

this man is stubborn, calling you would be like admitting he's gone soft and his pride does not allow that!

so he refuses to call for the first few weeks, keeping himself busy with work of which he has enough anyway

due to all his student council work, a few other tasks of Diavolo and on top of that the usual shenanigans of his brothers, he quickly becomes very stressed

he's at his breaking point and needs someone to talk to so he can release some of his stress before he takes it out on someone else

so he goes to your old room and starts talking as soon as he enters it, only to stop confused when he doesn't see you in the room, remembering only now you left for the human realm

disappointed he sits down onto the bed and curls the blanket around himself

"Their scent is almost gone...Soon it'll be as if they were never here"

he closes his eyes, sighs softly and makes his decision

"Mc? I hope I didn't wake you. I simply thought a conversation would be nice, it's been a while..."

Lucifer's call is pretty casual, he talks about his day, work and his troublemaker brothers, it almost feels like any other day before just this time it is over phone

he does not want to admit he misses you, a) because he'd seem weak and b) he fears what admitting it will do to him, he might just miss you even more

BUT while saying goodbye he accidentally lets a "I miss you" slip, his breathing stops shortly realizing his mistake, he is about to apologize when you say it back

he smiles softly, genuinely relieved about your shared sentiment and whispers "I'll call you again soon then" before hanging up

from then on he calls you every evening and you better jump right away and pick up at the first ringing, because this man is lonely without you

Mammon:

"Congratulations! You're one of our lucky winners of our monthly Devil-Lottery. We'll have to confirm your bank account number with the one given to us when you agreed to participating in the lottery. Would you be so kind to slowly repeat the number-"

this greedy demon will quite literally try to scam you, only to absolutely panic when you hang up on him

he will instantly call you back, constantly adjusting his glasses, a nervous habit he acquired over the years

"H-hey...Mc...uhm, it's me your favourite demon!"

he is relieved you picked up, as it means you didn't block him right away, he stumbles over his words trying to find an excuse why he just tried to scam you

"Ah you know I only did that to test you, you've passed nobody scams my human! You're my amazing human after all! That's why I love you...u-uh I-i mean...nothing...that was a static you must have misheard..."

when you tell him you knew it was him as you recognized his voice, he'll be outraged, screaming into his D.D.D (and probably later getting punched by Lucifer for being so loud)

"What do you mean you already knew?! You dared to hang up on The Great Mammon?

He gets a bit sulky by your reaction, so how about playing into his obvious lie of testing you to make him feel better again

besides trying to scam you Mammon also called to (not so sneakily) check on your wellbeing

now that you're gone he constantly worries about you and he can't do much to help, but if you were actually in need of help due to whatever, trust me he'd fight Lucifer himself for permission to go to you

he'll call you as often as he can, sometimes with a few days of a break in between, asking you about your life and also letting you in on his upcoming money making schemes...please don't tell Lucifer about them

Mammon has learned his lesson though, he'll never try to scam you again, he couldn't bare it if you were to block or ignore his calls

Leviathan:

phone calls? Why? You two can just talk about the in-game talk function of this new online game you play, but no real world talk while playing that ruins the immersion!

Levi will rarely call you as he just doesn't feel comfortable enough to talk with you about normie stuff for too long

he normally just spam writes you, ding, ding, ding, one message after another coming in without you being able to respond quick enough

so if gets too much and you decide to just call him so you can have an actual chance of responding, Levi just panics and almost drops his D.D.D

"Mc? D-did you accidentally hit the c-call button? N-no? I-i see no I love you too!!....AAAAAAAh I-i meant I l-l-love t-talking to you too...hehehe w-why would a yucky o-otaku like me say something like that"

poor boy is so nervous he'll say something stupid and will stutter a lot the first few times you call him, he is just not used to talking on the phone

he will laugh nervously over everything and sometimes there'll be a phase of awkward silence, but please don't point it out, Levi is already stressed enough as it is

once he gets used to calls, he'll surprisingly suggests to have a phone call while both of you are watching the new episode of an anime, so he'll be able to talk to you as if you're right next to him, which works out mediocre at first, you have to tell him to be a bit quieter a few times but besides that it's quiet nice

"Ooooooowhooooooah!!! Did you see that? That was amazing, I wish I had these superpowers, I'd save you of every danger like a real hero! W-what do you mean I'm already your hero?"

Yes, you saw and heard it, and your neighbours probably heard Levi...

on the rare occasions Levi calls you he'll often asks you for favours like to buy him this exclusively in the human realm sold limited edition game, of course he isn't like his scummy brother Mammon who'll constantly asks for things and he'll also make it up by sending you stuff you can only get on Akuzon

so calls don't happen very often, but neither if you really mind, you'll still be in contact through messages and games

Satan:

Satan will be very proper about calling you, he'll check through messages if you're fine with him calling you, so he can be sure you have time and he doesn't bother you

Satan never jumps into a conversation right away (unless he is angry), he makes sure to show interest in you and hold a bit small talk, asking about your day, how you're doing and so on

you talk about many different things with him mostly about your shared interests, but Satan is willing to listen to you ramble about hobbies he doesn't have as well

one thing you two quickly come to do was have book club sessions over phone

"I wish you were still here Mc. I miss my book discussion partner, nobody here has as interesting opinions and views as you..."

back in Devildom you two would both read a book and afterwards discuss your thoughts, and you found a way too keep doing just that

you both write about books, decide on one to read for the week and would than have a phone call where you just talk for hours about the piece of literature you've read

now that you're back in the human realm, the book choices are even bigger as you can read human books as well, you just have to send a copy to Satan, sometimes Barbatos will be nice and pick a book up and deliver it to Satan, or to you if it's the other way around with a demon book

"Oh? No, you're right. I haven't thought about it like that yet...your thoughts are so fascinating!"

Satan will shower you in praise for every little detail that you noticed yet he missed. he genuinely enjoys your phone calls, and though he wouldn't admit it, sometimes he anticipates your call more than the actual book

even though there now is a bigger distance between you two he still feels as close to you as before, not much has changed for him and he knows he'll be able to see you again soon, he'll just have to be patient

"Next week, same time? I'm looking forward to talking to you again. Take care until then!"

Asmodeus:

"Oh my Lord! You won't believe what just happened!!!"

no greeting or alike, just straight into the discussion

whenever something gossip worthy happens, Asmo is already dialling your number to spill the tea and keep you updated on any Devildom related gossip, even if it won't help you much, it's a nice thought of him keep you in the loop

those are only the spontaneous call though, obviously you can't take these all the time...you still have a life of your own...

you two actually call each other every day at the same time, plus/minus a couple minutes, the water in the tub has to be filled first...yeah Asmo likes to talk you while he is taking his afternoon bath

"Hahh it's so relaxing, warm water caressing my beautiful skin, and the bath bomb today smells so good! I wish you could smell it, or even better I wish we could bathe together!"

*water sloshing noises intensified*

Asmo...no....yes...maybe...just stop, you'll fluster Mc!

"No really! I miss having you here, I'll pamper you all day the next time I'll get to see you. You must already be starved of my beauty, but don't worry my dear, I'm just as starved of seeing your lovely face!"

what to talk about while he is bathing? Anything really if it's about your day, any complains or whatever, just expect a few innuendos of him...that's nothing new though

seriously though Asmo is the guy to talk to about any of your problems, he will listen and try to come up with a solution for you, even if he seems a bit narcissistic sometimes he really cares about you, so use your phone calls as therapy from time to time

"Oh darling, don't worry it'll be okay! I'm here to help...now tell me every detail so I can come up with a plan! I'll always be there for you, no matter what!"

Beelzebub:

"*munch munch* This one is really good! Mc you should try some...oh"

now that you're back in the human realm, Beels snack times are very lonely, he has just gotten so used to your presence, even sharing his food is normal by now

and let's be honest Beels snack time is 24/7 so he misses you a lot

he feels the urge to call you every five minutes and sometimes even forgets to eat while phone is ringing and he is waiting for you to pick up

but you can't constantly talk with him over phone so the calls often end up on your voicemail where Beel tells you about all the different kind of foods he ate that day

when Belphie catches wind of his twin constantly pestering you, he hides Beels D.D.D so he can't call you all the time

when you're actually able to pick up on his call, Beel will be so happy you can quite literally hear his huge grin while he's excitedly talking about his current snack

"Have you ever tried spicy bat-wings? There opened a new restaurant in town and it's really good!! Next time you're here I'll invite you there. Oh but what if it closes before you're back...ah you'll just have to visit soon!"

though Beel is often disappointed when you don't pick up, he would never hold it against you, he knows he calls quite a lot, but he just misses you and tipping a message while he eats is harder than putting his D.D.D on speaker and talking to you

of course he doesn't only talk about food, he also tells you about how his brothers are doing and how his workout was, or what things he has planned to do at the weekend, all in all Beel is just super happy to share everything of his life with you

on rare occasions he'll call you and be untypically quiet, that happens when he had a fight with his twin, it's not often but sometimes it happens and his first instinct is to call you, because he feels like he can tell you everything so he is very comfortable and trusting with you

"I miss you a lot, you know...but I also know that you think about me daily, every time your stomach rumbles you'll be reminded of me and that makes me happy, I also think about you every time I'm hungry! Hm? But I'm always hungry? That's right! You're always on my mind!"

Belphegor:

Listen, his sleeping schedule is very tight, you can't just expect him to call you!

he will call you so rarely and if you call him it might just happen that he is sleeping and has phone on silent...or he's just to lazy to walk to his phone, or he is just not in the mood to talk... he takes any excuse to not be on the phone

Belphie does like talking to you, but he is not the greatest at long conversations so he like messages more

sometimes when he can't seem to fall asleep, he will be the one to call you...in the middle of the night...and you better pick up or he gets annoyed

"What took you so long? I thought you wanted to talk more often and then you leave me hanging for a whole minute? Doesn't matter I would have waited longer with you...."

he is mostly silent through a phone call, his main reason to call you is because he like to listen to you talk, it's calming to him and if he calmer then he might be able to fall asleep again

so don't expect an amazingly deep conversation...

"Mhmmm...hm? Yeah I'm still there. I'm listening keep talking, I love your voice..."

he'll bring up a topic from time to time so you have an inspiration about what to talk about, but most of the times he just lazily hum or making acknowledging noises so you know he is still listening

"Zzz..."

he will to 100% fall asleep while being on the phone with you, that doesn't mean you're boring, but that he trusts you so much that he is comfortable enough to let his guard down

Diavolo:

"Good afternoon! How was the week of my favourite human?...ah don't tell Solomon I said that hahaha"

as the future king of hell, he is a busy man, but he still manages to give you a call once a week, to the same time you two would have normally had your weekly afternoon tea meeting in the castle

with the exchange year over there is not much about your classes to talk about left, but Dia is just as excited about any other topic you decide to talk about, be it the most mundane thing he loves it!

"Oh so you went grocery shopping? That must be fun! Barbatos does it all the time, though I suppose you buy less things...I'd like to see a human market at some point, I wonder if they're very different from ours...oh but I wouldn't really able to tell I suppose, Barbatos and you would need to point out the differences!"

this man can talk without taking a break for hours...you think Asmo is bad? Prepare for Diavolo...

but seriously it never gets boring with him, because he somehow finds good and fun stuff in every activity, I swear give him a vacuum and watch him clean you're whole flat with the enthusiasm of a child getting presents on Christmas

the work of a future king consists of so much paperwork, Dia will have only few events of his week to tell you about, if there is something to talk about there is a high chance it has to do with the brothers

so he'd much rather just sip his tea and listen to you, he'll ask you loads of questions though about anything he doesn't know

sometimes you two forget the time and Barb sadly has to remind you to come to a stop for now

"Mc? Did I wake you? If so I'm terribly sorry...would you be up to talk for a little bit more? I'm not feeling too tired yet"

surprise night time calls from Dia where you'll have to speak silently or Barbatos might reprimand Diavolo for staying up all night and being tired the next day, Dia doesn't regret it ever though, he likes to talk you a lot!

Barbatos:

Barbatos is always busy and his schedule can often suddenly change with a new whim of his master, so he can't exactly have a scheduled call with you

so you might not get to hear of him very often

BUT he made it a habit to call you when he is on duty to do the dishes, the chore is somewhat boring to him with no one to distract him

so he calls you and if you pick up, he'll put you on speaker and talk to you about whatever comes to mind while his hands wash one after another of the expensive porcelain of the royal household

"I've bought this new tea which is said to be really nice, it can even be enjoyed cold apparently. It seems to have to just the right amount of sweetness to not get bitter when drank cold...you can still add sugar for extra sweetness, though I believe you're already sweet enough as it is"

no matter what you decide to talk about Barbatos always has at least some knowledge about it, so it's beneficial for both of you, he can tell you the things he knows and you tell him your stuff

"I hope I'm not bothering you too much? There is quite a lot to do today... so it might take some more time..."

you will never get to know that Barb has actually already finished the dished a few minutes ago, but just isn't ready to say goodbye yet

the rest of the employees will be able handle the castle for a bit longer without him, meanwhile he can take a well deserved tea break and listen to you

he very much enjoys the fact he found a way to have some time with you while theoretically having to be at work, as long as he is able to finish all the tasks of his daily schedule, he doesn't feel too bad about his not so legal break

"I fear I'll have to get back to work now, but I loved talking to you today! I hope you enjoyed it as well. I'll talk to you again soon!"

Solomon:

Though Solomon returned to the human realm with you, you haven't heard much of him, being a wise old man sorcerer must be very time consuming

so calls of Solomon might be rare but that doesn't mean you don't write messages every now and then, when he calls you though it's always about something interesting or important to share, he talks about those things rather verbally, the best option for him would be in person, but that doesn't always work so a phone call is the second best option

"My lovely apprentice, how is your studying going? I've found the tome we were talking about last time you were interested in...it took some research to find which sorcerer had it but I brought it back for you. How about I'll drop by you next week? I can help you with your studying then, the tome is written in an older version of the language it might be easier if we do it together!"

Solomon can simply not sit still, so while you're on the phone, he is always tinkering at something and the background noises are sometimes quite peculiar...

Was that a pig squeaking? Are you sure you should be brewing a potion while being on the phone? Isn't it distracting?

Oh Lord was that an explosion?!

"Hmm? Oh yeah...I`m cooking dinner right now! It was just a small explosion though, you know the ones that are regularly happen in the kitchen. Why? Was my cute student worried about me?~ heheh alright, alright, I'll stop teasing you...for now!"

no matter how chaotic, teasing or busy Solomon is though, if you call him and are in need of help, he'll drop everything and run to you

he knows how hard it can be when studying magic, not to mention that the studies are difficult, the constant hiding of any magic in front of other humans is also very nerve wrecking, sometimes you feel like giving up and going back to your normal life, back to your non-magical very human friends that are blissfully unaware of everything happening around them, but you know you could never forget and act as if nothing happened, you'd also miss your new not so normal friends, so when times get hard Solomon will rush to you and comfort you in person or at least calm you down on phone until he is able to go to you

if that happens he is more likely to call you every two to three days just to check in on you

"Hey how is my strong and beautiful fellow human doing? Feeling better yet? Need a shoulder to lean on? I'm at your flat in 10 minutes..."

Simeon:

Simeon is a daily caller as well, he's gotten so used to seeing you every day that he feels quite restless if he doesn't get to hear your voice at least once a day

he asked you to recommend at what time he should call, he doesn't want to restrict you in your daily life, so you both came to the conclusion after dinner would be perfect, as both of you are free for the rest of the day then

He will often write a bit on his TSL scripts, just some notes and inspirations he comes up while talking to you

"How was your day my little lamb? You haven't overworked yourself right? Tell me if you ever need help!"

though Simeon would definitely have things to complain about with how Michael is working him to the bone, he'd rather not worry you so instead he tells you about how Luke is doing and evasively answers you questions about himself

"Oh me? Ah yes, I'm doing fine, just doing the usual archangel stuff you know...Ah please do not worry Mc, my dear! Nothing dangerous!"

over the time his TSL notes turn into random scribbles, rhymes and poems and every now and then something that looks suspiciously like your name

Sometimes Luke crashes the call and wants to speak with you as well so Simeon tries to put the phone on speaker only to end up ending the call and Luke getting frustrated with Simeon and doing it himself

then again Simeon also just accidentally hangs up on you mid conversation, because his fingers hit the button without him noticing, he'll get so confused when you cut off in the middle of your sentence and thinks something has happened to you, only to be relieved when you call back a few seconds later

Simeon is very interested in your day and how you doing, asking you many questions and encouraging you to keep talking

"Oh no please keep talking! You're not overwhelming me at all, in fact I like listening to your voice, it puts even the most melodic voice of an angel into the shadows...hahaha did I make you embarrassed? I apologize, I didn't mean to, I was only telling you my honest opinion!"

Simeon is quite the flatterer, but he often does not notice it, he simply tries to be nice, so a call with him leaves you flustered and stuttering ever now and then, but he is just as quick to blush at a honest and heartfelt compliment

Luke:

Luke might be an angel, but he is still low ranking and therefore has less assignments, besides studying to become a great angel and doing some minor tasks for Michael, he is relatively free

he often spends his free time in the kitchen constantly trying to improve his baking, now after the exchange year not only to impress Michael and Simeon but also Barbatos, maybe a bit Beel and definitely you!

but as Simeon is still working at these times, he gets somewhat lonely so he'll try calling you to keep him some company

Luke has this habit of speaking the recipes out loud to remember the steps better and be able to able to make them from memory, he got that tip from Barbatos, but he still has his moments where he gets stuck and forgets what to do next, you can notice that when he gets silent and concentrates on trying to remember

"Ah right that was it! I almost forgot about the eggs! Good thing you were here...or well on the phone hehe! You always remember this stuff, you're so amazing!"

when you tell him you simply looked it up in the internet for him, he'll get a bit sulky that he now basically cheated, but with your reassurance that he is already great and can remember so many other steps, he is quickly back to his happy little angel self

"Michael let me help with his conference today I was assistant record keeper today, one day I'll be able to do it alone, bit they're talking so much and so fast...I think I still need a couple centuries until I'm fully ready, but I'm working on improving! You should also try to improve your skills daily! Even a small bit of practice is good! Though I think you're perfect already!"

Luke most definitely learned his flattering from Simeon... he talks about many different things on the phone but repeating topic is Michael...just talking to you makes his day and later he'll tell everything Simeon and he smiles so brightly while he reports to him, please keep talking to him a lot!

#obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me swd #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me solomon #obey me simeon #obey me luke

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horrorslashergirl · 3 years

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A Hacker Story. When the package burns to ashes

Authors Note: Another story, another glimpse of who the psychopathic madman known as the Hacker, was.

Warning: Contains content that may trigger some people; scenes with bullying, certain sensitive topics of abuse and abandon, and disturbing themes because it's the Hacker.

It was another Friday night, and he wasn't invited to this so called party that his girlfriend attended, or was it ex-girlfriend? Xander could tell, because she simply said she needed a break, a pause, something so she could find herself.

He was confused and tried to understand what she meant, he gave her space, not wanting to pressure her. He was fine with waiting for her. After all, they made plans, after highschool, they would both go to college, make a carrer and have a future together.

He was the type to make long-term plans. Call him a perfectionist, but that's how he liked for things to be with certain topics in his life. After his mother left him, his sister and father, he wanted to make sure things will go all smoothly, so he took precautious measures.

So, here he was, entering her house, where the party took place, his grey eyes scanning the crowd for her, seeing all kinds of people, getting drunk and doing drugs, some moving upstairs and you didn't had to be a genius to know what they would do... Hopefully not get pregnant before they could finish highschool.

Walking into the kitchen, Xander saw his 'girlfriend' outside on the back porch, his grey eyes meet her blue ones, only the glass door between them and he felt his gut twist, not because he was anxious of talking to her, but because the football captain of the school was with her, flashing him one of these arrogant raised eyebrow expressions, his bulky arms crossed over his chest, putting on an Alpha male pose to assert his dominance silently.

