#but I dunno- I guess I just wanna show her that it’s not impossible to find someone who *will* do those things and *will* treat her the way-

[bread-of-death]

Oh my god I might get to take my friend on a date EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

[cyphyree]

Adolescence of Utena -- Architecture x Character Designs

Dunno if I read it from somewhere, but I realized that Utena's new uniform is styled somewhat like the architecture of Adolescence Ohtori, namely how her clothes are black and white (later with red accents) . Whereas Utena stands out in the world of RGU, she blends right into Adolescence Ohtori, almost as if she is a part of the architecture and vice versa.

The movie is also called The *Adolescence* of Utena (or Girl's Revolution Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse), and in the show, we see adolescent Utena wear black and white at the funeral. I think that her wearing this scheme again in the movie is a sort of return to her adolescence. Not to say that she regressed back into the child she was before the show, but more so to represent the child that Utena still is even after maturing. An adolescent is defined as someone roughly between 10-19; Utena is still a teen who's growing in this age range.

That said, Adolescence Ohtori seems to be an architectural representation of Utena's inner child/self. Like a mindscape of sorts. At the end of the movie, both she and Anthy would leave the mindscape of their adolescence and enter into the unknown "outside world" of adulthood.

Red is associated with the Rose Bride, ie Anthy. Before meeting Anthy for the first time in the show, Utena's clothing was absent of red (her child funeral dress); however Utena's RGU uniform afterwards would have red accents.

Similarly, Utena's Adolescence "boy" clothing doesn't have red, but her "prince garb" after meeting Anthy does.

Speaking of, if we continue seeing Ohtori as Utena's mindscape, the deep red of the Adolescence rose garden is like the part of Utena's mind that Anthy occupies. The tower where the girls draw is also Anthy's domain, as it's draped in red.

Even other black-white architecture of Ohtori is accented with red--Anthy has always been present in Utena's thoughts, even if subconsciously.

Alternatively, red in Ohtori could represent Anthy's mindscape "overlapping" with Utena's. Anthy is still wrestling with leaving Akio after all, and after the events of RGU, it would make sense that she and Utena share "spaces"/experiences/solidarity.

Anthy's Rose Bride dress also more closely resembles Utena/Ohtori's aesthetic (white, red with black accents), and we only see her transform into that when she is with Utena. It seems to signify that Anthy has become more familiar/recognizable to Utena, as her Rose Bride dress visually brings her closer to Utena, more so than her generic mint-green uniform.

When Utena first meets Anthy in Adolescence, a light flurry of rose petals fall from the garden above, crossing from Anthy's domain into Utena's-- they are beginning to cross each other's paths again. During the dance in the garden, a much heavier shower of roses blanket the school architecture below, as if Utena and Anthy's connection has now become much stronger. From then on, Utena would try to create a genuine bond with Anthy (as we see during the drawing session)

Alternatively, it could also signify a progression towards Anthy taking the spotlight when she and Utena decide to leave the school for good:

Near the end of Adolescence, we are back in Anthy's rose garden, we see the chairman's tower (associated with Anthy and Akio), and everything is washed in purples and reds-- Anthy's colors. Utena's black/white structures are now absent. From here on out, Anthy is going to drive (heh) the story forward.

I wanna talk about the architectural styles of Ohtori, but that'll be its own post once I do a bit more research. I wanna expand on some differences such as:

Adolescence- constructivist, Russian Revolution, industrial, "masculine"

Show- neoclassical/rococo? French Revolution, floral/decorative, "feminine" -- perhaps Anthy's mindscape in a way.

Anyway this was supposed to be a bullet point list of miscellaneous stray thoughts, but I guess that's impossible, so I'll just eventually write more individual utena thoughts posts lol

Please feel free to tell me what you think btw!

There's also another post by @nothing-suspicious-in-there about Utena's uniform that's a completely different take, please check it out!

[grayintogreen]

All this Ira and Feywild talk just makes me want to reread this whole sequence from OUADYA and how funny it rings now. And it’s missing Jester and Artagan hours always.

“You really are quite powerful.” He canted his head so far to the left that, for a moment, Jester thought he was going to turn it completely upside down. “Do you have a sweet story, little devil girl? Of an imaginary friend, perhaps, who crept into your room and swept you up in tales of the Feywild?”

Jester’s breath caught in her lungs and the lie came out of her easier than breathing did. “N-no. Oh my gosh, that’s so crazy. What’re you talking about, Ira? Can I call you Ira?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t.” The Nightmare King snapped his head back hard to the left and breathed in like he was sniffing her soul- it was just as creepy in his normal form as it was when he was just a shadow. Maybe even creepier. He didn’t even really have nostrils in either form. “Doors have been opening everywhere, but someone left a key in the lock to the Feywild and so much slips through the cracks. It is very rare that I get to tend to mortals where they live. Usually I have to wait until they take up an interest in theater.”

The way he smiled when he said it made it seem like that was a private joke. Jester wrinkled her nose. “Y’know, if you like the theater, you should listen to my mama sometime. She’s pretty good.”

“Jester,” her mother hissed, desperately.

“It’ll be okay, mama. Look. He doesn’t wanna hurt me.”

“Yet,” the Nightmare King crooned.

“Yet,” she repeated, mockingly. “I dunno. You might end up liking me so much that you don’t wanna do weird stuff to me.”

“You mean take you apart and see what the Lord of the Morncrown infused your bones with to give you that spark, that seed, of his power?” His grin twisted cruelly. “When I found a lonely little girl in need of a friend, I could only grant her a bargain. You were never asked for a deal. I can sense no barter in you, no fair trade. What did he do to you that makes you servant and master to one another and yet neither at the same time?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.” Nothing he said made sense to her- the Traveler went to the Feywild all the time. He went to lots of places. Big deal. And Lord of the Morncrown? The hag had said something about the Morncrown, but it hadn’t meant anything to her. It still didn’t. She wasn’t going to correct him or ask questions or invoke the Traveler for an explanation, because he clearly wanted her to and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

He lifted a razor-tipped finger nearly to her chin. “No more games. No more clever little remarks. Who told you my name without first offering you a bargain, little girl?”

The second before he would have touched her, a hand grabbed his wrist. The Nightmare King jerked, but the hand held firm.

The hand vanished into a green cloak, attached to a hooded figure, grinning with vicious glee, his pointed canines showing.

“Traveler?” Jester whipped her head to see if the rest of the Nein could see him- all of them were wide-eyed and shaken but it was impossible to tell if they were just bracing themselves to fight this giant, terrifying creature while battered and bruised or if they were reacting to the presence of Jester’s actual god.

“You,” the Nightmare King hissed. He was double the size of the Traveler and yet the Traveler held him like a reticent child, unable to pull away. “I wondered if you’d make an appearance, yourself, Lord Artagan. You unaligned have always been so fickle with your playthings. It is always hard to guess how you’ll move.”

With his free hand, the Traveler removed his hood for the first time, shaking free long locks of curly red hair that seemed like they shouldn’t have been contained in that sensible cloak. Despite chasing after a redheaded elven boy with freckles and sharp green eyes for a great deal of her childhood, she never expected the reality to be so similar… and hauntingly dissimilar at the same time. The shape was there- red hair, green eyes, long ears- but everything was just a bit too pointy. The green of his eyes was like staring at an endless forest of evergreens, too numerous to count and too vast to really comprehend; his ears were just a bit too long; his fingers tapered to long points.

He was beautiful and she felt, deep in her heart, that she wasn’t supposed to be looking at him… That something bad might happen if she kept doing it, but she couldn’t look away.

The Traveler broke the silence that had settled over the temple- even the chains had stopped rattling. Like Jester had been, he was all chaotic excitement. “Ira! It’s been ages! I hope you’re not about to lay a finger on my charge. I believe there are rules against that? You don’t see me laying my hands on that one.” He waved a hand towards Rinna, still sprawled on the steps, eyes gone so wide they seemed to take up most of her face. “Not that I’d want to. She absolutely reeks of class privilege. The awful kind. Eugh.”

He met Jester’s eyes and winked and she could do nothing but gape in turn. “You’ve done so well. I wouldn’t have done anything at all, but… Ira here just had to do one of the few things that allow me to move.” He released the Nightmare King’s wrist and he staggered back, bent double and not quite at his full height. “I like her insides precisely where they are, thank you. And, personally, I think she could take you. I’d rather she didn’t, because you’re barely worth the effort, but this is turning into a ‘my mortal charge can beat your mortal charge’ argument and that’s just tacky, especially given how roughed up yours looks.”

The Nightmare King’s smile widened again, like he’d been let in on a great secret. “I don’t know, Artagan. You don’t know what a lonely girl will do for the sake of her only friend.”

[rainset]

Story Practice (10/12/22)— DOG Part IX

They wonder back into Treas together, Shiro leading the way. She smiles and waves to people. “Hey! Hi! Oooola~!”

Jeremy keeps his head down, behind her.

She stops, looking up to him. “You’ve been here right?”

He finally peels his eyes from the ground.

The entire building is in the shape of a swirl, having pastel teal-pink-and green like soft serve, sprinkled with hot chili.

Jeremy smiles a little. “Sometimes but.. I don’t think I’ve really noticed it up close.”

Shiro smirks. “Duh, you don’t pay attention then stalk people far away.”

He looks to her. Caught.

She squints her eyes and him and smiles harder. Theeen waltz right on in.

He follows after.

It smelled of pure sugar on the inside, and it was cool as ocean’s breeze, constantly. A machine in the back is turning over fresh milk in deep blue colors, and the owner is placing sickles over molds. He turns and sees them, giving them a big smile. “Hello! What can I get for you two?”

Shiro raises her arms. “Two sunsets!”

He nods, putting fresh ice-cream into the steel moldings. “You got it.”

They walk out of there with a daybreak and a sunset pop, Shiro changing her mind. Both a suns but different colors and flavors. Ones more blueberry and grape, the other is more blue lime and vanilla. Both have orange, would be it’s signature without it.

But he can’t do it. Walking down the street.. his nerves are getting worked up again. His fingers start to tremble and fidget, making holding this pop impossible. “nhmm-“ he tries to get a better grip on it.

Shiro looks back to him, concerned. “You’kay-“ “no.”

She nods and leads him down to the open park path way.

She takes him to a quiet bench where there’s less people, and sits down. The bench being made to curve to their bottoms for maximum comfort.

Jeremy ignores it and sits. Compulsively keeping his eye down. His pop starts to drip.

Shiro leans over to look at him but he doesn’t budge. She puts her pop to his face. “Wanna try mine?” He doesn’t respond, just takes it and puts his lips to it.

Citrus.. sweet, sweet, citrus. He takes a breath and munches on a large bite.

She tries to be smooth and take his pop, but, he fidgets it away from her. She tries again- he moves it away. One more time she leans over him to get it- he raises his arm fo the air.

“Hey! Com’on- trade!”

He winks at her.

“It was a gift.”

She starts to pout and as soon as she does, he puts it to her mouth. “There.”

Shiro giggles as she leans off him.

Now it’s just the two of them, sitting there watching everyone else play. It calms his nerves. He takes the sicle out his mouth- “how’s school been?”

She shrugs. “Eh. It’s pretty boring but okay. It’d be more fun if you showed.”

“..you know I can’t do that.”

She moans and leans toward him. “Com’ooon can you try for me?”

He’s a bit frozen by it. He feels compelled to but also halted by it. “…I dunno…”

She huffs. Not getting her way. She puts the ice cream back to her mouth. Jeremy finishes his.

“..why were you running from your mom?”

“She wanted my money.”

Shiro lifts up. “What?”

Jeremy doesn’t look down to her but nods. “Apparently I made a good amount off one of my fixtures but.. they thought it was there’s I guess..”

“That’s wrong.”

“I know.”

“What mom does that?! My mama wouldn’t EVER do that to me.”

“…that’s good to know.. I guess.”

There’s silence again.

Shiro finishes her pop.

“..wanna stay at my place tonight?”

“Yea.” He turns his head down at her. Grinning a little

“..I’d like that, a lot.”

———

[cjsinkythoughts]

Windows Down, Music Up

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Word Count: 3730

Warnings: !FATWS Spoilers!, Cursing, Lotsa Fluff, Slight Angst, Talk of PTSD/Flashbacks, No Seatbelts at One Point (WEAR SEATBELTS!)

A/N: The Part I didn’t know I needed. I started writing and this is where it got me. I needed these soft moments after the intensity of the last few parts. I know I said there’d only be one part left, but…I didn’t know this Part would be so long. So three parts for episode 5 it is!

I hope you enjoy this! I know it’s not really a part of the show, but I love the idea and I think both Bucky and the Reader needed it. Plus the show has a lot of leeway this episode because time passes but they kinda skip over traveling and stuff, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse of what it looks like in mine!

Not beta’d, as per usual! All mistakes are mine and please excuse them! Be kind to yourselves and others! Enjoy this part and stay tuned!

FATWS Masterlist

cjsinkythoughts Masterlist

!SPOILERS UNDER CUT!

******************

“So what’s next?” You questioned, your feet hooked onto the bar below the bar you were sitting on so you didn’t fall. Not that you could - Bucky was right next to you, his hand flying to your thigh every time you shifted even a little bit to keep you steady. “Walker’s been arrested, we have the shield, Karli’s in the wind…where does that leave us? Do we have any leads on Karli right now?”

“The GRC is conducting raids to try and find Karli, but so far they’ve only found her followers. They’ve searched this camp, and just like the last camp, nothing. She’s gone. And we’ll never find her.”

You huffed at Sam’s words, rubbing your temples as you grumble, “way to look on the bright side.”

“What bright side? There’s not one here, cher. Not this time.”

“Hey.” Bucky snapped. “Back off, Sam.”

You grabbed his forearm and squeezed reassuringly. “Hey! You got your, uh, you got your sleeve back!” You turned at the familiar voice that caused Bucky to scoff lightly and shake his head.

“Torres!”

The kid smiled at you, waving as Bucky pushed off the bars, helping you down (he’d been refusing to let you do anything on your own since you woke up) and started walking towards the door. “Hi, Y/N. It’s been a while.”

“Are you off to take care of Zemo?” Sam questioned, making Bucky look over his shoulder at the three of you. The former assassin raised an eyebrow at you. You nodded, and he turned around to leave. 

“Alright! Good to know you survived!”

You snickered a bit at the kid. “It’s good to see you.”

Torres turned back to you and grinned. “You too. I really am glad you survived.”

“I know you are, kid.”

Sam looked at you questioningly. “Are you gonna go with him?” You pursed your lips, chewing your cheek, and nodded. “Alright. C’mere.”

You frowned as he lifted his arms, but walked into them anyways. “What’re we doing right now? This isn’t goodbye. We’ve still gotta find Karli.”

“For now.” He responded, setting his chin on your head, careful of your shoulder. “But we don’t have any leads and I’m sure we’ve been benched. So, until we do and we meet again, stay safe. And take care of yourself. And for the love of God, please have that conversation with cyborg, now.”

A small puff of laughter came from you and you nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you later then, Sammy.”

He pressed a kiss to your head, before letting you go. “Later, cher.”

“Bye, Y/N!”

You smiled, waving to Torres. “Bye, kid. Keep out of trouble.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

You chuckled, shaking your head as you walked out the door Bucky disappeared through earlier, turning down the hall to exit the building.

When you got outside, you found Bucky leaning against a wall, narrowed eyes watching the police as they finished the raid. “Do you agree with it?”

“What?”

“These people getting arrested.”

You shrugged, shoving your hands in your pockets. “They harbored a criminal.”

He looked at you with a frown, eyebrows knit together and forehead creased. “We harbored a criminal. We broke him out.”

“Technically he broke himself out.” Your joke fell flat, Bucky’s head dropping. “Buck…” You sighed, eyes following a lady as she was shoved into the back of a car. “No. I don’t. I think these people have been through enough.”

“But?” His eyes grew sad as you met his gaze again, making you smile softly at him.

“But we can’t do anything about it right now. So we need to focus on doing what we can and finding Zemo.”

He nodded, reaching for your hand as he straightened and started walking off. You grabbed his fingers, jogging slightly to fall into sync with his strides. He seemed to notice and slowed down slightly. “We already know where he is, though. Don’t we?”

You hummed, thumb brushing over his knuckles. “Where else would he be?”

“Anywhere.”

You shook your head. “No. He’s there. Question is…how are you going to take care of him?”

“Sam thinks I’m gonna kill him.”

His blunt statement made you raise an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Licking his lips, he looked down at you, eyes set with certainty. “No.”

Your lips pulled up at his answer, leaning closer into him, shoulders brushing. “Good. Not that I’m an advocate for never killing people ever…it’s just,” you chewed on your cheek, thinking about the previous day’s events. “Revenge and justice are two different things.”

“Yeah.” He agreed softly. “We kinda witnessed that.”

“Yeah…we did.”

He let go of your hand to wrap an arm around your shoulders, tenderly avoiding your wrapped wound. “Good thing I contacted Ayo while you were sleeping then, huh?”

“You did?” You looked up at him with a smile as he nodded in confirmation.

“Yeah. And…I’ve been thinking a lot. Since our conversation about Wakanda and Zemo and Sam. You were right.”

A smirk graced your lips, an eyebrow quirking in amusement. “Pardon me? I don’t think I heard you correctly. What was that?”

He rolled his eyes, reaching over with his free hand to shove your head lightly, making you laugh. “You are such a punk sometimes. I’m serious though, doll. I-I’ve been…I dunno…I haven’t been thinking straight. The whole thing with Zemo was wrong and-and Sam didn’t deserve what I was blaming him for.”

You froze in your steps, tugging him to a stop as well, staring at him thoughtfully. Just since that phone call a couple weeks ago he’d grown so much. You could barely believe what he was saying - that he was finally saying it. He was a stubborn ass sometimes, so to hear him say that? It just stunned you. You knew he was a good person, but this…you felt yourself falling more, which you thought was impossible.

“Doll? Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”

Your arms raised around his neck, tugging him down into a hug, your lips pressing to his cheek. “I’m just proud of you.” You murmured softly, kissing his temple. He ducked his head, leaning against your shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around your waist. You held him like for another minute or two, before kissing his temple again. “We should get going. Gotta get to Sokovia before the Dora do.”

He hummed in agreement, pulling you tighter against him and squeezing you slightly, before letting go. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Question.” You said once you two started walking again.

“Possible answer.” He replied, making you elbow him as he chuckled.

“How’re we gonna get to Sokovia?”

He blinked, tilting his head. “Uh…plane? Unless you wanna have a road trip. The plane would only take a couple hours at most and a car, well…I could have us there in under a day with some broken traffic laws.”

You giggled, shaking your head. “Know what? I could go for a road trip right now.”

“Yeah?” He grinned at you.

“Yeah. And yes, you can drive. Just don’t get us in the middle of a high speed chase.”

He winked, kissing your head. “No promises.”

**********************

Bucky was actually a very good road trip partner. He made sure you had plenty of your snacks and let you control the music, turning up the volume for your favorite songs, shouting the lyrics to the heavens as you danced in your seat, the windows rolled down, wind ripping through the car, ruffling both of your clothes and hair.

You grinned over at Bucky, bobbing your head to the beat as he stared back at you, his eyes soft and sparkling. “Watch the road, dork!” He chuckled as you shoved his face.

“I’d much rather watch you.”

You felt yourself heat up despite the cool breeze moving through the car. “Have you ever stuck your head out the sunroof?” You suddenly asked him.

He gave you a weird look. “What?” Feeling a bit mischievous, you smirked and unbuckled. “Woah, woah! What are you doing?! But your seatbelt back on!”

“Oh calm down!” You stood on the seat after opening the sunroof, the top half of your body outside the car. He laughed as you whooped and hollered.

“Alright, alright. Sit back down, doll.” He tugged you back in, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.”

You smiled, putting your seatbelt back on and plopping your feet on the dash. “Like what?”

He turned to look at you, his teeth pulling his bottom lip between them contemplating. “Carefree. Relaxed, even.”

You shrugged, leaning back in your seat. “I don’t get to do it often. But it’s so hard to care right now.” You gestured out to the gorgeous landscape you were moving through, the sunsetting on the horizon. “The wind, the music, the open road. Nothing feels more like freedom.”

“Yeah…yeah. I guess. I’ve never really…been on a road trip. Unless you count going across Germany in that little blue car-”

“Ha! That was not a road trip! That was Steve being a reckless dumbass driver for a few hours.”

He laughed. You’d heard him laugh before, but this was different. Something about the freedom you were talking about made it different. It was nice. And you’d do anything to hear it more often.

“I’ll take you on a real road trip once this is done.” You vowed. “We’ll hit all the states. Even go through Canada to get to Alaska. Nothing but us in a car for weeks. Wherever we wanna go.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

You winked. “You do that.”

Conversation died after that, the only sounds being you and your music with the occasional chuckle from Bucky at your over dramatic dancing. You made a few stops at gas stations, getting food and drinks, before you felt yourself start winding down as the stars came out, winking down at you. You didn’t even realize you drifted off until the car jostled, waking you up.

“Sorry, sleepyhead.” Bucky apologized. “There was a deer. Maybe if you put your seatbelt on you would’ve stayed asleep.”

You rolled your eyes, rubbing at them and blinking. It was still dark out, no hint of the sun peeking out yet. “They’re uncomfortable.” You grumbled, shifting and wincing at your leg which was still asleep. “What time is it?”

“Almost two.” Bucky answered. “Are you okay? Is your shoulder hurting?”

“No. My leg’s just asleep so it feels weird and it’s aching. You want me to drive so you can sleep?”

“Nah, it’s fine. We’ll be there in a few hours. I’ve got it.” 

You hummed, sitting up and digging through your bag for some food. “Hungry?”

“Uh…I’ll just take a bag of pretzels.” Nodding, you grabbed one of the bags and handed it to him. It was quiet, the radio now turned low on some jazzy station you were sure Bucky turned it to once you fell asleep. “I’ve been thinking-”

“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” He shot you a bemused look, making you giggle. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“I’ve been thinking of that fight. With Walker.”

You tensed, clearing your throat as you munch on your snack. “Oh?”

Glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, you saw him lick his lips, setting the bag down on the middle console, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “When you were fighting him…why-why’d you hesitate?”

“What do you mean?”

He glanced over at you quickly, forehead creased. “You had the shield. You were holding your own. I’m sure Steve taught you some stuff…but then…” He trailed off, seemingly trying to find words. “It was like that first fight. On the semi trucks. You hesitated. Got distracted. Why?”

You shrugged, turning back to your food nonchalantly. “I guess I just had a lot on my mind. That’s all.”

“I know you better than that, doll. Please don’t lie to me.” Turning to the window, you just noticed that yours wasn’t down anymore. You look over to his side to see his was only a little cracked open. “I didn’t want you to wake up so I rolled them up. Answer the question.”

Letting out a sigh, you shrugged again. “I’ve been having…flashbacks.”

“Flashbacks?”

You nodded, sipping on your water bottle. “Yeah. Kinda like PTSD, but it’s not. Not really. They’re never traumatic or anything.”

You could see the gears in his head turning, his jaw clenching. “What are they about then?”

“Steve.”

The tension in his shoulders slipped, his head ducking while still keeping his eyes on the road. “Oh…why…why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want anyone to worry about me with all the other problems we’re having-”

“Hey.” Your eyes snapped up from where they fell at his sharp tone, his gaze meeting yours. “Don’t ever think that. Ever. You’re not a fucking burden, Y/N. You’re important to me. I-” He cut himself off, shaking his head and looking back out the front. “Does Sam know at least?”

You pursed your lips. “I-I told Sharon?”

He groaned, head falling back against the seat. “Sweetheart…”

“They’re just memories. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is if it’s affecting you on the field. And if it’s gonna get you or someone else hurt-”

Crossing your arms, you shifted in your seat, feeling the ache in your legs from sleeping in that position too long. “What? You don’t trust me now?”

“No! That’s not what I’m saying!”

“What’re you saying, Buck? You can’t have me watching your back because my mind’s messed up right now?” The car came to a halt and you sat up, looking around worriedly to see if any cars were coming. “James, we’re in the middle of the street-”

“Look at me.” You turned to him, only to look away at the intensity of his eyes. “Doll. Look at me.” He repeated tenderly, grabbing your chin between his fingers, making you face him. “I trust you.” His tone was nothing but genuine, and you’d never seen him look so sincere. “With my life, I trust you. But if your head isn’t in it? It’s okay, you just need to tell someone. When did you start trusting me?”

“At the airport in Germany.” You answered quietly.

He tilted his head. You kinda missed his long hair - the way it used to get in his eyes and you’d have to brush it behind his ear. “Even though I could still get triggered?”

“Well, yeah. But that’s different! You wouldn’t have been in your right…mind if you were…triggered…”

He raised an eyebrow as you frowned. “Trusting you and trusting your mental state are two different things. I’d know. Sometimes our brain’s do stupid things and we can’t stop it. But we can get help.”

You sighed, hanging your head. “Okay. Alright. I got it. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just…tell me about it.”

You nodded, before looking at the road. “Okay, okay. But can you drive? We’re still in the middle of the road.”

He chuckled and nodded, starting up the car again. After a moment, he glanced at you. “So?”

Another sigh left your lips, before you told him. You told him what’s triggered you so far and what the memories were about. How it feels when you slip. “It’s like, I remember something and my mind latches onto it and won’t let me out until I relive it again.” He just nodded, never interrupting as you explained what was going on.

It felt good to finally get it off your chest. And it felt good knowing he wasn’t freaking out and pulling you from the mission like you thought he’d do. It was something you hadn’t done in a long time. The last person who sat down and listened to your problems was Steve and the fact that you felt comfortable enough around Bucky to pour out your soul made you realize that Steve was gone. But Bucky was here. And maybe it was time to let go.

Bucky looked over to you when you stopped talking abruptly, cocking his head to the side. “Sweetheart? You alright?”

You lunged forwards, hugging his shoulders, burying your face in his neck. Fortunately for you, he had great reflexes, or else you’d probably be wrapped around a tree. You couldn’t care about the what ifs though. Sniffing, you closed your eyes, a couple tears leaking down your cheeks and landing on the skin connecting his shoulder to his neck.

“Thank you.”

It was so soft and muffled by his shirt, you weren’t sure if he heard it. But then he set his cheek on your head, his hand coming up to run through your hair like you did to him when he needed comfort. “C’mere, cuddle bug.” He cradled your head, shifting you easily so you could lay down comfortably, your legs curled in your seat, your head in his lap, taking extra care that your shoulder wasn’t agitated. “Try to get more sleep, doll. We’ll be there soon.”

You nodded, sleep taking over you once more with Bucky’s fingers in your hair, soft jazz still floating through the air along with the slight whistle of the wind from the crack in his window.

****************

You leaned against the hood of the car, crossing your arms, watching Bucky pull on a shirt. You had stopped at a rest stop to clean up and change, just a few more miles until you got to the memorial.

“Ayo’s there already.” Bucky spoke, shrugging on his jacket. You pushed off the hood of the car to pull him closer by the sides of his jacket, your fingers moving to button it. “I just…I want a couple minutes alone with him.”

You nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”

“You trust me right?”

“More than anything.” You confirmed, looking up at him, smoothing his jacket down with your hands.

He nodded, leaning forwards to kiss your forehead. “I just - I just need you to know…I’m not gonna kill him.”

You nodded back, smiling softly at him. “I know.”

“Okay…let’s get going then. Get this over with.”

It didn’t take you long to reach the memorial, only a few more minutes down the main street and then going off down a side road.

Just as Bucky said, the Dora Milaje were already there, waiting for the two of you to show up. Bucky and Ayo had a conversation in Xhosa - which you were really regretting not learning anything more than “hi”, “please”, “thank you”, and “where’s the bathroom?” - before he turned to you.

“Stay with them. Just...I just need a couple minutes.” You nodded, eyes flickering down to the gun he pulled out from his coat pocket. He hooked a finger under your chin, lifting your gaze back to him. “Trust me.”

“Sometimes our brains do stupid things.”

He shook his head, kissing your forehead. “Not this time. ‘Cause I have help.”

Pursing your lips, you nodded. He gave you a reassuring smile, before stepping away, out of the trees to face Zemo. You couldn’t hear what was being said, but you had to admit that when Bucky lifted the gun, your heart skipped a beat. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He promised.

The quiet click of the gun seemed to echo, a pressure lifting off your chest as the bullets spilled from Bucky’s hand, clattering against the ground.

You figured that was the signal, considering Ayo led her badass women out to grab Zemo right after the bullets hit the ground, so you followed them out. You stopped next to Bucky, his hand slipping out of his pocket to wrap around your shoulders, tugging you to his side, your arms wrapping around his waist.

“I was listening to your heartbeat. You get nervous for a second, doll?”

You hummed in response to his question in your ear. “I trust you…but that doesn’t mean you don’t raise my anxiety levels.”

He snickered, kissing your temple, before straightening to listen to what Ayo had to say as she stepped towards you. She informed you both that Zemo would be going to the Raft and told Bucky to stay away from Wakanda for a while; both very fair statements that you weren’t surprised to hear. What you were surprised to hear was Bucky’s next sentence.

“I may have another favor to ask of you.”

Ayo raised an eyebrow, signaling for him to go on. Bucky caught your eye and his lips twitched up into a small smirk, before he faced her again and started speaking Xhosa, making you groan.

After their conversation, Ayo nodded. “We will drop it off here tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

You pouted as Ayo turned to walk to their ship, Bucky starting to lead you back to the car. “You’re not gonna tell me what that was about, are you?”

“Nope.”

You huffed. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

He chuckled. “You’ll find out.”

“Soon?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

Bucky shrugged, pulling open the passenger side door for you. “On when Sam wants you to see it.”

You narrowed your eyes, a smile spreading on your face. “You got Sammy a present?”

“Maybe.”

You groaned, sliding into the car before he shut the door, watching him jog to his side. “You’re so annoying.” You spoke once he got in and started the vehicle again.

“If you feel that way, you don’t have to come to Louisiana with me to drop it off.”

Scoffing, you gaped at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

He shrugged, turning in his seat and putting his hand on the back of your headrest to back out of the spot he parked in. “If I’m so annoying-”

“You’re so dramatic!”

“I thought I was annoying?”

“You’re both!”

He grinned at you, before looking through the windshield, blinking as something occurred to him. “I dunno where we’re going. We have to come back tomorrow morning-”

“Just drive, Buck.”

He blinked at you, eyebrows raising in slight shock. “What?”

You shrugged, nodding your head to the road. “Drive. Wherever we want, remember? Just until tomorrow. We can go back to reality after we pick up Sammy’s gift, but for now-”

“Just drive?” He guessed, the corners of his lips pulling up.

You smirked, shooting him a wink before propping your feet up on the dash again, turning up the radio, and linking your hands behind your head. “Exactly, Buckaroo.”

[nighthaikyuu]

Hi! I was wondering if I could request akaashi, iwa, and/or atsumu kissing their best friend, please and thank you💕 I really liked the oikawa, kuroo and bokuto one!

— synopsis:  haikyuu boys x y/n; kissing their best-friend 

— characters included: akaashi, iwaizumi, & atsumu 

— genre: soft boi hours! fluff! lil angst! 

— author’s note: while the previous one was based off the tiktok, this one will be just general made-up plots to keep things different! (hope that’s okay!) 

akaashi

when you found out akaashi liked someone, you experienced your first heartbreak. 

you knew falling in love with your best-friend was all on you, but you couldn’t help but just hope that maybe one day he would return your feelings. 

but yet here you were, hopes and heart shattered. 

you almost wanted to breakdown the moment he told you, but you held it out as much as possible, your tears falling only once you were away from him. 

“y/n, I wanna tell you something...” he started slowly as he held the volleyball in his hand tightly. 

chuckling softly, you removed his hands from the ball, taking it from him, “you’re going to bust this if you hold it any tighter.” 

blinking, he stared at his empty hands before laughing lightly. taking a deep breath, he turned to look at you, a soft smile on his face. 

“I like someone.” 

this time it was you whose grip tightened on the volleyball. 

unsure if you heard him right, you stammered, “y-you what?” 

scratching the back of his head, he repeated shyly, “I said I like someone.”

“oh.” you responded, voice lower than a whisper. 

you quickly realized just how dejected you sounded, and if anything, that was the exact opposite of how you should’ve sounded. 

throwing on a bright smile on your face, you giggled, “ooh keiji has a crush~” you teased lightly. 

flushing, he laughed, “yea, I guess you could call it that.” 

“who is it?” you asked almost immediately, the curiosity getting the better of you. 

at that, akaashi stiffened. chuckling nervously, he averted his gaze, “um, it’s someone you know.” 

since that day, akaashi had never told you who his special someone was. you didn’t know why he was hiding it from you, after all it was better to peel the bandaid off completely rather than bit by bit like he was doing to you these last few weeks. 

it started with him telling you how amazing she was. how she was the funniest person he knew, how strong-minded she was and how beautiful she always was to him. 

then it went on to how she made him feel. how she always made his day, how he felt butterflies whenever she would touch him and how he just wants to hold her hand in his. 

and just like that, week by week, akaashi would talk about nothing but her. 

to make things worse, it appeared that most of the volleyball team knew. every day at volleyball practice you would hear their teasing remarks, bokuto’s being the loudest. and in response, his cheeks would flush in embarrassment, the sight making you only hurt more. 

should you quit? you wondered to yourself. it was hard enough on you to hear akaashi telling you his feelings, but it was a whole other thing having several people support him, reminding you every single second of every day that your best friend had fallen for someone else. 

you really loved being fukurodani’s volleyball manager. after all, it was one of the biggest excuses for you to spend more time with akaashi. but even aside from that, you made a lot of great friendships and memories with the team. 

but you really didn’t know if you could go like this anymore. 

sighing, you pulled your bag closer to you as you walked home with akaashi. 

“what are you thinking about?” 

shaking your head, you mumbled, “nothing important really.”

brows furrowing together, he asked, “mm you sure? you looked super serious for a second.” 

“dunno, just thinking about quitting being manager.” you muttered, before realizing what you had just confessed. shit. you didn't know how you were going to get out of this one. 

stopping in his tracks, akaashi’s eyes widened in surprise, “w-wait, you’re thinking of doing what?” 

muttering a soft damn it under your breath, you quickly threw on a nonchalant facade. giving him a shrug, you said casually, “it’s not that big of a deal keiji, there’s still the others.” 

turning back around, you started to walk again while akaashi stood there, fumbling for words. catching back up to you, he pressed, “but why? I thought you loved being manager?” 

biting the inside of your cheek, you knew he was right but you had to come up with some excuse, something to throw him off at least for now, “I just, school’s getting pretty busy—” 

“is that really it?” he interrupted, his voice slightly turning accusatory. 

your eyes narrowed at him, “what does that mean?” 

out of the both of you, akaashi was always the calm one. but today it was almost like you were seeing another version of him. where his eyes shook slightly, filled with an emotion that you couldn’t identify, his hands bundled into tight fists at his sides. 

“i just—” akaashi started, struggling to find the right words to say, “i feel like you’re not telling me something y/n. you’ve been off the last couple of weeks and I don’t know why—” 

you let out a bitter chuckle. 

“you’re kidding right?” 

if your reaction wasn’t enough to shut akaashi up, the words that followed definitely was. he watched as you shut your eyes tightly, your grip on your bag tightening, voice trembling, “I just, I can't do this anymore keiji.” 

akaashi’s eyes softened; moving closer towards you, he started to reach for your hand when you flinched away, the motion causing akaashi to blink in surprise. 

“d-don’t.” you whispered, blinking back the tears. “you won’t understand keiji. you won’t get what I feel and there’s no point in me telling you so please, just don’t ask me why.” 

“y/n, you can’t shut me out without even giving me a chance.” he reasoned softly to which you shook your head. 

“no, you don’t get it. e-everything will change and I just, I can’t handle that—” 

“I promise, nothing will change.” akaashi started, “you’ll always be my best friend—” 

“I don’t want to be your best friend anymore!” you finally exploded, the word starting to make you feel sick. your voice echoed through the empty street, each word coming back to haunt you when you realized what you had finally done. 

but there was no going back. 

“I want to be more than that...” you trailed off in a weak whisper. sniffling, you realized you had been crying without even knowing. brushing your cheek with the sleeve of your sweater, you added, “b-but you like someone else and that’s not your fault, it’s all mine. so just, give me some time keiji. i-i’m sorry.” you finally choked out before turning around on your heel and walking away quickly, the tears only falling faster at this point. 

shit shit shit shit

just then you felt something tug at your wrist, spinning you around as a slight yelp escaped your mouth. finding yourself being pulled towards Akaashi your faces just millimeters apart, you gasped, “keiji—!?” 

without uttering another word, akaashi closed the distance between the two of you as he grabbed your waist, pulling your frame flush against him as his lips enveloped yours in a soft kiss. his other hand cupped the back of your neck, his long fingers threading themselves into your hair as he pressed his lips tightly against yours. 

you felt like you were dreaming. 

before you could comprehend what was happening, akaashi had pulled away, pressing his forehead against yours as you watched his chest raise up and down with every breath. 

“keiji...” you whispered softly. 

“it was you.” he confessed quietly, “it was you, this whole time.” 

blinking furiously, you stared at your best friend as you slowly registered his words, “w-what, what do you mean?” 

lips quirking up into an embarrassed smile, he grinned, “the girl i said i liked? it was you y/n...that’s why i didn’t tell you who it was.” 

"oh.” you said as your cheeks flamed up in embarrassment, a shy smile appearing on your face, “it was me?” 

cupping your face in both his hands, he pressed another kiss to your lips before saying, “yes, it was you. it always has been.” 

as he gazed at you in complete adoration, you laughed softly to yourself, shaking your head in wonder. you were so preoccupied with the idea that the person akaashi liked wasn’t you, you didn’t even pay attention to all the signs and signals he had been giving trying to tell you that it was you. 

oh, how the world worked. 

iwaizumi

“iwaaaaa.”

“no.”

“hajiiiii.”

“no.”

“hajime! come on!” 

turning around to look at you, he rolled his eyes at you before saying the same word he had been for the last several minutes, “no.” 

crossing your arms across your chest with a slight huff, you retorted, “but why not?! it’s really that not that big of a deal, you’re just my best friend.” 

snorting, he turned his attention back to his laptop, “what kind of best-friends do you see kissing each other y/n?” 

“you make it sound crude, it’s not like I’m asking you to be my fuck buddy.” you grumbled, “I just said to teach me how to kiss, just once. It’s literally driving me crazy that I haven’t kissed anyone yet and then there’s the absolute fear of kissing someone and then realizing I suck and being utterly embarrassed for the rest of my life.” 

“then just find someone who hasn’t had their first kiss either. bam, both of you suck.” 

your narrowed your eyes at him, “do you have a list of men who haven’t had their first kiss? I can barely find one at this stupid university who has yet to sleep with someone, find someone who hasn’t kissed yet?! impossible.” 

iwaizumi chuckled softly under his breath as he heard you continue to grumble about how you were going to die alone since you would be too afraid to get intimate with anyone since you “sucked” at it. 

did he want to kiss you? always. 

but did he expect this to be the way? definitely not. 

he knew exactly how this would go, there was no way of it happening any other way. iwaizumi was always better at showing how he felt through actions than words, and after being best friends with you for so long, he knew you’d be able to tell the instant his lips met yours, just how fucking in love he was with you. 

“hajimeeeee.” you started to whine again, interrupting his thoughts. 

sighing, he turned around on his chair so that he was completely facing you. 

his first mistake. 

there you sat cross legged, plush lips pulled together in a small pout as you  stared at him with your soft wide eyes. 

“please haji...” you urge softer this time, a hint of desperation laced within your voice.

iwaizumi’s grip on his jeans tightened. the way you were looking at him was enough to set him off as his heart fluttered at the sound of his name from your lips. 

“you do realize you’re still going to be kissing me right?” he pointed out, “you're okay with that? ” 

nodding quickly, a smile quickly appeared onto your face. was he being convinced? you waved your hand about nonchalantly, “totally okay, you’re my best-friend, I trust you.” 

best friend, iwaizumi winced. the word stung a little more than usual today. 

after a while, iwaizumi finally said with a sigh, “look y/n, I don’t know...” 

your smile quickly dropped. 

“alright, it’s fine.” you said casually, although Iwaizumi could clearly hear the disappointment in your voice. getting up from his bed, you grabbed your bag from beside you and slung it over your shoulder. 

“hey, do you where tooru is?” you asked as you made your way towards his door. 

at the sound of his best friend’s name, iwaizumi’s ears perked up. brows furrowed together, he looked at you in slight curiosity as a bad feeling erupted in his stomach, “practice, why?” 

shrugging, you said, “i'll just go ask him instead, i’m sure he’ll do it.” 

oh, hell no.

before he could even think through his actions, iwaizumi pushed himself off of his chair and found himself reaching past you and closing the door with a thud! his arms caged you as you turned around and stared at him in complete shock, eyes wide and lips parted. 

chest rising up and down, he stared down at you, eyes swimming with an emotion you had never seen before. your own heart started hammering in your chest at the sudden change in proximity as you could feel iwaizumi’s breath fan your flushed cheeks. 

“h-hajime?” you stuttered out, blinking furiously as the boy simply stared at you. iwaizumi felt his brain completely short-circuit. this wasn’t like him at all. he was always the cool-headed one, whether it was keeping oikawa in check or being the supportive one for his friends. but with you, you had always managed to bring out parts of him he never knew existed. 

standing there, his gaze dropped down to your lips; it was as if being this close to you activated a magnetic field that he was unable to escape. leaning in towards you, his forehead rested against yours before he mumbled lowly, “a kiss is what you wanted right? then here.” 

slipping a hand beneath your jaw, his fingers tilted your face upward before closing the gap and pressing his lips to yours. 

what started as a butterfly touch, slightly nervous and afraid, quickly changed as iwaizumi pressed closer, deepening the kiss. feeling your back hit the door, your eyes fluttered to a close as you found yourself melting into his embrace, sighing against his lips as you kissed him back. 

iwaizumi’s grip on you tightened. he knew he should stop now before things got out of hand. before you caught on. before you realized how much this kiss meant to him. 

teeth tugging at your bottom lip, iwaizumi pulled away reluctantly, resting his forehead against yours. eyes fluttering open, he waited for your eyes to open and when they did, he felt his entire world stop. 

upon meeting his gaze, your eyes softened. you didn’t know what you expected when you asked iwaizumi to kiss you. while you were serious about wanting to experience kissing, you couldn’t help but admit that you always wanted your first to be iwaizumi. 

“w-was i okay?” you murmured softly. 

nodding, he chuckled softly, “yea, you were perfect.” 

at his words, your grip on his shirt tightened. a sudden surge of courage coursed through your body when you leaned closer towards him and added, “i think i need more practice.” before crashing your lips onto his. 

atsumu

“wow, they should make a rule to not let short people work at libraries. you’d need a stool everywhere you went.” atsumu snorted as he watched you try putting a book away on the highest shelf.

it was a friday afternoon and you and atsumu were both at your local library, volunteering after school.

granted you have to drag him there every week but hey, community service was important to you. 

turning around to shoot him a glare, you retorted, crossing your arms, “for your information, I am perfectly capable of doing this.

chuckling softly, atsumu raised a brow, lips twitching, “Oh? Really now??

letting out a huff, you turned back around, standing on your toes as you tried to reach the top, even holding on to the shelf as you balanced yourself. watching you from behind, atsumu simply shook his head and chuckled, finding your stubbornness absolutely freaking adorable. (even though he'd never tell you that)

moving behind you, his hand shot up past yours as he whispered, “just let me do it.” his breath fanning the back of your neck. as he took the book from your hand, his fingers grazed yours ever-so-slightly, enough to send your heart into a frenzy.

get it together y/n! you told yourself.

somewhere along the line, the boundary of friendship between you and atsumu started to blur. nearly everyone around you could see the way both of you slowly fell for each other.

but of course neither of you could, choosing to remain silent in fear of ruining your childhood friendship.

however you weren’t about to simply give up as you turned around to retort back, but instead, it was a decision you were quick to regret. your heart suddenly skipped a beat when it noticed the distance between the two of you was almost nonexistent. and if that wasn’t enough, the way atsumu was smirking at from above as you were completely backed up against the bookshelf, had you holding your breath.

waving the book in the air, a good couple feet above you, atsumu teased, “here, all you have to do is reach for it y/n”

for a split second, you forgot the position in which you were in, a sudden drive of competitiveness within you focusing on only getting the book atsumu dangled above you. 

pouting, you complained, “atsumu—! just give it to me!” as atsumu laughed at the concentrated look on your face as you endlessly tried grabbing at the air above you.

reaching upwards one last  time, pushing yourself up onto the very tip of your toes, you quickly realized you made a mistake when a mini yelp escaped your lips, your hands clutching the thing nearest to you.

which ended up being?

you guessed it.

atsumu. 

wide-eyed, your hands tightened around atsumu’s shirt as you quickly regained your balance. looking up nervously, you saw atsumu’s smirk slowly disappear as it turned into a nervous smile, his eyes gazing down at you with a look that was indescribable. blinking, you found yourself staring at atsumu’s lips, his soft red lips that just seemed oh-so-inviting, yet the thought of them on you had you flushing scarlet red.

“y/n?” atsumu’s voice rasped softly through the thick air, your grip on him tightening as the way his name rolled of his lips had your knees going weak.

but before you could respond, all you could feel was the softness of his nose brushing against yours, his hands that slowly cradled your waist as he pulled you closer into his grasp, and finally his lips following right after. his lips soft as clouds enveloped yours gently, nervously, tenderly, as his mouth caressed yours while you stood there stunned, unable to move as much as an inch.

sensing the hesitation in you, atsumu quickly pulled away, a look of panic flashing across his face. his cheeks went flush under the dim library light, as he looked at you, completely flustered, “fuck—I'm sorry, I don’t know what came over me—”

“I didn’t mind.” you suddenly squeaked, your eyes widening as the words slipped past your lips, making you look away in embarrassment, internally cringing.

you did not just say that y/n!!!

atsumu’s face mirrored yours, a look of surprise on them before the corners of his lips quirked up into a smile, the very smile he would always give only you, the very smile that would always have your heart skipping a beat just at the sight of it.

tilting his head to the side, he raised his brow as he teased, “hmm, you didn’t mind?”

this time, it was your turn to be flustered as you hit his chest lightly, avoiding his teasing eyes as he beamed down at you. chuckling, his forehead fell upon yours, his lips yet again just centimeters away.