"Blueberry..." Dalia whispered as she slide the glass door open, wrapping her arms around Xanders neck, making him feel all warm inside, basking into her scent and feeling his anxiety vanish, a smile tugging at his lips.

"I missed you." she murmured into his neck, his own arms wrapped around her and he felt like they were the only people into the room.

Pulling away, he grinned, his pearly whites adored by neon blue braces, as he looked into her sky blues, getting lost into them.

"I got you something." Xander said, pulling out a small tablet; it was a digital photo album with all their pictures together from the moment they meet, their memories and dates, screenshot of their cute messages together.

Of course all beautiful things have to come to an end as he was tugged outside on the back porch by the football captain known as Brian, making the slimmer male drop the digital tablet, Brian stepping on it, a crack could be heard, most likely broke it.

"Hey! What-" Xander argued, a frown on his face as he gazed at Brian who rolled his eyes.

"You weren't invited and that was with a reason. I got to make sure no freaks are coming to this party." he simply said, making Xander purse his lips, scoffing and giving a dry chuckle.

"Sure.... What would we do without the star of our school.. Mr. Perfect posting each day pictures all shirtless, with your football team and your red Porsche driving to school... And all the 4,000 followers on Instagram... Which half of them are fake by the way." Xander snapped, grey eyes narrowing more, stepping in front of the muscular tall male.

"But you know what? Us... Nerds.... We are not impressed." he spat, his eyes looking on Dalias who, like everyone was watching the whole scene.

"And what are you trying to say?" Brian asked with a bored look on his face.

"I am going to college. Me and Dalia. Together. To make a carrer.... Something that you will never do. You know what happens to popular guys like you?" The nerdy grey eyes male said, getting more into Brians face, making the sturdy guy shrug.

"They end up cleaning the toilets for people like me." Xander hissed, his patience wearing thin, not standing this asshole anymore, all that arrogance because he was tall, muscular and had a big status, with girls crowding around him, like he was the big shit.

Brian rolled his eyes and turned his back to Xander, not even giving him any thoughts, like he was invisible.

"Fucker." Xander muttered, under his breath, making Brian stop and chuckle, turning back to look him straight in his grey eyes.

"And what makes you think, you.... Of all people... Will realize something big, metal-mouth?" The jock scoffed, stalking over to Xander, putting one muscular arm over the nerds shoulder.

"If I recall.... Your mommy isn't the only one that left you." Brian commented with a smirk, pointing at Dalia.

Grey eyes widened, feeling suddenly small and self concious, looking at Dalia who didn't said anything, only looking away from him, trying to hide behind one of her friends.

"I guess, you don't have the balls, huh?" Brian added, gropping Xanders crotch mockingly, making the black haired male squeak and pull away, seeing everyone looking at him, snickering and laughing.

Swallowing hard like metal nails were piercing his throat, Xander run away from the crowd, from the house, taking his bike and peddaling away form the scene, from the party. Anywhere not there to be, feeling like he was all alone.

His mother left. His girlfriend left.

After many years....

Oh yes, he recalled these memories, and now he could only laugh at what happened back then in highschool. Ignorant idiots who think their world is at their feet only because they were lucky enough to be born into the 'perfect' family.

The Hacker researched more so out of pure boredom and curiousity what his former highschool classmates realized in life.

Most of them, had mediocre jobs that could hardly pay for a rent in New York City.

Brian? Looks like Mommy and Daddy went both broke, their company falling down to ashes. The price of having a loud mouth and being a show-off. He was no longer as sturdy as he used to be. Poor Brian thought that muscels and a good look could get him anywhere... The only problem is aging and the competition into a higher league of football was too much for Mr. Perfect.

Dalia? Finished highschool, got married to a guy who turned out to be an abusive asshole who kicked her out on the streets after find a better younger deal. She used to be so cute and innocent, and now she was selling herself on the streets of New York, because lets face it; as you age, you are not longer as desirable as you used to be back in the younger days. Guys want fresh meat.

They all thought they were invincible without a stable base. They all depended on someone; their mommy and daddy, their partner who was just using them etc.

The Hacker on the other hand? He builded his own empire all alone, not depending once on someone. He was his own boss, his own rules that he lived by.

He remembered back in highschool during a biology class, about the animal hierarchy.

They were two types; the solitary ones and the pack ones.

The pack ones were strong, only in big numbers, because alone, despite being hunter, they could turn to prey so easily. Lions, buffalos, wolvs..... Yes, they are strong ones, but without a pride or pack... They are completly vulnerable.

Then, the solitary ones; Tiger, Leopard, Crocodile, Jaguar, Polar Bears .... They hunt alone, all by themselvs and they excel into that department with impecable moves. They don't depend on anyone but their own skills and powers.

The Hacker was a solitary one and he loved to be like that. He didn't had to worry about anyone, to fill his mind with useless stuff about what the other might care when that someone can always turn their claws on him.

But he was a snake... Sneaky, cunning and venomous and if someone dared to mess with the Black Mamba, then this sleek serpent will sink his fangs into said person and make them wish they were never born.

"Oh how the hierarchy has turned upside down." he whispered to himself with a sadistic smirk, twirling the bowie knife between gloved fingers, eyes from behind the mask watching the countdown for the next Red Room Event.

'Only 2 Days 18 Hours and 35 Minutes Left'

"H-Help... W-Whose there?" a helpless voice spoke from behind the Hacker, looking over his shoulder to see the shiny metal chest, the broken voice resounding from inside.

"Soon.... Very soon." he rasped out, voice husky and dripping with macabre intentions.

The games have only just began.

#The Hacker #Erron #Cyber killer #Original character #Slasher OC #Horror #Disturbing #Creepy #Unnerving #Serial killer #Madman

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milkacchan · 4 years

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Request for anon: If it's not too much to ask, can I have headcanons for omega Shouto with an alpha s/o? Nsfw or sfw is up to you! Love your writing, love! 💞💞💞

I've been waiting for this moment for fucking W E E K S

Thank you 😌

And this is gonna be HELLA long :)

SFW-

• Sof boy

• He's quiet and can have an intimidating demeanor but he's a baby and he WEAK for you

• I mean the first day he saw you, he felt something

• At first he thought you were another omega

• You were shorter than him and the smile you sported the first day had him fooled

• It wasn't long before he realized you were an Alpha

• You and a few of the other Alpha females of the class were particularly protective of the omega females

• specifically you and Mina

• It came as no surprise that you ended up in the Bakusquad later on

• You didnt exclude the few omega males either

• When he first meets you, like actually meets you, is when he realizes you're an Alpha, based on smell alone

• You smell like Sandlewood and Chai and he LOVES it

• It makes his knees weak

• and you're just so soft?

• Like you have that calm that good Alphas posses and you use it often

• And when you use it for him one day, because he was freaking out, he thinks he's gonna pass out

• It took him WEEKS to realize the pangs in his chest werent physical

• He liked you

• and he doesn't feel like waiting around so he courts you instead and when you look surprised he isnt sure what to feel

• And then regret and dread fill him and he wishes he could just be normal with social cues and interactions

• And you realize he's zoned out a little, shaking and it looks like he's going to cry and you use that stupid Alpha thing on him

• You coo softly and pull him into your chest, telling him it was okay

• And he feels like he's gonna die again but he loves it so much and he's SO relieved when you accept his courting

• When you hugged him he realizes just how touch starved he is

• Anyway that's hour the powercouple of 1-A began

• He's not a big fan of PDA but he's not opposed to holding your hand

• Or sometimes he's had a bad day or he's not feeling the best mentally and he won't care he just wants to be with you

• Will 100% walk into bakusquad hang out in the common room just to hide his face in your shoulder

• Or sit next to you quietly

• You'll wrap an arm around him and press a kiss to his temple while you continue your conversation with Sero and Denki

• Listen they think it's the CUTEST fucking thing

• Because it is. It really is.

• Bakugou pretends it grosses him out but it really doesnt

• He honestly thinks it's a lil cute too and mentally swears that if his BF dont treat him the way you treat yours he dont want him

• Yall will help eachother study

• Because he's good at math but you're good at english

• So it balances out

• And training. Lots of sparring.

• You're also the one to calm him down

• Todoroki tends to beat himself up a lot over his 'daftness'

• He doesn't always pick up on social cues or know how to keep a conversation

• And he hates that because he feels that sometimes it makes people feel uncomfortable and they're his friends and he doesnt want that

• So it'll get to him and sometimes if he over thinks it too much he'll start to panic

• You told him that whenever he felt like that, he came to see your it he called you

• He feels like it's a burden but when he see's the look of love in your eyes and the way you hold him and kiss his cheeks, he doesnt feel like that anymore

• He's so happy with you???

• and he loves you so much

• Y'all are just so disgusting

• Sappy as fuck but also the right level of completely roasting eachother

• It's nice:)

• He cooks for you no doubt

• You make him Soba when he's sad

• When you're sad he'll hold you against his chest and whisper in your ear to counter whatever you had just said

• If you ever feel mediocre it less than him he'll tell you why you're absolutely not less than him

• Ys fights aren't really super serious but it can still get a little heated, it never ends it break ups though

• It usually ends in taking a few hours to calm down (Todoroki refuses to let either of yall go to sleep angry with a problem unresolved) then talking it out and at least TRYING to come to a compromise

• Usually it's about wellbeing matters (overworking and being reckless and what not)

• Going full Alpha if someone fucks with him in battle 🤪

• Going full Alpha if you see him hurt on the field 🤪

• Snapping at Endeavor that one time 🤪

• Him going feral that one time you and Bakugou got SNATCHED 🤪

• Oops 🤪

• LISTEN

• You show him memes and Vines and junk and you teach him about them and one day he just makes a reference but he's completely deadpan about it and you're laughing so hard you fall out of your chair because HOLY SHIT

• He grins a lil

• His alpha laughed at his joke🥺

• S c e n t i n g

• Todoroki loves smelling like you

• He'll steal your hoodies (the oversized ones you have anyway)

• OR he'll have you scent some of his things because he's gonna smell like you dammit

• also gives you a box of your things that he's scented and you dont even mind because Todo smells so good and it's gonna make him happy so hell yeah

• For him Scenting can either be really calming or erotic

• To wind down he'll sit on your bed and you'll be on his lap, scenting him and it just makes him feel so calm

• Will fall asleep

• When he gets really comfortable with kissing he'll be constantly pecking your lips and kissing the nape of your neck when no ones is paying attention

• Once while you were on the couch with Bakusquad, he was walking by with dekusquad to go out and do whatever nerd shit they do

• And he stopped where you were, moved your hair to the side and pressed a soft kiss to the back of your neck and then just. Walked away.

• needless to say you short circuited

• and he does that often

NSFW-

• I once read about Sub/Bottom Todoroki and

• I can't stop thinking about it bc it lowkey works so well

• I feel like he'd be a switch though

• Like somedays he want to be wrecked by his Alpha

• But sometimes he wants to see you squirming and breathless underneath him

• He'd probably prefer to sub/bottom tho

• As I said before scenting can either be really calm for him or it can be erotic and like an immediate turn on for him

• So when it is like sexy time, and you're scenting, this man doesnt stand a chance

• He's whimpering and he's so hard it hurts

• He's got his neck bared for you and his face is read

• It smells like pure sex in the room, its really strong and you both LOVE it

• One time he gets hit by a heat inducing quirk

• And you help him with that because it so much worse than regular heat and you can tell its hurting him

• And he smells so fucking good

• Before he really lost all sense he managed to put a collar on you you couldn't mark him, your Alpha wasn't pleased with that

• Anyway Todoroki gets fucked into the mattress repeatedly, mewling and crying out and he's so fucking pleased with your hips rutting into his

• he feels so full and his omega is fucking KEENING because if the attention he's getting

• You're either leaning over him or you've got your hands on his waist

• He's never been more thankful for the stretching you've made him do so he wouldn't pull muscles

• After a week of the two of you going MIA, the two of you timidly return to 1A

• At some point the teachers (and endeavor) had found out.

• But what were they going to do? You two weren't on school grounds, you weren't breaking any rules

• Endeavor sure as hell isn't going to interfere

• I feel like even Endeavor would understand the gravity of the situation and that the only way to help his son was let him and his Alpha take care of it

• and as long as he's not officially marked by the end of it, he doesn't care

• Shouto does, however, have a shit ton of hickies and scratches and bruises. Everytime he looks at them his omega keens again and he loves it

• Like, Hickies on his jawline. Hickies on his arm and the back of his neck, on his thighs and stomach

• Bruises on his wrists and hips and thighs

• Like all this shit is visible

• He reassured you after you apologized profusely for like 2 hours that it was FINE and he LIKED it

• His class had a fuckin stroke

• especially Deku

• Bakusquad is lowkey impressed bc holy fuck YOU did that???

• 'You seemed so Vanilla'

• Lmao sikeee

• Todoroki learned a lot about what he liked during that

• He likes having his hair pulled

• He likes being praised and told how good he is

• He likes being DENIED what he wants until he's BEGGING for it in short and broken gasps, moans, and sobs.

• He likes Sharp and rough sex followed by something sweet and slow

• He probably wouldnt be on board with being degraded really, which is fine bc I cant imagine anyone who would want to degrade this boy

• From then on you do tend to help him with heats they just dont last as long

• He really likes grinding

• Just like all forms of it

• Making out? He's going to have you grinding on him while you're sitting on his lap

• He's horny and you're busy? He'll ride your thigh while you're doing work on the computer

• He felt like Domming today? He's going to grind himself on you while he's still got pants on.

• Laying in bed? He'll hump and grind against your thigh while you smile and kiss him.

• He just really loves it

• /Thourougly/ enjoys foreplay

• one of his favorite parts about sex

• When he doms- he starts out a little nervous unless he's in a mood but he'll quickly fall into it

• His voice is just so suited for being a Dom like wtf

• He'll lean down and whisper in your ear

• 10/10 dirty talk

• Uses his body as sex appeal to make you squirm

• will cuff you

• Will tie you up

• He'll not let you touch until your like really close

• He likes to see you come undone underneath him

• He thinks you're so pretty when you've got drool dribbling down your chin with your eyes lidded and face red

• He thinks your moans are the best

• I don't see him as being particularly loud in bed until he's actually a mess

• so it starts off as quiet groans and silent moans but as it goes on he'll get louder

• in heat though he's VERY loud

• Let's say you're in the middle, it depends on what's happening

• Y'all have the perfect balance of absolute filth and it's never boring :)

#bhna todoroki #todoroki shouto #todoroki shōto #enji todoroki #shouto todoroki #Shoto Todoroki #Omega Shouto Todoroki #my hero academia x reader #omegaverse my hero academia #my hero academia omegaverse #my hero academia #Omega Todoroki #Alpha reader #Todoroki x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #Shouto x reader #Todoroki Shouto x reader

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faulty-writes · 4 years

Text

Warning: None

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Shouta Aizawa x ProHero!Reader

[ Alright, lovely followers and fanfiction lovers. This is my first piece for the Hero Bingo Camp event from @bnhabookclub. I present to you, Midnight Coffee Run with our favorite Erasure hero. ]

[ You never thought you’d run into your old teacher after you graduated, but during an overnight patrol you decided to pop into a local cafe, seems like Shouta had the same idea. ]

A gentle breeze came and his scarf carried with it as he continued to crouch on the rooftop of the building, his goggles securely over his eyes which were busy scanning the streets below. A large clock continued to click from the building across from the Erasure hero. It read 12:45 AM, guess he was pulling an all-nighter. Despite his job at U.A., Shouta preferred the moments where he could continue his true passion.

That is, being a hero. Still, the bags under his eyes only seemed to grow and his eyelids were heavy. Maybe he could use a coffee, a small break wouldn’t hurt. Even though Shouta tended to be a workaholic, he couldn’t do much if he was falling asleep on the job. He groaned before standing on his feet, he knew there was a local cafe nearby. Nothing fancy, just a small joint with mediocre coffee.

But it’d do in a pinch and it was one of the very few cafes that actually remained open 24/7, which was good news for him. He carefully made his way down the building, using the aid of his scarf. A soft grunt sounded as he touched the concrete of the sidewalk before slipping his hands into his pockets and slouched over as he walked to the cafe. It wasn’t that far, but he kept his eyes peeled.

Continuously looking back and forth, he always kept his guard up. You never know when someone could jump out of the shadows, and Shouta wasn’t about to take any chances. Still, he made it to the cafe without a problem and the sound of a bell rang when he stepped inside. He pulled his goggles up and looked around, there were a few teenagers with nothing better to do and a few late-night workers who looked half-dead.

He walked to the counter and spotted a familiar face. You had graduated from U.A. High the previous year and landed a pretty sweet sidekick position at your work-study agency. Your name was making its way through the ranks and though you weren't popular yet, much like Shouta. You didn’t want to be in the spotlight, too much pressure.

Still, you enjoyed doing overnight hero patrols, though you normally stayed at the agency and waited for any distress calls. You had decided to volunteer for patrol instead, though you were getting a little sleepy and thought a caffeine boost was in order. So you found the cafe and took a seat at the counter, your large coffee was sitting contently in an oversized mug along with the small sweet you had decided to get.

Might as well have something to dip into your coffee, you hadn’t noticed your old teacher had walked in as you were more focused on your phone which was laying on the counter. You were texting a few fellow heroes, who mainly wanted to know if you had seen any suspicious activity during your patrol. Of course, you hadn’t and that answer didn’t sit well with a few of the older heroes you were communicating with.

You knew being a hero was serious work, but at the same time, some people took it too seriously. Shouta raised his eyebrow as he saw you hunched over the counter and went about ordering his coffee before taking the seat next to you. He watched as you sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. An amused smile came to his face. “It’s a rare sight to see one of my old students fall under the pressure of being a hero.” you jumped in your seat, your eyes widened as you immediately recognized who that scratchy voice belonged to.

You turned your head, seeing your old teacher Shouta Aizawa. He was slumped over in his chair, his elbow was propped against the counter and he had the side of his cheek resting in the palm of his hand. You swallowed as you noticed that smile on his face, you remembered it all too well from the training he had put you through. Though he wasn’t your homeroom teacher, you had admired the Erasure hero and often volunteered for extra training classes which you felt were more like student torture sessions.

Shouta was a fierce opponent and he didn’t hold back with his training exercises. You may or may not still have nightmares, but either way. You continued to admire the hero, but he was still intimidating and the last thing you expected was to see him in a cafe, much less sitting next to you. “A-Aizawa sensei?” you questioned, blinking as if you wanted to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

You swallowed and immediately hid your phone behind your back, you felt as though you were back in school. “Uh, w-what are you doing here?” you questioned, though you wanted to facepalm yourself after the words left your lips. It was obvious what he was doing here, however, he found your words amusing and chuckled in response. “You’re not in class, don’t hide your phone,” he said and you blushed, though he was right.

You weren’t his student anymore, you were both pro heroes and there should be mutual respect or at least you hoped. You groaned and slowly brought your phone to rest in your lap, the screen was face down though you still felt it vibrate. Guess your fellow heroes were talkative tonight, but you would ignore them for now. Your attention was focused on Shouta and you watched as a large cup of coffee was placed in front of him.

You couldn’t help but notice it was black, no cream or sugar. You almost chuckled, somehow that fit Shouta’s rather bland personality. “Really?” you questioned as he reached over to grab the cup, “Hm?” he hummed in response before turning to face you. “You really like your coffee black? Are you too afraid sugar or cream would make you a little sweet?” you teased and watched as Shouta rolled his eyes before taking a sip, he only needed the caffeine.

“Still attempting to be humorous I see, you were always easily distracted,” he said, still holding the cup of coffee as he looked at you. “Excuse me?” you said, acting offended as you placed your hands on your hips. “I was a good student,” you replied and once more Shouta chuckled. “I believe you’re recalling your student life incorrectly.” you huffed and placed your phone on the counter.