“then you wouldn’t mind if I did it again?” he whispered lowly, his eyes falling back down to your lips.

“i wouldn’t,” you said softly, finding yourself inching closer to him, slowly closing the gap. 

general taglist: @cinnamonrusts @postsfromthe6 @lady-snavely @02hhsailor@killuaking @rae0fsunshine1317 @sugawaaras @voids-universe @yams046@visaintes @simpforsaeko @honeybacon @kuroosbabie @verblueht @captain-janeway @misssugarless

character-specific taglist: @bluelightningxiii @ushiwakasvball @findityourselffsworld @konohasoftgf

[queen-ofsunflowers]

My favorite moments I've written for Shujin Assassins so far:

Kayano: How do you say ‘unkillable’ in Japanese? (Ren pauses and thinks about it.)

Ren: Korosenai. (The entire class whips around at the sound of Ren speaking.) Korosenai… Koro… sen...nai… Koro...sen...sei? ...Korosensei? Huh? 

Nagisa: Korosensei? (Ren pauses. Oh crap, he said all that out loud.)

Korosensei: A pleasure to finally hear more of that voice of yours, Amamiya. Five whole words!

---

Korosensei: Shoot and stab all you want, class! Even with this handicap, I am too fast for you! (Ren looks up and takes the gun from Nagisa.)

Nagisa: Hey, what—

Korosensei: Only in your dreams do you have any hope of getting the deed done— (Ren fires, not aiming for Korosensei but the rope tied to the tree. The rope breaks and Korosensei, stunned, falls. They watch as the rest of the class takes the initiative to attack him, forcing a panicked Korosensei to roll around on the ground.)

Ann: Wow. I didn’t know a BB could break a rope like that!

Ren: It was starting to break anyway.

---

Ren: You’d really help me?

Ryuji: ‘course. We’re friends, aren’t we? (Ren blinks. But they’ve only known each other for like… a week and half. He still smiles all the same.) Ain’t that right, Ren-Ren? (A shiver goes up Ren’s spine at the sound of that nickname. Of all things to call him…) So call me Ryuji, got it?

Ren: Thanks. I think I’ll stick with Sakamoto.

Ryuji: Oh man, that's cold.

---

Kataoka: Does anyone else think it's weird that she’s all over Korosensei?

Ryuji: I dunno. Maybe she’s into tentacles. (Someone swiftly kicks his seat.) OW! Hey! What was that for?!

---

Ann: But we bought those for ourselves! *groan* I was so looking forward to that for later…!

Shiho: I’m starting to think that he just used this lab to feed his junk food habit until payday.

Ren: Why does an octopus need to get paid a teacher’s salary…?

Shiho: Huh. Eleven words now.

Ren: What?

---

(And the door opens before Ren can run away.) Oh.  

Ren: Uh… H-Hello. Sir.

Principal: (more warmly that Ren expected) I look forward to your midterm results. Let your mother know that I said hello, would you? (Ren swallows and nods. When he leaves, that warmth disappears and is replaced by ice cold.)

---

Ann grabs Ren’s wrist to pull him back to her.)

Ren: Huh? What’s up?

Ann: Did you really mean all that? (Ren raises a brow.) What you said to those guys back there. About us. Did you really mean it?

Ren: ...Every word. Why?

Ann: ...Like I told Kayano, I always thought I was an outcast because of my looks or the fact that I didn’t grow up here. So hearing all that… Thank you. I really appreciated it.

Ren: No problem. It’s like Ryuji told me. We outcasts have to stick together, don’t we?

Ann: *giggle* Right! ...um, hey. If you want to, you can call me Ann, alright?

Ren: Okay.

Ann: Okay! And… thanks again. ...Ren-Ren. (Ren bristles, turning bright red. Ann laughs out loud, patting his back.) I’m just messing with you!

Ren: Please don’t do that… (Nearly killed him…) Can you maybe… not call me that?

Ann: Okay, okay! (She’s still laughing.) I promise!

---

Nagisa: What did you even do to them?

Ren: I have no idea. I got this really bad headache… and I think I heard a voice in my head? There was this thing… I’m not sure what it was.

Nagisa: Whatever it is, I could help with it. We’ll figure out what it is.

Ren: You don’t have to.

Nagisa: I’m already figuring out Korosensei’s weaknesses. Who knows? Maybe whatever that was 

Ren: You’re not… freaked out?

Nagisa: Amamiya, our teacher is a giant yellow octopus. Whatever happened to you is the least strange thing that I’ve seen this year. We can figure out what it is. And hopefully it’ll help us with our assassination.

Ren: *nods* Right! Let’s do this! (He holds out his hand. Nagisa stares at it for a moment before shaking it.)

---

Ryuji: Wow, she’s seriously cute.

Ren: She doesn’t really look like an assassin.

Shiho: Neither do we. But still… I’m curious about what this new girl’s all about. Amamiya turned out to be quite the joker.

Ren: Joker?

Shiho: A wild card! I mean, you didn’t hesitate to jump out a window or off of a cliff.

---

Ann: Uh, no offense but I don’t think your usual tactics will fool Mr. Karasuma. He knows your M.O.

Irina: Don’t you think I don’t know that!? (She sighs.) It’s like a paid escort trying to put the moves on her old man. (Ren shivers at the image.) If I don’t get this done, I’ll have to leave.

Ann: What?!

Irina: C’mere, I wanna try something. (She drags Ann off.)

---

Kayano: Here’s the thing, if they really are related… I mean, don’t you think that Korosensei would’ve known about it?

Fuwa: Hmm… not necessarily.

Ren: Right. They could’ve been separated at some point.

Kayano: Um, that still doesn’t explain why Itona’s human.

Fuwa: Easy. He’s a mutation.

Kayano: You’ve totally glossed over the core issue here!

Ann: Uh, no offense, but the whole separation thing is really kinda cliche.

Fuwa: Hey, no one asked for your criticism.

Ann: If you didn’t notice already, we’re sorta dealing with real life!

---

Sugino pitches and Shindo swings again. The ball hits the bat, and Ren leaps back just in time, flipping backwards and actually sticking the landing.)

Karma: (jumping up to catch the ball.) Oh, now you’re just showing off. Heads up, Nagisa! (He tosses the ball to their catcher, who tags the home plate.

Ren: Maybe.

---

(The whole time Ren had been taunting Takaoka and keeping everyone’s eyes on him, Nagisa had come around to sneak up behind him. The cat and the snake both strike, Ren flipping over Takaoka’s shoulders as Nagisa brings him down to the ground, knife at his neck and a hand covering his eyes.)

Nagisa: Looks like we win.

Ren: Nagisa, you’re using the back of the knife.

Nagisa: Huh?

---

 (She jumps onto his back.)

Terasaka: What the hell?!

Shiho: What the heck did you mean when you called me a rabbit?! If I’m a rabbit, does that mean you don’t think I can kick your ass?! Because I can! (Her weight eventually toppled them both over and they landed in the water. Ann laughs as she goes to help them up. Ren moves over to get his glasses from Karma.)

---

Ren: And finally, the grand overachiever himself holding the top spot: student council president Gakushu Asano. He got the top spot in the National Mock Exams, and tends to get perfect scores in just about every subject. He’s the principal’s only son, so I think that might have something to do with it. if we could somehow catch him off guard, surprise him somehow, it could get him to mess up and make a mistake. He’s always been like that as far as I can remember. For example, despite being adept at martial arts, he didn’t remember how to catch himself when he fell after I… might’ve shoved him.

Shiho: You know a lot about Asano. It’s kind of creepy. (Ren only hums in reply. It’s not that creepy when you think about it.)

---

(Ren’s eyes widened. He… He actually did it?)

Ryuji: Way to stick it to that know-it-all, man! (Ren softly smiles.)

Ren: I guess.

Ryuji: You guess? The guy’s ranked nationally! Even Nakamura only beat him by the skin of her teeth!

Nakamura: What was that, Sakamoto?

Ryuji: Uh, nothing! Just sayin’! Ren challenging the King of the Hill is definitely awesome!

---

Ann: Yup! (as she and Shiho take the drinks from the waiter passing them out. Ann takes a sip from hers) C’mon, guys! Drink up! These things are like… super good. So sweet!

Ren: (holding up the water bottle he thought to bring with him) I’m fine.

Ryuji: Don’t mind if I do! (He takes Ann’s, which is still at least a three-fours of the way full. He drinks right from the glass)

Ann: Hey! Get your own!

Ryuji: Too late! My backwash is in it! It’s mine now. I LICKED the glass! (He does so to drive his point home. Ann huffs as Shiho chuckles, downing the rest of her glass.)

---

Karma: Oh, sorry ‘bout that. Let’s see if there’s a way to help you out there. (He gestures over to another classmate, who brings him a sea slug. Karma plops it on the sphere.) This do anything?

Ren: (as Korosensei screams) Karma, knock it off.

Karma: Why should I? Not like he can do anything about it. (Ren pulls himself out of the water and the sea slug off of Korosensei.) Now, I wonder if we could find a creepy old beach hum anywhere. I want to shove Korosensei down his pants. (Ren groans. What the hell…? In hindsight, taking this form probably wasn’t the best idea. Especially around Karma. That is why Ren snatches up Koro Sensei and runs over to Mr. Karasuma.) Hey!

---

Ren: ‘Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains is the truth’. 

Fuwa: Hey, yeah! I didn’t know you read Shonen Jump, too!

Ren: I uh... 

Karma: He doesn't. I saw him reading a little something else on the way over. Sherlock Holmes, wasn’t it?

Ren: Maybe… ...okay, no. ...It was Arsène Lupin. ...I finished the Sherlock Holmes books a while ago. A friend recommended Arsène Lupin to me and I haven’t been able to put it down.

Ryuji: Nerd.

Ren: You were reading over my shoulder.

---

Ann: Hey, are you okay?

Ren: Yeah… just a little bit of a headache. I’ll be fine.

Ann: How long have you had it? (Ren looks down at the ground.) Ren, how long have you had it?

Ren: ...Since the mastermind called, saying he poisoned everyone. It’s just a small one, Ann. I’ll be fine.

Ann: Liar. You know what happens when you get those headaches, though. Don’t act like none of us noticed. I saw your phantom try to come out when that guy had Karma. Ren, I know it’s hard, but you need to keep calm.

---

Ren: Ryuji, you’re-- (Ryuji puts a hand over Ren’s mouth, shushing him.)

Ryuji: I’m fine. It’s just a fever. Ann and I split the drink, so if she’s fine, then I’m fine, too. (Ren takes Ryuji’s hand off of his mouth.)

Ren: Ann barely drank any of it at all. You drank most of it. The virus is deadly, Ryuji. 

Ryuji: I don’t care! It’s like everyone said earlier. I’m the fastest in the class. I can’t just sit and wait for help while this creep gets away with it. I don’t care if I’m sick, I’m not gonna let everyone down!

Ren: Ryuji--

Ryuji: Please. Don’t tell anyone. Especially Ann… I think she already blames herself for what happened to Shiho, I don’t want her to blame herself for not stopping me earlier, too. (Ren bites his lip but nods either way. Once Ryuji decides to do something, it’s hard to stop him. But still… He really hopes that they can get that antidote.)

---

Ren thrashes against whoever’s holding him and loudly screams, dropping to his knees and letting it all go. He doubles over, catching himself on forearms as wind whips around him.)

“Nagisa, back away from him! NOW.” (There’s a blue light streaming around him, travelling up his body as the voice in his head now echoes in his ears.)

“I am thou, thou art I. Thou who would accept blasphemy for the sake of thine own justice, call upon my name and release thy rage!” (Ren shakily pushes himself up, his knees feeling like they’re about to give way as he stands. The light shifts and morphs into a figure behind him.) “Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou shall be chained down to Hell itself!”

(A single name appears in Ren’s mind.)

Ren: ARSÈNE!

[supercantaloupe]

okay yeah actually, i’ll bite. i’ve got some of my own thoughts about the unsleeping city and cultural representation and i’m gonna make a post about them now, i guess. i’ll put it under a cut though because this post is gonna be long.

i wanna start by saying i love dimension 20 and i really really enjoy the unsleeping city. i look forward to watching new episodes every week, and getting hooked on d20 as a whole last summer really helped pull me out of a pandemic depression, and i’m grateful to have this cool show to be excited about and interested in and to have met so many cool people to talk about it with.

that being said, however, i think there is a risk run in representing any group of people/their culture when you have the kind of setting that tuc has. by which i mean, tuc is set in a real world with real people and real human cultures in it. unlike fantasy high or a crown of candy where everything is made up (even if rooted in real-world cultures), tuc is explicitly rooted in reality, and all of its diversity -- both the ups and downs that go with it. and especially set in new york of all places, one of the most densely, diversely populated cities on earth. the cast is 7 people; it’s great that those 7 people come from a variety of backgrounds and identities and all bring their own unique perspectives to the table, and it’s great that those people and the entire crew are generally conscious of themselves and desire to tell stories/represent perspectives ethically. but you simply cannot authentically represent every culture or every perspective in the world (or even just in a city) when your cast is 7 people. it’s an impossible task. this is inherent to the setting, and acknowledged by the cast, and by brennan especially, who has been on record saying how one of the exciting aspects of doing a campaign set in nyc is its diversity, the fact that no two new yorkers have the same perspective of new york. i think that’s a good thing -- but it does have its challenges too, clearly.

i’m not going to go into detail on the question of whether or not tuc’s presentation of asian and asian american culture is appropriative/offensive or not. first of all, i don’t feel like it’s 100% fair to judge the show completely yet, since it’s a prerecorded season and currently airing midseason, so i don’t yet know how things wrap up. secondly, i’m not asian or asian american. i can have my own opinions on that content in the show, but i think it’s worth more to hear actual asian and asian american voices on this specific aspect of the show. having an asian american cast member doesn’t automatically absolve the show of any criticisms with regard to asian american cultural representation/appropriation, whether those criticisms are made by dozens of viewers or only a handful of them. regardless, i don’t think it’s my place as someone who is not asian to speak with any authority on that issue, and i know for a fact that there are asian american viewers sharing their own opinions. their thoughts in this instance hold more water than mine, i think.

what i will comment on in more depth, though, is a personal frustration with tuc. i’m jewish; i’ve never really been shy about that fact on my page here. i’m not from new york, but i visit a few times a year (or i did before covid anyway, lol), and i have some family from nyc. nyc, to me, is a jewish city. and for good reason, since it’s home to one of the largest jewish populations of the country, and even the world, and aspects of jewish culture (including culinary, like bagels and pastrami, and linguistic, like the common use of yiddish words and phrases in english colloquial speech) are prevalent and celebrated among jews and goyim alike. when i think of nyc, i think of a jewish city; that’s not everybody’s new york, but that’s my new york, and thats plenty of other people’s new york too. so i do find myself slightly disappointed or frustrated in tuc for its, in my opinion, rather stark lack of jewish representation.

now, i’m not saying that one of the PCs should have been jewish, full stop. i love to headcanon iga as jewish even though canon does not support that interpretation, and i’m fine with that. she’s not my character. it’s possible that simply no one thought of playing a jewish character, i dunno. but also, and i can’t be sure about this, i’m willing to bet that none of the players really wanted to play a jewish character because they didn’t want to play a character of a marginalized culture they dont belong to in the interest of avoiding stereotyping or offensive representation/cultural appropriation. (i don’t know if any of the cast members are jewish, but i’m assuming not.) and the concern there is certainly appreciated; there’s not a ton of mainstream jewish rep out there, and often what we get is either “unlikeable overly conservative hassidic jew” or “jokes about their bar mitzvah/one-off joke about hanukkah and then their jewishness is never mentioned ever again,” which sucks. it would be really cool to see some more good casual jewish rep in a well-rounded, three-dimensional character in the main cast of a show! even if there are a couple of stumbles along the way -- nobody is perfect and no two jews have the same level of knowledge, dedication, and adherence to their culture.

but at the same time, i look at characters like iga and i really do long for a jewish character to be there. siobhan isn’t polish, yet she’s playing a characters whose identity as a polish immigrant to new york is very central to her story and arc. and part of me wonders why we can’t have the same for a jewish character. if not a PC, then why not an NPC? again, i’m jewish, and i am not native, but in my opinion i think the inclusion of jj is wonderful -- i think there are even fewer native main characters in mainstream media than there are jewish ones, and it’s great to see a native character who is both in touch with their culture as well as not being defined solely by their native-ness. to what extent does it count as ‘appropriative’ because brennan is a white dude? i dunno, but i’m like 99% sure they talked to sensitivity consultants to make sure the representation was as ethical as they could get it, and anyway, i can’t personally see and glaring missteps so far. but again, i’m not native, and if there are native viewers with their own opinions on jj, i’d be really interested in hearing them.

but getting back to the relative lack of jewish representation. it just...disappoints me that jewishness in new york is hardly ever even really mentioned? again, i know we’re only just over halfway through season 2, but also, we had a whole first season too. and it’s definitely not all bad. for example: willy! gd, i love willy so much. him being a golem of williamsburg makes me really really happy -- a jewish mythological creature animated from clay/mud (in this case bricks) to protect a jewish community (like that of williamsburg, a center for many of nyc’s jews) from threat. golem have so often been taken out of their original context and turned into evil monsters in fantasy settings, especially including dnd. (even within other seasons of d20! crush in fh being referred to as a “pavement golem” always rubbed me the wrong way, and i had hoped they’d learned better after tuc but in acoc they refer to another monster as a “corn golem” which just disappointed me all over again.) so the fact that tuc gets golems right makes my jewish heart very happy.

and yet...he doesn’t show up that much? sure, in s1, he’s very helpful when he does, but in s2 so far he shows up once and really does not say or do much of anything. he speaks with a lot more yiddish-influenced language than other characters, but if you didn’t know those words were specifically yiddish/jewish, you might not be able to otherwise clock the fact that willy is jewish. and while willy is a jewish mythological creature who is jewish in canon, he isn’t human. there are no other direct references to judaism, jewish characters, or jewish culture in the unsleeping city beyond him.

there are, in fact, two other canon jewish characters in tuc. but...here’s where i feel the most frustration, i think. the two canon jewish humans in tuc are stephen sondheim and robert moses. both of whom are real actual people, so it’s not like we can just pick and choose what their cultural backgrounds are. as much as i love stephen sondheim, i think there are inherent issues with including real world people as characters in a fictional setting, especially if they are from living/recent memory (sondheim is literally still alive), but anyway, sondheim and moses are both actual jewish people. from watching tuc alone you probably would not be able to guess that sondheim is jewish -- nothing from his character except name suggests it, and i wouldn’t even fault you for not thinking ‘sondheim’ is a jewish-sounding surname (and i dislike the idea/attitude/belief that you can tell who is or isn’t jewish by the sound of their name). and yeah, i’m not going to sit here and be like “brennan should have made sondheim more visibly jewish in canon!” because, like, he’s a real human being and it’s fucking weird to portray him in a way that isn’t as close to how he publicly presents himself, which is not in fact very identifiably jewish? i don’t know, this is what i mean by it’s inherently weird and arguably problematic to portray real living people as characters in a fictional setting, but i digress. sondheim’s jewish, even if you wouldn’t know it; not exactly a representation win.

and then there’s bob moses. you might be able to guess that he’s jewish from canon, actually. there’s the name, of course. but more insidious to me are the specifics of his villainy. greedy and powerhungry, a moneyman, a lich whose power is stored in a phylactery...it does kind of all add up to a Yikes from me. (in the stock market fight there’s a one-off line asking if he has green skin; it’s never really directly acknowledged or answered, but it made me really uncomfortable to hear at first and it’s stuck with me since viewing for the first time.) the issue for me here is that the most obviously jewish human character is the season’s bbeg, and his villainy is rooted in very antisemitic tropes and stereotypes.

i know this isn’t all brennan’s fault -- robert moses was a real ass person and he was in fact jewish, a powerhungry and greedy moneyman, a big giant racist asshole, etc. i’m not saying that jewish characters can’t be evil, and i’m not saying brennan should have tried to be like “this is my NPC robert christian he’s just like bob moses but instead he’s a goy so it’s okay” because...that would be fuckin weird bro. and bob moses was a real person who was jewish and really did do some heinous shit with his municipal power. i’m not necessarily saying brennan should have picked/created a different character to be the villain. i’m not even saying that he shouldn’t have made bob moses a lich (although, again, it doesn’t 100% sit right with me). but my point here is that bob moses is one of a grand total of three canon jewish characters in tuc, of which only two humans, of whom he is the one you’d most easily guess would be jewish and is the most influenced by antisemitic stereotypes/tropes. had there been more jewish representation in the show at all, even just some neutral jewish NPCs, this would not be as much of a problem as it is to me. but halfway through season 2, so far, this is literally all we get. and that bums me out.

listen, i really like tuc. i love d20. but the fact that it is set in a real world place with real world people does inherently raise challenges when it comes to ethical cultural representation. especially when the medium of the show is a game whose creatures, lore, and mechanics have been historically rooted in some questionable racial/cultural views. and dnd is making progress to correct some of those misguided views of older sourcebooks by updating them to more equitably reflect real world racial/cultural sensitivities; that’s a good thing! but these seasons, of course, were recorded before that. the game itself has some questionable cultural stuff baked into it, and that is (almost necessarily) going to be brought to the table in a campaign set in a real-world place filled with real-world people of diverse real-world cultures. the cast can have sensitivity consultants and empathy and the best intentions in the world, and they’ll still fuck up from time to time, that’s okay. your mileage may vary on whether or not it’s still worth sticking around with the show (or the fandom) through that. for me, it does not yet outweigh all the things i like about the show, and i’m gonna continue watching it. but it’s still very worth acknowledging that the cast is 7 people who cannot possibly hope to authentically or gracefully represent every culture in nyc. it’s an unfortunate limitation of the medium. yet it’s also still worthwhile to acknowledge and discuss the cultural representation as it is in the show -- both the goods and the bads, the ethically solid and the questionably appropriative -- and even to hold the creators accountable. (decently, though. i’m definitely not advocating anybody cyberbully brennan on twitter or whatever.) the show and its representation is far from perfect, but i also don’t think it ever could be. still, though, it could always be better, and there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had in the wheres, hows, and whys of that.

[braiawrites]

Lost & Found - Chapter 4

Summary: A glimpse into Pellia's story. || Inspired by this prompt by @newblood-freya

Words: 2046

Rating: sfw

Warnings: Minor mention of blood.

Links:

Fic Masterlist

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FIVE

Prompt by newblood-freya

Read it on AO3

Writing Masterlist

Send me an ask!

***

“Alright, fine. I’ll figure it out myself,” the mortal said, her eyes dark under a scowl.

Pellia watched as she turned, Cardan perched on her shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. She hadn’t necessarily meant to harm him when she’d changed him into a cat, but from the way the girl clearly coddled him, she thought perhaps she’d done him a favour.

Cardan twisted to look back at her in the cramped confines of the cell. He gave her a slow, haughty blink—probably because he couldn’t smirk—before settling himself like a scarf over the human’s shoulders.

Pellia did the only thing one could be expected to do in response to such an insult: she flipped him off, and then, for good measure, stuck her tongue out at him too.

He flicked his tail before turning away, and Pellia threw her arms up with an exclamation of defeat.

“That was so unnecessary,” she called after the retreating form of the cat prince and his human. Neither of them turned back.

With a sigh, Pellia retreated to the palette at the back of her cell and sank onto the bed. She felt the prickle of tears at the corners of her eyes, but she tried to push them down, blink them away, something. She couldn't cry, not here, not now.

If any tears were to be shed, they wouldn’t be hers. She’d vowed that to herself six months ago, when she’d crossed the sea from Delaware to Faerieland. She’d come with steel in her hands and poisons at her belt. With fury in her eyes and vengeance on her heart. She had come with one purpose and one purpose alone: to take back what was hers, what he’d stolen.

And until she recovered what she’d come for, she had vowed that she would not weep.

You will not cry, she reminded herself. You will not cry, you will not cry—

“You will not cry.” The words were carried from her mouth on a trembling breath, a mantra and a promise and a plea, torn from so deep in her heart that Pellia was certain her next breath would be crimson with blood.

Her thoughts fell again to Cardan and the girl, her skin burning bright with shame as she realized she had never actually seen them leave. She hoped they hadn’t heard her.

Oh, yes, she thought bitterly, because that would be all she needed: the cruel prince and his nosy human girlfriend, seeing her at her weakest. The cherry on top of her melting sundae.

She laughed at the thought, and then laughed some more, because there was something churning in her gut and clutching at her heart, and if she didn’t laugh at the pain then she’d cry and she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that.

No matter how much it hurt, no matter how bitter she felt or how hot her rage burned, she could not cry until she was free and back home in Delaware, until she was safe and her family was whole again.

~ ~ ~

She’d known a storm was brewing from the first time she'd met him. It had been a Wednesday evening and the wind blowing off the coast was warm with the promise of summer. Pellia had been walking home from school, her slender fingers skillfully weaving a crown of wildflowers. Beside her, her younger sister talked animatedly about her day: the presentation she’d given in science class, the book her English class was starting, who she’d talked with at lunch.

Neither of them noticed the figure following twenty or so paces behind them.

Pellia tucked the last stem into the crown and turned it in her hands, admiring her handiwork as Amber changed topics.

“So, in drama we’re doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I’m going to audition for Titania. I think I’d make a good Faerie queen, anyway, but I was thinking maybe you could help me act all magical and Fae-like.”

Pellia looked up from where she was fixing a rip in a flower petal. It was a small magic, but Amber’s eyes sparked as she watched the petal knit itself together.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing you do that,” she sighed. “I wish I had magic.”

Pellia’s brow lifted. “Faerie isn’t as innocent as you think it is, love.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I didn’t say anything about Faerie,” Amber pouted, “just that I wish I had magic. I dunno, I think it would be cool.”

“You have your own kind of magic—the power of being the bane of my existence and also somehow my favourite human.” Pellia’s shoulder bumped Amber’s in a playful jostle.

“You flatter me, oh great pain in my a—”

“Hey! Watch your profanity.”

“My profanity!”

“Mhm.”

“You have the dirtiest mouth I’ve ever heard from anyone. And you’re telling me to watch my language?!”

Pellia let out a breathy laugh, shaking her head. “Nevermind.” She paused, lifting the flower crown in her hands. “For my Queen Titania. I spelled it so it wouldn’t die.”

Amber took the circlet almost reverently holding it up to see each vibrant petal in the sun’s light.

“It’s shiny,” she pointed out. “Is there a glamour on it?”

Pellia gave her sister a lopsided grin. “A little. I tried to tone it down a bit, but—I couldn’t resist. It’ll glamour you, too, when you wear it.”

Her younger sister said nothing for a moment, just staring at the crown—and then a huge grin broke across her face, brighter than a thousand suns.

“I love it, Pell, thank you.”

She lifted the crown to nestle among chestnut locks, letting the leaves weave into her hair. As soon as they touched her head, she seemed to glow more vividly, her eyes sparkling and her skin smoothing and her cheeks blushing a warm pink. She beamed at her older sister, then shoved her off the sidewalk.

Pellia squeaked as she flailed to catch her balance. Her eyes, glamoured brown, met Amber’s mischievous hazel gaze.

“I just made you a flower crown, bro,” Pellia said, her shock mingling with amusement.

“Yeah, and I love it!”

“Well, you’re a little brat, you know that?”

“Love you, too, Pell!” Amber sang, spinning gracefully to continue the last stretch of their walk home.

Pellia shook her head—and that was when she saw him, out of the corner of her eye.

Wearing a long, dark shirt, tied at the waist with a golden sash, woolen leggings despite the tepid weather, and leather slip shoes that clearly had not come from the human world, he was impossible to mistake.

How long had he been following them? Pellia wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She turned, casually, and started after Amber’s retreating form at a stroll, before breaking into a jog with a call of, “You’re going to pay for that! And for making me run!”

Ahead, Amber cackled. As Pellia caught up to her, she elbowed her sister in the side, grinning.

“Hey, so guess what?”

“What?”

“Well, act natural, and don’t look, but there’s someone trailing us.”

Before Amber could follow the natural inclination to glance over her shoulder, Pellia slung her arm around her little sister’s neck and leaned in.

“I said don’t look. Now pretend I said something funny.”

Amber laughed. It was actually very convincing—she was a good actress.

“You’re kidding,” the younger girl chuckled, bumping her older sister with her elbow.

“I wish I was. But something about him makes me uneasy. And he’s fey, too, which pretty much automatically means bad news.”

“How would you even know that?”

“I saw it!” Pellia said, pulling out her phone. “Like, I turned around and he was just—right there. I swear!”

Opening her camera, Pellia angled her phone to better see their stalker. She made a show of checking her hair, her makeup, eyes glued to the figure in the background. She zoomed in. The hilt of a sword peeked over his shoulder.

Definitely not peaceable, then, she thought. Pellia made her decision:

“We're not going home.” She pulled her sister by the arm, turning a corner away from their house.

“I think you're being a tiny bit paranoid, Pell,” Amber said, attempting to pull away.

“No,” the pixie shook her head. The buildings on this street were tighter, packed together with cramped alleyways between every couple.

They approached an intersection and Pellia pointed to the building across the way. “Go, inside the gas station. I'll come get you in a sec.”

“Fiiine.” The younger girl pouted, but turned away.

“Hurry!” Pellia hissed, and Amber jogged across the empty street.

Rushed footsteps came from around the corner, and Pellia ducked down one of the alleys, dropping her bag and pressing herself against the brick wall.

She listened, trying to quiet her breathing.

The steps ceased abruptly. Pellia reached for the cord around her neck, pulling it from beneath her shirt.

The dagger she unsheathed was small, but definitely better than nothing. She tucked the sheath on its cord back beneath her shirt and adjusted her grip on the hilt. The leather was smooth beneath her fingers, the blade glinting sharply.

The footsteps resumed, cautiously.

Their owner came into view, looking the wrong direction. Pellia slipped from the alley and slid behind him, the edge of her knife held to his neck as pulled him back into the shade between houses. At his struggle, she pressed the blade against his skin.

“I don't know which part of Faerie you're from,” she purred into his ear, “but in the court where I grew up, it was generally considered rude to follow people like that.”

She shoved him face first into the wall, her hand between his shoulder blades. “So? Who are you and what do you want?”

“I was just sent to gather intel, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. His voice was higher than she’d expected and his throat bobbed under her blade as he spoke.

“I’m so reassured.” The sarcasm dripping from Pellia’s voice was fatal. “Who sent you?”

“I—I can’t say,” he said.

“You might wanna try.” Her blade pressed in.

“Oath!” he squeaked, flinching away from her. “I took an oath, I cannot speak his name!”

Pellia’s brows went up at this. To hold that kind of power over someone…

“Why does he want to know about me?”

“I don’t know,” the fae whimpered. “He doesn’t tell me these things. I only know what I am to do, never the reason.”

She rocked back on her heels, allowing her grip to loosen on his collar. Her mind was racing, trying to fit together the insubstantial pieces of this puzzle. She hadn’t dealt with anyone from Faerie since they’d fled to the mortal world. She didn’t know how she’d been found, let alone why someone would be tracking her in the first place.

“Please don’t kill me.” The words came out as little more than a breath, but they sent a little thrill through Pellia’s stomach all the same.

She laughed. “Kill you? This is a new shirt, I don’t want your blood all over it. Besides, I need you to take a message back for me.”

Her captive nodded, his cheek scraping against the brick.

She leaned in. “Tell your boss that if he wants to know something, he can come talk to me himself. And in the meantime, he can stay out of my business. Oh, and you might also let him know that I hold grudges; the next person he sends to ‘gather intel’ won’t be coming back.”

At the faerie’s promise to leave immediately, Pellia released him. She watched as he headed back toward the coast, flinching at a passing car. What had been the point in sending someone to trail her, especially someone so obviously out of his depth in the human world?

Pellia shook her head. She hoped this would be the end of it, but something deep down told her that it wouldn’t be over so simply.

Two weeks later, she returned home to a dark haired, silver-eyed prince in her living room. Her family was out.

“My greetings, Pellia Nerium,” Balekin Greenbriar said. “Have a seat. I have a proposition to discuss with you.”

***

A/N: This chapter was so much fun to write and I developed Pellia's backstory so much, which I was kind of not expecting. I feel like I'm discovering what happens next along with all of you haha! I do hope you've been enjoying so far! I promise cat!Cardan and Jude will be back next chapter.

Thank you for sticking around every week to read, it honestly makes me so happy to know that there are people who are enjoying my writing. And if you have the time, I would love if you left a comment to let me know what you think! Also, please let me know if you'd like to be added to my tag list!

Until next week, lovelies!

Tagging: @stardustsroses @nahthanks @jurdanhell @my-one-true-l @thefolkofthefic @greenbriarxrose @bookavert @queen-of-demons-and-hell @theviolettulip @lysandra-ghost-leopard @playlistmusings @localgoof @garnet-babe @iamaprincessallgirlsare

[tenacityreturns]

aokaga drabble: post-nba

plot: kagami cuts off all his friends after forced retirement from the nba, and goes to live in japan again so that he can rebuild himself from the ground up. aomine’s girlfriend, sabs (whom we love), breaks up with him and aomine follows kagami to try and reconnect after a quiet few months. he’s worried as hell, he loves kagami, who he knows without hearing from him that he is miserable. it’s angst. word count: 5860 notes: sfw, future verse, aomine’s pov. it’s specific to my future verse hcs but hopefully it makes sense even if u dont know them lol. nijimura and kagami are ( thank you so much for reminding me about this. present tense. they ARE ) besties, i think that comes up. 

god, it's just too weird coming back here. everything is the same. same cream wallpaper, same dirty mirror in the lift. same buttons, circled with red once pressed. same shitty elevator music. it hums melodically, creating the pretence of relaxation, but daiki is anything but. he stares at himself in the mirror. not much taller than the last time he'd been inside, on his way to see an exuberant redhead in that same, ridiculous penthouse apartment he'd had by himself. would it seem small now that he'd seen the world? now that he had money of his own, lived in a big apartment himself? there are lines in his brow as he inspects it. he doesn't try to fix it. allows himself these nerves because they remind him that he cares. if he didn't, he wouldn't have come back to stay with his parents. wouldn't have followed taiga across the world despite the months of radio silence. missed calls ( ignored calls ). unanswered texts. daiki had tried everything. called taiga’s dad, asked if he'd heard anything recently from him. he never had. never gave daiki anything, anyway. all 'oh, I'm sure he's fine, he's probably just sulking about his injuries.' yeah, that's what daiki is worried about. asao had always got on his nerves. how is he so blind? why can't he see that taiga's devastated to be retiring? he still had as much fight in him as he'd had when they were teenagers. so much fight, and grit, and impossible potential.

the elevator dings. he doesn't move for a moment. ghosts surround him. that time taiga dragged him way too roughly into his apartment, only to kiss him like he's made of glass. the times they'd held hands in the full elevator and no one had minded. the time someone had, and taiga nearly beat him up for it. like, really nearly. all the occasions taiga found to cook meals for him. all the excuses. how the hell could taiga stand to come back here and relive all those memories?

the doors shut. daiki grunts and pushes the button to open them again. he has to buck up. he has to gather himself, all the courage in the world, and tell taiga everything. he was waiting inside, anyway. he'd buzzed him up. yeah, alright. he'd said at the door. yeah, alright. he sounds different now. colder. the knot in his stomach is eating him alive. tearing organs apart. his knees are weak, barely carrying him into the hallway.

how will he phrase it? Daiki makes his way to taiga's door. it's the same colour. same paint, it's peeling a little. he feels sick. so sick. it's fight or flight, isn't it? the nerves. well, he'd already flown away. already allowed taiga to think he didn't care. maybe he hadn't. maybe love had drifted between them, fluttering around like a butterfly in spring. sabina had been a flower daiki visited, she was everything he thought he'd wanted in a partner. funny, clever, interested in him. not like in love him, which she had been, but she'd asked how his day was. sabs was great, but she wasn't taiga. they fought a lot, but not in the same way he'd fought with taiga. and taiga had dated people too, like that hot business guy. older, smart, in love. daiki recognised the way he'd looked at taiga during that terrible doubt date they'd gone on. softly, in awe, like there had been no one else in the room. and taiga had been looking at daiki. saying something with a smirk, trying to get a rise out of him. daiki could have kissed him then.

but he's broken up with sabs when taiga retired. all daiki had done was call him, text him, trying to find out if he was okay. of course he wasn't, but daiki wanted to be there for him. sabs grew tired of it. he doesn't blame her for it. he doesn't blame himself for being in love with taiga, either. it's the natural way of things. and it has been the natural way of things to go back to Japan as soon as he could get a break away from work. he stayed with his parents, kept his head down. reconnected with other old friends from high school, tried to pretend it was just a social call. Tried to pretend he hadn't come all the over here on the off chance taiga might be around to see him, wherever he'd been. what a bittersweet moment when taiga first texted back a few months ago. all casualness, he’d said don’t worry about me, i’m fine. talk soon x and that had been it. he’d replied in english, daiki had texted in english. daiki called him about a week ago and taiga had answered. hearing his voice had been jarring. he’d been waiting so long, so patiently. always hoping taiga would call him for a change.

“i’m in tokyo visiting family,” daiki had said hastily, shocked that he’d actually get a reply this time. he waited. nothing. fine. he kept talking. “i get it if you don’t wanna talk to me, or whatever, but---

“no, i wanna see you. come over. i’m back in my old apartment, you remember where that is? come by next saturday.” and they agreed on a time like it was the most normal thing in the world.

daiki sees his hand raise to knock on the door, and he wonders how many times in his life he’d done this. his knuckles had met the door hundreds of times before, when they’d been younger. less experienced. happier. god, daiki’s scared. it’s too weird coming back here.

the door opens. it’s taiga. he looks tired. he’s put on weight, his bare arms are still tree trunks but they’re not showing muscle definition anymore. he makes grey sweats and a black t-shirt look classic for a reason. daiki stares at him, taking it all in, suddenly tongue-tied. he doesn’t have the right words, they don’t exist. there’s nothing to say. he shouldn’t have come.

“makes you feel old, don’t it?” taiga says, rubbing his neck.

"what?”

“being back here. i feel like i should ask you if you wanna play one-on-one then go to maji’s.” the joke hurts. red eyes hold such sadness in them. it looks like it hurts to look at daiki, too. he shouldn’t have come.

“taiga---”

“i can’t, i dunno if you heard. i can’t play again. i’m still recovering. i had to choose between being able to walk when i’m sixty, or playing basketball another year. i was so close to picking basketball.”

daiki trudges inside. he fights the instinct to sweep taiga into an all-encompassing hug. it’s awful being in this room again. the furniture is different, thank god, but the essentials are in the same place. the kitchen is the same. there’s the spot daiki would always perch when taiga was cooking something for him. the sofa is in a different position. how clearly he can see the old layout now that he stands amongst its replacements. daiki doesn’t know what to say to taiga’s crushing statement. could he speak if he wanted to? there’s a lump in his throat. he takes his shoes off. those are taiga’s jordans. it’s good he still wears basketball shoes. it’s wrong when he doesn’t. they’re like an extension of him, like the colour of his hair. scarlet in the sunlight.

“isn’t that what you wanted to hear?” taiga’s voice is so dark, he hasn’t shut the door yet. when daiki looks over, the hand on the door is tense, as if trying to make a fist through the wood. it takes daiki by surprise to see this rage. “isn’t that what anyone wants to know, whether i care if i played again?”

“i---” he blinks. “i don’t care about basketball.”

wrong answer. the door slams. daiki flinches. taiga stalks into the kitchen.

“i mean, of course i care, it’s just-- you scared the shit outta me. i figured you didn’t wanna see me of all people, then i heard you cut everyone off, all your old teammates. gave everyone the cold shoulder. we just wanna help you, man, you’re not alone in this.”

“i’m over it.”

“i wouldn’t be, if i was you.”

“you have no idea how i feel, daiki,” taiga pulls two beers from the fridge. daiki had half expected banana milk. the thought makes him feel worse.

“nobody does, you won’t talk to anyone.” it’s a leap, maybe he had been, but had avoided daiki’s questions when he’d asked them. did nijimura know how he felt? did satsuki, and they just hadn’t told him?

“i don’t want to,” he takes the drinks to the couch, and daiki follows. daiki sits in a chair where his beanbag had once been. taiga continues, “i don’t wanna even think about basketball. that’s why i never messaged you back. i knew it would all come out once i saw you.”

daiki doesn’t open his beer. he stares at it guiltily, but he can’t bear opening it. can’t bear disturbing the quiet falling between them.

“i would’ve left you alone if you hurt yourself,” taiga goes on, in too smooth of a tone to have been anything but the truth. “i would’ve known you wouldn’t want to see me because it’d remind you of the old times.”

silence. he really shouldn’t have come.

“i’ve always had basketball,” taiga says quietly, sipping on his beer. “all my friends were into it too. back when i had this place first, i figured everyone was only interested because i was good. especially you guys.” he clicks his tongue. “you, generation of miracles. i didn’t blame you, either. i got it. tetsu, ryouta, tatsuya. i’d think about whether you’d lose interest if i got hurt and couldn’t play anymore. i didn’t wanna face it.”

“is that--- is that what you think about me now?”

no reply. he drinks more beer. daiki shifts to the edge of his seat.

“taiga. answer me.”

“i considered it. at first, definitely. then you kept calling, i guessed it was your conscience or something. don’t feel bad about it, or whatever--”

“don’t feel bad? why would you think that? i--” he has to take a breath. it’s taiga’s mistake. it’s something in his past that caused him to think that the limits of his worth are tied with his ability to play ball. that’s awful. but it’s not something to argue over. it won’t help. “look, you’re wrong. alright? don’t ever think that about me again.”

taiga shrugs. “you wanted to know how i felt.”

it’s a blow. it hurts. no doubt about it. when daiki had said i love you, had taiga always heard i love your basketball? that’s ridiculous. daiki had loved taiga’s way of playing, but that wasn’t just it?! there are corners of taiga’s mind that daiki doesn’t like, doesn’t get along with. but despite that, he loves that, too. loves taiga. loves, loves, loves him. he always has, he always will.

“you once said there’s nothing a winner can say to a loser. ain’t that how it is here? what could you say to me i haven’t heard from everyone else who can still play basketball?”

“if you couldn’t walk now, do you really think i wouldn’t wanna be there to help you with your wheelchair?” it slipped out, almost venomously. defensively. taiga blinks, quiet as the dead. daiki sighs, setting the drink down unopened. “you’re one of my best friends, taiga. you’re more than that. i think i made myself pretty clear when i called you and texted you. sorry if that was the wrong thing to do... but... if you stopped playing basketball after high school, i’d still have wanted you around, you know. even if you were some boring ass banker in another country, i still would’ve kept in touch.”

daiki doesn’t look at taiga now. he can’t. it’s too much honesty. there’s too much weight to his words. ( if he had looked over, he’d see the shaking hand raising beer to lips, hiding that they too quiver under the threat of tears. )

“sorry if i’m just saying stuff you’ve heard before. i’ll leave if i’m making it worse. i didn’t mean to.”

continued silence. what does he say next? what can he say? he doesn't want to leave. he should have come. daiki sighs, sinking back into his seat with his eyes anywhere but on taiga. this chair is hard. it's a sand-coloured linen armchair with deep mahogany accents. the kind of chair that really isn't meant to be sat in. sabs had one like this. it was a glorified bowl. totally uncomfortable, and even he was never able to sleep in it. this chair is similar. its voice is loud and harsh: i am an adult purchase. daiki misses the beanbag. the most comfortable thing he'd ever slept on. second most. he finally looks at taiga. the couch is different. it's also sand in colour, and cuboid, but the arm-rests are low and with the right cushion, their rounded corners would make for a good napping area.

the old sofa hadn't been comfortable. he'd convinced himself that it was, until taiga became the perfect cushion between sofa and daiki. it's a stupid thought, but is a toned body really that comfortable of a cushion? the soft lines of taiga's broad shoulders look just as enticing. but... the beanbag... daiki's bought beanbags for himself since then but they've never been the same. even the same brand (model discontinued) hadn't been the same. it wasn't just that it was oblong and firm enough that he doesn't touch the floor, while still retaining body-moulding softness. it was partly that. daiki had realised it the first time he settled into his new and immediately rejected beanbag years ago, when he and taiga had broken up for the second major time. it was that he'd been on taiga's floor, exhausted after an almost challenging one-on-one, waiting for his rival to make him his dinner. even before they'd started dating, daiki had felt a special sort of peace here. there's comfort in finding someone who you can be your authentic self with. daiki's basketball ability didn't scare taiga off.

"daiki?"

daiki had been staring at the window when taiga spoke. he immediately looked over, momentarily forgetting everything that was said minutes before. forgetting why he's here, what brought him, what chair he's sitting in. he's in the beanbag again. taiga's about to ask him to solve a history question, and daiki's half a second away from making up a completely fictitious answer so he doesn't have to bashfully admit that he doesn't know.

“can i ask you something?”