“I don’t think so,” you said, before pointing your finger at him. “I always followed your orders and I always passed the training sessions to the best of my abilities.” However, your old teacher seemed unimpressed with most of his students. Though if he favored one student more than the other, it would cause problems. You noted he would, on occasion, pull a certain student aside and tell them he was proud of their accomplishments.

You always knew he had a soft spot and he really was a good teacher, if you saw past his tough-guy front. “When you weren’t talking over my instructions that is or busy showing off your quirk,” he said with a sly smirk before taking another sip of his coffee and you were beginning to think you couldn’t exactly win an argument with him. So instead, you sighed in defeat and crossed your arms.

“Fine,” you said and found amusement in watching him finish his cup of coffee. Yours still sat half-finished, you turned in your seat and grabbed it. Noticing it felt cold and you were tempted to leave what was in the cup, but you had already paid for it so might as well finish it. You brought it to your lips and began to down it, you took a breath when you were finished and placed the mug back onto the counter.

You grabbed the rest of what remained of your treat and began to eat it. You quickly wiped your mouth before turning back to Shouta. “Gees, I never knew you were such a coffee addict.” you commented and Shouta chuckled, “Well, normally I don’t run into old students on midnight coffee trips.” you couldn’t help but smile, “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” you replied before shrugging and glancing over at your phone that continued to vibrate.

“What is so important?” you said, a small hint of frustration was in your voice before you reached over and grabbed your phone. Your eyes widened as you noticed the amount of text messages you had received and hunched over in your seat as you scrolled through them. You reached up to tug on your hair as you skimmed through each one and shook your head, “This is crazy.” you said and Shouta tilted his head.

“What’s the matter?” he questioned, taking note of your worried expression. You lowered your phone and looked at your old teacher with a frown. “I’m not sure,” you began, shaking your head before looking back at your phone. “I think...someone might have spotted a villain and then their communication went offline,” you explained, and your heart filled with worry.

“Looks like we’re going to have to cut this coffee run short,” you said as you got up from your seat, however, Shouta grabbed your shoulder. “Hey…” he said and you groaned before looking over your shoulder. “I don’t need a lecture Aizawa sensei,” you replied and missed the fact that Shouta had pulled his goggles down. “I wasn’t going to give you a lecture.” he said as he rose from his seat, “I’ll join you.” his words made you jump and you looked at him surprised.

“Y-You’ll join me?” you repeated and Shouta nodded. “Least I can do for an old student, it’s been a slow night. Maybe it’ll end with something exciting,” he said before you smiled, even if you weren’t his student. He was still there for you when you needed him and you were a little eager to see him in action.

“Great.” you said before looking at your phone, “Let’s go then. Follow me.” you said, smiling wide as you ran out the door. Shouta was right behind you, and it was honestly exciting. Your coworkers wouldn’t believe it when you told them you ran into Eraserhead himself and joined him on a distress call.

#shouta x reader #aizawa x reader #bnha bookclub #eraserhead x reader

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official-alan-dabiri · 3 years

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First and foremost, we have some exciting new changes that everyone can get behind. Absolutely nobody has a problem with the new experience globe mechanics. New experience globes are only at full value for six seconds, and after that are worth 25% exp. And then they last for thirty-nine seconds. Nobody finds this objectionable in any way. This change was not on the PTR due to public outcry from Reddit when it was leaked early, but it’s here live with all of its zero problems fixed.

Another change about which we have received zero complaints is a new tag system behind the scenes. People looking for just the right hero for the situation can easily find it by searching for such keywords as “CC” “Silence” “Sustain” and “Double soak” and find extremely useful and not absolute garbage results. Don’t worry about checking it ahead of time, just get right into draft mode and use it to find the perfect pick!

In addition to those minor and unobjectionable changes, we have removed Volskaya Foundry from the ranked queue, and added everyone’s favorite quickmatch map, Warhead Junction. We have also done this simultaneously with an Overwatch-themed event.

Hero changes below the cut, because this patch is another doozy, with fiiiiiive herooooo rewoooooorks, Four buffed assassins, three nerfed offlaners, two nerfed tanks and we also nerfed the looost viiiikiiiings!

Anduin is the first of our reworks and with him taking a more prominent role in Shadowlands we want to be able to welcome WoW players with open arms. He, uh, doesn’t have a new skin or anything, we just want people to play this game. The central goal of the buff is to improve his healing output in line with other heroes without removing the largest strength in Leap of Faith. As such, we’re just touching literally every part of his kit and talent try and praying that it goes the way we want.

People keep mistaking Johanna for the best tank in the game. This is factually untrue, since Muradin exists. As such, we are just gutting the absolute pants off of Johanna’s talent tree and making it weird and clunky.

For too long has Raynor been the scourge of draft play. Too good to skip, but not scary enough to ban. Perfect macro contributions, with respectable hero damage. Enough self-sustain to take weight off your healer, and self-peel for when tanks are bad. The perfect killing machine. As such, we’ve nerfed his damage into the ground. Start playing Greymane, bitches.

Stitches has proven to be a mediocre bruiser in the eyes of the community. After all these years, I think I know why. We accidentally categorized him as a tank. As such, he needs some serious changes to make him fit that label. This whole time we’ve been balancing him as a bruiser and nobody said anything? This is as much your fault as it is mine.

The average damage output of a ranged assassin has been steadily climbing for a while now. As a result, for a hero to actually be a glass cannon, they need some serious firepower. Valla now has the gunpowder to match her glass. And she’s the glassiest cannon there is. Don’t get me wrong, she still evaporates like a drop of water in California when an enemy hero looks at her. But when she has a solid tank and three healers behind her, the world is your oyster.

Oh my god they didn’t break down the heroes by category. Jesus Christ what the fuck Blizzard? You just decided that this is the line? This is the day you stop caring? Well, congratulations, you’ve made reading your patch notes mildly more inconvenient. I’m still doing this. Ya bunch of jack-offs.

Mei has been grossly overperforming, and we have no idea how that happened. We certainly didn’t buff her over and over again for an entire year. Anyway, we’re just going to roll some stuff back. Definitely probably fine.

It turns out - and bear with me here because this might be hard to follow - Hogger, D.va, and Sonya were all overtuned? For six months? So we’re just gonna tippy tappy them down the smallest little bit. And then slap them around a little for good measure. D.va’s mech form is no longer indomitable, Hogger can no longer solo any merc camp in the game in 12 seconds, and Sonya is now... Basically fine still, honestly. We kinda gave her just a slap on the wrist in comparison. But honestly after gutting Hogger like that, I just didn’t have the heart. One of the benefits from being a little later, alphabetically.

After riding the TLV train up through the ranks, I think it’s about time to recognize that I’m not actually good at them. They’re just overtuned. So it’s time to come back to earth, Icarus. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly-small HP nerf, though. The real nerf is buffing Longboat Raid. People are going to have to pick it to test it and it’s gonna murder their winrate.

Someone told me that Lucio is a problem and needed to be addressed this patch, but my cat came into the home office being adorable so I didn’t hear exactly what they said. So we had to kinda wing it. Hopefully these minor adjustments to his talent tree will solve whatever they were talking about!

Even we know Uther is a problem. Being first pickable and filling three different unique roles was what we wanted to do with Varian not Uther. So we’re going to try and make him incrementally worse at tanking until he just goes away. First up: Shaving off some of that personal armor.

AFK splitpush trash Azmodan is dead. Long live teamfight artillery mage Azmodan. Really glad I made the last HotS Content post about Nova instead of Azmodan because boy howdy do these changes invalidate the entire playstyle that post would have discussed.

W build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was he riddled with bugs after the rework - don’t worry, we learned from our mistakes and made sure there were no bugs with our new reworks - but also he had the ability to point and click on an enemy hero and force them to run all the way to the next lane over in order to stop taking buckets of free damage. It turns out that ability was more powerful than anticipated, and required adjustment.

Q build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was it completely overshadowed by a build that did more damage in every situation with less skill requirement, but we overestimated the value of macro power on a build that demands PvP for stacking. As such, we’ve doubled the amount of power each stack gives him! That’ll do.

AA build Falstad... Stay the course, buddy. Doin’ fine.

Junkrat has been underperforming, which is surprising for a hero with his level of power. As such, we’re going to make a few small buffs to hopefully draw attention, and then we can roll things back once the pickrate reflects his actual power. Hopefully then WE CAN FINALLY MAKE THE MANDATORY CHANGE I PUT IN EVERY MEMO. TYRE. WITH A Y. THAT’S HOW THEY SPELL IT IN AUSTRALIA. KAEO I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU- wait, did Kaeo leave? Who the fuck is still here? Kinnabrew? Adam? Jason? JASON! JASON!?

Tassadar has also fallen off a lot without us having done anything at all whatsoever to nerf him. Entirely undeserved treatment. I’m disappointed in all of you. As such, we’re going to tweak his numbers up just a little tippy tap so that you all remember who killed the Overmind. It wasn’t James Raynor or Sarah Kerrigan. It was Tassadar... Tassadar Bassadar. That’s his last name. Don’t look it up, just trust me.

In the bug fix department, we’ve had a nice sit-down with the Mountain Giants on Alterac and told them that if they have time to lean, they have time to clean. Reaching the end of their lane and expecting the core to come to them is putting undue stress on an already overtaxed position. The core is a very stressful job, and if the mountain giants could just do their part to walk into the core pit when they arrive, that’s a huge load off their shoulders. Drek’thar and Vanndar really needed this expectation taken off them right now, and I’m hopeful it will lead to a better work environment.

#Heroes of the Storm #patch notes #Don't message me telling me Tassadar's real last name #I know it's De La Cruz

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ruakichan · 3 years

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LOL. My squad was the one campaigning for this. The original squad leader withdrew from the squad a few times due to accidentally hitting that button instead of the donation buttons. I know I’ve hit it a few times too but stopped before the final confirmation instead of staying in auto. Still, pretty amusing that they managed to get this change in; discord chat was full of celebration w.

whyyyy NO ONE LIKES QUANTUM RAID whyyyyyyyyyyyyy did you add MORE MODES including RTA please don’t have rewards locked behind this

1) ffs there goes my dreams of having a better gold FC for rachel (or even improving his artwork sigh he looks so outdated); also if this includes orange FCs, there goes more dreams of getting better looking skins for my faves. look, the problem isn’t that the same charas get FCs, it’s that the same charas are meta due to the mechanics of the game (so they get the FCs cause that’s who ppl use) and that they haven’t released new legendaries for any of the new nations. literally you are screaming at the wrong problem here omfggggg. also generals not getting new FCs means it’ll be harder to get more dupes for them so thanks a lot.

2) ROFL the anxiety of dorka getting genderbent into a guy really did scare the dudebros roflmaoooooo guys they are not going to genderbend the game’s #1 waifu, but RIP getting any more genderbends (though it’s been lolis for the most part anyway, but FC Neomi was such a nice treat)

Caveat: I know the main complaints are cause the Loli genderbends got a whole new set of FCs based on the same concept but just new costumes, but were slapped into a new category that really didn’t have much to do with the story (ie: why was Uloom slapped into Brunn when their core story is being with Rera and even their new animation still includes Rera, who has nothing to do with Brunn; Garff, who is the LEAD GENERAL OF SAINT WEST is now a general of Brunn what?.. etc. etc.)

FCs are meant to be AU versions of characters for the most part, but I think this was too much a departure for people to accept and the fact that these charas already had loli genderbends when other charas don’t have any FCs etc rubbed people the wrong way. Like, Neomi was the only new character in The Great Brunn category, and the next preview looks like Mahar and Valar? are getting FCs when they already have some. (Though in both cases, very mediocre FCs no one uses lol and Mahar’s is straight up Door of Creation fodder since he has no Core Memory. Mahar being Lenombe, I wouldn’t mind him getting a decent FC??? Lenombe has no defensive options so it’d be nice if this turned out to be it and he’d be useable. Also wdf he was handsome when he was young, why does North von Frosty’s royal family have such nice genes except alexei’s chin??????)

I personally rather they release improved FCs for charas that have shitty ones (like Mahar) than constantly releasing new characters cause this game is impossible to raise characters effectively in a timely fashion. You basically just stick to a core few.

If they release new characters, I rather they be released into already set nations. I think they said they had one more core nation to release (Marinos) but with the introduction of this allied nation thing, they can just infinitely release those instead of buffing or filling out core nations.

And finally. Main reason I’m even still here. Looks like it’ll be a bit more involved (main quest + side quests) but we’ll see how execution actually goes. I’ve really tempered my expectations involving this game and its plot LOL. Can’t wait to see all my headcanons get destroyed, though! w Main reason I stopped writing R/R, cause I didn’t want to get involved in some story and this thing comes out and is like ‘well, akshually...’

(I’ve already been thinking about deleting Bluebirds from AO3 cause of this.)

if rachel only shows up at the end i’m gonna flip a desk yes i’m still salty about season 3 “EYESORE” asldgjk al;gkj al;ghjk

I can’t get over the little Sia though. =w= I can’t wait to see how she is animated. I know a lot people don’t like chibis in their mobages, but EH’s paper dolls are really cute. especially when they’re screaming if the dragon catches them on the world map

/squint They did reveal an Orange FC for Ramge (and Rudley and Rera) based on the S4 Anniversary pinup:

Could those be it? /thonking (Rud looks so good, I’d 100% use that skin and I wouldn’t mind Rud getting his own MS storyline since it seems like he’s led a really interesting life—he even knows Garff!)

Though releasing these as separate Orange FCs I wouldn’t mind either, since the odds of Rachel getting one goes up, and while I find his suit extremely uninspired, at least this gives me more dress up options for him since I’m sitting on all these dye tix I’ll never use...

Anyway tl;dr, I just want this game to give me some Rachel food cause I’m so very tired and hungry.

#roo gaming #exos heroes #long post #screenshot #WAIT I JUST REALIZED IN THE OTHER SCREENSHOT FOR MS THERE IS A PREVIEW OF #RAMGE'S NEW ORANGE FC #looks like it is the anni one #though this might be the paid skin since it's in the spot the monthly paid orange fc is in #sia's in the image too wwwwwwww!!!1111

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peter-parkourwrites · 5 years

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Searching For Forever ~ Part 1 (Peter Parker x Stark!FemReader)

Warnings: Swearing,, mediocre writing, uh angst ig??

Summary: When everything seems almost too perfect, your family is starting to fall to pieces. Your father chooses his path, and Steve chooses the opposite, and you’re in the middle of it all. Only confiding in your best friend who just so happens to be everyones favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and the one you fall for.

Part 2 is here

A/N: Hi!! Part 1 is here!! I hope you all love it as much as I do, thank you for reading. I am going to hopefully have part 2 up sometime next week. I will let you all know the night before I post it. Enjoy! Love you all,, xx ~ Devyn <3

Civil War Part 1 -

“Miss Stark?” FRIDAY’s voice rang through your ears. You lay disheveled on your floor. Hair up in a messy bun, and stains covering your clothes of chemicals, food, and water.

“Yes, Friday?” You called back as you jotted down another equation into your notebook for later solving. School was most certainly your least favorite thing, well, that and your dad being mad at you. Your father, Tony Stark a world-famous billionaire and genius, and he loved to add onto that with ‘playboy and philanthropist.’ While the last part was true he had now had a steady relationship going with Pepper Potts. When you were dropped off at your father’s house at the age of three, by your mother, Pepper had been the one to whip Tony into shape and made him realize he had a responsibility now. You.

“Your father is asking if you could join him for something to eat.”

“Eat? It’s only three…”

“Miss, it’s seven o’clock. He said dinner is ready and he needs to discuss some things with you.” You pushed yourself up off the floor and closed the notebook, making sure to mark your place with a pencil.

“I swear if this is about me stealing all of Caps sweatshirts again…” You grumbled and walked out of your room after putting on a clean shirt. You feet collided with the cool marble flooring, a soft pitter-patter echoing off the walls of the tower. As the elevator whirred and took you down to the dining area, you picked at your cubicles, a nervous tick you had picked up since you had found out your dad was Iron Man. You had snuck into his lab one night when you were seven. Trouble sleeping and lack of comfort from him led you to where you were standing in the lab. Your jaw hits the floor, the teddy bear in your hand, -who you ironically named snuffles because really what kid didn’t have a weird name for their stuffed bears- had hit the floor with a gentle thud. Right in front of your eyes was your father testing out his new suit, DUM-E right by his side holding up a fire extinguisher.

“YOU'RE IRON MAN?!” Your voice filled the lab, and Tony jumped slightly, one of his arms getting knocked loose from the suit.

“(Y/N)!” He hissed, “What the hel-heck are you doing in here! You should be asleep!” Tony yelled, his face turning red from anger or embarrassment, you couldn’t really tell. You bent down and picked up snuffles drawing him into your chest as you held him close.

“I-I couldn’t s-sleep and Miss Potts isn’t here so…” You shrugged and Tony sighed, a greasy hand running through his hair as he climbed out of the suit. He sat down on a stool and motioned for you to walk over. A small smile graced your features as you happily walked up towards him, hair bobbing around as you jumped with every step. Tony let out a small chuckle as he wiped his hands with a rag and reached out for you. He lifted you up and sat you on his knee.

“Listen pumpkin, you can’t tell anyone about this. This is our little secret… okay?”

“Okay!” You cheered nodding at him and holding up your pinkie. He laughed and linked his with yours.

“You can’t tell anyone, not Miss Potts, Happy, your uncle Rhodey… no one. This is dangerous and I don’t want anyone to know.”

“But why not?” You asked moving your attention from the bear in your arms up to his face. Your big (y/e/c) doe eyes made his heart warm at the sight.

“Because pumpkin, you could all get hurt. And I can’t let that happen. Especially not to you.”

“I’ll be fine daddy, you’re iron man!” You giggled and he shook his head a small laugh escaping past his lips. You were so young and had yet to figure out the dangers of this world. Tony wanted to keep it from you for as long as possible, he was going to protect you no matter the cost. His hand cupped the back of your small head as he gently pulled you closer to his chest.

“I love you.” He whispered and placed a gentle kiss to the top of your head. You smiled warmly and looked up at him.

“I love you too Papa.” You hummed and rested your head against his chest again, your eyes scanning the room around you as you asked, “Does this mean I get my own suit now?”

“No.” He stated, before laughing softly. “You’re too young, and-”

“Then can I try on your suit?!” You cried out, raising your head from his chest and giving him a goofy grin. He let out a defeated sigh and shook his head.

“Not tonight pumpkin, it’s time for bed.”

“(Y/n)!” Your father’s cheery voice filled your ears as the elevator doors slid open.

“Hey Old Man, Miss Potts.” You greeted the pair as you walked up to the kitchen island and climbed up onto one of the obnoxiously high stools.

“(y/n/n), sweetie how many times have I told you to call me Pepper?” Pepper said, looking over at you with a teasing smile. You chuckled nervously and shrugged.

“Heh, sorry force of habit I guess… Anyways uh what’s for dinner?”

“Cheeseburgers and I made them.” Tony grinned and you sighed shaking your head.

“Well, Pepper guess we had better start apartment searching.” You said nudging the blonde woman's arm. She laughed and nodded in agreement.

“I’ll call the relators now.”

“No no no! There is no need for that. I didn’t even burn the kitchen down!”

“Yeah, this time! Besides for all we know this could be an illusion Old Man.”

“Oh, can it. I know what I’m doing.” He grumbled turning away from the both of you and grabbing the plates. He handed them out before sitting down across from you. You looked down at the burger and fries sitting beside it. You tossed a fry into your mouth and chewed, before picking up the burger. Your eyes flickered from the burger to Pepper who was looking over at you as well. A soft sigh escaped your lips as you bite into it.

You placed it down again and nodded, your eyes meeting the cheerful face of your father.

“It’s… really good. Nice job Dad.” You said with a smile as he gave you a goofy grin and cheered.

“I knew it! Now next time you underestimate my cooking you’ll be eating rats.”

“Dad!” you screeched, “Tony!” Pepper and you called at the same time making you chuckle a bit.

“Oh whatever anyways, what I needed to talk about Uhm…” Tony cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Do you remember a few days ago your Uncle Steve and crew went to Lagos.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, Wanda… she uh. She basically contained the blast but she threw it upward near a building, which was full of Wakandan humanitarian workers.”

“Wait wait so, Rumlow the guy I told you looked like a bad guy, tried to steal that staff thing or whatever it was, and then blew himself up, causing Wanda to hurt Wakandans?”

“Yes, now we have some of it under control. We are getting word to Wakanda and they will be handling everything with the families but, Secretary Ross-”

“I hate that guy…” You grumbled taking another bite of food.

“So do I pumpkin, but he informed all of us that we need to have a meeting about what happened. So the rest of the team is coming back soon, and we will have a meeting tomorrow night.” Tony said as he took the last bite of his burger and sighed. “So just be prepared for anything to happen.”

“Already am Dad.” You said with a reassuring smile as you stood up and put your plate in the sink. “Besides you guys will work it out and come up with a solution together, you always do.” You said walking back over to him and placing a small kiss to his cheek. He smiled and hugged you before standing up. “I’m gonna get back to work… I’ll see you two in the morning, night Pepper, night Dad.”

“Goodnight (y/n), sleep well.” Pepper said as she poured herself a cup of tea. You smiled at her and waved before walking over to the elevator.

“Night Pumpkin!” Tony called off as you walked into the elevator. A small smile curled on your lips as the doors slid shut. You hit the button for your floor and up went the elevator with a quiet whir.

“(Y/N)?! Hellooooo?” Ned snapped his fingers in your face making you jump. You brought the palms of your hands up to your eyes and rubbed them gently before looking up across the table at him and Peter with an apologetic grin.

“Sorry Ned, uh what was that?” You asked bringing your pencil up to your face and tapping it against your lip.

Last night all seemed like one big blur. You had gone back up to your room and sat down in front of your Ap Physics homework, the equations jumbled together in your head, mixing with thoughts of how the meeting tomorrow would play out. Everything was a mess. You tried calling Steve but he sent you straight to voicemail. You assumed it was because technology was never his strong suit, but when you had called Nat she told you he was sitting alone on the jet by himself and refusing to speak. Which was never a good time in anyone’s case. And it didn’t help the fact that Wanda refused to talk to anyone either, leaving Sam and Nat to chat amongst themselves or sleep. Which Nat had problems with in the first place. So the two of you remained talking for most of the night, she explained what happened during the mission, and how she took down some of his men after chasing them through the crowded village streets. A real mess, the mission actually turned out to be, even if they did stop Rumlow… sort of. You knew this whole thing was going to be one huge lawsuit, and mess to clean up. Nat had urged you to sleep after talking until three am, and when you argued she hung up, leaving you to sit and ponder for a while until your alarm blared twenty minutes after you fell asleep. You had no clue you were awake that long, figuring you were dreaming when in reality you sat alone with your clouded and messy thoughts. They ran a mile a minute and nothing made sense. Not then, and certainly not now as you sat across from a rambling Ned and Peter in study hall.

“I asked if later tonight you wanted to come over to Peters with us and watch Star Wars? Right, Pete.” Ned asked, giving the blushing boy beside him a knowing glance before turning back to you.

“Oh uh yeah, yep. We were gonna grab sandwiches from Delmars on the way back along with some snacks and just hang out like we used to before…” He gulped and faked winced. “SAT’s.” You chuckled softly at his dramatic performance and leaned back in your chair, a yawn escaping past your somewhat chapped lips, after licking them nervously all day long.

“I would love to!” The boys perked up at that sentence, “But I can’t… I need to be at home. My father has a meeting tonight.” The boys frowned in sync before Peter’s face seemed to light up and a glimmer of hope shown in his eyes.

“Wait do you have to be there? Like will the world end if you’re not?”

“Dude, she said no. Her dad is Tony Stark I mean I don’t think she’d be able to get out of it anyways.” Ned’s disappointment was seemingly making you and Peter upset, but Peter did have a good point.

“Actually, Pete’s right. I can just call and ask him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind, as long as I’m home by ten. Which won’t be a problem with Happy.” They nodded their heads eagerly and you shook your head with a small chuckle, opting to call your father later and going back to your studies.

“‘Sup Losers.” Mj stated as she dropped her sketchbook on the table open to a freshly drawn image of you. As your brow raised in confusion, you reached over and picked up the book, your eyes skimming over the charcoal drawing and chuckling softly to yourself before handing it back to her.

“Hey Michelle, I guess I was another one of your ‘muses’ again? What was it this time, me being dead tired, or over-stressed?”

“A bit of both, Stark. You always have an interesting expression. Hard to read but not impossible.” She said before closing her book and slinking back in her chair as her gaze fixated on Ned and Peter. “I think your nerds are broken, (Y/N/N).” You looked up and rolled your eyes realizing Peter and Ned’s mouths were agape, and they had confused looks on their faces.

“Ahem, Peter… Ned, this is Michelle. She’s in my art appreciation class.”

“My friends call me MJ.” She said pushing a stray strand of hair from her face.

“So… why doesn’t (Y/N) call you MJ?” Peter asked, raising a brow as he looked between the both of you. MJ let out an annoyed huff while you chuckled.

“Well, I forget sometimes.”

“No, it’s because you’re a loser like them and do it to annoy me.” MJ chimed in with a small smirk as she pulled out her notebook.

“Hey! We are not losers!” Peter squeaked making you laugh, and shrug.

“Yes you are, we all are. Right MJ?” You said looking over at her with a playful smirk.

“Nah (Y/N/N) you are because you hang out with them.”

“What’re you doing right now?” You asked leaning forward in your chair to reach for a pretzel from Peter’s snack bag.

“Touche Stark, Touche… Anyways going back to art, did you finish your assignment yet?” MJ spoke up as she began jotting down notes in her book.

“Haha no. I don’t know how I’ll get any photos of Spider-Man for the school paper. One no one reads that and two, I’m not even allowed out into the city!” You cried, wincing as people around your table shushed you. You shot them an apologetic smile before continuing. “I mean I live with the Avengers for god’s sake and I haven’t even met him. My dad talks about him and his work all the time. Although, he’s never actually met him… that much I know.” Your gaze flickered up to Peter for a moment as he shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat, before focusing on Ned as he spoke up.

“You know the only reason they want those photos is because for whatever, stupid… very stupid reason, Flash runs it and he wants those photos, and he thinks people will read it.”

“I swear he’s so gay for Spider-Man.” You joked as Peter let out an obnoxiously loud laugh. The three of you turned to look at him and waited for him to explain what the hell it was about.

“Uh… ahem, sorry I was thinking about a cat video on youtube… yeah…”

“Okay…? Well, I’ll leave you weirdos to it.” MJ said, standing up and gathering her things.

“What so were just weirdos now?”

“Yeah gotta keep you on your toes Stark. Now, are you coming with me to grab an early lunch or are you just gonna starve till third?”

“Nope, on my way. Bye, Ned and Peter! I’ll see you after school, yeah?” You asked pushing your chair in and walking off towards MJ as they called back.

“Yeah bye (Y/N)!” Ned called.

“B-bye (Y/N/N)!” Peter called before immediately looking down towards his notes. Ned rolled his eyes and elbowed him, hard. “Dude!” Peter hissed, looking towards his best friend.

“When are you going to tell her that you like her? We have known her since middle school, and you’ve had the biggest crush on her since then.”

“I have not!” Peter retorted before messily scribbling down the last of his homework.

“Yes, you have. Just tell her!”

“No, Ned! She can’t know, one her dad would track me down and kill me if I ever hurt her, and I really don’t need any avengers coming for my ass, and two she’s out of my league!”

“Peter if she’s out of your league then so am I. I mean come on, she chooses to hang out with us, she doesn’t have to. Hell when you dropped your orange juice all over her on the first day of sixth grade she could have hated you and had her dad kill you then for ruining her converse and she didn’t, she smiled and helped you clean it up. You were so frazzled you couldn’t even figure out how to wipe up a liquid.”

“Yeah because she was so sweet about it and ask if I was okay. I should have been asking her that.”

“Exactly! So tell her, or I will.” Ned joked before closing his textbook and standing up, as Peter stuffed his books into his bag.

“Ned, no. God, it’s just… complicated, look I’ll talk to you later I gotta get to class.” Peter muttered before rushing off down the hallway.

“Look (Y/N/N), all I’m saying is you could avoid getting yelled at by Miss Henderson if you didn’t question her teaching methods all the time.” MJ said as she closed her locker and looked over at you with crossed arms.

“Well it’s not my fault she barely knows the difference between oil paintbrushes and acrylic.”

“There is little to no difference!”

“But there is still a difference!”

“A difference in what?” Ned asked as him and Peter approached you. A soft groan fell from your lips as you pushed yourself up from your locker.

“It’s nothing, uh I’m basically ready to leave just have to ask my dad. I’ll see ya later MJ?” You asked raising a brow up at your dark-haired friend. She nodded, saluting you playfully before walking off.

“Sounds good, we'll meet you out front yeah?” Peter asked shooting you a small smile. You nodded and pulled out your phone when they walked off. You scrolled through your contacts and clicked on Tonys, it rang a few times before he picked up.

“Hey pumpkin, everything alright?”

“Hey Dad, yeah I’m fine. How’re things over there?” You asked biting at your nails from nervousness. He was silent for a few minutes before letting out a small sigh.

“Messy… uh I mean everyone is resting right now. We were shown something called the Sokovia Accords that the UN wants to pass.”

“What do they have to do with you guys?” You asked, walking towards the front doors that led outside.

“It’s a lot actually… I Uhm, they want to oversee us. The world sees us as a threat more than saviors. Which is understandable but they are hosting a meeting in Vienna and I need you to go with Nat, I can’t attend and neither can Pepper.”

“Wait but dad I-I have school?!”

“Not like you haven’t missed it before kid. You’ll be fine. But you leave tomorrow morning.”

“Fine, but if I miss any big tests and fail I am blaming you. But I was actually calling to ask about tonight. Can I go over to Peter’s? Ned and him want to watch Star Wars and study.”

“Wow, how entertaining…”

“Dad, I can hear the sarcasm dripping from your voice.”

“That’s the point, but I suppose just be back bef-”

“Before ten, yeah yeah I know the drill. Bye Tin Can love you!”

“Love you too, be safe,” Tony said before hanging up. You sighed and pocketed your phone before walking outside.

What in the hell could the Sokovia Accords even mean? And why do Nat and I have to go to a conference in Vienna?! And if we live here why the fuck does the UN want to try and control us… All these thoughts flooded your mind. I mean really what the hell could the United Nations do? Your entire family did save New York and the rest of the world from impending doom from Loki, and you even helped. Sure you weren’t out there with the rest of the action but you helped back at the tower. You kept tabs on everyone, checked their vitals out in the field all while in the comfort of your fathers' lab. Sure you didn’t fly into space and destroy the entryway like your father had, but you did what you could, and it was enough.

“He said it was cool, you ready to head out?” You asked, walking up to Peter and Ned as they chatted away about legos. You let a small chuckle slip past your lips as they turned and gave you a horrified look. “Relax nerds, I won’t tell Flash about your lego escapades. Now let’s get those sandwiches I am starving.” Peter let out a nervous chuckle before nodding.

“You’re telling me… I woke up late and didn’t eat breakfast.” Peter admitted as you all began to walk towards the infamous sandwich shop.

“Pete, you know May hates that.” Ned said with a small laugh as he walked turned onto the street leading away from Midtown.

“I’m surprised she didn’t ground you. I mean I remember that one time she found out when we were over at Neds and she made you go back home immediately.” You added nudging Ned slightly who broke out into a fit of laughter at the memory.

“Yeah yeah, I remember you were in such a rush your glasses fell off your face and you stepped on them.”

“Yeah which May was only more mad about. But I mean she knows this time she just isn’t happy about it.” Peter grumbled kicking at a stone on the sidewalk. You chuckled and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Well, we can make up for it with subs and junk food.” You said with a content sigh, as you all walked off towards the shop. Conversations ensued about many things, homework, what classes were really bothering you, Flash’s shitty teasing, and whether or not Mr. Harrington and his wife were going to last. It seemed like every class the poor guy had a new sob story about something shitty she ended up doing.

“Listen, all I’m saying is if she doesn’t love him anymore leave don’t lie to the poor man,” Peter said as he held the door open and let Ned and yourself walk in. You took in the smell of fresh bread and deli meats, a gentle hum of delight escaping your lips

“Peter it’s way more complicated than that.” Ned said as you walked up to the counter to pet the cat.

“He does have a point, Peter, I mean there’s divorce papers, lawyers, court, and who even knows if they signed a prenup. Probably not with how she treats the poor dude.”

“How who treats who?” Mr. Delmar’s voice rang through your ears, and a smile perked at the sides of your mouth.

“Delmar! My man, what's up?” You said scratching behind the cats' ears once more before walking over to the main counter, Ned and Peter following beside you.

“Eh working, sick of teenagers, what else is new. I see you’re still hanging with my least favorite customers.” He teased motioning towards Peter and Ned. You laughed and shrugged as they let out fake gasps.

“Mr. Delmar, I will have you know if it weren’t for Ned and I’s reviews on Yelp you wouldn't be named the best sandwich shop in Queens!” Peter said grinning and resting his arm on your shoulder. A small blush crept up your neck and onto your cheeks, looking anywhere but Peter’s chocolate brown eyes. Taking a deep breath, you compose yourself and rolled your eyes, scoffing slightly at his comment.

“Yeah okay Pete, anyways the usual please!” You said with a small grin as Mr. Delmar chuckled and got to work.

“I’m smashing down all of them real flat… correct?”

“Yes.” You all said in unison. Ned simply shrugged before taking out his phone and typing away. Peter grabbed a bag of Doritos, and some gummy worms to eat for later, and Ned grabbed a pack of starbursts and lays. You pondered the choices for a moment before grabbing a bag of Fritos and gummy bears, along with some chips for Sam, who always complained when you never got him any.

After Mr. Delmar handed you the sandwiches, you took them with a warm smile and said goodbye before heading out and walking off to Peters. Once at Peters, the TV was switched on to Star Wars A New Hope, and you all studied away, ate snacks, and joked. Occasionally your eyes would flicker to the movie, and then back to your paper in front of you.

You jumped slightly when your phone buzzed on the coffee table beside you. You huffed slightly noticing it was 9 o’clock meaning Happy was here. You brought the phone up to your ear and spoke up.

“Hey, Hap.”

“You’re late.”

“No you’re early the drive from Peter’s to the Tower is half an hour tops.”

“Oh whatever kid, your dad wanted me to get you so let's get a move on. I have your favorite waiting for you.”

“(Y/F/F)! Okay, I’ll be right down. Bye Hap!” You called into the phone before shoving it into the pocket of your jeans. You looked up at Ned and Peter who sat noses buried in books. A small chuckle fell past your lips as you grabbed your books and shoved them into your backpack. “Bye dorks see ya later.” You said slinging your bag over your shoulder. You laughed when they just gave you simple grunts as a response. “Bye May! Thank you for letting me over!” You called off as you walked up to the door and opened it.

“Bye (Y/N)! Come by any time!” May called from the kitchen. You smiled to yourself and shut the door behind you and raced down the steps of his apartment building.

You threw the door open to the car and Happy dropped his phone from his hands and turned to you, his face slightly pale as he looked at you like you had three heads.

“Jeez Hap, head of security getting scared by a teenage girl? Dad should know about this don’t ya think?” You chuckled and tossed your bag into the back seat, and climbed into the passenger's seat. He scoffed and handed you your food.

“Please, Tony wouldn’t know his ass from his head if I wasn’t around.”

“I think you’re confusing yourself with Pepper… but true. I mean I know I would be okay but my dad? Ha, no.” You said as you took a bite from the food and looked over at him. Happy pulled out of the parking space and began driving down the main roads back to the tower.

“Please kid, I remember you called me sobbing because you killed a bird with Clint’s arrows, after stealing them, and you thought it was a person. Then when I told you it wasn’t a person you made me plan a funeral.”

“Oh so what you’re saying is I can’t plan a funeral for a bird on my own?” You joked with a small laugh as Happy simply shook his head and chuckled softly before merging onto the highway. You let out a small sigh as you finish off the meal and leaned back in your seat.

“So, do you know anything about this trip to Vienna?”

“Not much, your dad told me it was basically about the accords, and you’re going to represent him and Stark Industries there tomorrow since he can’t go. I think he wants you and Nat to sign them? I don’t know for sure but all I know is Cap is completely against it. Thinks you should all have free will to take down threats.” Happy said as he turned down the main road of the tower and pulled into the garage.

“So Steve…?” You raised a brow and looked over at him as he let out a small sigh.

“Him and your dad never… got along well, but I think this is going to be worse than any threat we will face in the future.” You gulped at his words and nervously began to pick at your nails. ‘What the hell did Ross do?’ You thought to yourself. The Avengers as a group always just kind of… clicked. Sure your father and Steve did butt heads about a lot. You were the one to originally bring Steve to your fathers' attention, the super-soldier, frozen in the ice for years. I mean, why wouldn’t that be interesting? But according to your dad, it just meant bad things. You had grown up around those ‘bad things’ and sure your life wasn’t perfect, but no one’s was. But when you met Steve he didn’t come off as a threat. Sure he needed a little help around the edges of figuring out the new era he was suddenly thrown into, especially with wardrobe and hair cuts… But you and Steve always remained close, you would show him around New York, show him old movies and all the new memes. Although he didn’t understand it meant a lot to you that he tried and cared enough to do so. Steve was like another father to you, an uncle. He wasn’t some stranger who worked with your father, he was family. All of the Avengers are your family… and Ross will be damned if he thinks he can split it apart.

Taglist: if there is a line through your URL it means it wouldn’t let me tag u,, I’m sorry abt that I will try and figure out how to fix it <3

@inmydefenseyouletmedoit @thatwhitemutant @fangirlingisajob @parknochuism @holymotherofchickennoodlesoup @pnkthunder @rororo06 @darlingtholland

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sabinefm · 4 years

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( bruna marquezine , cis female , peach ) welcome to aida&stefano , SABINA REUBE ! thank you for choosing to stay here. in this form it says that you go by the SHE / HER , you’re TWENTY THREE years old , you’re originally from SAN FRANCISCO , and you’ve been staying here for ONE YEAR . it also says you’re known to be + RESOURCEFUL , but also - SELFISH. that really shouldn’t be a problem though. check in at the front , hope you enjoy your stay ! (the click of heels, hot sand under your bare feet, chocolate covered strawberries, the imprints a bra leaves on your skin, red lipstick staining your fingertips )

ABOUT THE MUN. i hope this email never finds you

hello all, my name is pepper and i have never been on time for anything, ever in my life sdjkdskj this is especially true today, rip. no but honestly, i never thought i would actually get accepted into this beautiful rp so i stalled checking acceptances cause i’m a Scaredy Cat and that made me really late, and then i ended up taking the rest of my coworker’s shift cause she had to go and thus ended up coming home even later than i thought which has made me really really late... BUT against all the odds i’m here! and ready to party! and tell y’all about my bby sabina! but first a little bit about me, i am twenty four (ew), i can’t cook (rip), and i currently spend most of my lonely quarantine days either watching anime or scrolling through tiktok. i am canadian but every canadian that meets me thinks i’m american and i don’t know why. when i was a child i had an irrational (or yk very rational) fear of sharkboy from sharkboy and lava girl, and tbh it has never left me. i was also afraid of gill from kim possible so you can imagine my horror when that fish f*cking movie won an oscar?? when i was younger i also thot god looked like king triton from the little mermaid cause he was white and he had a beard yk. it fit in my little brain. and finally i just recently discovered girl in red and therefore feel like i finally got my bi girl card,,, feeling validated in this chillis tonight. and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about me idk what will. anyways, that’s officially enough about me onto who we’re all really here for, ms sabine!