“shoot,”

“were you just thinking about your old beanbag?”

ah. busted. he blinks, dazed. taiga’s expression starts to change. his eyes search daiki’s from across the room and gradually, a smile forms. the sun comes out. literally. the shadow-stealing grey sky gave the city a brief interlude of hope in a few, impossibly long seconds of proper sunlight. the weather, daiki noticed, linked inextricably with a personal epiphany. it doesn’t matter whether he’s an easy read. at any given moment, daiki is thinking about his next meal or his next sleep. but that, in the depths of their conversation, taiga had pulled himself out of it enough to come to the correct conclusion on what daiki was thinking about. it wasn’t basketball, it wasn’t their history ( not entirely, at least ), and it wasn’t taiga’s injuries ( though maybe it should have been? ). it was his old beanbag. not taiga’s. not nijimura’s. his. and he’s smiling again, for the first time today. a wall has come down.

the future starts to fit into place. is that dramatic? it’s fate. it’s fate. does taiga see it too? does he knows that daiki could walk to the ends of the earth for him? daiki smiles too, now. he sinks deeper into his awful seat, shoulders almost meeting his ears.

“i hate this chair, taiga.”

“me too, but i hated the beanbag more.”

“you didn’t,” a critical insult! “why’d you keep it if you hated it so much?”

taiga sighs now, shifting in his seat so that his arm rested on the back of the couch, head against his hand. he stares with an unimpressed downwards turn to his mouth, and a double chin beneath his jaw. because you loved it, his eyes replied in words his mouth couldn’t betray, and i loved you. past tense, daiki can’t flatter himself into thinking that taiga is in any kind of place to be thinking about relationships. but they’d been in love before. daiki had been taiga’s first ( almost ) everything. it’s over in a split second, but he remembers thinking they’d be together forever.

“do you really think i could’ve been a banker?”

the question, offered casually under the guise of an innocent topic change, has weight to it. daiki knows this, but it doesn’t matter. his answer comes from the heart. their eyes meet.

“y’know,” daiki straightens up a little, “yeah, i do. i still think you could be a banker, dude. you’re one of the few people i’ve met who can really do anything you set your mind to.”

“i’m too stupid to be a banker.”

insecure words don’t suit taiga’s voice. they sound wrong. daiki doesn’t look away. “your tenacity outweighs your stupidity any day.”

taiga rolls his eyes and sips his beer. his smile fades. what’s he thinking about? daiki feels guilty realising he can’t read taiga as well as the other way around, but the last time they’d been in this room, it would have been a fair guess to suggest basketball was on his mind. it had almost always been on his mind. and now that his eyes no longer sparkle, basketball or lack thereof would also be a decent guess, but daiki didn’t think it was just that. does taiga think of the past? does he regret not paying attention in school and not giving himself any kind of backup career? daiki does. their parents do.

god, why can’t he think of anything to say? why is he so fucking silent all of a sudden? daiki’s usually quick as a whip, can spark a laugh or a fight at his whim. he usually knows just what to say when taiga’s not feeling great. or knows just what to do. all he can think of is a hug and what good has a hug ever done, really? he wants to wrap his arms around his old friend’s shoulders and tell him it’s all going to be alright. would taiga push him away? would he get mad?

“so,” taiga stands unexpectedly. is he about to tell him to get lost? “how are you doing?”

it takes him aback. uh, he’s been shit. he’s been worrying to death over taiga’s lack of communication, and fearing the worst with every phone call ignored. daiki exhales, watching taiga walk over to the sliding doors to the tiny balcony. it’s early evening and the city is starting to twinkle. does taiga admire its familiar beauty, or does he stare out with an empty gaze? for the love of all things good, daiki, for fuck’s sake! just say something!

“fine,” excellent.

“good. how’s sabs?”

“sabs?”

“yeah. i heard things were getting serious with you two.” his voice is impossible to hear, but he’s not mocking him. taiga’s ignorance at the situation is baffling, but he isn’t being spiteful.

“uh. we-- we broke up, man, ages ago. like, a few months.”

“huh.”

silence returned. daiki hates this. he understands not googling each other, but hadn’t anyone told taiga about sabs and him? had taiga really not asked? he’d been avoiding every other basketball guy he knows, why would daiki be any different? was it possible that taiga doesn’t care anymore? no, cool it. no talking about relationships right now, it’s not the time. fuck knows what conversation this moment does call for, but it’s not that. leave it. chill. have some beer.

daiki follows his own advice and finally opens his beer. it’s gross. he’s more of a wine guy, while taiga has always liked his beers. unsurprisingly, the drink does little to distract him.

“how are your parents?”

so is this what it was going to be? small talk? daiki would prefer going back to aggressively telling taiga how fucking amazing he is, just to fight the voice that had said i’m too stupid to be a banker.

“dad’s retiring soon,” daiki replies in a sigh, “there’ll be a party. you should come.”

taiga chuckles dryly.

you don’t have to, jesus. daiki doesn’t say it, and fights the irritation as best as he can. he’s using the same patience that taiga had used with him in the past when the world had felt like it was collapsing. “mom asks about you all the time.”

a grunt this time; it’s kind of like the surprised huh from earlier, mixed with a noise of amused rejection.

“how’s your dad?”

“he doesn’t get it at all. i tried telling him imagine you lost both your hands and couldn’t work anymore, but it’s not the same. he doesn’t love his work.”

daiki’s moving before he can help it. he comes to stand beside taiga to watch the city. he can’t see beyond the reflection of taiga’s sorrowful face in the glass. he’d been right, earlier. those gorgeous eyes were empty. if he was looking at the view, his eyes were dead on the horizon.

taiga continues without interruption. “he only works as an escape from everything he fucked up in his life. me, for instance.”

“taiga,” daiki’s heart aches.

“i should’a listened when i was a kid. that’s it. i should’a paced myself.”

“would you have joined seirin’s team if you paced yourself?”

silence.

“your intensity is a part of you, taiga,” daiki says gently. taiga’s distant eyes hone in on the reflection, too, and now they’re looking at each other in the glass. daiki is first to look away like a coward. “i think if you had paced yourself, you’d have come to one of seirin’s games. you would’a found out about the generation of miracles and thought i wanna take those asshole down a notch.”

“you told me my light’s too dim when we first met, though.” taiga turns his head so that he’s facing the city again. “even if i joined the team, we still lost before we got to finally beat you.”

“it was tetsu who lifted you up to my level,” daiki’s reply is barely a whisper. he’s falling into his own memories and his eyes drop to the windowpane. it had always been him. they both dwelled on it, he didn’t have to be a mind-reader for that. he misses kuroko like hell.

“you ever wish you hated basketball?” taiga’s voice cracks. he takes a sip of beer and daiki copies him.

“yeah,” before he’d met taiga, he’d been plagued with the idea of never meeting anyone up to his standards. anyone better. kise came close, but daiki had lost to seirin. that felt like lifetimes ago now.

“this fucking sucks,” he’d finished his beer now. daiki glances over in time to see taiga blindly toss his beer bottle over his shoulder. he looks back to see where it landed. it hadn’t shattered, but flown safely onto the sofa where taiga had been sitting. taiga doesn’t move. he doesn’t react at all.

daiki feels it keenly too, can’t taiga see? he’s not alone. sure, daiki can’t fully understand how it feels to be forced into retirement due to injury, but he’s on his way there. his body is tired and it is always sore. one of these days, he’ll land funny and never properly recover. and then daiki will isolate from the world until he can figure himself out. it will be like carving the basketball out of himself. having played for his whole life, what will be left? he comes to stare at taiga so gradually that he hadn’t noticed when it happened. he sees a strong man with a huge heart and the rest of his life ahead of him. he is awesome at cooking, maybe he’ll do something with that? he has enough money that, if he’s sensible with it ( which he always has been ), he’s financially secure. hell, taiga’s always been financially secure.

he sees a man waging a war in his mind. he sees broken pieces desperately held together. daiki sees himself.

“i’ll leave if you want me to, tai. i don’t wanna make it worse.”

taiga shakes his head. he looked, for a second, like he’d say something. his mouth opened, but he changed his mind last minute and closes it again. daiki can’t stand to see him this way. if they never talk about basketball again for the rest of their lives, he’ll find something else to say. they can’t just stop talking because they can’t play against each other anymore. unless that’s really what taiga wants, which daiki doubts.

it’s a bold move, perhaps, but he bumps his knuckles gently against taiga’s hand hanging beside them. the redhead glances between them, but it doesn’t put daiki off. he carefully offers his hand to hold, forgoing breathing lest it spark an outburst. there’s no rage this time. their hands connect like they had a million times before. daiki already feels better for it, selfishly, as if how he feels is what’s important right now. fuck, he just loves taiga so much. he’ll be fine, he’s taiga. of course he will. he’s at a low point and it’s weird to see him so lost, it’s unnatural somehow, but he’ll get through it. daiki believes in him. he believes in him with his whole goddamn heart.

taiga meets his eyes just as he’s feeling like he could just say it outright. daiki sees tired, teary eyes. he squeezes his hand. “what are you thinking about?” taiga asks quietly.

“how amazing you are,” he replies. “you’ll get through this. i know you will.”

taiga scoffs, but it doesn't sound like an outright rejection. not totally, at least.

a silence settles between them as they each think of something to say. daiki wishes there was something he could do to fix it. fix all the hurt. wrap it up in a ball and throw it outside. it's more of a distraction than anything, but hadn't that metaphor sounded like basketball? it would be impossible to cut the sport from himself. he doesn't think he'd be able to do it. this must be hell for taiga. he glances over and meets teary eyes unexpectedly looking at him, too.

"come here," daiki pulls his hand away, only to slide in and wrap his arms around taiga's waist. he hadn't thought twice about it this time. it's the right thing to do.

"i'm fine," taiga sniffs.

"then it's for my benefit," he snaps. it works, and he feels familiar arms wrap around him in kind. they stand in gentle silence, there’s a wall clock ticking somewhere in the background. cars beneath them sound like crashing waves. a siren. daiki runs his hands along taiga’s back soothingly, and notes that the form is softer now where muscles had laid careful marks of definition. taiga had always been bulkier than him, but this added weight makes the guy seem immovable. and here he is, hiding his face in daiki’s shoulder in the world’s saddest hug. he has to stop himself from kissing him there and then. as if that would help anything. it used to. enough kisses peppered on taiga’s face had always been enough to lift his mood. it’s strange to love taiga with restraint, but he will, if that is what he needs.

"you were right, by the way," taiga mutters, "I haven't talked this through with anybody."

"yeah. i'm here for you, tai. but we don't gotta talk about it if you don't want to. hell, we could pretend i'm the one who works at the bank and never talk about basketball again."

"you, a banker? that's just unrealistic." it's a joke delivered totally pathetically, with a shaking voice.

"shut up," and it's a defence without any bite to it.

“sorry about sabs,” daiki feels the words mumbled into his shoulder, feels taiga’s lips say her name against his t-shirt. taiga sounds guilty. he must know.

“don’t worry about it.”

“i heard you say in that interview that you were gonna have kids. i thought you were gonna end up with her.”

“interview?” daiki frowns. taiga breaks out of the hug and opens the sliding door. he comes to lean against the balcony, and daiki is still standing where he had been, racking his brain for what the hell he was talking about? he remembers an invasive question from a dickhead reporter along those lines, but daiki hadn’t said that he was going to? have them with sabs? he had never even considered it. really never considered it. hell no. “uh,” he finally replies, realising that he hadn’t yet, “no.”

“would you, in the future? not with sabs. i just mean, in general.”

daiki slides the door further open and steps into the cool air. he rests against the railing with his forearms, looking down and out at the city. for all that it could mean, he looks over with a gentle expression at the only person that would change his mind about it. “would you?”

taiga remains fixed on the horizon. his shoulders shrug. “i never thought about shit like that before. i think so, maybe.”

daiki hums. he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t admit to being happy to hear that taiga is open to it, doesn’t admit that he’s always liked the idea of having kids. at least one, maybe two. being an only child is difficult, but then, the adoption process is difficult. hopefully two kids. he recalls a conversation they had had a long time ago, or maybe it had been a moment in passing that stuck out. taiga has changed his mind. back then, daiki distinctly remembers hearing that taiga didn’t think he’d make for a very good dad. he remembers, because he knows how much he disagreed. a guy like him with a heart like that? please. it’s a given.

“while you’re here, you should visit nijimura and his kids at teiko.”

daiki blinks. the speed at which the conversation was going is leaving him behind. he’d done that before, sure, but not as often as taiga. that makes sense though, right? taiga was always good at making time for shit like that. he shrugs his shoulders. “yeah, i guess. i hadn’t thought about it.”

“daiki?” taiga says quietly. when daiki looks over, their eyes meet. god, taiga’s eyes are so fucking sad. he can’t deal with it. daiki nods, taiga continues. “i’m gonna give you a word of advice. you should really think about what you’re gonna do when you can’t play anymore. i wish i had. there’s no point dwelling on the past, but if i can stop you from feeling like this, then it won’t all be for nothing.”

daiki categorically doesn’t like talking about stuff like this. his injuries will heal. they always do. and he will play again. he is not strong like taiga, he can’t just carve it out and build himself up again. taiga will be able to tell by the look on daiki’s face that he has taken the advice to heart, even if he can’t speak for the lump in his throat. when he can, after a moment, daiki replies.

“i get it if you wanna be alone right now,” his eyes drift back to the city, “and i’ll go stand on the side-lines ‘til you’re ready if that’s what you want, but if our roles were reversed like you mentioned earlier, i hope you would know to come find me.”

“of course i would,” taiga rests forwards on the balcony, mirroring daiki. their arms touch, neither move. “when you put it like that... i’m sorry i was so hard to find.”

daiki doesn’t tell him that he loves him now. not in words. he says it between the lines, in the diminishing space between his fingertips and taiga’s skin. any excuse to touch him, he makes. now, as his head comes to rest momentarily on taiga’s shoulder. can he stay there? taiga allows it. he does. on the arm, later, as a story is told, on the hand. taiga returns it in a drifting touch across daiki’s shoulders as he’s passing in the kitchen, or that one, affectionate moment where taiga had playfully scuffed his knuckles against daiki’s chin. god, it had driven him crazy. taiga is so beautiful. his hair is a little longer. the guy’s always wanted a mullet, maybe now he’s actually growing it out? his hands, his back, his thighs. they’d been friends with benefits a few years ago because they couldn’t handle being in the same room without physically reacting to it. then they’d started taking other people. and now, daiki feels that gut instinct to give taiga everything again. but he won’t. not tonight.

instead, he’ll confess his love in the respectful silences, in reassuring smiles, the changes of conversation, the nah, i’ve got nowhere to be when 11 o’clock hit and taiga was embarrassed to have taken up so much of his time. he says i love you in the way that they briefly hold hands. in the words unsaid because now isn’t the time. in the lingering glances, in the i’ll take the couch tonight. ( taiga, in his way, says i love you as he says no you won’t, you’ll sleep with me. or at least he says i know you love me, which is good enough. ) of course they sleep together. taiga’s head comes to rest upon his chest. they’re clothed. it’s weird not immediately making out with him now that all that daiki can smell is taiga. they are silent as their arms find comfortable ways to settle to sleep. daiki waits for the longest time before he speaks. he waits for breathing to even out, and grip to loosen where taiga’s hand had come to rest at his hip. and, when he does speak, it’s barely a whisper scraped through his tired, croaking throat:

“i love you, tai.”

nothing happens. taiga had been asleep. the night wears on and daiki’s mind walks through every sentence they had spoken. he falls asleep as the stars start to fade, wakes up again when taiga is getting out of bed, but doesn’t stay up. later, the smell of breakfast makes him stir ( it’s never failed before ). taiga tells him that he’s got a job at a bakery, so this bread is actually made by him. it’s perfect, but of course it is. it’s his.

[strabbyshortcake]

champy’s charhouse

Gramble and Boots meet for the first time.

tw for mild violence.

Champy’s Charhouse sat smack dab in the middle of a whole lot of nothing, along a lone strip of highway that ran east to west through vast cornfields and strips of forest and swampland. True to its name, the steak was always overdone, but the potato skins were to die for.

Gramble usually went with one or more of his housemates, but Wambus was tired, Triffany was busy with grading papers, Yosie had a cage match tonight and Bronica had plans with her girlfriend already. That was alright, though. Gramble could have a good time on his own.

He borrows Triffany’s car, pulling up in the dusty parking lot as the sun’s about to set. The parking lot is already full of various mud-splattered beaters and pickups, many of which he recognizes. Funny that he could think of himself as a local now and feel a hit of pride about it. The bright orange neon sign buzzes above his head as he walks in, heading right for the bar to find a seat with a good view of the stage. True to form the place smells like burnt meat, but even as a vegetarian, it’s a comforting smell, mixed in with sweaty fur and soil and beer.

Triffany had gotten him into one of her favorite rock bands, the Velvet Knives, so he’d borrowed one of her old band tees to wear for the sets some of the local bands were playing tonight. He settles in, orders his potato skins and a coke, and watches as the first band gets their equipment set up. Once the music starts, everybody seems to be having a great time, clapping or singing along. That is, until the front row starts getting restless.

“This sucks!” calls a bright orange grumpus from the bar several seats down. His buddies laugh, a few of them hurling their own insults to the irritation of the other patrons. Several of them wear jackets with the letters of a nearby college fraternity on them. Rowdy college kids were nothing out of the ordinary though. Gramble was sure they’d be kicked out if they kept on heckling.

The band, in good humor, plays on, finishing their song before the singer decides to address them. “Sounds like we got a couple ornery hogs in the audience,” she says, grinning, showing her fangs. “Well, ain’t nobody keepin’ you here. If you go on squealin’, someone’s liable to shut you up.”

One of the frat kids hurls a bottle. It smashes against the back wall of the stage.

“Hey, now!” the band’s drummer calls, ducking. “C’mon, there’s no need for that!”

The grumpus next to Gramble, who seemed to be a part of that group, grabs his own bottle and starts to move his arm back. Gramble grabs him by the wrist, using his other hand to yank the bottle out of the other grump’s paw. “Cut it out!” he tells them, baring his own teeth. Out the corner of his eye he can see the two coolers the bar employed moving toward the bar. They’re both big, but so are the frat kids…

The guy he’d grabbed snarls, ripping his arm out of Gramble’s hold. He’s got golden fur, and two sets of slightly-crooked fangs. “You want me to throw you instead, pipsqueak?”

“You wanna lose a hand?” Gramble snaps in return. “Quit actin’ like you were raised by raccoons, you goddamn fool!”

He hears glass shatter as one of the other frat kids jumps off their stool, swinging a paw at the cooler who’d reached him. The rest of them seem to take this as a sign to do the same, converging on the coolers with teeth and claws bared. However, Gramble doesn’t see what happens next as the grumpus next to him grabs him under the arms and slams him onto the bar. Gramble yelps, coughing as the wind is knocked out of him.

“You hicks take everything too personal, you know that?” The frat kid growls, looming over Gramble. “Ain’t even worth it to bite you. I’d probably get some kinda disease.”

Gramble kicks him in the chest. He grunts and staggers a little, enough to give Gramble a second to sit up, only for the frat kid to come back and punch him directly in the nose. Gramble sees stars, reeling and nearly tumbling off the bar, digging his claws into the marked wood of the counter to keep himself from falling. Blood dribbles from his nose and lip, bitter and metallic. Hopefully the jerk had cut his knuckles on one of Gramble’s teeth.

Still dizzy from the punch, he feels strong hands seize him by the shoulders and twists around, blindly snapping his jaws shut over frat kid’s arm. The frat kid curses, grabbing Gramble by the neck with his free hand. He digs his claws into the thick ruff surrounding it, either to try and yank Gramble’s jaws off or strangle him. Gramble had let his fur grow long and shaggy around his neck and shoulders and it thankfully keeps those claws from getting in too deep.

“Asshole! You’re gonna wreck my jacket!” he hears the frat kid cry as they struggle together. Maybe, Gramble thinks, he should have thought of that before starting a bar fight. In the darkness of the roadhouse he can see the other kids still embroiled in a brawl with the coolers and several of the other patrons, though it’s impossible to tell who’s on what side by now. Nothing he can see but a lot of flying fur and flashing fangs under the neon lights. He shoves the frat kid’s arm away from his neck, wincing as those claws tear some of his fur out.

A building roar from outside catches the attention of some of the patrons, who extract themselves from the brawl and look towards the door. It’s the guttural growl of a motorcycle, a huge one from the sound, drawing closer until it stops in the parking lot and sputters out. Most of the patrons scurry back to their tables, leaving the frat kids standing by the bar, puzzled and disheveled. The guy holding onto Gramble lets him go so he slides off the bar and falls onto the floor with a thud, knocking one of the stools over.

“What?” he hears one of them grunt.

The doors swing open as another grumpus enters, ducking slightly just to get through the doorway. Even from the other side of the room, Gramble can see she towers head and shoulders above most of the other patrons and is broader by at least half, and these were not small grumpuses. Each thump of her dinner-plate-sized paws on the floor makes the cutlery laid out on the tables jingle musically as she approaches. Her fur is the color of pine needles. The bar lights glint ruby in her eyes.

She frowns down at the frat kids, at their neon orange leader. “Is there a problem, here?” Her voice is a deep, husky growl, the sort you could feel in your ribs. In the bar lights Gramble can see the glimmer of a badge pinned to her leather jacket.

“No problem,” the leader holds his hands up defensively, a cowed smile on his face. She doesn’t even have to bare her own teeth. Her sheer bulk is enough. “We were just havin’ a good time.”

“I know your kind. You’re too stupid to have a good time.” She lashes out, grabbing a fistful of his scruff and dragging him towards the door like a kitten. He briefly tries to struggle before giving up, letting her hurl him out of the roadhouse like a sack of stale hamburger buns. As she turns back to the rest of the group, they sheepishly file out, the one Gramble had bitten clutching his bleeding arm.

“Thank you so much for comin’ by, officer Timberheart,” Gramble hears the bar’s owner (not Champy himself, but his son, Shester) say as he emerges from the office he’d been hiding in. Timberheart, huh, Gramble thinks to himself. So that was her name. It sounds so sturdy. A perfect fit for her.

“Aw, it’s no problem,” Ms. Timberheart tells him. “I was already in the neighborhood.”

“Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

“Maybe next time, but thanks.”

With the commotion now died down, the conversation of the other guests begins to filter back in as everyone takes their seats again, resuming whatever they’d been doing before the fight had started. Gramble starts to pick himself up but stumbles, grabbing for one of the barstools. Maybe he’d been hit harder than he thought…

The noise gets Timberheart’s attention. She turns towards him, picking up the downed stool as she crouches. Even now she towers at least a good two feet over him when he’s standing. He blinks up at her concerned expression. She’s got a very soft face, now that he can see it clearly. Her eyes are big and gentle, her features framed by her thick, fluffy coat. Her nose is even shaped like a heart.

“You alright there?” She asks him. “Looks like they roughed you up good.”

“Ah…” Gramble’s not sure if he’s still reeling from the punch, but his stomach for sure feels knotted up, and he hadn’t even been hit there. “…y-yeah, I’m alright. I tried to stop one of ‘em from throwin’ stuff at the band. He didn’t appreciate it...”

“Good of you to try.” She grabs a handful of napkins from the counter, handing them to him. “Here, get yourself cleaned up. I swear, these out-of-towners think they can just swagger in here like they own the place, cause a ruckus and then leave when things start to get a lil’ too spicy.”

Gramble presses the napkins to his bleeding nose, noting with a twinge of disappointment that she’s got a gold wedding band around one of her fingers. Ah, well. Nothing stopping him from getting to know her. “I dunno how some folks can act like that… Like they were raised by wild animals.”

“That’s a little unkind to wild animals, don’t you think?” She chuckles. “What’s your name? Haven’t seen you around, I don’t think.”

“Oh, it’s… I’m Gramble.” Sniffling, Gramble smiles, hoping there’s no blood still on his teeth. “I guess I’m kinda new in town. Been livin’ here for about a year, now.”

“Gramble? You’re a friend of Wambus and Triff’s, ain’tcha? They said they were entertainin’ some sorta house guest when I saw ‘em a while back. Anyway.” She offers him a massive paw, one he could easily fit both his own in with room to spare. “Name’s Beautricia, but everyone just calls me Boots.”

Gramble accepts the paw, giving it a firm shake. “Nice to meet you, Boots! I hope I’ll see you around?”

“Oh, you will.” She smiles, showing just a hint of her fangs. “Take care now, Gramble. Enjoy the rest of the show.”

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire Ch. 3

Ignition

@emrysaf

You’ve decided. You’re going to marry Maki. 

You’re going to marry her and adopt Sputter and Flare, and you’ll all live happily ever after in the cathedral and- 

You’re broken out of your thoughts when Maki smacks you so hard you literally see stars and throws you on the ground. 

“... owe.”

If everything else hadn’t cemented the fact that you were really living inside Fire Force, the pain of Maki’s fist and the hard concrete under your cheek sure would have. Holy hell, how was she so strong?

You roll over on your back to look up at her. 

“I bet,” you begin, “that you could bench press me if you really wanted to.”

Maki’s cheeks pink and she huffs down at you. “Why aren’t you using your pyrokinesis? Do you think I can’t handle it?”

I have no idea how to do that! 

“Nope, Nope! I’m sure you could wipe the floor with me, it’s not that miss!” You said quickly. “I was just in awe of you, sorry,” you salute quickly, and watch pink crawl across Maki’s face. 

So cute!! 

“H-honestly! At least use your spear!” 

You perk up. Spear? The Sun Spear? Is that what you have here? An answer! Finally! An answer! 

Maki takes your surprise for something else. “No one told you that they’d sent it over ahead of you? You should really keep better of your gear.” 

You dip your head quickly. “Yes, yes. Sorry. Can you show me where it is, please?” 

“Sure,” Maki smiles at you, “We’re about done for now, anyhow. Let’s go back inside and wash up. Sister Iris and Shinra should be waiting.” 

Maki takes you back into the cathedral, away from the training area on the roof. The cathedral really is pretty run down. The walls could use a good scrubbing, the floor boards either need to be replaced or are missing entirely, and there’s a lot of cracks in the tile and missing corners. The windows are fine, if not dusty, and the stained glass pieces are really beautiful. The whole place smells faintly of burnt wood and gun oil. It’s not bad, but its certainly unfamiliar. Everything is so vivid. The way it smells. The sound of the building settling, and the birds outside, and the voices of your new comrades. 

It’s amazing. 

Kinda terrifying, but crazy cool too. 

After a quick shower for each of you Maki shows you to the weapons room, where a long, thin case is rested against a wall between two racks of guns. Obi’s shield is propped up in one corner, along with a couple of his weird stabbing things that he puts infernals to rest with. You’ve been here two days now, and you’ve seen him use it twice.

You don’t know how, but you know instinctively that that case belongs to you. 

You go to it. There’s a strap along the back, like the kind on a violin case. You carefully set it on a table, mindful of the bullets stacked on top of it. With a few clicks you undo the buttons on either end and open up the case. Inside is a long staff, deep red in color and capped at the bottom with copper colored metal that curves into a diamond point. On the opposite end is a thin band of the same metal, that reveals the inside to be hollow. 

You pick it up carefully, testing its weight in your hands. It feels natural. Even though you’ve never actually fought with a spear before your body knows where to hold it, and how to spin it around elegantly until you’re facing Maki again. Your body knows how much space you’re taking up, and how not to hit the walls, while your brain geeks out over the fact that you’re actually holding the Sun Lance. 

So cool! 

Is it conceited to say that you’re super cool? Or that this was hella badass? 

You were almost bouncing on your toes you were so excited. 

“Wow, I didn’t know you missed your spear this much,” Maki smiled at you. “You look good with it.” 

“Aha, you think so? It’s just nice to have it I guess. This has been, I dunno. An adventure already. I’m in a strange place, with strange people, and I’m in an awfully dangerous situation. It’s been an adjustment, ya know?” 

You feel like a fool for rambling, but Maki smiles at you kindly. 

“I understand. Even though I was raised in a military family, it took me a while to get used to life as a fire soldier too. Don’t worry too much about it, and you know, we’re always here to help. It’s not like you have to go it alone.” 

You’re heart warms with her words. “Yeah. Thank you, Maki. You’re really a nice person.” 

Once the Sun Lance is safe in its case the two of you leave the armory, and make your way to the dorm rooms. 

Since the company is so small, each person gets their own room. In bigger companies you would be in actually dorms, or barracks, but the eighth only has Obi, Hinawa, Maki, Sister Iris, Shinra, and yourself. Arthur will be here soon too, and Tamaki. Your small company will grow soon. 

Your own room ended up being at the top of one of the towers on the west side of the cathedral, opposite of the garage. Which meant that last night, when the alarm had gone off, you’d been the last to arrive at the Matchbox. Near the garage are the locker rooms, and the communal showers, although there’s more bathrooms scattered through the base. 

In the center of the cathedral is the courtyard where Sister Iris purifies herself, and grows flowers. 

It’s really a nice place. 

“Thank you,” you say again, and Maki nods to you and leaves you to climb the steps on your own. You shut the door and lock it behind you. 

Your room is scant, all things considered. A bunk bed it pushed into each corner, with a desk underneath it. You’ve claimed the one nearest to the window. There’s a wardrobe on the opposite side, and a small, stocky book shelf. 

You need to hang up some pictures or get a rug or something. It’s entirely impersonal. 

You rest your Sun Lance up against the corner by the window and go to sit at the desk under your bed. You’ve already unpacked your few belongings into the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk, including the diary from ‘Fuyuki’. 

Your ‘sister’. The game honestly hadn’t told you a whole lot about her. Just that she disappeared, and what few flashbacks you would have now and again. Like the one you got when you touched your ring and the lighter.  

You open it up with careful hands. 

Inside the handwriting is familiar, even if the words aren’t. There’s no mistaking your hand writing. It looks like a serial killer in a movie has left a ransom note made out of letters cut out of magazines. 

I wonder if there’s cereal in the kitchen. 

You always think better when you’re snacking. 

To keep your thoughts in order, you scatterbrain.

<3 Fuyuki 

 The first entry is dated for 193 AC. After the Cataclysm. It’s 198 now, so this was given to MAIN (to you?) five years ago. That would have been right before she graduated the fire academy and joined her company. A year before she disappeared, around 194. 

It feels invasive to read the diary of the person whos life you’ve taken over, but you need answers and you don’t have a lot of options here. 

I can’t believe Fuyuki gave me a diary! That’s so lame, and super girly. I don’t really want to write in it, but she gave it to me so I guess I should? Even if I am kinda mad at her. She left to go to school years ago and she never comes home! She’s so mean but then she’s nice and its so frustrating! Not fair. Stupid sister. 

But i’ll try i guess. There’s not much else to do in the house. None of the other kids really wanna play with me, and the Yagi’s are busy watching the littler kids. And maybe i’ll have kids and their kids will have kids will have kids will have kids and i’ll be their super cool ancestor and they’ll read this for inspiration or something. 

Good god, how old were they when they started writing this? Twelve? How old even were you? 

Fuck it. 

You kept reading. They/you weren’t a regular writer, with long months going between entries. Some of them were sad, some of them were happy, most of them were angry. They had a lot of complicated feelings on the sister who had abandoned them to what was basically a group home outside Asakusa, and then bitterness at themselves for being so angry when she disappeared. But most of it wasn’t that useful. It was about grades and teachers, and grief. They got into a lot of fights, and they were something of a scrapper. They were briefly enrolled in martial arts classes, but they had to quit because they were too rough with the other kids. So they were a scrapper, but that wasn’t anything related to fire. 

You rubbed your temples and glared at the diary. How did it answer your questions but leave you with more? 

Why is this my life now? 

So much here didn’t make sense, nonetheleast the fact that you were here to begin with. Well. At least you finally knew what your pyrokinesis was right? Even if using it was nearly impossible, and you couldn’t make sense of everything. 

Of course, there were plenty of things in this world that didn’t make sense. Like how sound could turn fire into ice. 

Bringing back the dead made more sense than that! 

You cross your arms and glare at the diary. So far the only useful bit is the part where you’ve had some decent training. Everything else is just the most vague information about the investigation into her sister’s disappearance. That much you already knew, although you didn’t have time to read everything in it. There were big gaps that you just knew were holding important information! 

At a loss, you flipped to the very last written on page, halfway through, and froze. 

Staring back at you was your own face. A small picture. It was your resume for the squad assignments, with your own check boxes and preferences listed. Underneath it was the list you had written before, of Everything You Knew. It was short, with little screen caps here and there. You flipped the page and found it filling itself in with ink that didn’t come from a pen, finishing up what it started on the page before. 

A new page started, this one listed your stats. 

In game there were a hundred levels. You had gotten maybe halfway through? A third if you rounded down. And it listed your level at 40. Underneath had your attack power, defense, stamina, agility, and your special moves. 

You were weirdly well rounded. Three out of five bars for everything, except the SM, which only had one. 

But, you hadn’t put that there! 

You quickly flipped it back and forth before you went to the very, very last page in the diary. On the back cover the ink finally finished filling out. A progress bar. 

You stared at it for a long, long time, trying to work over everything was happening. 

So. 

Now you knew what you could do. Just not how to do it. 

You were out of options at this point. You were just going to have to suck it up. 

You were going to have to ask someone for help directly. 

 ~

Shinra looks up from his work when you plop into the seat across from him, your arms crossed across your chest. It would be a lie to say you’re not nervous. You’re not even totally sure how you’re supposed to ask these questions, but you don’t have any other way to go about this any more. 

You tried the diary. You’ve spent two and a half days trying to get your ignition ability to work without help. Admittedly, you hadn’t even know how your ability was meant to manifest at the time, but even now you can’t get it to work.  

“Oh, hey there,” Shinra offers you an awkward smile. You grin right back, trying to project as much happy-go-lucky-nothing-wrong-here-!-  as you can. It’s made easier by the fact that prior to a few days ago, no one here had known you as anything more than a passing acquaintance. 

“Hi Shinra. I’ve got a weird question for you,” you announce bluntly. 

Shinra looks a little more wary, and he’s starting to smile. 

“Oh yeah? What is it?” 

“Ah, it’s pretty simple actually. How do you activate your abilities?” 

“Huh?” 

“How do you-” 

“No, I heard you,” he holds up his hand to cup you off. “It’s just a weird question.” 

“Hey man, I told you it was gonna be one.” 

You stare at each other for a long minute before Shinra huffs and looks towards the ceiling. He might not be the best person to ask. Maybe you should ask Maki, but Shinra makes you feel secure and you trust him more than anyone else just yet. 

“How do I activate my abilities? I dunno. I guess for me it’s more like I have to turn it off.” 

You tilt your head, listening intently to Shinra. 

“When I was a kid… I had a hard time controlling my flames. They started up suddenly, and burned through my shoes and pants. I ended up wearing these extinguisher boots, and shorts, so I wouldn’t destroy everything around me. It took a long time to figure out what was going on, but someone finally explained it to me. For a lot of third generation pyrokinetics, the thing that triggers out ability is the memory of the first time they happened.” 

You falter. “But, wait. Didn’t yours activate when-” 

“Yeah,” he cuts in, shooting you a grin that’s anything but happy. Your heart clenches in your chest. 

“Oh god, Shinra…” That meant that every time he used his powers, he had to remember his mother’s ‘death’ and his brother's disappearance. He had to think of pain and fear and grief, and he used his flames so often-

“It’s okay,” he cuts in. You can’t imagine what kind of face you’re making. “It was painful at first, and it still is, but it’s a good reminder for what I’m fighting for, and why I’m working so hard towards that goal. I will find a way to stop human combustion. I will make sure no one else ever has to grieve the way I did.”  

“Shinra,” you say softly. “You really are something.” 

Shinra tries to shrug off your words, but his smile is a little more genuine. “I just wanna be a hero.” 

“You will be,” you promise him. It’s all you can do not to tell him the truth then and there. His mother is alive, and suffering. His brother is alive, and suffering. 

They need help. 

But you hold your tongue. You don’t have any way of proving it to him, and there’s already so many things that are different here than they were in the game, or the show. Your presence being one of them. 

You let out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.” 

Shinra shakes his head. “What made you ask?” 

“Honestly?” you rubbed the back of your neck, “I’ve been having trouble using my abilities since we left the academy. I thought maybe if I asked you how you do it, I might be able to figure it out.” 

Shinra looks startled. “Really? I guess that explains why you haven’t used them in the last few days. You never really held back when we were training.” 

“Sorry to disappoint?” you offer lamely. “I just can’t figure it out.” 

“Well… Have you thought about when you first activated your powers?” 

“That’s just it,” you say sadly. “I don’t remember when it happened at all. So that’s not really an option for me.” 

“Oh.” 

You frown, and draw in on yourself. You can’t help it. You have no way to activate the powers you now know you have, and you’re in a bad place to be powerless in general. Not to mention these people are going to expect you to help, and you can’t help, and if you can’t help then- 

Shinra’s hands land on your shoulders, startling you. It’s a warm touch, one that sinks into you with comfort and kindness. Shinra looks seriously at you, his red eyes bright and intent. 

“Whatever happens, I know you’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you as much as I can. Even if I have to protect you in missions for now. So put your trust in me for now, okay?” 

Your heart thumps hard in your chest and heat spreads through your body. It grows hotter and hotter, centering somewhere in your chest and your back. 

Light blooms behind you and you barely turn your head to see a flicker of white fire over your shoulders, wings stretching over your back. They’re small, going no further down than you’re elbows and no further up than your jaw, pale and white and glowing. 

You recognize the feeling in your chest with a start. 

It’s care. Friendship. You want to help them. You want to fight for them and earn and keep their trust. The flickering embers of love bloom into a fire across your shoulders and flutter with undistinguished feather’s. 

~ ~

A/N So! Phoenix is my favorite power, but everyone else seemed inclined towards the Sun Lance, so I smashed them both together!

If you’re so inclined, let me know what you think :D

[enviedear]

secrets that i keep → peter parker

part two to this fic.

DESCRIPTION ⌙ it’s almost peter’s birthday and you’re searching for the perfect gift.. and the perfect way to exact you new mission. but peter’s curiosity and your habit of loosing things might make this mission a fail. 

PAIRING ⌙ peter parker x fem!reader

WORD COUNT ⌙ 1.6k

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“he’s impossible mj!” you groan, placing the toy lightsaber back on its shelf. “i mean good god, i went so far as to call him.. babe, last night. and he still hasn’t picked up that i like him.”

she shrugs, looking around the lego store, “i don’t know dude. it’s peter, you’re going to have to be a little more straightforward.”

“i can’t.” you huff.

“then stop complaining. if you won’t do anything about it then it’s your own issue. and please, make it an internal one. i don’t want to hear about your thirst for my ex.” she smirks.

you roll your eyes. of course, she was right. subtlety was not going to land you the boy. you really didn’t know how to land peter. no amount of shy flirting was going to show him you liked him. so here you are, in one of the busiest shopping areas in midtown searching to find him the perfect gift for his birthday.

your idea was that if you gave him something both special and romantic, he’d have to see you were enamoured by him. hopefully.

but if he still couldn’t figure it out then you’ve already prepared a sappy love letter for him. you were just really wishing it wouldn’t have to come to the letter. no amount of breathing exercises would be able to calm your nerves if it came to that. 

just the thought of him reading all of those three am romantic thoughts you possessed.. unnerved you. 

you found it much more enjoyable for the thing to stay in your back pocket. away from the world.

“well y/n, shopping’s been cut short. ned just texted me saying that he and peter are ready for movie night.”

you sigh, “text ned that we need at least another hour. i don’t want to leave until i find the perfect gift. i dunno make something convincing up like… we got caught in traffic?”

mj gives you a deadpan look, “y/n we walked here.”

“okay and then we took an uber home.. easy fix.” you say, craning to look at items on the top of the shelf.

“okay well you can stay here and search while i take my happy ass to peter’s. i’m not eating cold takeout.” she smiles sarcastically. 

you bow your head, “i’ll stop for the day. but only because i don’t want to walk there alone. our search begins again tomorrow.”

she nods, happy to be the victor of your little disagreement.

the walk to peter’s apartment is nice. you and mj talk about the adventures you both want to take for the remainder of summer break. the air is warm and the sun shines brightly as though it’s making up for its absence in winter. you’re feeling really peaceful and at ease.

that is, until you walk into peter’s apartment.

“hey mj! hey y/n!.” the boy smiles as he opens the door.

he’s completely shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, and hair wet. you almost forget to greet him as you stare at him.

“put on a damn shirt parker.” mj grumbles, pushing past him and into the living room. leaving the two of you alone.

“uh, i- well, i’m just gonna follow mj, but nice pectorals peter. glad i was able to see them at,” you look down at your phone. “four pm.. this fine afternoon.”

he gives you a weird look but keeps his smile on his face, “pectorals?”

you wave your hand dismissively at him and rush to meet your two other friends.

nice pectorals? why the fuck would you say that? anything would have been better than that.. it wasn’t even funny.

you take a seat on the couch and turn to ned on the armchair, “what have you been getting into?”

he grins, “well, i just finished all my summer work, so now i’m going to start on the TIE fighter lego set. my mom bought it all the way back in december and i finally have time for it so.. might as well.”

mj looks up at the two of you from her spot on the floor, “the real question here is, who’s turn is it to pick a movie?”

you furrow your brows in thought. last time was mj, who picked sweeney todd. before her was peter, who picked back to the future. and before him was ned, who made you sit through the notebook. and by sit through you mean absolutely ball your eyes out.

“y/n’s picking the movie tonight.” peter says, sitting down beside you.

“what’s it gonna be then, asswipe?’ mj asks, clicking the tv on.

you think for a moment. you could go the easy route and pick something scary so that you had an excuse to snuggle up to peter. but he’s a jumper and you’d rather not deal with trying to subtly cuddle someone while they hop around due to a movie. so instead, you go for something classic.

“you guys ever heard of big fish?” you smile.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“i didn’t expect it to be that.. emotional.” ned sniffs, eyes stuck on the credits.

you laugh through your drying tears, “right? but hey at least it was a good movie.” 

peter chuckles, head on your shoulder, “good pick y/n. i mean, ned and i liked it. mj’s been out since the ten minute mark.”

you lay you head gingerly on his, “i don’t mind, i did kind of wear her out with all the walking today.”

you look at mj, who’s sleeping peacefully. her head is on one of may’s throw pillows and her legs are up, resting on the armchair along with ned.

“it’s not fair i’m going to have to wake the beast and get her all the way to my house..” you grumble.

ned laughs, “i’d say i was sorry for you, but i’m just glad it’s not me. anyways, i’m taking a shower. and peter,” he looks at his friend. “you better not have used up all of my conditioner. i left it here. i did not give it to you.”

peter gives him a look, “i didn’t use it, i promise.”

with that, ned rushes off to the bathroom. it’s then you become acutely aware of the pretty boy leaned against you. it causes you to feel light. the works. butterflies and heated face.

“wanna split the last two fortune cookies?” you ask, trying to hide your hot face from him.

“sure, they’re still in the takeout bag in the kitchen. you can grab a drink too if you’re thirsty.” he smiles, moving to let you up.

you make your way into the kitchen and find the left over cookies. without thinking you slip them into your back pocket. you open the fridge only to gasp in abrupt realization.

the note.

you take the cookies back out and feel. no note.

oh dear god. somewhere out there is your disgusting display of affection. 

it could be anywhere.

you groan. where was the last place you had it?

was it the lego store?

it had to be, before you went in you checked your pocket and it was there. and so what if you dropped it there, if anything the employees just threw it away, and maybe that’s for the better. you’d probably die if peter ever actually read anything you wrote. you let out a sigh of relief.

everything’s gonna be fine, y/n.

you walk back into the living room, peter’s hunched over looking at something you can’t see.

“i’m back with cookies!” you exclaim, startling him.

he gives you a shaky smile and takes one out of your hand, “ya know y/n.. if there’s anything you want to tell me, i’m all ears.”

you furrow your brows, “um, well i guess i should tell you that fortune cookies have only about 15,000 unique fortunes. it’s not a lot if you take into account how many are produced daily.”

he nods and you break open your cookie, “well, go on. what’s a fortune cookie without sharing the fortune with your friend.” you giggle.

you look down at the tiny slip of paper and pull it from the cookie, turning it over to inspect it.

‘nothing is impossible to a willing heart.’ 

you smile and look at peter, who’s staring at his fortune as if it could crumble in his hands at any minute.

“what does yours say, peter?” you inquire, scooting closer to read it.

on the paper, in blue lettering, ‘this person’s love is just and true. you may rely on it.’

peter looks at you, brown eyes as soft as a puppies. his hair is a little messy but so perfect. 

“i read your letter. it.. it was on the couch and..” he trails off.

you suck in air, “oh.”

“y/n.. i,”  he falters, and sighs, “fuck it.”

once those words are off his lips, those lips connect to yours. sweet and soft. his hands clutch your face bringing you closer, as close as possible. you feel as though you come to life in his arms. the kiss continues and when he finally pulls away you can’t knock the smile on your face off.

“i like you too.” he says simply, smile matching yours.

you’re about to speak when you hear a gag.

mj.

“this couldn’t have happened in a different room? i mean, to wake up and see two ninnies eating each others’ faces. utterly revolting.”

“i thought it was sweet,” ned says from the hallway. “my airpods were still playing ‘best part’ and it really added to the moment. well at least for me.”

peter groans, “so you were both watching me.. kiss her? that’s so weird.”

mj scoffs, “i was forced. ned’s just a sap.”

your smile doesn’t leave your face as you watch the people you love most. sure mj was a little dark, ned was a tad sappy, and sure, peter was a dork. but they were your people. 

and most importantly, peter was your person.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

tags:

@slytherinambitious​ @watson-emma​ @urbanwirter​

[bunnys-beetlejuice-blog]

time for another goofass take it easy nonsense fic chapter! you like ghouls and demons and weird family dynamics? come on in and have some fun! this is set in my BJ Deetz au, so Beetlejuice is a teen, adopted by the Deetz family. There, you're all set, go read.