BIO. the lengths i would go to to both get attention and avoid it... astounding tldr ; daughter of a guy who created a dating site + app, came to a&s after leaving her husband to be at the alter after catching him cheating with her mother, wants to be a bad bitch, sometimes succeeds.

THEN.

sabina came into the world the child of a mediocre stay at home mom and a penniless entrepreneur so it goes without saying that she had very little. her dad had a lot of passion and a lot of drive but no one would really give him a chance, and her mother kind of only married the man because she was expecting him to make it big enough for her to never have to work another day in her life so? yeah she was hella disappointed tbh

but not sabina! she looked up to her father so much as a child. while her mom was kind of ~emotionally unavailable~ her father was too, but like at least he had a dream he believed in, yk? he wanted to help people fall in love and sabine being the big romantic she was as a child had never heard of anything so noble. her daddy was her hero. sabina honestly had big daddy’s little girl vibes until she was like 22 tkjsdkjd

one day when their family credit card got rejected one too many times sabina’s mother called it quits on yk the whole mother gig. she left sabina on a bench outside of the grocery store while she went to go home and ‘get some cash’ which even at seven sabine knew was a damn lie cause they were too broke to have any damn cash. and yeah that was the last sabina heard of her for a long ass time. it was a reverse ‘dad went to get some cigarettes’ situation but just as traumatic honestly.

although not as much for sabine’s dad. that man literally saw his wife leaving him as a minor setback and moved on. he threw himself harder into his work, to the point where sabine barely saw him. this was the start of sabine desperately trying to compete with her father’s business for even a sliver of his attention. this was a battle she usually lost.

sabine raised herself for a while there, since her father yk remarried his job and her mother was following the jonas brother’s cross country. she became both very independent and very lonely for a child, which was an odd combination that both haunted sabine for pretty much the rest of her life after that point and lead her to make most of her worst decisions. but that’s a story for another time, because right when all hope was lost sabine’s father won the lottery. literally.

all at once they were five million dollars richer. they went from nothing to everything real quick. and this marked a change in the reube’s lives in a way sabine couldn’t have even imagine at the time.

sabine’s father hector used the money to fund his business and that shit blew up! he created a site by the name of loveisblind that was in the ring with the likes of match.com and christianmingle yk, one of those dating sites. everyone on loveisblind is set up on blind dates based on the information they fill out on their profile and are only allowed to see each other when they reach a certain point of emotional intimacy. the site had wild success rates, and got very popular, blah, blah, the point was the reubes? suddenly rich af!

and you think that would give hector more time to spend with his daughter right? no. it gave hector the money to hire nannies for his daughter.

yes, somehow despite hector no longer having to work himself to the bone, sabine saw him even less. tragic really. she really became that lonely rich girl trope real quick, and this is what unfortunately got sabine into the habit of seeking the attention she wasn’t getting from her father in other men and women, which she is not proud of.

that unfortunately didn’t fill the void that sabine had but you know what did? making the loveisblind app so her daddy would love her. basically around the time that tinder started gaining traction and getting popular, people stopped going on the loveisblind site and started instead turning to apps. her father was trying and failing to get into that market, and sabina, being yk, actually a lot more intelligent than her father ever gave her credit for, created the app for his site and pitched it to him over his lunch one day. it was honestly one of the first times sabina can remember her father really paying attention to her in the longest time. it was also the proudest she’s ever seen him.

the app was a big success! a whole new generation was using it and finding love, including one ms sabine reube. in the early days of the app launch sabine met her prince charming, christopher ‘kit’ johannson. he swept her right off her feet, and she fell HARD, and when they debuted their relationship it wasn’t long until they kind of became the face of the app?? like sabine’s father was the creator after all, the fact that his daughter found love on the app too was big news for a while. people followed their relationship and strived for something like that for themselves. sabine didn’t know it at the time but they were basically a walking advertisement, and her father was LIVING for that.

fast forward a bit and your girl went to yale for computer engineering and business (did her daddy’s status and money ease the way? maybe man, nepotism am i right) whilst kit went to harvard, they were long distance for a bit before they graduated and kit very publicly proposed (the whole thing was well recorded too, gotta get that gram), and then both sab and kit moved in together and both started working for their families respective companies. it was around then that sabine started to understand just how much and how often kit was cheating on her. it was a real wakeup call.

sabine ended up breaking down to her father about her suspicions, and he basically ended up telling her to suck it up and think of the business. the fact was sabine and kit, the face of their new generation and one of the first successful couples from the app getting married and living happily ever after was amazing for the company. and the two of them calling the whole thing off just because of a little infidelity just wasn’t going to cut it.

now once again, this is where sabine’s deep desire to be loved and accepted really bites her in the ass. this was one of the first times sabine’s father had ever really asked her for anything so... she did it. or at least she did her best to do it. she lasted until the wedding day around the time where she caught kit and her own mother (who she only invited out of a deep rooted need to actually know the woman who gave birth to her again) going at it in the coat closet of their wedding venue. yeah, at that point sabine pretty much snapped, blacked out, smashed a whole wedding cake over kit’s head, and took their honeymoon to venice on her own. she arrived at Aida&Stefano with running mascara in a ruined wedding dress trying to ask about a honeymoon suite. it was a whole mess, but you know what so is sab so at least she was on brand.

NOW.

after sabina arrived she spent about a week mourning her failed almost-marriage and yk, destroyed family before she decided to fuck it all and reinvent herself. she desperately wanted to become someone new, someone unrecognizable from who she was before, even if it was only on the inside. so she cut her hair (the first step to every transformation) hardened everything soft about herself and made the irrevocable decision to become a bad bitch. she (mostly) succeeded. kind of.

sabine basically curb stomped out the soft, hopeless romantic people pleaser in her and decided to become someone more unsympathetic. someone who puts her own needs first instead of burning herself up to keep others warm (cause what good has that ever done her before?). someone who people would be afraid to hurt but who wouldn’t even feel pain anyways. and to sum it up that person is a heartless bitch. or at least she tries to be.

i’m gonna stop here because this is already a lot longer than i wanted it to be and i haven’t even got to the other sections yet rip but you get the point i feel

PERSONALITY. *feels nothing* mmm, don’t like that *feels something but like too much* mmm not a fan of that either

most of this is tbd because i’m still developing her but

VAIN. the kind of girl who will file her nails or check herself out in the mirror while you’re talking to her. will reapply her lipstick in the rearview mirror of her car while she’s driving. checks herself out in any reflective surface, i mean i would too if i looked like bruna but Still

KIND. even though sab tries to be a hard ass she’s probably the most loyal, generous, kind person you would ever meet deep down. like she puts on this persona of being heartless, but if anyone needs her she will be there for them. kind of hates that she’s such a softie sometimes but she can’t help it.

EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE. doesn’t want to be hurt again and will do pretty much anything to avoid that. tries to keep people at arms length especially romantically. loves making friends though, and will indeed spoil them.

HEADCANNONS. who wants to hire me as their maid i’m not gonna clean im just gonna wear a cute maid outfit dust like 6 things and bend down a lot

has the vibes of that drunk rich aunt that’s always smoking like sexily as she looks far into the distance and wears like a super luxurious coat. will gossip with you. will buy you things your mom won’t. will cuss out your toxic father at the dinner table. that’s her energy.

unfortunately actually does smoke. i hate

okay fun fact, the only reason sabine went to university for computer programming and business was because she felt her father wanted her to. she honestly has no real passion for the subject and just wanted to use her talent to make her father as proud of her as he was on the day she debuted that app to him. but now that making daddy proud isn’t like the only thing occupying her entire brain sabine like is like ??? wait what do i actually want to do with my life ??? and it took her a while to figure it out but after a while she fell back on one of her passions, art. she’s actually making a graphic novel aimed towards young adults about a modern day hades and persephone vibe, kind of about a girl who falls in love with the grim reaper and the lengths she goes to to chase after her (yes it is a Lady Reaper) into the depths of hell,,, it’s wild. she’s very proud of it but also kind of shy about it tbh. her go to critic is georgio, because she knows that little shit will be honest and yk what she respects that.

but when it comes to making actual money your girl turns to cam work most of the time, because well. at the very least it’s quick, easy, and semi discreet. and sometimes she gets something out of it too. she figures it’s a win win, and she’s been doing it for about a year now, mostly because she absolutely refuses to use any of her father’s money.

is allergic to cucumber.

has a different 'relationship’ like every week or so, along with a few one night stands peppered in. unfortunately still attracted to people who are bad for her (kit for example was an asshole and a cheater and DEFINITELY conservative like she messed up on that one), but is also very afraid of falling in love again and letting herself get hurt, so she normally doesn’t let things last too long before she starts self sabotaging.

if you ever catch sabine with like... her nails growing out or her nail polish chipped, something is wrong. like something is deeply wrong. sabine will have her nails done in the middle of the apocalypse, the only reason they would be less than perfect is if she is having a breakdown. always has colour on her nails, and usually it’s a shade of red, purple, or black.

always has wild ass stories to tell about her tinder dates or one night stands and will tell them without shame for your entertainment. is a great storyteller honestly, a talent she got from her mother but she doesn’t want to admit that.

fun fact, her mother mariah was PISSED when hector got rich AFTER she left him and tried for years to sue him or something but no dice. she was so angry and vengeful over the whole thing that she took the opportunity of being invited to her daughters wedding to get back at her husband where it hurt, his business. thus sleeping with kit. didn’t really think about how her daughter might feel about the whole thing because she was yk blinded by rage, but that’s just how mariah is so i mean,,, rip sabina.

shops when she’s sad, or happy, or angry, or confused sdkjdsj will use any excuse to shop, and at this point she has more clothes than she knows what to do with. her style can be kind of out there at times, but she will let you borrow things though.

she has a cat named momo. yes that is inspired by her being the peach skeleton. also has a parrot named poe i think. i also have the urge to give her a snake but... i will resist. so sabine wants a snake for sure

her favourite colours are black and red

she is a horrible terrible driver. don’t drive with sabine unless you’re an adrenaline junkie or like want to die tbh

her dad 100% set up the relationship between kit and sabine as a pr stunt, but sabine doesn’t know that yet and when she finds out her father used her like that ooh boy things are gonna get wildt. as it is now sabine just thinks she disappointed him and it’s kind of eating her alive. half the reason she’s staying here is because she doesn’t want to face him or yk her old life anymore. her father is so caught up in the shame she caused him that he hasn’t even tried to call her after the whole thing and the one time sabine got hella drunk and called him all he did was tell her what a disappointment she was and ask when she was coming back to work so we love ~parenting~

WANTED CONNECTIONS. girls will “🥺🥺🥺🥺” their way out of everything

close friends please and thanks, best friends also please, uh, can i get some awkward one night stands that avoid each other at all cost, can i get a neighbour who’s ear sabine is always talking off in the hallway between their rooms even tho they just want to go home but can’t because sabine is Oversharing, maybe a flirtationship, but also i would love an enemy (it could be for a ridiculous reason or a completely valid reason but either way please give it to me), someone she goes out dancing/partying with at piccolo, a sibling like relationship, a confidante, someone who she trusts to read her comic and maybe even do some linework, and absolutely anything else okay my brain is fried rn but i want it all! please like this and i will slip and slide into your dms <3

#ostellointro #me: *sees a nice neat intro at an appropriate length* I Want To Do That #this monstrosity: bitch you thot

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buckys-forgotten-plum · 4 years

Text

Who are We but Fragments of Each Other? {1/?}

Series Summary: Being the princess of a small, barely heard of country shouldn’t be too hard right? Other than the worry of being assassinated, what else is there to it? Just a brooding agent sworn to look after you day in and day out.

Warnings: swearing (Always swearing), violence, slow burn, mediocre writing if we’re being honest here, slow updates (and that’s a fact!)

A/N: Hello friends! Please bare with me as I continue on in my journey of writing a decently sized, decently written, fic on tumblr. If any of you have suggestions, ideas, helpful words of encouragement, a nice picture of a cat to help in my impending sadness, other prompts or drabbles, please don't be afraid to pop into my asks!

Here we goooooooo~

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The office air was cool and still, it had been for a solid moment before a heavy sigh broke the silence, “Tony, we aren’t mercenaries. We don’t get paid to fight-”

“You aren’t getting paid to fight. You’re getting paid to protect a royal family who’s under attack from an unknown group of people who want to do whatever foreign attackers do,” Tony’s voice is just as cool as the temperature of the room, almost bored, as he justifies the reasoning for Natasha Romanoff’s next mission.

“How long are we gonna be there?” a deep, quiet voice sounds from the other side of the room.

Bucky Barnes was also put on protecting said royal family, he wasn’t excited.

“You both will be there for however long it takes you to find the people that attacked the family. You need to understand that, even though technically the entire family is in danger,” Tony speaks slowly as he pulls up a number of documents and pictures to display on the large screen in the small office, “There seems to be a targeted member, specifically Princess Y/n L/n. She’s next in line for the throne and was the main victim when this whole fiasco started,”

Bucky let out an audible sigh and pushed off the floor to ceiling bookshelf he was leaning against, “If this is a royal family, why don’t they just get their own military or guards to protect them?”

“Good question terminator,” Tony smirks, jabbing a finger in Bucky’s direction for emphasis, “Unfortunately, her guards were part of the attack, so this is an inside job, and you both need to be extremely careful with who you trust in to tell info to. I’m sending a few other agents with you so you won’t have to be everywhere at once but, just be careful. I’ll send both of you the full report and briefing file, your flight leaves tomorrow, blah blah blah please get out of my office so I can sleep.”

“Someone’s a little grumpy today,” Nat mumbles as she heads for the door, Bucky right on her heels.

“Morgan has a fever and I stayed up with her all night while she puked up about five pounds of dino nuggets,” The tired father grumbles back, fingers digging into his temples to relieve however much pressure possible.

The sound of Natasha’s chuckles fade as her and the burly soldier make their way out of Tony’s office, leaving him to nap away his exhaustion.

========================

The cold was awful, long lasting and sinking deeper into your bones with every second that passed. You hated the winter. It didn’t matter the amount of layers you put on. As you stared at yourself in the mirror, your eyes matched the temperature of your skin, cold, almost lifeless. The gown that hung from your shoulders did little to keep what futile body heat you had, the itchy material adding to your discomfort.

“Princess, are you ready?” The gentle voice of a maid startled you out of the intruding thoughts.

“Yes,”

You weren’t. You weren’t ready to allow a group of strangers to protect you. If you couldn’t trust your own guards, your own people, how could you let these outsiders into your home?

“They’ve arrived and your grandmother requests you come as quickly as possible,” Her tone was filled with pity, pity for you.

“I’ll be right down, thank you. You may leave,” Your voice (thankfully) didn’t waiver as you dismissed the woman from your room.

When did this become your reality? Why were you being hunted for something you couldn’t control? You didn’t want this. You didn’t want the responsibility of ruling a country. You couldn’t handle the stress that came with it. As much as you hated to admit it, you were too soft, too fragile. The council was right, especially after the events that had taken place a fortnight ago.

The sound of a car door slamming shut woke you from yet another failure to control your thoughts. A quiet sigh left your lips as you make your way to the main foyer. Your heart is hammering violently against your chest, there was a strange ache in your bones that went along with the ice. It didn’t take you very long to reach the entrance hall as you knew plenty of shortcuts to take. You spotted your grandmother standing patiently in the middle of the room, your sister and main advisor at her side.

As you approach, she gives you a kind smile and holds her hand out for you to take, “Góðan daginn ducky, you look lovely”

The nickname makes your heart warm, a tiny flame in the freezing cold that resides in you. “Góðan daginn Oma,” You take her hand in yours, the action provides little comfort as the doors to the castle open and a chilly breeze enters along with a group of rigid looking soldiers.

Your frame is tense and a metaphorical wall seems to apparate around you. Your grandmother made a move to welcome the guests- no the intruders, into your home.

“Agent Romanoff, Agent Barnes, thank you so much for agreeing to help us,” her accent was thick and you had a quick moment of wonder for whether or not they would understand her clearly.

“Truly it’s no problem Princess Alda ,” The woman replied, bowing lightly in respect.

Princess... The title left a sour taste in your mouth. Your grandmother was a queen, the most accomplished ruler in your countries history. She deserved more than just princess.

“These are my lovely granddaughters, Princess Y/n and her younger sister Princess Freyja. They are very grateful of you to be here for us,” She smiles up at the two agents leading the pack, her eyes shining with glee.

Your grandmother was too hopeful for her own good.

“velkominn, thank you so much for coming,” Your sister jumps into action, Freyja was always too excited to meet others, the confines of the castle always making her anxious, just like you.

Agent Romanoff greets her softly, bending down to her height and offering a hand to shake, Agent Barnes decides to stay silent and only responds with a small nod. You decide to stay stoic, silent as the two heads stare at you expectantly. There is an awkward moment of stillness before your Oma glares at you and you have no other choice but to dip down into a curtsy.

“Thank you for coming,” You mutter, wasting no time in standing back up straight, head held high.

Again, the woman is the only one to properly respond to your actions, and you can’t help but shoot a quick glance at the man.

How rude.

“We should start discussing the arrangements, if you don’t mind Princess Alda,” Agent Romanoff speaks, her tone even and professional.

“Just Alda is fine, miss Romanoff,” Your grandmother nods and gestures for the group to follow her, “This way my dears,”

The study in which the meeting takes place wasn’t exactly built for this many people. It was small and old just like the rest of the castle, and completely incapable of comfortably holding the group of twelve that now crowd into it. Your grandmother, sister, and self stand behind the desk as the others gather before it. Agent Romanoff takes it upon herself to be the first to sit, manners be damned.

“Agent Barnes and I have read over and discussed the situation thoroughly,” she begins as your grandmother also sits, you and your sister remain standing, “We understand that you believe your family is under attack, is that correct?”

Your grandmother nods silently, miss Romanoff takes that as a sign to continue, “We’ve been hired to protect your family, which is a reasonable request, but we noticed when looking over the report and evidence, that the attack was focused on the eldest princess,”

You immediately notice the shift in the room, feel your Oma tense at the confession, hear the gasp that left your sisters mouth, “Haddi, take Freyja to her room,” You speak before you can stop yourself, your voice comes out stern and you notice a light waver.

“But Y/n-” “Now!” You cut off the younger princess and the advisor makes a quick move to usher her out of the room, “How dare you say such a thing in front of a child,” you bite.

“I was just trying to explain to you the situation-” your eyes narrow at her words as you interrupt once again, “Explain to me the situation? I was there. I know the situation. What is important is how we’re going to stop it from happening again,”

“Princess, I understand your stress-” “You seem to understand nothing Agent Romanoff,” You spit out in frustration.

This woman... Thinking she knows what you’re feeling. Ridiculous.

“That’s enough ducky. Let the woman talk, girl.” Oma’s voice is stern, the tone she only uses before you go too far with your words.

Agent Romanoff continues to go over the situation, what precautions her team, as well as the family, will have to take. Much to your grandmother's dismay, one of those precautions was making the entirety of the castles staff go on leave.

“They can’t be trusted due to the men who carried out the attack,” she says.

She talks about the possible suspects and the possible reasonings for their actions (though you thought it was quite obvious). You wait patiently for the discussion to end, biting your tongue at every word the woman said. You were holding on by a thread and it was quickly fraying away with each passing moment. A few of the other agents decided to busy themselves with looking around the room, gently picking up random objects to inspect them before putting them back down in their original places. It made you nervous, especially when one agent decided to pick up a vase that was from some old chinese dynasty that you couldn’t exactly remember, though you knew it costed more than a few college tuitions worth, and almost dropped it before catching it clumsily and hurriedly put it back on its pedestal.

“We’ll be looking after the princess ourselves, ensuring she’s safe at all times, our other agents will be securing the property-”

“You need to assign someone to Freyja and my Oma,” You say vehemently, your eyes focusing on the two agents in front of you, “I may be the supposed target but they are my family and they need to be just as safe as I am,”

Agent Romanoff stays silent, her eyes failing to show any emotion as she stared at your equally hard gaze, “Unfortunately princess, Barnes and I are specifically assigned to you.”