There’s a moment where they’re all staring at each other, siblings and their sudden guest all in the know, or at least partially, about secrets the others are holding, and none of them seem sure what their first move should be. Then Emily comes up, and puts her hands on her children’s backs, and leads them to the front door. “Kids, this is your dad’s cousin, Ash. Ash is going to be staying with us for a few days,” she tells them. “Ash, this is BJ, and Lydia.” “Hi,” Lydia squirms. “What’s good?” BJ tries to look casual. Ash, for his part, doesn’t seem inclined to mention the very clear demonstration of magic BJ had pulled in front of him, hardly a few hours ago. “Good to finally, officially, meet you kids,” he says, and then sticks out a hand to shake. BJ takes it, is given a shake, and Ash tilts his head. “You run hot. Feeling sick, BJ?” “Nah, just.. Always a little warm,” the demon pulls his hand back, and Emily smiles. “We’ll have dinner in a bit. Charles always cooks, he’s a great chef. Kids, can you show your uncle to the guest room?” She nudges them, and trapped by social convention and an inability to say no to Emily, BJ huffs, but nods. “Yeah, sure. Follow me, then.”

He’s so used to floating around the house that he has to really remind himself not to lift his legs and just levitate, like he normally does, and the feeling of his body physically trudging up the stairs is almost alien to him. Lydia, weird kid she is, scrambles up the stairs on all fours in front of them, and Ash follows dutifully behind them, as BJ leads him up to the second floor and then down the hall, to the guest room- the room across the hall from his own. He opens the door, gestures to it, and Ash steps in, looks around. “Well, it beats a motel six, that’s for god damn sure,” he says, setting his bag on the bed, and then he turns to look at the kids.

“So. Should we talk?” he quirks a brow. “Up here, where your parents can’t hear?” “Oh no, don’t tell me you’re a creepy kinda uncle,” BJ grimaces. “We’re family. Getchur head outta the gutter, kiddo. Now. That was some disappearing act you two pulled. Never seen anything like it, before.” “What can I say, I love illusions,” BJ tries. “M’gonna be the next Houdini.” “I bet. You wanna share how you did it?” “Magicians don’t reveal their secrets!” Lydia pipes up. The siblings are standing in the doorway, tense, as their newfound relative leans against one of the posters of the antique canopy bed frame. “That was a little more than stage magic. You learn to do that from the book?” Ash asks. BJ blinks. The monster hunter in front of them is still buying that he’s human. Okay.. okay. He can work with that. “Yeah, the book,” he agrees. “Pretty crazy, right?” “I’ve seen that book do wild things, but none of them ever good,” Ash tells them, arms crossed. “It might seem like a fun toy, giving you the ability to do stuff like that, but it’s like a snake, kid. It’s gonna turn on ya. Last thing I want is to have to ruin your daddy’s life by killing his two little treasures, when they get possessed and become deadites.”

BJ’s a little insulted on behalf of snakes, his aspect animal, but he understands the metaphor. Also, “You wouldn’t even hesitate?” he asks, and Ash shrugs. “I’ve taken out a lot of deadites. Once someone’s possessed, they don’t come back from it. No reason to go getting sentimental over who gets latched onto.” There’s a pain behind those hard dark eyes. “Don’t make me shoot the kid,” he nods to Lydia, who tries to match the cool guy vibe. “I’m not a kid, I’m eleven,” she argues, which doesn’t really help her case in the way she thinks it does. BJ puts a hand on her head. “No one’s doin’ anythin’ to Lydster,” he says, a growl in his gravelly voice, and Ash hardly reacts. “I’m tellin’ you, when this goes tits up, and it will, that I will be the one cleaning up the mess. And it’ll get a lot messier before it gets cleaner.” That doesn’t make much sense, but he gets the vibe uncle Ash is going for, at least.

“So if this book is so dangerous, why don’t you destroy it?” “You think I haven’t tried?” He sort of had assumed that, yes. “You can’t burn this thing, or drown it, or bury it. Whatever ancient evil powers it, doesn’t let it be destroyed. It’s humanity’s curse.” “You just sit around, practicin’ these kinda lines, or what?” “Funny. The book, BJ.”

BJ grimaces, but digs into his hoodie pocket, and impossibly, pulls an entire book out. Ash pauses, at that. “Wh-” BJ lifts the book, gives it another huff. The scent is a little addicting, honestly, but he passes it off to Ash, who takes it. “Got pretty cozy with this thing pretty fast,” the older man says. “You know it’s bound in human flesh, right?” Ooooh, that’s why it smells so good. Lydia, at least, has the sense to be disgusted. “Ewww, and I touched it,” she grimaces, and wipes her hands on BJ’s striped hoodie. “Guess th’ ink inside ain’t ink?” he asks, and Ash nods. “Human blood. Sort of cliche, but the ancient Sumerians weren’t askin’ me when they penned the damn thing, I guess.” Ooooh, again. No wonder he couldn’t read it. Ash finally takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and cracks the book open, thumbing through it. “Can you read what it says?” Lydia asks, curious, coming over to peer down at the book in Ash’s lap. “Sure!” and then a pause. “Well, not exactly, one hundred percent, all the way, no,” he admits. “I know a little, though.” “An’ you picked up ancient Sumerian where?” BJ asks, coming to stand behind Lydia. “I wouldn’t say I picked it up,” Ash avoids the question. “Just sort of learned enough through various means. My pronunciation is pretty good. I even remember most of the words.” That doesn’t instil a lot of confidence, but alright.

“Which passage did you read, to learn that teleportation trick?” Ash looks up at him, and BJ grimaces. “Uh, I dunno, it was.. In th’ middle, I think,” he lies, a bit poorly. Ash thumbs through the pages, and then pauses. “Wait, can you read ancient Sumerian?” He asks. BJ rubs at his neck. “I can speak enough Spanish to ask where a library is,” he says, and Ash squints. “Well then how the hell did it give you a weird demon power? You sure it was this book?” “Sure, I’m sure! This is only like, th’ third weird possessed demon book I’ve ever handled, it’s gonna be somethin’ in there that did it,” BJ says. “BJ is totally normal otherwise!” Lydia blurts. Smooth.

Ash closes the book, and stands. “Except that’s not true, is it?” Their uncle asks, studying the demon’s face. “Because in the alleyway, you pushed the power back. I’ve been chased through the woods by that thing, and I didn’t stand a chance. It was going to pounce, grab one of you, and you stopped it, somehow. And the deadite handed the Necronomicon over to you, when it’s goal was getting it away from me.” He takes a menacing step forward. The Deetz siblings take a collective step back. BJ’s got his hands on Lydia’s shoulders, and he maneuvers his kid sister behind him, quickly. “So what’s the deal, kid?” Uncle Ash’s glare is hard, and a little crazy. “Don’t go blowin’ smoke up my ass. I know when I’m being lied to.”

“Not immediately, which is pretty funny,” BJ says, and before they can argue, there’s a scream from downstairs. BJ scoops up Lydia, and Ash scoops up his green canvas duffle bag, and the two of them rush to the stairs, quickly, panic rising in BJ’s chest, because that scream? That’s Emily. you can read the rest right over HERE

[outerbonks]

complicated - jj maybank

Thanks for all the love on my last post, I really appreciate it ♡ let me know what you think of this one and if you think I should make more parts :)

Summary: You're a kook and JJ doesn't like you at all. That's what he wants everyone to believe anyway.

Word count: +2K

Warning (s): swearing, drinking

Masterlist ♡

Music pumped through the boneyard as you danced around with your friends, being a kook, you tried to avoid being on the pogue side of the island as much as possible, but keggers in the boneyard were impossible to pass up.

For the past fifteen minutes you'd been lost in the music, dancing and singing, admittedly buzzed from all of the cheap beer you'd drank throughout the night.

"Y/n! You came!" A voice called from behind you and you whipped around to see your friend Kie smiling brightly at you.

Giving her a big hug and returning her smile you nodded, "Yeah, great party!"

Kie was a sweetheart, you'd met her in school after her falling out with Sarah Cameron in the ninth grade, she was a breath of fresh air compared to some of the other snobs that attended the private high school and you both got along like a house on fire.

There was one issue with hanging out with her outside of school though. That issue was that her friends hated you- well, not all of them, only one of them actually, but he really really really didn't like you.

JJ Maybank has been a dick to you ever since he first met you. You don't remember doing anything to have pissed the hotheaded boy off but you never let his hostility fly.

Whenever he had something to quip at you, you had something just as snarky to throw back in his face. He didn't know anything about you yet felt the need to run his mouth about you as if he knew all of your deepest darkest secrets, when in reality the boy probably didn't even know your middle name.

At the beginning of your little rivalry with JJ, you had tried to be the bigger person and show him that you weren't like the other kooks. Of course he was having none of it.

So when Kie grabbed your hand and exclaimed, "Come sit with me and my friends!" Your stomach dropped and even in your tipsy state you knew that it wasn't a good idea.

"I dunno, Kie. I don't wanna fight with anyone tonight…" You trailed off with a pout, you'd had a shitty week at work and tonight was supposed to allow you to unwind and not be stressed out by a boy who hated you for reasons you didn't even know.

"Look, I'll handle JJ if he says anything okay? Just please come on, John B said he missed you." Kie pleaded with you, a triumphant 'yes' exiting her mouth when you sighed in defeat and began walking with her in the direction of her friends.

When you got to the boys who were all sat on logs, John B perked up, the tall boy immediately standing up to greet you with a hug.

"I haven't seen you in forever! Why haven't you been hanging out?" John B asked you with a concerned face, holding you at arms length.

"We've been super swamped at work, lots of new people coming in for the summer so I picked up a few extra shifts to help out." You explained to him but turned your face in the direction where the scoff had just come from.

"As if you need any more money than you already get from mommy and daddy." JJ grumbled sarcastically, looking to get a rise out of you.

You meant what you said to Kie earlier about not wanting to get in a fight, you were too tired.

"It's volunteer work, actually." You muttered bitterly before taking a seat between Kie and John B.

Most of your weekends and now weekdays since school ended for summer were spent volunteering at the old folks home on figure eight. It wasn't too stressful, you get paired up with an old person and you keep them company for the day, play board games and do things for them. It doesn't sound so bad, is exactly what you were thinking when you applied for it, but the hours were long and the nurses that worked there were assholes.

You'd dealt with enough snarky douche bags this week, you didn't want to have to deal with the blond boy too. You'd be using energy you just didn't have.

Luckily the conversation moved on quickly and you were all laughing at something Pope said.

"Do you want another beer?" John B asked you, standing up.

"No thanks. I think I've had enough." You giggled up at him and he nodded his head in agreement with a smile before heading to the keg.

Once he left, JJ wasted no time in stealing his seat and plopping down beside you.

You let out an irritated sigh but didn't say anything, you knew what was about to happen.

"Want a hit?" He asked, showing you the joint he'd rolled. You couldn't help but look at him in confusion, him offering you anything other than a snide remark was uncharacteristic.

"I guess." You responded unsurely, only to get a click of his tongue in return, "Damn sucks you don't have a joint then."

In all fairness you should've seen it coming. Rolling your eyes you turned your face away from him as he lit up the weed.

While you were ignoring JJ and enjoying a conversation with Pope and Kie you were interrupted by a Touron who tapped you on the shoulder.

"Hey." You couldn't lie, the boy standing in front of you with a shy smile on his face was gorgeous.

You smiled brightly, looking up at him from your spot, "Hi there."

JJ watched with narrow eyes as the guy rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "I was wondering if maybe you'd want to dance with me for a bit?"

Before you could even respond, JJ threw an arm around your shoulder casually and looked at the poor boy dead in the eyes, "No. She doesn't."

It was your turn to narrow your eyes as the boy scurried away.

"What the fuck?" You seethed at JJ, knocking his hand off your shoulder and turning to face him.

The boy in question shrugged his shoulders innocently, "Didn't think you wanted to dance."

"How the hell would you know what I want? You don't even know me." The words were laced in venom and it was clear that you'd finally had enough, not allowing the blue eyed boy to get a word in as you exploded.

"I get it, ok? You hate me and that's fine. But don't for a second pretend to know what I'm about because you don't know shit about me." Your jaw was clenched and you delivered your words through gritted teeth, poking his chest roughly as you spoke.

JJ scoffed out a laugh, grabbing your wrist to stop your relentless poking, "I know exactly what you're about, princess."

Looking at him with pursed lips you snatched your wrist from his grasp and crossed your arms over chest, "Tell me." The demand came out stone cold and JJ's face was covered in confusion, "What?"

"Tell me what I'm about." The boy stared at you in bewilderment before cocking his head to the side and nodding, "Alright."

JJ cleared his throat before he started rattling off reasons as to why he hated you, "You're just like every other kook on this island, a spoiled brat who gets everything handed to you."

Shaking your head at his answer you leaned closer to him with a glare that made a chill run up his spine.

"No no no. We all know what a kook is JJ, no I want you to tell me what I'm about. C'mon, what's my biggest fear?" You pushed at his chest again, enjoying how he swallowed thickly and stayed quiet.

"What age was I when it all started going wrong? Why can't I wear dresses to parties? Huh?" The boy kept quiet, he didn't have an answer to any of your questions and the point you were making started to dawn on him.

"Come on! Since you know everything about what I'm about you must know the answers." 

JJ let out an aggravated huff and threw his hands up in defeat, "Well I don't, alright?" He shouted defensively.

Giving him a fake smile and nodding you stood up, towering over him now.

"Right. Because you don't fucking know me. So stop acting like you do when you've never even bothered to get to know me." You spat at him before storming away.

Kie and Pope watched with dissatisfied looks on their faces, "Man, you suck do you know that?" Kie sighed out as she watched you get smaller and smaller.

"Also you do know Y/n is like the sweetest person on the planet right?" John B chimed in, returning from the keg.

"Why do you hate her?" Pope asked, tilting his head in confusion, JJ not liking you had just been something they all accepted and never questioned.

JJ shrugged, chugging his drink and tossing the cup to the side, "She's a kook." 

Kie scoffed this time, "Yeah and? Everyone else loves her. I don't get why you always have to make her feel bad, she tried really hard to get along with you." 

JJ's feeling towards you were complicated, the rudeness between the two of you had admittedly started off as just banter and when he realized he'd been enjoying the back and forth a little too much he needed to regain his distance. No way in hell could he fall for a kook princess, even if you were one of the nicest people he'd ever met.

He's never felt bad about the remarks he threw you or arguments he caused because you always gave as good as you got. It pissed him off because it only made him admire you more. He didn't notice it was taking a lasting effect on you until your little outburst.

To top things off, Kie, Pope and John B were always gushing about how much fun you were to hang out with and how they wanted to hang out with you more often, truth be told he'd love to see you hanging around more but his pride just would not allow him to get close to you.

"Look, if it would make you all chill out I will go and I will propose a truce so you can all go back to macking on Y/n in peace." The boy offered and was met with a chorus of thank yous from his friends.

He had to jog up the beach until he eventually found you sitting on the sand, close to the shore line with a bottle of water, attempting to sober up before you went home.

"Hey, princess." JJ said, voice flat as he sat down beside you on the cold sand.

You glanced at him briefly and sighed, "I'm not up for a round two."

The boy shook his head, staring out at the ocean thoughtfully, "That's not why I'm here."

Furrowing your brows you turned your face toward his, "Then why are you here?"

He ran his fingers through his hair then met your eyes, "I'm sorry that I'm an asshole."

He never usually apologized, but then again, you never usually snapped either so you were both full of surprises tonight.

"I'm not sorry for snapping at you. You deserved it." You replied softly, returning your gaze to the water in front of you.

JJ let out an airy laugh, nodding in agreement. 

"I don't hate you by the way." He confessed quietly.

"Then why are you so mean all the time?" You asked in return.

Instead of answering your question he posed a new one to you, "Do you wanna know what I'm about?"

You nodded, determined to get to the bottom of the boy beside you.

"I'm about keeping people at a distance. I do that by being an asshole. I'm about caring too much about my reputation to let myself be nice to you." To let myself fall for you. He wanted to say, but he couldn't put all of his cards on the table like that.

Nodding in understanding you let out a weak, "Pogues vs kooks… right." You knew for a fact that if you were considered one of the pogues JJ would've never had an issue with you.

"Right." The boy confirmed with yet another nod of his head. 

A silence settled over you both before JJ stood up, dusting himself off, "Come hang out with us this weekend. The others want you to be there."

Giving him a weak smile and a nod you watched as he walked away. That boy would never fail to confuse you.

You just hoped that now that he told you he didn't hate you, that maybe he'd start acting like it.

Part 2

[orbitariums]

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟑)

part two

hope everyone is doing so lovely! i’m so excited to post this third chapter and i’m glad we’re on this journey together <3 thank u for reading!!! this chapter is supa long, please get a snack honey lol.

taglist is closed!

playlist

word count: 9.4k

warnings: age gap, sex work, dirty talk, straight filth, smut, squirting, toys, (virtual?) domination, cute dialogue!!!

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬

    Steve was flooded with morning meetings that whole day. Still you existed somewhere in the back of his mind, while he was filing through briefings and reports. He tried not to let the thought of you creep up, something he was unknowingly resisting because he didn't want what the two of you had to be bigger than it was.

But he was also trying to focus. He knew already, like muscle memory, that it would be impossible for this to become anything serious, anything beyond your work as a cam girl. You might have a connection, but you were just doing your job, and he was just satisfying himself. Right?

   And you knew too that this couldn't become anything serious. And it wouldn't, you had convinced himself. So he came out of the blue, so he surprised you. But he was still a customer. And while you had connections with your customers, it never went beyond the workplace. Though he still resided in the back of your mind.

   It wasn't until Steve was on break and heading down to the kitchen to make himself some food that he decided to fully address the events that had happened last night. When you asked to see him, he was almost scared at first-he felt that things could shift permanently because you had asked him that. But ignorance is bliss, so he'd brushed off the thought of that happening, and convinced himself it wasn't a big deal.

   But it had to mean something right? He could see himself going down a winding tunnel of you wanting to see him more and more, and the end would be catastrophe- that is, if he showed himself. But he knew he had more sense than that, could end things if necessary. It wasn't that serious, not yet.

And while he was nervous, he still thought of you with fondness, thinking of your youthful glow and how it seemed like you were drawn together in perfect timing, how much he liked talking to you and respected you. It wasn't all bad.

   The thought was enough to talk to somebody about it, except it wouldn't be Tony this time. Steve knew Tony's response would be straight forward - not to talk to her, and to find another cam girl. And he'd ask why Steve was accepting requests to talk with her about unrelated matters in the first place. And maybe the fact that Steve didn't want to hear that, didn't want things to be so straightforward and disciplinarian, should've been a warning. But he didn't listen. Instead, he went to go talk to Bucky about it.

    "Shoot," Bucky said after Steve told him he had something to tell him. Bucky stuffed practically an entire piece of toast in his mouth, his hand on his hip as he sat on the edge of one of the kitchen tables. With a full mouth he continued."'S it important?"

    Steve shrugged, holding a cup of coffee just below his beard, feeling it steam up his face. He took a big sip.

   "I dunno. I'm trying to decide that myself."

Bucky raised an eyebrow,

    "Well..."

Steve sighed, setting his coffee down and leaning against the counter beside Bucky so they could talk.

   "I met this girl. Well, met is a strong word," Steve cocked his head to the side, after considering the quirks of his situation. He then started to wonder if Bucky would even know how to help him with this situation, it was so oddly specific. He continued anyway, under the intense, questioning gaze of Bucky. "I... found this girl online. On a cam site."

   Bucky nearly choked on his toast, his eyebrows raised as far as they'd go,

   "You? On a cam site? You? You're on a cam site?"

The more Bucky repeated it, the more surprised he seemed to become, and Steve could only watch with amusement at his close friend's bewildered expressions.

   "You say it like I'm one of the cam girls," Steve joked, shaking his head, but Bucky only stared at him, incredulous.

   But then he came back down to earth with a slightly impressed shrug,

   "Well. I gotta admit, I never expected this from you, and you're my best man. But I guessed there had to be a reason you've been so much better these past few days, and there had to be some reason you weren't bringing it up. You know you can tell me anything, right?"

    Steve grinned,

   "It's not that I was keeping it from you necessarily. I just didn't think I should put it out there, even if it's just between the two of us."

Bucky smirked,

    "Captain America has a dirty little secret. I respect it."

Steve didn't say anything, but that was slightly true. Half of him wanted to keep things under wraps, the other half of him wanted it to be his own little secret, something that was only for him. You could say he wanted you all to himself, which wasn't untrue - during your public show, though he enjoyed it, it felt less personal and thus made him rethink his actions.

He wanted it one on one, wanted to know he was partially responsible to bringing you to that point, and that you brought each other to that point together, just the two of you. So, in some ways, it was his "dirty little secret."

   "The girl I watch, she's amazing. I mean, we had a real connection, since our first private session-"

    "Private session? Maybe I did teach you well all these years," Bucky nodded.

    "Actually, this was all Tony. Anyway, I've been watching her, and yesterday, after her show, she requested to talk to me. Not the other way around. She wasn't even doing private shows that day. Anyway, I accepted, and maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, but it didn't feel... wrong. I talked to her, and she said... she said she wanted to see me. As in through the camera."

   Bucky took a few moments to absorb and contemplate, and nodded slowly,

   "And you're wondering if that's as serious as your mind wants it to be."

   "Basically. I mean, I don't feel like this is something I have to avoid or be careful with. We're not declaring our love for each other. I'm just another customer. That's what I want to believe, at least."

   "I mean, you're always gonna be taking that risk. You're talking to someone who's as good as a stranger. And your 'connection', it's exactly what it sounds like. You're another customer, but you've just taken a liking to each other. As far as I'm concerned, that's okay. And as for her asking you to show yourself... it's tricky. I mean, I've been on my fair share of sites like that, but I'm not well versed in it. I don't want to say it's not serious just for it to end up being serious. You know how these things go," Bucky smiled softly, and Steve nodded, though his eyes seemed a bit troubled as he looked down at the floor.

    "Right..." he trailed off, folding his arms.

Maybe he just needed to hear that he shouldn't talk to you anymore, to ease his concerns. Maybe Bucky was right. It has the potential to be serious, but it might not be. He didn't know what to think.

    "I don't know bud, but the fact that you're asking me tells me it's been on your mind. And I know you, you don't let things stay on your mind long unless they're important. Could be that this is important to you," Bucky offered, but Steve waved his hand dismissively, a little too fast.

   "It's - it's not..."

    Bucky raised his brows,

   "You think about her?"

   "Sure," Steve shifted, folding his arms slightly. "But not more than my work or anything. I don't view her as a priority, Buck. It's normal that she'd be on my mind, I mean, this is all new to me. I'm stressing for no reason, aren't I?"

He decided he was stressing for no reason. He wasn't obsessed with you, wasn't head over heels for you. He wasn't placing you over his work. It was just the shock of the new situation, the unexpected, big bang of an introduction of you into his life -- that's what he convinced himself, to put his mind at ease.