“I don’t care. Change the assignment, You need to protect them,” Your blood was boiling, the thought of these people coming in and not even thinking about protecting your little sister and grandmother was ridiculous.

The fiery haired woman sighed quietly and looked up at you with pursed lips, “I understand where you’re coming from, but we can’t leave you unattended. That being said,” she pauses and glances at her silent partner, “I think that Agent Barnes may be able to look after your sister, and one of our other agents could ensure the safety of your grandmother,”

You mulled over the solution for a moment. Agent Barnes had said nothing this entire time and it honestly gave you an extremely uneasy feeling, you didn’t trust him with your little sister. He was too menacing for you to comfortably allow him to watch over the young girl who was known for how carefree she was.

“I would be more comfortable if you were to look after her, Agent Romanoff,” your voice came out quieter this time, “please,”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,”

Before Agent Romanoff has time to speak, Agent Barnes beats her to the punch. The brunette broke his silence as he stood up from the plush cushions of the chair, his startling blue eyes roamed over his environment before landing on you. “I’ll look after you and Natasha will look after the others, no harm will come to the residence of this castle,” he spoke precisely, almost like he had rehearsed before he decided to speak, “Everyone clear out and start searching the grounds for anything out of the ordinary, bugs, cameras that aren’t listed... anything,” his gruff voice sent your hairs to stand on end and your whole body tensed in stress before relaxing with the meaning of his words.

“Thank you, Agent Barnes,” you murmur quietly, your gaze only strong enough to hold a moment with the tall man across from you.

The agent only spared you a quick nod before turning to you grandmother, “Back to the previous topic, we don’t know who’s behind this, therefore, the safest route of action is to put all castle staff on a momentary leave until we can figure out who did this,”

Her crinkled eyes widen in slight shock, “Don’t you think that might be a little excessive?”

“Unfortunately no, at this point in time, there’s no telling who could have attacked the princess,” There was a silent pause as the room grew quiet between its four inhabitants.

There was an uneasy buzz that krept its way up your back, the muscles tweaking and flexing as you ignored the incessant need to scratch the buzz away. You knew it wouldn’t be a good idea as the stitches still hadn’t healed fully and it would hurt like a bitch if you did.

“Oma, we’ll be fine. The staff deserve a vacation,” you comment, lightly placing your hand on the delicate material of her dress. “I’m sure you can handle brewing your own tea for a bit,”

The elder smiles fondly towards you and gives a small nod of agreement, “If that’s all agents, I’d like to get back to work,”

The two remaining outsiders award her quick farewells and leave the room. Before you get to the door to leave your grandmother alone to her own devices, the demure tone of her voice stops you, “Ducky, my love, please be respectful to those agents while they’re here. You know in that stubborn head of yours it’s for the best,”

Your chest tightens in annoyance at her words, the feeling only growing stronger as you realize the truth behind them, “Yes Oma, I know,”

“Good. Now, please go busy yourself and try not to pester than nice man too much,” she sings over her shoulder as she looks out the window, giving you a view of the young and jovial queen that still resides somewhere inside her.

You couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at your lips as you opened the door and exited the study. Leaning up against the outer wall, you sigh quietly, taking a moment to gather yourself and think of all that has happened in just the span of a few hours. Once your thoughts were a little more calm, you gathered yourself and began the journey back up to your room. You truly just wanted to sleep at this point.

A familiar shiver runs up the curve of your spine as a menacing shadow encases your smaller frame and a deep baritone covers the weak gasp that left you.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

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youllallriseintheink · 4 years

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Thieves’ Gambit

Hey. So, I wrote a chapter for the body-swap to the death AU. I don’t know if I’ll make a whole thing of this, but what the heck. This is going to be the “day five” chapter. It’s an uplifting chapter, sort of the calm before the storm (assuming I make a whole thing of this), so to speak. If I do decide to write the whole thing, well, it’s not all going to be this fluffy. It’s gonna involve self-mutilation as a form of revenge, and lots and lots of demonic magic. Alright, now let’s get to it.

---

Henry Stein slid the tape recorder onto the top shelf of the break room and pressed record, as he’d done with another five tape recorders he’d hidden around the room. While he was glad that he’d soon be back in his own body, he was thanking his lucky stars for the power that came with the one he currently inhabited. As Joey Drew, he could make the employees do whatever he needed them to do in order to get more information out of them. Like now.

The twelve body-swapped employees filed in a few minutes later and sat down in the chairs that Henry had set up.

“You’re probably wondering what I brought you all here for,” Henry announced in his best dramatic, upbeat voice. “Well, I’m here to give you the whole afternoon off! The only thing that I need you to do first is fill out a little survey for me. You’ll all have to stay in this room for thirty minutes. I don’t want any of you give incomplete answers just so you can leave early! Understood?” Henry’s speech was replied with a chorus of nods, and so Henry passed out the surveys and headed for the door. Before leaving he paused to wonder if Joey would have stayed longer to watch them. Henry supposed it didn’t matter. This whole scenario was already pretty weird, and between the surveys and the tape, and everything else that he’d done to secure information that week, Henry felt entirely confident that he was going to live even if he did a mediocre job at selling his role.

Everyone in the room was done their survey within less than fifteen minutes. Most just sat, still and expressionless, after they were done. It was easier than acting. Some, however, were on the hunt for answers.

Norman Polk, in the body of Shawn Flynn, ran up to Wally Franks (or rather, whoever was piloting him) and exclaimed, “Hey, Wally, my boy! Let’s do something crazy after we get out of here!” He didn’t bother to try and fake an Irish accent. No one but Shawn had one, so not having one wouldn’t have narrowed down anyone’s quarry at all. He was, however, ratcheting up the speed, pitch and volume of his normally deep, heavy voice.

Grant, who was currently piloting Wally’s body, just wanted to go home and collapse. He’d already taken a sick day this week because, as a person who barely had the energy to make it through the day as was, doing so while analyzing every action he and others around him made, and while pretending to be a bundle of zany energy and incompetence, was all but impossible.Soon, he promised himself, summoning the all the vigor he could to act like the boundless ball of energy he was inhabiting. “Oh, boy! I love me something crazy! What exactly are we gonna do?”

“Gee, I don’t know Wally. You’re my idea man, why don’t you come up with somethin'?”

Grant had no time to think. “Let’s roll down the biggest set of stairs we can find in a garbage can!” Of all things to come out of my mouth, it just had to be that, he snapped at himself. But, surely whoever was piloting Shawn would have the sense to shut it down.

“Now we’re talking! I know just the place!”

“Yeah! And, uh, so do I!”

“Let’s ride down every damn staircase in New York! We’ve got nothing but time!”

From the corner, Lacie was resisting the urge to fall over laughing. These two men were looking at each other with these big, pained, ridiculous smiles, curled fists and nervous looks in their eyes, and had devolved into chattering about absolutely nothing, probably because they figured that Wally and Shawn wouldn’t have just let the conversation die down. “Someone’s overselling your role,” she whispered teasingly to Shawn. Shawn was in her body, so he was allowed to laugh, a luxury she, in Norman’s body, did not possess.

Shawn began scribbling on a piece of paper. To anyone else, Shawn would have had to actually speak, producing a painful-sounding attempt at an American accent. Not to Lacie, though. The day before, Lacie had heard Shawn speaking in that strained voice, taken him into the ink machine room where no one else could hear, and stomped hard on his foot. The Irish cursing that had earned her was proof enough that she’d found Shawn. The two had agreed to a thieves’ gambit- neither would guess the other when the time arrived. They’d decided that Bertrum and Wally would be a part of the thieves’ gambit as well, if they ever found them.

Shawn handed Lacie the scrap of paper. Looks like he’s not the only one overselling it, it read. Shawn, a goofy smile on his face, pointed at a despondent-looking Grant Cohen who was sitting huddled in the corner. Lacie watched as the little man brushed tears from his eyes. That doesn’t look like acting, Lacie wrote. I’m going to go see if that’s one of the thieves’ gambit.

All in all, Lacie was fairly indifferent to Norman Polk. Barely knew a thing about him, which made playing him pretty difficult. But Grant had spoken at length about their friendship while the two of them (plus Shawn) had gone out drinking, so it was clear to her that being friendly to him was perfectly in character.

“Hey. Everything alright?” she asked.

“Grant,” who was really Wally Franks, stopped crying momentarily and looked over to “Norman” and “Lacie.” Wally generally found those two intimidating, but right now even their company was more than welcome. “Oh, yes,” Wally answered, trying to put the appropriate pretentious air into his tearful voice. “Joey is overspending again, what else is new? Don’t worry about me, I just want to be alone awhile.”

“Fair enough,” “Norman” replied. She didn’t see any way to force the truth out of him. They turned to go back to their own corner of the room.

Wally felt like a starving man who had just shoved a plate of food into a trash compactor. And for what? He was dead no matter how well he sold his role, and he knew it. “Wait,” he called after them as he met them in the center of the room. He wasn’t even trying to hide his real voice anymore. “Can I tell you what’s really botherin’ me?”

“Yes, go ahead!” “Norman” said.

“I don’t know how well I’m playin’ this role, and I still don’t know who anyone is, and I’m sure the opposite isn’t true, and I’m just tryin’ to accept that I’m gonna die and I really needed to talk to someone but I know he wouldn’ta done that, and I-“ Wally started sobbing. He felt like everyone could see who he was now. He might as well give every clue of it away. “I’m worried about my dogs. I don’t know if Norman’s eatin’ em or Joey’s sacrificin’ em to the Gods or what. I just wanna see my dogs, make sure they’re okay!”

Shawn looked awkwardly over to Lacie. It was pretty obvious that this was Wally, but he wasn’t about to let anyone into the thieves’ gambit without her consent. Lacie gave Shawn a little nod of permission, and Shawn put an arm around his crying friend. “Hey. Stick with us after they let us out of here, alright? We’re here for you.”

“Okay,” Wally choked out.

A few minutes later, everyone was allowed out. Shawn led the way, and the trio followed “Shawn” and “Wally.” Shawn tapped “Shawn” on the shoulder to get his attention, then put on his best annoyed-but-playful Lacie voice. “Hey, dumbass. You forgot to lock up the storage closet.” The strain to hide his accent aside, he was doing one hell of an impression.

“Oh no. I don’t know about any storage closet. Can you help me?”

“Of course. I’ll cover for ya, buddy. Just hand me the key.”

“Thank you,” “Shawn” said. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a key ring. Shawn grabbed it and quickly removed a small, round key before handing it back.

“I’ll get it back to you at Henry’s party on Sunday, alright?”

“Yeah, perfect! Thanks Lacie!” “Shawn” beamed before turning to go.

The second the three were a safe distance from the studio, Shawn spoke up in full Irish accent. “Wally my boy, do you know what just happened?”

Wally’s eyes lit up as he realized the identity of his cohort. “Shawn!”

“That’s right, my laddie! And your favourite dogsitter just nabbed the spare key to your apartment from his own body! I can’t solve all yer problems, but hey, at least we can see your dogs while “you” are busy rolling down stairs with “me”.”

Speechless, Wally squeezed the life out of Shawn. On the walk over, Lacie explained the thieves’ gambit to him. It didn’t encourage him any about his chances of living, but it still felt nice to have two people he didn’t have to act for.

—

Norman was good at this game, owing mostly to his ability to read people like a book. He’d already guessed the identity of seven players of the game, and he would have guessed “Wally’s” identity as well, if he hadn’t been trying to handle some harder cases first, and if “Wally” hadn’t been absent from work the day before. Even then, there were only so many people he could be, and Norman had narrowed it down to four potential candidates: Susie, Grant, Thomas, and Lacie. This trial they were marching towards (lord knows what staircase “Wally” was leading him to) would make a perfect test. Susie and Grant, Norman knew, were both fairly nervous people, and they both had their nervous ticks. Susie tended to play with her hair, and Grant preferred torturing his hands. Put “Wally” in between physical danger and acting out of character, and all it would take is a little observation.

Finally, they arrived at a steep set of stairs on the edge of a hill. The steps looked to descend at least a good fifteen feet, and Norman could see “Wally” wringing his hands at the sight of it. He’d already suspected it was Grant- had the same shifty eyes and the same manner of walking- but now he was fairly sure of it. For the sake of the act, though, the two fetched an empty trash can from an alleyway. At very least, Norman had convinced “Wally” to go first.

“Can I do the hill first?” “Wally” asked, looking back at Norman with a big, obviously fake smile.

“Sure, if you wanna be a coward!” He yelled without thinking. Another talent of Norman’s was entering another person when he was acting. In this moment, he was Shawn Flynn, and his unthinking instinct was to act like Shawn Flynn.

“Wally” mumbled an okay, climbed into the filthy trash can while trying to hide his hesitation, and tried to wrack up the courage to roll himself down the stairs. This is ridiculous,was all he had time to think before he felt a push against the side of the can and he was tumbling down, watching the world spin and praying for his physical safety.

Thankfully, Grant emerged from the can unhurt except for a few cuts and bruises and started making his way up the stairs to hand the can over to “Shawn” for his turn.

“Woo! That was amazin’! Sorry, but I’ll have to head home and walk the dogs after this. But first, I wanna see you go!”

“Wally’s” eyes trained on Norman as he handed him the trash can. Was he actually going to do this? Hurt someone else’s body to perform for one person? Heck, was he really going to increase his best friend’s chances of dying at the end of the week? He already had so many identities figured out, so how much extra protection would that even give him?

Norman tossed the garbage can aside. “Grant, this is stupid. We got through the workweek, let’s just stop acting already. This is Norman talking.”

Within about five seconds, Grant’s face phased through shock and anger before landing on relief. “Well, I admire your courage,” he replied, a snarky tone in his voice. “Next time though, maybe find it before making me crawl into a musty trash can and pushing me down the stairs?”

Norman chuckled. “Well, it was your idea.”

“Here’s a better idea. Let’s go back to my place, have some coffee, and play some cards. It’s been a week.”

“Good plan. It has been a week,” Norman replied.

—

Lacie, Norman and Wally had made their way to Wally’s apartment. Lacie went ahead to knock first, just in case “Wally” had changed his mind and come home. The coast was clear.

The second Wally was through the door, he was kneeling on the floor as a golden retriever bounded towards him. “Goldie!” he shouted in delight. After Goldie came a Jack Russell Terrier. “Clover! Oh, who’s a good girl?” two little white and black chihuahuas followed. “Oh, and it’s the twins!” Wally scratched each of their sides, both as sign of affection and because it was the easiest way to make sure they were being adequately fed. They all seemed as healthy as they seemed happy to see them. “I think they recognize me!” Wally chirped. Then Goldie tried jumping into Wally’s arms and ended up bowling him onto the floor, where he was helpless to the licking of his four dogs. Wally was laughing. “Guess she doesn’t see how much smaller I am now!”

Just then, the door creaked open again, and “Wally” and “Shawn” stepped in.

“What is going on here?” “Wally” asked calmly.

“Uh...” Wally sat up, realizing that he had absolutely no idea what to say. “Well, you’ve probably already guessed who I am, so I guess I’ll tell the truth. I wanted to see my dogs, and Shawn is my number one dogsitter, so I had Shawn-“

“Lacie” face-palmed. So much for staying hidden.

“Uh, sorry. I had Shawn get the spare key to my apartment. That’s what happened. So, uh, thanks for looking after my dogs. We’ll just be going, I guess.”

“Hold it,” Shawn said. “Have you all ever heard of a thieves’ gambit?” Shawn knew it was a long-shot, but this could be his only chance to save Wally’s life.

“I’ve heard of it, but I’m not familiar with it,” Norman replied.

“Care to explain it, Lacie?”

Lacie did explain it. “Imagine that two thieves are brought in for questioning. The police separate em’ and tell em’, ‘we’ll give you half the usual sentence, but only if you admit to being a thief, and tell us who your partner is.’ Now, obviously, the thieves shouldn’t tell. But that’s only true if they can be sure the other person is trustworthy.”

“Interesting,” “Wally” said, “But what does that have to do with us?”

Shawn spoke up. “The three of us are in a thieves’ gambit. We know each other’s identity and we aren’t selling each other out. It’s in all of our best interest if you join us.”

Lacie made a face. “Shawn, a thieves’ gambit needs trust. We don’t even know their identities. One of them could be Joey for all we know.”

“Well, if I can suggest something,” Grant said, “The goal of this game is to guess more people than we are guessed by. So, if we can’t trust each other not to guess each other, well, it’ll lead to the exact same result if we all collectively agree to share our identities and rat each other out when the time comes.”

“Now that I can trust,” Lacie said.

“Also, I have a list of nine identities I’ve figured out,” Norman added. “Let us into your thieves’ gambit, and I’ll share them.”

“Wait, nine?” Shawn exclaimed, looking to Wally with excitement in his eyes. “Wally, you’re going to live!” He turned back to face the others with a sharp, serious face. “We’ll all agree to rat each other out, sure. But nobody is ratting out Wally! There are eight people not in this room, and there’s nine names on that list. If Wally dies, I’ll know one of you ratted him out, and I’ll kick all three of your asses into next Tuesday, ya hear?”

“We hear,” Grant replied. Honestly, though, with Norman’s list, no one would have any reason not to listen to Shawn. They’d won. And with the workweek over, the bulk of their acting was done. That night, Grant and Wally even slept in their own homes. All they had to do was to get through “Henry’s” party on Sunday and they were going to live.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #my fanfiction #wally franks #shawn flynn #norman polk #grant cohen #lacie benton #Henry Stein

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carmenlire · 5 years

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Off the Record Chapter IV

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Looking up at the knock on his office door, Alec raises a brow at this floor’s administrative assistant.

“What’s up?”

Maia steps into his office and it’s then that he notices the garment bag slung over her shoulder. “Special delivery from a courtier downstairs. I was told to give this to you immediately.”

Taking the bag, she hangs it up on a hook on the back of his door. Looking over her shoulder, she adds, “Are you ready for tonight?”

Alec looks back at his computer at his half-finished email to CNN’s publicist informing him of his next assignment that will start in two days. Most of his mind’s still on that whenever he replies, “Of course. It’s a press dinner. I’ve been to a million of these things. It’s a few hours of reviewing the biggest stories of the past year while waiters in white tie serve lukewarm chicken and undercooked carrots.”

He’s rewarded with Maia cracking a smile that’s more of a grin as she dryly offers, “No need to sound so excited, Lightwood. Aren’t you up for an award?”

Leaning back in his chair, Alec nods. “Yeah,” he confirms. “There are a lot of other great journalists covering a lot of important topics too, though. Competition is stiff.” He flashes a self-deprecating grin. “Better to keep my expectations low.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” She jerks her head to the nondescript garment bag. “A Magnus Bane original, though? That’s something worth celebrating.”

Alec doesn’t say anything, merely sends her a blank look. Maia rolls her eyes before shrugging defensively.

“What,” she asks. “I might’ve taken a peak inside. It's very classic for Bane.”

“Iz made an appointment with him. I liked him. He was very professional,” Alec says, almost to himself.

Taking a step or two back until she can lean her shoulder against the door jamb, Maia crosses her arms over her front as she replies, “I’ve heard that he’s pretty no nonsense. Everyone respects him and most fear him, at least a little. Did you know he started his company in high school? He was a millionaire by the time he graduated fashion design school.”

“I didn’t peg you as someone who kept up with that kind of thing.”

Maia shrugs. “What can I say? Bane’s cute and he’s built his empire from nothing. It’s attractive, all that passion and drive. So, I might skim the occasional article about him in People Magazine.”

“We all have our guilty pleasures.”

Glaring at him--though with little heat-- Maia turns on her heel and leaves Alec’s office. Thankful that the interruption is over, Alec turns back to his computer and looks over his proposed itinerary. He’ll be going to China for a few weeks. Part of his assignment is a character profile on the President, Xi Jinping, but he’ll also be reporting about a variety of problems coming out of China, including the Hong Kong protests and their increasing tensions with Russia.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary and Alec feels a familiar tension seep into his shoulders. He loves what he does but goddamn if it isn’t stressful. No matter how many times he puts himself in untenable positions, there’s always a little voice in his head that whispers that this is the last time, this is his last chance.

Still, Alec finds himself preoccupied this afternoon. He has to start getting ready for the awards ceremony in a couple of hours and he’d wanted to get as much work done as possible before then. Instead, he finds his eyes drawn to the garment back hanging on his door.

Telling himself that he’ll just take a peak at the finished product-- make sure that Magnus delivered what he ordered-- Alec stands and tosses the pen he’d been holding in a negligent grip onto his crowded desk. Taking the few steps over to the suit, Alec unzips the bag and takes a cursory look at the clothing.

It’s a lot of black.

Alec laughs a little as he shuts the door and takes the suit out. He sweeps a thumb over the front of the black linen jacket, along the silk stripe down the pant leg. Deciding to make sure it fits alright now instead of fifteen minutes before he’s set to leave, Alec quickly undresses and puts on the suit.

He doesn’t have a mirror in his office but even he can tell that it fits like a dream and must look the same. Extending his arms out, he doesn’t feel the tightness in the shoulders he had during the fitting last week and he’s gratified by his range of motion when he leans over his desk and reaches for the top drawer where he’d stashed his cuff links this morning when he’d first came in to the office.

Sliding the understated gold and silver cuff links into his sleeves, Alec shoots the cuffs, readjusts the jacket.

It’s a wonderful suit, he thinks, and makes a mental note to tell Magnus.

He doesn’t know how he’ll do that but it’s on his to-do list. As Alec snags the belt he’d also brought from home earlier, he replays over the fitting from a week ago.

What a mess he’d been, Alec chides himself. Never hearing about the man before, Alec had pictured a middle-aged designer whose excesses had started to betray him. Instead, he’d been treated to the sight of the most beautiful man he’d ever met. He’d been awestruck and unpardonably rude for it.

Magnus had introduced himself and Alec had reciprocated his easy friendliness for a heartbeat. For two or three seconds, Alec had forgotten himself.

He’d seen an attractive man and been enthralled. It had been just a moment, though, before he’d remembered who he was and what was at stake.

Alec didn’t have the luxury of guileless interest.

Still, Magnus had been everything magnanimous and Alec likes to think that he’d fixed the foot he’d stuffed into his mouth.

Damn but it had been hard to concentrate on the conversation. While he appreciated quality, Alec was mostly unfussy about his wardrobe. Magnus just kept asking questions, though, about formality and bow tie versus open throat and when the designer had thrown his little notebook to the ground in a careless gesture and gone to his knees to fiddle with his pants, Alec had grown alarmingly lightheaded.

Looking over Magnus to see his sister positively grinning hadn’t helped matters.

Lost in thought, Alec’s mouth tips up in a small smile as he thinks about how their fitting had ended. While Alec has no doubt that Magnus was just being polite, ever the friendly businessman, he can’t help but wonder what it would be like to get to know him more.

And not with a business deal hanging over their heads but as acquaintances, maybe even friends.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Alec takes out a business card with edges soft from wear. It’s sturdy white cardstock and with elegant script engraved in bold black font. It’s simple for all its finery and Alec has an insatiable urge to learn more about the man behind the card.

Alec sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. He’s too damn busy to let himself become preoccupied with a man who is certainly not thinking twice about him.

Looking over at a clock, Alec sees he has an hour before he needs to leave for the venue. Deciding not to change, Alec goes back behind his desk. Instead of working, however, he pulls a book from his shelf. It’s an ARC and a promising one at that-- he respected the author and the premise he’d been given sounded intriguing.

It’s the work of a few minutes to put final touches on his look before Maia is buzzing him to let him know his driver is waiting downstairs.

The drive to the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium is bumper to bumper and he passes the time scrolling through half a dozen news sites.

He’s always on the cutting edge. There’s never really a down moment.

Stepping out of the town car, it’s onto a red carpet that’s been rolled out. There are a few press publications taking pictures and Alec strolls down the carpet, up the handful of stairs. There’s a spot to pose for photos, which he does with grace even if he really rather wouldn’t. Distantly, he recalls Magnus’s coy, “I can’t wait to see how you photograph in my clothes.”

His cheeks heat and he desperately hopes the cameras don’t pick up on it.

The evening progresses much as he’d known it would. The dinner is atrocious, mediocre and not filling in the slightest. It's a little weird to be here without a date, without Lydia in his ear making snide remarks, but Alec powers through and thankfully no one asks about it.

The night is saved, though, when he and his team wins Investigation of the Year for his look into the Assassination of fellow journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. He’s brought up to the stage and talks for a few minutes about freedom of speech and the duty of journalism and how Kashoggi paid the ultimate price for his criticism against Saudi leaders.

As Alec takes his seat again and his eyes catch morosely on a half dozen wilted green beans, he can’t help but wonder if that’s his fate, too.

He plays with fire so often that he wouldn’t know what to do without the heat always licking at his heels.

His thoughts break off from that morbid line of thought when he feels his phone vibrate. Taking it out, unlocking it, Alec opens his texts to see a message from a contact simply labelled J.

Our usual place? I’ve booked room 1406.

Alec stares down at the dim screen of his phone and feels the expression shift on his face, into something anticipatory. Well, he supposes, that settles his plans for the rest of the night.

He’d thought he’d go home to an empty apartment and pour a glass of whiskey while he worked for a few hours. A bit of an insomniac, Alec rarely fell straight to sleep unless travel had exhausted him.

I’m at a work function tonight. I’ll be there at 11?

Alec barely waits half a minute before his phone is vibrating with a reply.

See you then, Lightwood.

Anticipation is a heady mix. While Alec had a strict policy against relationships-- that was a powder keg waiting to happen-- he didn’t have the same issue with casual hookups. There were a few men in a few cities he could rely on for their discretion. Jeremy, in New York, wasn’t out either and last Alec had seen him, had no plans to any time soon. His family was very Catholic-- two of his uncles were priests-- and his mother went to Mass three times a week without fail.

A restaurateur in the East Village, they’d met one night when Alec had joined work friends at his establishment for a retirement party. Now, almost a year later, they met up once or twice a month whenever Alec was in town at the St. Regis.

The rest of the awards pass in dull monotony, though Alec takes note of the Emerging Journalist of the year-- a sophomore at UC Berkeley-- and a few other categories. It’s closer to midnight when his cab pulls up to St. Regis and Alec keeps his head low as he walks past the doorman, not relaxing until he’s in the elevator. Alone, he slouches against the back, raises a hand to tug his tie undone.

He’s unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt and breathes easier for it. Keeping his eye trained on room numbers, Alec finally comes to a stop down the long corridor when he sees 1406 in gold.

Mouth tipping up in an easy grin, Alec leans against the door jamb as he raises an arm, using his knuckles for a careless knock against the door.

He waits just a moment before it’s swinging open. Raising his head, Alec meets Jeremy’s eyes and straightens, stepping into the hotel room without a backwards glance, determined to enjoy these few hours he allows himself.

And later, when Jeremy tentatively offers to take him out some time-- his pick, whenever he’s free-- Alec shuts that down with barely a thought.

“No,” he replies shortly. They’re still breathing harshly from their latest round, staring up at the ceiling and not at each other. “That’s not what we are, Jeremy. What we are is convenience. I’m sure as hell not cut out for a relationship.”

He turns, spares a glance at a man he barely knows but knows just enough. “Are you okay with that? Tell me if you’re not now because I can’t pretend this is something it isn’t. I meet you at a hotel, we fuck, and one of us leaves before the other wakes up. It’s a good system and one I’m not willing to break. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

Alec doesn’t much care one way or another. While it’d be an inconvenience, Alec is firm that he won’t pretend that this is something it’s not.

He’s gratified when Jeremy just sighs and tells him, “You’re a cold son of a bitch, Lightwood. You know that, right,” before he leans over Alec and they both forget about anything as obscene as attachment.

---

Alec wakes up the next morning feeling decidedly gross. His partner is nowhere to be found and when he manages to wake up, he sees all evidence of another person has vanished.

Blowing out a breath, he stays in bed for just a moment more before throwing the sheet away from his body and climbing out of bed.

He makes it home unscathed, heading directly to his shower as soon as he enters his apartment. Scrubbing the night from his skin, Alec feels a hollow sense of satisfaction.

He takes these pieces, sweeps them up into a little pile until he has something resembling enough. It’s far from perfect; the polar opposite from ideal. He couldn’t give a fuck about Jeremy or his other friends. He wasn’t lying.

They really were convenient hookups, ways to blow off steam, release the geyser of stress that’s always roiling just under the surface.

As he reaches for his body wash, Alec’s eyes cool as his mouth downturns. Christ, sometimes he wishes he had more-- that he could have more.

He doesn’t let himself think that too often but once in a while, a thought catches him off guard. Having a relationship, a proper partner.

It’s the antithesis to his life, that much he knows without a doubt.

Still. Alec’s always been more of a romantic than he likes to let on and it’s hard sometimes to see Izzy flirt unabashedly with anyone who catches her eye, with Jace flirting badly with Meliorn whenever the two cross paths at Taki’s.

Resolutely pushing those thoughts away, Alec finishes getting ready. Sliding his watch on, Alec sees he’s just on time to meet his siblings for brunch.

It’s Wednesday morning but both Jace and Izzy had insisted they could go in late. Isabelle, as the senior chemist at Idris Labs, had a pretty flexible schedule. Jace, for his part, owned a food truck and he’d been more than okay with pushing his hours back to see Alec.

Walking into their favorite brunch spot since they were teenagers, Alec sees his siblings already at a table. They perk up when he slides into the booth opposite them.

“Hey, bro,” Jace greets with a grin. “I caught the highlights of that press dinner. Congratulations!”

“Jace says that as if we didn’t watch them live. But, yes, congrats, hermano. We’re so proud of you.”

Shrugging, Alec merely offers, “I only did what was necessary. Koshoggi deserved to be more than front page news for a few weeks and the Saudi regime deserved the microscope I put them under.”

Thankfully, the waitress comes over and grabs their orders, all of which they know by heart so that they don’t even reach for the menus anymore.

Thankful for a breath, Alec looks up, first at Jace and then Isabelle. “So, what’s new with everyone? I feel like I haven’t seen you two in forever.”

“It’s been a week,” Isabelle says with a wry grin.

Nonetheless, they catch each other up on their lives. While they weren’t as close as they’d been before Alec had started travelling for work-- first as a freelance journalist and then signing on full time for CNN-- they liked to keep in touch. As long as Alec was within reach of a phone or laptop, they rarely went more than a few days without talking.

The next hour is a different kind of stress relief for Alec. He listens to Jace talk about his food truck and the cute guy that’s become a regular and listens as Isabelle shares her excitement for her upcoming date. The two of them make plans for dinner and Alec winces as they both look at him expectantly, as though knowing what he’s about to say.

“Actually,” he interjects when both of them have agreed they’re free Sunday night. “I’m leaving tomorrow for three weeks.”

Jace’s mouth tilts up but it’s barely a smile. “What a surprise.”

Stung, Alec snaps, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Isabelle holds out a hand, staving off any argument. “Not today. I’m enjoying my meal and I don’t need you two ruining things. Alec, Jace didn’t mean anything. Jace, you didn’t mean anything by that. Okay?”

Neither Alec nor Jace say anything. They’re staring at each other and Alec’s a little taken aback by Jace’s glare.

A part of him wants to know what the fuck his brother’s problem is but he’s tired and most of his day will be spent with work. Letting it go for now, there’s still an undertone of tension when the bill comes after the three of them have finished their milkshakes.

Jace is the first to leave, citing needing to get to work, and Alec watches him leave, Izzy standing next to him.

“Wanna fill me in on what crawled up his ass since we last saw each other?”

Sighing, Isabelle loops her arm through his and they turn toward uptown where her lab is located. “Not my place,” she says simply.

Her response leaves him more irritated than before he’d asked but Alec bites his tongue, not completely sure that he even wants to open that can of worms.

They walk a few blocks before Isabelle needs to turn and Alec’s path to CNN headquarters takes him straight. She pulls him into a hug before stepping back and putting her hands on his shoulders.

“Be safe and don’t be a hero.” She smiles, just a little, and it’s equal parts resigned and chiding. “I love you, Alec.”

“Love you too, Iz.” Pulling her in for another hug, Alec holds on for a beat or two before finally releasing her and turning his own way.

Afternoon passes into night and Alec catches up on work. He has a dozen balls in the air at any given moment and keeping up with everything is a struggle. He signs off on reports and a few contracts that need final signatures. He makes a guest appearance on all three evening news hours, speaking as a special political commentator and doesn’t get back to his apartment until after midnight.

His flight is slated for five in the morning and Alec has just enough time to pack and make sure everything is in order before he’s being notified that the hired driver is waiting to take him to the airport.

Waiting to board his flight, Alec stops by Starbucks and orders a red eye. It’s strong as hell and exactly what he needs. Finding a seat at his gate, he fucks around on his phone for awhile. He sees a notification in his mentions and when he swipes over, he can’t stop his automatic grin.

It’s a picture from Tuesday’s press gala that a popular tabloid has tweeted. He’s at the photograph station and he knows he looks good. Magnus, however, has quoted that with the addition, “Alec’s wearing a custom Magnus Bane. Doesn’t he look like a million bucks?”

There are a few facetious emojis tagged on at the end and Alec huffs out a laugh as he likes the tweet. Going to Magnus’s profile, his eyes scan over the profile picture that shows him in low light. Scrolling a little, Alec sees Magnus is much more engaged on Twitter than he is and in a moment of weakness, he scrolls back up to the top and taps the follow button.

A little to his surprise, he gets the notification that Magnus has followed him back just a few minutes later. He didn’t think Magnus would be such an early riser, especially considering it’s not even light outside yet.

Alec doesn’t let his mind wander long, though, before he’s turning back to work. He spends what little remaining time he has before boarding begins to read over his notes. He continues that during most of his flight. Managing a few hours sleep, Alec still feels like death warmed over whenever he lands in China.

He has his credentials and passes ready and most of that first day is spent filling out forms with the Chinese government.

This assignment isn’t the longest he’s been on by far. Still, the three weeks seem to fly and drag by at the same time. He meets dozens of officials and uses what little free time he’s allowed to get a feel for the city and interview people on the fringes of his interest piece.

Every night he comes back to his hotel and types up his notes. Still, not all of his time is spent on China. He still has articles due for different newspapers back in the States and he spends a few hours every day keeping on top of things back home.

By the time his assignment is over-- he has all the information he’s going to get, his televised interview with Xi Jinping has been filmed-- Alec’s exhausted.

It’s an exhaustion that runs bone deep and when his car takes him back to the Hong Kong airport, Alec wants nothing more than a shower and his own goddamn bed.

The flight is uneventful and Alec surprises himself by choosing to read a book-- for pleasure even. The flight is uncomfortable no matter that he’s in business class and the first thing he does when he lands back in New York is call headquarters and get updated on what he’s missed and expectations for the next few days.

Thankfully, Jia tells him in no uncertain terms to take a day or two before he shows his face at work and Alec laughs and agrees. She usually insists that he take a bit of a break with longer assignments and luckily, it’s never more than two days.

She doesn’t know he always has work at home and Alec has no intention of telling her.

Most of the first day is spent faceplanted in his bed after the world’s most efficient shower.

The second day, though, Alec decides to pack up his laptop and notes for the book he’s been working on for the past six months. The publisher wanted a tentative first draft by the end of summer and with only four or five months left, Alec was woefully short.

It was a a treatise about America’s current political climate with personal anecdotes thrown in. Alec was slogging through it but it was dense as hell and he had enough research to make a Ph.D candidate wince.

Walking into his favorite little coffee shop in Brooklyn-- he’d discovered it during college and had been a regular ever since-- Alec settles in. Spreading his notes out, he focuses on work.

He works steadily, wrapping up the current chapter he’d been working on when he suddenly feels eyes on him. Sighing a little-- it happened from time to time even at the most inopportune times-- Alec looks up and freezes.

His chest squeezes a little as his gaze meets warm brown eyes.

“Magnus,” he says under his breath, too low for anyone to hear.

Magnus’s mouth kicks up like he heard Alec after all and then he’s grabbing his drink from the barista and making his way over to him.

“Alexander. Fancy meeting you here.”

Nodding toward his sprawled out pile of work, Alec replies, “I just flew back into the city last night. I thought I’d get some work done in a setting that’s a little more casual than the office.”

Blowing across the top of his drink to cool it, Magnus eyes the pile. “What are you working on?”

“A book, if you can believe that. Something political and dire as befitting the current administration.”

Magnus rolls his eyes before grinning. “I can’t wait to read it. I’m sure you’ll do justice to the topic.”

“I’m trying,” Alec says as he jerks a shoulder in a semblance of a shrug. “What are you doing here?”

Magnus’s expression is amused as he nods outside the shop. “This is the closest coffee shop to my apartment. I come in here almost every day. I’ve never seen you here before, though.”

“I found this place in college and have been coming ever since. I don’t come here as often as I might like but when I’m in the city, it’s at least once a week.”

“What a coincidence,” Magnus murmurs before perking up. “You mentioned you just flew back in last night. Were you somewhere devastatingly exotic?”

“China,” Alec replies dryly. “It was painfully mundane.”

Looking intrigued, Alec watches as Magnus hesitates for a bare moment before he gestures toward the chair across from him. Before he can ask, Alec is already waving him toward the empty seat. “Please, sit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you stand forever.”

“Thank you, darling.” Magnus shoots him a smile before taking a seat. It’s oddly graceful, elegant for such an everyday gesture.

“Now,” Magnus says briskly, crossing one leg over the other and staring at Alec with something indefinable in his eye. “How was China, as you put it, painfully mundane?”

Relaxing in his seat, Alec’s look is wry as he says, “It was work, Magnus. I spent an overwhelming majority of my time trying to get the truth from people determined not to give me any. It was exhausting. I have some great content that will start to drop in a few days but these trips are hardly ever pleasure for me.”

“Don’t say you’re a workaholic now. That ruins a fair bit of the image I had of you in my head-- you know what they say about all work and no play, Alexander.”

“My job is demanding,” Alec replies with a short laugh. “Sorry to spoil things, but any image you have of me is probably categorically false. As Isabelle’s always telling me, I’m a bit of a dud.”

Raising a brow, Magnus repeats, “A dud? Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m focused on my career. As it happens, that career is more high-octane than most. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything else.”

“More’s the pity,” Magnus says softly and Alec’s suddenly uncomfortably when he turns sharp eyes to him.

It’s like he sees everything Alec tries to hide, everything he doesn’t say.

And then Magnus is brightening. “Are you one of those people who become horribly distracted if anyone so much breathes in their direction while working?”

Alec sets a deadpan look over Magnus. “I’m a journalist. I can pretty much work through anything. Why?”

“Well,” Magnus draws out and Alec mostly thinks he imagines the tentative look in his eye. “I have a few hours before I have to be in my office but I have some work I could get done before going in. I was thinking a change of scenery might help me too, if you’re willing.”

It takes Alec a moment to understand what he’s trying to say but then he grins when he does, a small, pleased little thing. “Feel free,” he says and shoves some of his stuff away from what’s officially Magnus’s side of the table.

Magnus returns that smile before reaching down to his bag and pulling out a sheaf of papers.

And no matter what Alec might’ve said just a few moments before, he’s definitely distracted as he also pulls out a pair of black framed glasses, slipping them on absently while organizing his little pile of paper.

When he looks up and catches his eye, Magnus is sheepish. “I hate the things,” he says, pointing to the glasses. “But I need them, so. I know it doesn’t exactly fit my own dashing reputation.”

“I like them.” Alec’s reply is out of his mouth before he can think and while he feels heat climb into his cheeks, he’s rewarded by a pleased if surprised smile from Magnus. Swallowing hard, he adds, “They suit you.”

“Thank you, darling.” A teasing light comes into Magnus’s eyes as he continues, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Alec doesn’t know how to respond to that without getting embarrassingly tongue tied, so he just looks down at his laptop and reads the same sentence seven times without comprehending it.

It’s absurd but Alec is quickly growing familiar with the way Magnus is proving the exception to his most ironclad rules. He’s met people all of the world from all different backgrounds and he rarely has a problem engaging them in conversation. It’s part of his job and one that he’s good at even if those closest to him would be a little surprised to learn just how competent he is at socializing.

In his line of work, that particular skill set is crucial to forming ties and establishing trust.

With Magnus, however, that all goes out the window. The man makes an innocuous enough comment and Alec finds himself tongue-tied. A part of him wishes desperately that he could flirt back but he can’t-- that wouldn’t be fair to either of them-- not to mention that it would be just a little presumptuous.

Alec has a sinking suspicion that Magnus is friendly with everyone. What a faux pas would if be if Alec read more into things.

He shudders at just the thought.

Magnus doesn’t say anything else and Alec manages to turn his focus back to his work. To his surprise, Magnus is an acceptable work partner. He doesn’t click his pen, doesn’t have a need too fill the silence that’s fallen over their little corner of the coffee shop. He scans through documents, signing every so often, and every time Alec looks up, Magnus appears deep in thought. He has the endearing habit of bringing his pen up to his mouth to chew absently on the cap and it’s a little tick that Alec wouldn’t have suspected but enjoys nonetheless.

He’s startled, then, when he’s ass deep in research for a particular law he wants to use-- he needs to get a deep understanding of it before he can even begin explaining what it means and why it’s important-- when Magnus bites back a curse.

He looks up to meet Magnus’s incredulous gaze.

“I’m sorry, but it looks like I’m running late for my afternoon meeting. I hadn’t even realized so much time had passed.”

Looking down at the corner of his laptop, Alec’s brows raise as he sees they’ve been sitting together for over four hours.

“We should’ve set an alarm,” he says with a stunned smile.

Gathering his work, Magnus packs up his things as he returns Alec’s expression. “Yes, that would’ve been good thinking. I didn’t anticipate getting so distracted,” he admits.

“You’re easy to share a table with.”

“Thank you, Alexander. I’m glad I wasn’t a nuisance.” Magnus laughs and a part of Alec leans into the sound, no matter that he stays in place.

Magnus stands, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He takes a single step backward, toward the front door. “How long are you in town for this time around?”

Pausing to think, Alec finally offers, “As long as nothing crops up, I’m in New York for at least a few months. Most of my time needs to be spent working on this damned thing,” he says, nodding toward the evidence of his writing.

“Maybe I’ll see you around then. Bye, darling.”

Alec nods in acknowledgement and watches as Magnus turns on his heel and strides out of the little coffee shop, looking too big for the place, his presence too striking for a regular little coffee shop.

Blowing out a breath, Alec wonders if he’ll see Magnus again and if so, when. Most of him hopes he does and soon.

There’s a little piece, though, that he tries to tamp down on that whispers maybe it’s best if they don’t see each other again.

Something tells him that Magnus is different to everyone else, even if it's in ways he can't quite definite yet.

Shaking his head impatiently, Alec pushes any and all thoughts of Magnus Bane out of his head. The truth is, they probably won’t see each other again for months, if that.

He has bigger things to worry about than an interesting fashion designer who pulls off glasses like he was born for them.

---

Except the next morning, Alec comes back to the little Brooklyn coffee shop and almost immediately, his gaze lands on Magnus.

Magnus, who looks up with a smile that only grows when he sees the book bag over Alec’s shoulder.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he says, just like he had yesterday and Alec laughs, a quick burst, while he tries to recover.

“What are you doing here?” It could come off as rude, short, but Alec’s already nearing the table and bringing his bag down to rest on the floor against the chair that sits across from Magnus.

Magnus shrugs. “I have work to get through and I can do that just as easily here as I can in my office. My office doesn’t have such a view, after all,” he says with a little grin that reads just as coy as it is hesitant.

Alec doesn’t linger over the words. Peering at the table, Alec nods toward the half that has stuff on it; the other half of the table is perfectly cleared off. “Is this seat taken?”

“Yes, by you, darling.” Magnus beams at him and gestures grandly for Alec to take the seat opposite him.

Getting settled in, Alec pops up a few minutes later to order a coffee for himself as well as a refill for Magnus. The morning passes much like the past afternoon had. They both work on their own things but together and it’s odd but it fills Alec with a buzzing energy that itches just under his skin.

He likes the quiet and while he’s loathe to admit something so whimsical-- even to himself-- he likes the quiet with Magnus even more.

They don’t talk much that day, both focused on their work. Alec’s the one that has to leave first that day, off to the studio to shoot a debate between two political leaders of different parties. Magnus nods in acknowledgement, wishes him a productive afternoon, but nothing else.

So it’s pure coincidence when Alec goes right back to the little coffee shop the next morning and sees Magnus for the third day in a row.

It becomes a thing after that-- or really, Alec thinks, since the very beginning. And while the first week or so is filled with comfortable silence and the sounds of typing, the dull thrum of everyone else in the coffee shop nice in the background, Magnus and Alec rarely talk.

They both seem to want to preserve the spell that’s fallen over them but then one day Magnus is obviously distracted. He fidgets with his papers and Alec feels his eyes on him every four seconds it seems until finally, exasperated and fond-- too fond for the duration of their acquaintance, that’s for sure-- Alec looks up and meets Magnus’s eyes.

“What’s with you today?”

Magnus stills and then launches into a rambling rant about best friends who think they know best but really don’t know jack shit. Alec surprises himself when he bursts out laughing when he learns that Magnus’s best friend, Ragnor, has been surprising him with a different treat every day in the hopes that he’ll take the hint and take a break from things.

“He’s gotten me a gift card to a bookstore, a wine box subscription, and he’s started leaving little hints all over the office for me to take a vacation. There are little palm trees on the kitchen counter and Clary has started talking about the weather in a different tropical locale every day for the past two weeks. The man is driving me insane, Alexander.”

Shaking his head a little, the mood lightens considerably over their table as they both abandon any semblance of work. Instead, they order more coffee and talk.

They get to know each other a little better, piece by piece. Alec learns about Ragnor and Raphael and Catarina and he takes his own turn to talk about his siblings and how they drive him crazy but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

After that day, something shifts in their budding friendship. They spend a few minutes every day catching up with the other and it often devolves entirely into meandering conversations that poke and prod at what seems to be laying just under the surface.

There are some topics Alec doesn’t broach and Magnus gently hints before backing away entirely once he realizes the off-limit subjects-- the confidential aspects of his job, his dating history. Though Alec talks a little bit about Lydia-- by all accounts they were together since college-- he’s strangely reticent to share as much as he might’ve with anyone else.

He doesn’t want to lie to Magnus. Not about Lydia and not about what Lydia helped hide.

It’s a month later and Magnus and Alec have seen each other almost every day since that first afternoon at the coffee shop. Alec is dreadfully behind in his projected timeline to complete his book but he finds that he can’t care overmuch, not when he’s having so much fun getting to know Magnus.

He doesn’t look the man up, doesn’t want to learn about the famous designer before either of them are ready. He takes what Magnus shares and becomes just a little more infatuated every day.

He can’t tell if Magnus feels the same, one iota of what Alec’s feeling. It’s all a moot point anyway, he tells himself but. Still. He wonders if it’s as one sided as it seems or if-- in another world, another life-- there could be something more there.

Everything is going well until Alec gets the call from CNN’s headquarters that he’ll be leaving the next afternoon for his next assignment.

He takes the call and as he listens to the proposal, a part of him feels the familiar rush of adrenaline. There’s another part, though, that’s full of the tiniest bit of disappointment.

Four months.

It’s still not the longest assignment he’s been on. Not by far. But his mind skips to Magnus and their routine and even as he agrees immediately to his assignment, he’s dreading telling Magnus.

Magnus, who’s become an unwitting friend over the past month.

When they meet at the coffee shop just a couple of hours later, Magnus takes one look at him and immediately asks, “What’s wrong?”

Alec smiles, just a little, at Magnus reading him so well. It dies on his lips though as he opens his mouth to reply before getting out, “I got my next assignment. I leave tomorrow.”

He watches as Magnus’s smile dims, as he settles back in his seat as he absorbs the news. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

It’s silent for a minute before Magnus looks up and smiles wanly. “How long?”

Wincing, Alec replies, “Four months. Depending on how it all unfolds, though, it could be extended.”

“Well,” Magnus says and it’s clear that it’s trying to be bright but fails spectacularly, “Do you have plans for tonight?”

Alec blinks. “Plans? Tonight?”

Something thaws in Magnus’s expression as he watches Alec’s confusion. “Yes, darling, tonight. If you’re going to be away for half a year, I’d like to see you one more time before you go. If you’re amenable, we could have dinner together.”

“That sounds great, Magnus.” Alec’s voice is soft, just above a whisper.

Magnus’s gaze warms even further at Alec’s easy acquiescence. “Wonderful. I’ll make the arrangements and text you the address-- Oh, we would need to exchange numbers for that, I suppose.”

It takes Alec a spare second to realize that the two of them haven’t even exchanged numbers yet. By tacit agreement, they both had just shown up to the coffee shop ever morning, letting the other know they day before if there would be a change.

“Yeah,” Alec breathes. “Let’s do that.”

The two of them exchange numbers and it’s such a small gesture but it lights Alec up. Though, he tries his damnedest to hide just how effected he is by having Magnus’s cell number.

The two of them don’t even try to turn back to their work after that. They spend the rest of the morning talking and there’s a new energy lingering in the undertones of their conversation. It’s almost frenetic, an impending knowledge that they only have this last day before they’ll be apart for the foreseeable future.

Magnus leaves in the early afternoon after half a dozen progressively more annoyed texts from Ragnor. He leaves with a promise to make the arrangements-- something private, away from prying eyes-- and leaves with his customary flourish.

Alec watches him leave and wonders how he’ll survive dinner with the growing acknowledgement that he’s falling for Magnus and the knowledge that there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

#I know I'm as surprised as you are #otr #my writing

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timeagainreviews · 5 years

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5 Moments when Doctor Who SUCKED

Imagine, if you will for a moment, that you are a brand new Doctor Who fan. You don’t even know to call yourself a Whovian yet. You get on a few facebook groups, see a few YouTube videos and discover, much to your dismay, that Doctor Who is, in fact, ruined now. Woe is you who set path down a trail leading toward mediocrity, and eventually utter devastation. I ask you to picture yourself in this manner because I want you to realise that only a person new to Doctor Who would believe such drivel. Everyone else saying this seems to have rose tinted glasses. The rest of us all know that Doctor Who is a show that sometimes requires forgiveness.

Am I saying Doctor Who is a bad show? Not hardly. Much like pizza, Doctor Who is still pretty good, even when it sucks. I would venture to say that one of the things I love most about Doctor Who is how campy and silly it can be at times. Why is it then that so many people are turning their backs on a show that’s filled their lives with so much joy? I’m really trying to avoid the "because sexism," argument. But I can’t help but feel like if you were to switch the Doctor to a male, nobody would be calling the show "ruined." Furthermore, how do you even ruin something that has gone through so many changes throughout the years? Oh right, it’s the Doctor Who fandom. Where the only language allowed is hyperbolic.

Perhaps these fake geeks are mad because making the Doctor a woman takes away their ability to call her a Mary Sue. Especially when you consider the same character once burst out of a golden birdcage and floated to the ground in a wave of Jesus energy. That might mean they’d have to retroactively apply the title to every incarnation. Could the Doctor ever escape the distinction? Unnaturally talented, charismatic, good at everything he does, brilliantly smart. Or is it that these attributes only belong to men? We can believe Tom Baker’s Doctor is capable of walking into a burning furnace to save K9, but hell no, a woman can’t be the Doctor.

You have to face it, Doctor Who has had some terrible moments. Yet we continue to tune in because we forgive it. We forgive when Doctor Who is bad because of the moments when Doctor Who is wonderful. Which I know is how you would describe an abusive partner, but I’m gonna let it slide for a television series. Especially this series. Because unlike that dickhead who never texts you back, Doctor Who can change. If you don’t believe me, please peruse this list of five instances when Doctor Who was terrible.

1. The John Nathan-Turner era

My God, how could I not start with this? While there is no denying there are some wonderful moments in JNT's Doctor Who, it's easily my least favourite era of Doctor Who. And as much as I personally love Colin Baker, his Doctor got the lion's share of poor scripts and erroneous costume choices. Never has a man more game for a role, been dealt such a bad hand.

Introducing a Doctor that was cowardly, and even violent toward his companion, was seen as a bridge too far. While I understand the desire to try something new with the character, this wasn't the way to go about it. While the show begins to pick up around the end of McCoy's tenure, it's evident that this is more the influence of studio notes and the hard work of script editor Andrew Cartmel. I can't think of anyone less suited for the job of showrunner.

It seems that for a good nine years, Doctor Who had a madman at the helm, and not in that cute Matt Smith way. Dressing in flamboyant Hawaiian shirts, Nathan-Turner brought that same brash sensibility to the program. From Six's garish costume, to question mark lapels, to Mel's entire timeline, it's a big fat mess with him sitting in the middle. Add to all of this, the allegations of him being a predatory creep toward young male fans, and it's a surprise the show ever survived. Oh wait, it didn't.

2. Racism

Ok, maybe I should have started with this. While Doctor Who has taken efforts to address its racist past, it still happened. They drop a racist slur in "The Celestial Toymaker." Even the term "celestial," is used to mean "Chinese," in describing the titular character played by the very white Michael Gough, fully clad in Oriental silks. This tradition follows into "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," when Li H'sen Chang was played by John Bennett.

It's an uncomfortable miracle that they didn't allow Patrick Troughton to play the role of the Second Doctor in brownface. Not to say his era escaped the odd bit of racism. While Toberman in "Tomb of the Cybermen," gets a few heroic moments, he also gets none of the lines. Cast as mute manservant, we learn nothing about the inner workings of a black man who died so that white people may live.

Later, the show used characters like Ace to talk about racism. She shows disgust with a "No Coloureds," sign hanging in the boarding house she's staying in. When the evil Morgaine had her under mind control, it was calling her friend Ling Tai "yellow," and "slant-eyed," that she was able to snap out of it. Real Ace would never say such things. But even with that groundwork laid, the new series still struggles. From the Doctor being weirdly dismissive toward black people, to it taking nearly 50 years for the first black TV companion, Doctor Who is still grappling with its race issues. Yet you all kept watching.

3. Ace gets molested

This one is a bit of a lesser known infraction as it takes place in the books after the show had already been cancelled. Kicking off the Virgin Media "New Adventures," is 1991's "Timewyrm: Genesys," by John Peel. In it, the Doctor and Ace travel to ancient Mesopotamia, where they meet King Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh wastes no time going full blown creep, groping Ace and pawing at her like he was Joe Biden.

The Doctor's reaction to this is to tell Ace to just go with it, and that it's part of the culture. While I agree that, yes, Gilgamesh may not be the sophisticated modern man that hugs a bro and supports equal pay, the Doctor's reaction is some straight up bullshit. If you're going to go there, maybe try saying something with it other than "Women are men's property." This could have been a great opportunity for the Doctor to puff up and use Gilgamesh's own primitive mindset against him. "How dare you touch my woman!" the very tiny Doctor could say to the very tall man. It would have been a funny visual, mixed with the Doctor utilising male privilege in a way that helps his companion.

This is really an objection I have against most of John Peel's work. He writes women in that "she boobed boobily," manner. Much to my dismay, Peel is one of the sole writers of the Dalek books, so any time you want to enjoy a tale involving our enemies from Skaro, you have to also partake in his brand of women. I'm talking women being described as buxom babes with shoulder length blonde hair, voices like baby goddesses, and legs up to their neck. While on the other hand, we get men described as having a hat and probably some other features. I may be embellishing, but seriously, John Peel, your women suck. Yet it still spawned a rather large book series.

4. Minuet in Hell

Doctor Who has never been known to nail accents. Tegan is vaguely Australian. And Peri must have moved around a lot due to the fact that nothing about her American accent sounds like a regional dialect. That doesn't mean that Robert Jezek's Foghorn Leghorn meets the KFC Colonel performance as " Brigham Elisha Dashwood III," is any less painful. But bad accents aside, the biggest demon in this Big Finish audio is one of Doctor Who's oldest enemies- sexism!

While I understand that Charlotte Pollard may be a fan favourite among many Big Finish listeners, her character will forever be tainted for me, and it's all due to this story. In it, Charlotte, or Charley, gets literally human trafficked. They kidnap her, force her to wear lingerie in a very creepy and misguided attempt to add some sexiness to the story and force her to wait on rich businessmen at a casino.

Now, allow me to clarify, it's not the human trafficking that taints her in my eyes. People who get trafficked are victims, obviously. What bothers me is that neither Gary Russell or Alan W Lear thought to give her a single line of dialogue where she protests. She doesn't even complain a little. Sure, the Doctor often gains intel by getting captured, but this is ridiculous. Add this to the weird disjointed story, and "Minuet in Hell," easily serves as one of the lowest points in not just Big Finish history, but Doctor Who as a whole.

5. Sexism

(Image by Billy Darswed)

It makes the most sense that this is the last one on the list. Because let's be honest, it's a huge problem in the fandom. A lot of early Doctor Who audios and books smack of moments when it feels as though the writers never considered the existence of female fans. Women are often utilised as a means to make the Doctor look better, and for the baddies to look scarier. Mind you, it's not always been a pantheon of swooners and screamers. We got the occasional Sarah Jane, Leela, and Ace.

Even the strong women are long-suffering. Liz Shaw (and her real-life actress Caroline John) left the role of companion over sexism. Beginning her time on Doctor Who as UNIT's top scientific advisor, she was demoted to assistant, holding beakers for the male Doctor who stole her job. The Fourth Doctor acted similarly when telling Romana her qualifications had nothing on real life experience. The same excuse has been used for decades to keep educated women out of the workforce. "Come back when you've got some experience, sweetheart."

While Rose Tyler was a refreshingly real character with a family and life of her own, it doesn't mean that she wasn't horribly mismanaged. In "The Stolen Earth," we see a darker, more serious version of her character. The Rose we used to know is now fully devoted toward one mission and one mission only- getting her man back. It's as though her personality disappears and is fully dependent on having the Doctor in her life. She rises to greatness so that she might bask in his once more. Maybe it's romantic, but maybe it's bad writing.

If you were to ask me who my favourite Doctor Who writers are, I'd have to say Robert Holmes is up there, and he wrote "Talons of Weng-Chiang," a serial full of yellowface. I'd also say Russell T Davies, who wrote the aforementioned "Stolen Earth," and also saw it in his wisdom to turn Shirley Henderson's "Ursula," into a blowjob dispensing garden brick. Or even Steven Moffat who believes the Statue of Liberty could sneak around New York, undetected, and that nobody notices his predilection toward dominatrix women in stiletto heels.

In my review for "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos," I quipped that Chris Chibnall had not yet written a truly great episode of Doctor Who. However, since "Resolution," I can no longer say such a thing. I may even go as far as to say it's one of the best Dalek episodes ever. It would seem then that, given enough time, he could become a great showrunner. And it seems that given enough time, any writer, yourself included, could one day write the latest "worst episode ever."

Every new era has had its stumbles. Not every Doctor gets it correct 100% of the time. Capaldi decided he was the kind of Doctor to exit through the window, a trait we never saw again. The Fifth Doctor decided to sleep his way through his first adventure. The Eighth Doctor was "human on his mother's side." And Ten took so long to regenerate that I'm beginning to think it was old age, and not radiation that did him in. If you can look at all of these stupid, stupid moments and still say you love Doctor Who, then maybe, just maybe, you can get over a bit of spotty writing, like you always have. Or is it still the female Doctor thing? Oh...

#doctor who #tardis #thirteenth doctor #chris chibnall #time and time again #Jodie Whittaker

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