Bucky raised his hands up,

     "Hey, I'm not assuming anything. And honestly Steve, if you are... thinking about her. I think that's good. As long as it's something healthy, I don't think you have anything to be worried about. You deserve some type of distraction, and maybe that's what she is. You don't have to worry about things getting too serious, trust me. You've got a little time on your hands, that's all."

Steve took Bucky's words to heart, absorbing them so they could soak up all his previous thoughts -- which would be squeezed out in a matter of time as the reality of your relationship revealed itself. He deserved a little distraction, though he valued you on a more humane level.

    He didn't have to worry himself about the potential it could have to become something serious and something dangerous. He was smart enough, had a strong head on his shoulders. He just had a little free time. That was all.

✺ ✺ ✺

   "I told him 'I wish I could see you through your camera'," you groaned, sprawled out on your bed, just hours before your next show that Friday. "Was that stupid?"

You pouted, your lips glossy and full, shoving chips into your mouth as you bitched and moaned into the phone. You were talking to one of the girls you'd met on girlsonfilm, named Jane, who went by Scream Queen. Her specialty was being an alt dominatrix girl, who attracted lots of submissive men. You admired her work, and you were close friends. She laughed on the other end,

    "Hon, it's not stupid. I wouldn't ask or tell a customer that, though. You've been doing this for some time too, but you're still learning."

You frowned, fiddling with your gold rose shaped necklace,

    "I know. I don't wanna scare him off."

    "Please, you won't. I guarantee he'll be on your show again tonight. Men don't scare from a beautiful woman like you, not easily."

You cooed, smiling to yourself,

   "Aw... bitch if you lived in Cali you would so feature on my show, I literally love you."

   "I love you!" she exclaimed. "We'd make hella money just by being in each other's presence on camera, it'd be crazy. I gotta fly out to Cali."

   "Right?" you chuckled.

   You felt a little more at ease now. You hadn't been thinking as much about Steve as he had been thinking about you, but that didn't mean he wasn't on your mind. He was a special customer to you, even though you'd only just gotten to know him. You just liked him in what felt like a more unique way. And ever since you'd brought up seeing him on his camera, you had some regrets. You felt like it made you seem needy, bringing up old habits.

   In your last romantic relationship, you were always wanting something, things that you shouldn't have had to ask for. But ever since you got out of that relationship, you had decided to be more self sufficient. That was part of the reason why you were financially independent and constantly did so much work. You no longer depended on others for certain things, not like you had before.

    But in addition to reminding you of old habits, you felt awkward about the whole situation because you didn't want him to feel pressured or uncomfortable either. You didn't want it to feel like you wanted something more because you'd asked to see him. As far as you were concerned, the two of you, especially yourself, were far from wanting something more. For your own safety. You might have really liked him, but at the end of the day, he was a customer and that was that.

   "Well," you flopped onto your stomach. "I feel better now, so thanks. I'm doing a couple private shows after my giveaway, maybe I'll see him again. Or... hear him, rather."

    "If he does end up showing himself, keep me posted. I wanna know if he's as sexy as he sounds."

   "Oh trust me, I will. Honestly, if he keeps watching my shows, I wanna teach him how to dirty talk. I think then it'll be something serious," you joked, shaking your head. "Alright, well I gotta get ready. Bye bitch!"

   "Bye biiitch, have fun tonight, I'll be tuning in."

  You blew her a kiss and hung up, your spirits lifted after your brief conversation. You started getting ready for your next show, hoping that Steve would continue to tune in. Unbeknownst to you, he was anticipating your show tonight as well, though a small part of him was hesitant - should he continue to watch regularly? He'd let himself indulge. One more night couldn't be an issue.

   When you came on, you were excited to see that the amount of viewers had increased. You figured that since you were advertising a giveaway of your underwear, more people would feel inclined to join, take their chances. You smiled when Steve joined and waved,

   "Hey, Steve! How's it going?"

Steve — GrantRoberts Good. How are you?

    "I'm good, thanks for asking. Alright, hi everyone, thank you so much for joining! I see we've got some new viewers tonight, so nice to meet you. I'm sure you all know that today is a very special day, because I'll be giving away —" you stood up so the camera could see below your waist, showing that you were wearing a pair of purple lace panties, the pair you had been boasting about the week before. "These!" you chimed.

     Steve raised his brows at the cheeky way you operated, looking over the pair. They were cute, looked expensive. The butterfly design on the underwear was detailed and there were white gems on either side at the top. You had said last week that these were a favorite among your viewers, he understood why.

     You explained the rules of the giveaway and how it would be working, and explained that there was a link pinned in the chat box to sign up for entries. Once you posted that link, tokens and sign up notifications came flooding through. You watched with a full smile, before slowly getting to the show.

   Steve decided he wouldn't be entering the giveaway, to keep his own discretion, and because although he definitely saw the appeal, he wasn't big on keeping someone else's underwear unless he knew them in real life.

    You started by rubbing yourself through your panties, making a big deal of how wet you were, how you were soaking through the panties and wouldn't be washing them. That was how you knew you'd get people to pay up and enter your giveaway. Steve watched in amazement at the way you moved, your delicate fingers gently running over your clit through the lace panties, slipping the panties to the side every once in a while to dip your fingers inside of yourself, proclaiming how tight you felt and how much you wanted more than just fingers inside of you to stretch you out.

     Needless to say, you put on a show, and you really were soaking through your panties by the time you were done. Steve lost track of how many times he came, and it was then that he realized that maybe he liked this side of you more than what he had seen before. It was teasing and tantalizing, almost theatrical, except you were really taking your time to please yourself.

And for some reason, it practically made him short circuit. The idea of him realizing that he had more sexual interests than he was aware of basically seduced him. And knowing that he was coming to these realizations because of you made him feel hungry and crazed.

     He liked how you were barely touching yourself, teasing yourself yet still dripping through your panties, making a show out of a little thing. He kept a slow pace to match your own, edging himself and feeling grunts get caught in his throat each time he stopped himself from coming.

    You were absolutely mystifying, drawing him in more and more in every way. Your soft moans, quieter and more needy than usual, were like music to his ears. He loved the way your legs shook when you had to hold off an orgasm for the purpose of the show, so that you could hold off and increase the value of your giveaway, lengthen the time you gained tips and coins. By the time you were done, he had cum on his chest, legs and a little on his bed sheets, which he cleaned up gingerly, watching as you signed off.

You slid out of your panties and held them up to the camera, practically purring when you finally spoke,

    "Look what I did to them. Soaked in all my juices and cum just for you. Well, for one lucky winner! Tip up to increase your chances."

You giggled, biting down on your lip, and continued,

     "Well, thank you for watching. Now, I do wanna do some private shows with a few of you. So, send in those requests and tokens and I'll pick a lucky few."

     As you waited for the requests to go in, you noticed Steve's name and his large donation — of course you'd go on private with him, but you wanted to talk to other customers as well. So you queued up a list of who you'd be talking to and placed Steve, the best, for last.

    Steve got a notification that you'd be talking to him, and while you signed off, he stayed on the site waiting for his turn. Each show you did was only about five minutes, and he had twenty five minutes to spare before he got the chance to talk to you. Those twenty five minutes he used for contemplation and thinking like always.

    If he wasn't spending his spare time with you, he was either thinking or distracting himself from thinking by spending time with his fellow Avengers. And now that there was nothing to do, all he could do was get lost in his thoughts. He thought of his conversation with Bucky - though he had come to the conclusion that he shouldn't worry so much and that he deserved a distraction, there was still some part of it that tugged at him.

The fact of the matter was that, he did think about you. A lot, actually, and it had only been a few days. He thought about the kind of unhinged pleasure you gave him that you had allowed him to tap into for the first time. He thought about the need you fulfilled. He thought about how he liked you, how he felt like he knew you on a personal level and that he sensed that you were truly a good person. He liked that about you, all those thoughts. But ever since last week, the thoughts slightly intimidated him at the same time.

Take a breath, Steve, he thought. Maybe it was old age making him nervous about everything. If Tony could do the same things before becoming Ironman and still live the way Tony was currently living, Steve could have his own little pleasures. His brain just kept doing the back and forth.

    You were happy when Steve's time came along. You were so caught up in your other customers that you had nearly forgotten what you were looking forward to. When it came to Steve, all your nerves were due to excitement, and the good kind. You weren't worried about the strength of your connection and if it would become overbearing, and you had reassured yourself that you weren't being needy or pressuring him. You felt at ease.

      You clicked his name feverishly, waving your hands up at the camera when the log opened. Yet again he wasn't showing himself, but you didn't let that bother you. You had all the time in the world to talk with him, because you didn't put a limit on the time. You didn't do so pointedly, you just did it so you wouldn't have to be preoccupied with the time limit.

     For you, talking to Steve at the end of your list was like de-stressing and winding down, nothing more and nothing less. You weren't viewing him as more than a customer. It wouldn't be inappropriate to talk for a while.

     "Hey, Steve!" you waved, grinning toothily.

Steve chuckled when he saw you and heard the genuine happiness in your voice. There was something sweetly innocent about you, despite the fact that your job was anything but innocent, and the fact that he had seen every part of you within the first day of getting to know you.

Still, he knew that didn't take away from the bright personality you seemed to have. Your duality as a focused businesswoman and giggly young college girl both impressed him and held a special place in his heart.

    "Hi, Moonrose. How are you?"

    "I'm lovely, and yourself?"

Steve let out a deep sigh he didn't know he'd been holding in. Talking to you relieved a lot of unconscious stress, and with that deep sigh he found a lot of relief,

    "I'm good. It's been a long day. Lots of labs, lots of meetings."

It wasn't entirely a lie - he did have lots of meetings that day, and you were in the back of his mind throughout all those meetings, but no labs. He wouldn't tell you he'd been thinking of you though, and you decided that you wouldn't tell him you'd been thinking of him either.

    "The life of a scientist," you joked playfully.

    You felt comfortable, even more comfortable with him than the last time, simply because it felt like you had both gotten past that awkward stage.

    "I mean, you can relate. Must be busy having all the jobs you have. I mean, you're a student, you're working on clothing, you work with a state rep, you're doing this every other day. That's gotta take a toll on you," Steve listed off everything you'd told him about.

     He kept that in mind, how busy and occupied you were, because you still carried yourself so well. Maybe it was just for the purpose of customer interaction; he wondered if you acted or felt the same outside of this private world of yours.

     You blushed slightly, flattered that Steve remembered everything you did and that he even held it in close regards to what he did on a daily basis. You knew you juggled a lot of things, but to hear someone else say it felt so much more validating, whether it came from your best friend Aaliyah or from Steve.

    "Aw, that's nice of you to say," you smiled warmly. "It can be a lot, honestly. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing too much, but... it's what I have to do! And for the most part, I like doing too much. It keeps me focused. Helps me cope with... life."

    You got a little sheepish. You didn't want to get too into the things you were really coping with.

    "I can appreciate that," Steve nodded. He raised his brows to himself as chose his words carefully. "My job can be... demanding."

   "Oh totally, I'm sure. Lots of math and shit. What gets you through it though?" you asked, and Steve chuckled slightly to himself at your vernacular - it reminded him how young you were.

Steve breathed out a heavy sigh, taking in the question thoughtfully. What the hell got him through it? He supposed it was knowing that he was doing good for the world, knowing that he had a team to work with and back him up at all times, and the fact that he was in control for the most part. But as for actual coping, he was almost at a loss. Almost.

    "Honestly?" he rubbed at his beard, and you bit down on your lip, giving him a flirty smile.

    "The cold hard truth," you ensured him, puckering your lips and putting on your best game face.

    "Honestly, talking to you, probably. I don't really know how to destress," Steve felt suddenly insecure about putting this detail out there.

He didn't want to make you uncomfortable (though you had heard worse from men who were wound up like Steve), and he felt like he was delving into a personal topic. Not that you didn't already know that he was stressed out, but he didn't want it to seem like you were his saving grace. Though, you weren't far from it.

    He continued,

    "I just mean... ever since that first time with you I've been feeling lighter on my feet. I mean— I don't really... I just don't have a lot of coping mechanisms. I don't really get to have fun."

    Once he spit the words out, he felt even more stupid. He had just let you know that you had basically changed his entire mood since the day he'd met you, and something like that felt almost like a confession. Like you were delving into more serious topics. He had made his problems clear since the first time, but telling you how much you helped him felt like he was putting deeper trust in you.

    But of course you didn't see it as a deep confession. You saw it as him being true to his feelings and being honest with you, which wasn't a big deal to you since you were in a business that involved making connections and basically building men like him up. You grinned, a sparkle in your eyes as you listened to him stammer over himself. It was no wonder he was a scientist, he had this sort of nerdy charm to him.

    "I'm glad to hear that Steve. And maybe it's less that you don't get to have fun and more that you don't know how."

Steve shrugged. He had always been called boring by Tony, and Natasha took jabs at him about loosening up, getting out there and enjoying this modern world. And while he had insecurities around the fact, he still wasn't a happy go lucky party person as a result of the jabs. He was same old Steve, with the same old struggles. He looked regular on the outside (as regular as someone as big as him could look), but he felt like an outsider.

    "Maybe."

    "Have you ever tried?" you prodded. "I mean, outside of this. And honestly, kudos to you for putting yourself out there like this. I mean, you literally jerked off with me your first time here. I take it back. You do know how to have fun. You just... don't know where to find it."

Steve's face got hot. Even as he watched you more, talked to you more, nothing could compare to the first time being with you. It was definitely out of his comfort zone, doing something as extraneous as he had, and with a stranger. And when you described it like that, it seemed so much more inappropriate, but in a way that made Steve's pants bulge. And the fact that you could talk about it so casually intimidated him in the best way.

    "I guess you're right," Steve replied, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized you were actually spot on. "I'll keep that in mind."

He grinned, and you giggled,

    "Good. I'll be your therapist. But like a sexy one. A sex therapist."

You and Steve laughed at your stupid joke and Steve raised the question,

    "Okay. What gets you through it all? You're a young college girl, I'm sure you know how to have fun."

You raised your brows playfully at the suggestive nature of the question, although clueless Steve had no clue it would sound a certain way to you,

    "Oh yeah, totally. College girls, you know us. Drinking, partying, having sex with all our friends. I'm kind of a total slut." A beat passed, Steve trying to figure out what to say — like he was rerouting. You chortled, unable to hide your snort laugh. "I'm kidding, Steve."

Steve laughed hesitantly. He didn't know what young people did these days,

    "Yeah, silly me."

    "You're so cute," you blurted, shaking your head playfully. "But, honestly? I do know how to have my fun. I mean, I do it mindfully though, 'cuz I have shit to do, you know? Party hard, study hard. I go out with friends for drinks... and between me and you, I was doing that before I was twenty one."

Steve nodded understandingly,

    "Some part of me wants to reprimand you for that, but I don't wanna rain on your parade."

    “You don't have to rain, you could just spank me if it's that serious," you scoffed with a laugh, again saying the dirtiest things nonchalantly, unbothered. You were constantly flirting with customers, but with Steve it came much more naturally.

   "Spank you?" Steve choked out.

   "Yeah, you know? Like a little slap on the ass," you turned around, your ass in the camera, and gently smacked your hand against your ass, which was clad in a sheer bodycon dress that you had made yourself.

(looks something like this)

You were being playful, acting the precocious, girly way that you would with your friends. You thought nothing of it. Steve on the other hand, was getting incredibly warm, fidgety, and was trying to ignore the growing tent in his pants.

   "Like- like that?" he stammered, breathless, and you nodded, seemingly unaware of his pain.

     You turned back around and sat down in front of the camera,

    “You must not be a dom, huh. You don't strike me as one. But I'm sure if I pressed the right buttons, you could be."

     “Dom?" Steve repeated, as if the word were from a foreign language.

     "My, my, my, Steve. I've got a lot to teach you. Oh, but actually, I do have a hobby that gets me through my stress. Besides, you know, masturbating and going out with friends."

   Steve smirked, he was intrigued,

    “And what's that?"

You bounced up onto your toes so that Steve could see a full view of you on the camera. At first, when you were just sitting in front of the camera, he could only see your head and shoulders. Now he could see all of you, and he could see the dress you had designed.

   "Making clothes!" you chirped, so adorably that Steve couldn't help but smile, a warm feeling bubbling in his chest. You spread your arms out, letting the fringe on the dress spread. You placed your hands on your hips and swayed slightly in place. You smiled gently. "For my brand of course. But making the clothes is kind of therapeutic. When you work really hard on something and it comes out with the result you want, it's just this fucking... amazing, gratifying feeling. I love it."

     Steve grinned, watching you show off your clothes. He was glad to hear that from you, he believed in you and truly thought you were capable and would succeed in what you did.

    "That's beautiful," he complimented your dress. He knew nothing about fashion, but you looked good in whatever you wore - it was a plus that you made it. "Even with all I know, I don't think I could do that."

    “Oh, don't be silly. You probably could. You just have to try, remember?"

    “I know, I know."

As you stood there twirling and swaying, just letting him enjoy you, he could hear the faint sound of music playing in the background. He squinted, leaning closer to try and hear more. It was a nice song, with an upbeat electronic twist although it was R&B.

    "What's this song?" he asked.

     You paused, delightfully surprised by the question, unable to hide your ferocious smile,

    "What, the one I'm playing? It's called Lost by Frank Ocean."

     “Frank Ocean," Steve repeated slowly, so he could remember the name of the artist. You were encouraging him to try new things - why not start with music?

   "Have you heard of him?"

   "I'm afraid I haven't," Steve replied, and you chortled again.

   "'I'm afraid I haven't'," you repeated, putting on his deep voice. "So proper. You like this song?"

Steve shook his head playfully when he heard you mocking him, then answered,

     "Yeah, never heard it before."

You squealed excitedly and ran to turn it up, then ran back into the frame.

     "I love Frank Ocean, seriously. He's one of my favorite artists. What about you?"

Steve was almost taken aback by the question and took in a deep breath, shrugging as he tried to come up with an answer,

     "Gee, I don't know. I think I listen to too much old crap, probably."

      "I can get down with that." You scoffed. "Quit bullying yourself."

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Steve's head. He was enjoying talking to you, but what better way to combine a regular conversation with pleasure? He was feeling his need building up, the longer he talked to you. You said such outrageous things and you were so gorgeous - it was hard for him not to want you. And maybe you could both have some fun with this, and his request wouldn't feel like work, though it would definitely help him get off.

     "Hey, can I ask you something?"

     "Sure."

     "You mind... dancing? To this song, I mean?" he asked, slightly nervous to ask because he didn't want to feel pushy.

You raised your brows in surprise, a wide mouthed smile showing up. It seemed like Steve was discovering what he wanted to see, what would make him feel good.

   "You wanna see me dance? Uh, yeah, I would love to. It's hard not to dance to this song. What, you want me to dance like a stripper or something? I don't have a pole - yet, but I can—"

Steve laughed, cutting you off and shaking his head,

     "Nah, you don't have to dance any specific way. I guess, just dance how you feel."

You lit up at the suggestion, and laughed, already beginning to sway,

    "Is this gonna get you off, Steve?"

Steve blushed, coiled like a turtle going into his shell,

    "Maybe."

    "Oh, don't be shy. I want it to. I wanna hear your moans, I want it to drive you crazy and bring you release. Is that what you want?"

You twirled slowly, dragging your hands up and down your body, dancing to the beat of the music. Steve watched, already entranced with the way your body, perfectly caught in the tight dress, moved. It almost scared him how perfect you looked, just swaying your body to a song,

    "That's what I want, baby."

The words spilled out of his mouth, just like last time. This time it felt much more natural though, easier, as he watched you on the full screen. You smiled, rolling your hips and bringing your hands up in the air to match your motions. You hummed the words to yourself, sang the lyrics,

    "Girl you know you're lost, lost in the thrill of it all."

     The song was so sensual and felt so personal to you - your job was so sensationalized and it was easy to get lost in the idea of it, the aesthetic. But it was hard work. This song felt like a celebration of that. Steve's spit got caught in his throat watching you sing along, watching your body loosen up and relax as you continued dancing around your room, your body moving freely and in such a hedonistic manner. He liked watching you enjoy yourself, liked watching you in what seemed to be your element. You were so confident, so unbothered. It wasn't awkward that you were dancing alone. Again it felt intimate, felt like he was there with you.

     "I'd tell you to dance, but what I really want you to do is touch yourself. Can you do that, Stevie?" you purred, and he grunted at the sound of the nickname you had donned for him.

      "Yeah, doll," Steve began to palm himself over his boxers, his breaths becoming heavier as he watched you. It felt so gratifying, so closed off — just for the two of you.

   You giggled, as if you hadn't just said what you had said, and got down low on the floor as you danced away, on your toes, and came back up again.

     "Hmm," you sighed. "Can I take this off for you?"

     Steve's jaw clenched, you already looked so good in the dress, but to see you take it off and continue dancing would probably make him come right then and there.

     "Yeah, take that off for me."

     You were practically teasing him as you began to lower the sleeves of the dress, still dancing and running your hands up and down your body. You wanted him to savor the moment, and savor it he did. You removed the top half slowly, your breasts tumbling out as you cupped them with your hands. You sighed again, biting down on your lip.

    Steve was breathing hard through his nose now, slowly taking his cock, which had been hard for too long, out from his boxers, where it sprung up hard and veiny against his stomach. It twitched painfully, he almost couldn't bare to touch himself. But he palmed the head, slippery with precum, with a few mindful fingers.

   "Is that good, baby? You wanna see everything?" you gestured to the bottom half which still hadn't been removed, and Steve exhaled sharply.

    "Fuck, yeah I wanna see everything. Take it all off, doll."

You felt your body react to the nickname as you slid out of the dress, clad in a g-string underneath this time. The skimpy nature of the g-string, glittery and glamorous just like you, made Steve moan under his breath. You noted his reaction with a playful smirk, tugging gently at the straps and letting them slap against your glowing skin.

    You bit down on your lip and let your entire palm run against your clothed center, swaying your hips in all directions as you slowly pulled down the straps and revealed what was underneath, Steve letting out an audible sigh as he wrapped his hand around himself. He bit down softly on his lip, eyes dark and his lids heavy, trying to restrain himself. He wanted to be at the same pace at you, wanted to see you tease yourself the way you had during your live show.

   You sighed out in pleasure, using two fingers to rub at your clit in circular motions while you stood, Steve watching silently. Then you lowered yourself to the carpeted floor, spread your legs in front of you and continued, bringing your fingers to your lips to suck on them before you went back down. The way you did it was tantalizing, so erotic and intimate. You weren't trying too hard, you never were, but this way - slow and lustful, was like you were there with him all over again.

    Your eyes became dazed and almost glazed over just at the slight tingle of pleasure. You had been stimulating yourself for over an hour since the start of your public show, but with him you didn't feel tired or worn out. And you still hadn't had the orgasm that you knew would absolutely finish you. You knew how to navigate so you weren't exhausted by the time you were through with your shows and your private chats, but still, with Steve it felt like the pleasure was amplified by a hundred.

    "Oh," you moaned, your voice going up a pitch. You wanted more, and you decided you wanted to bring a toy into the mix. "I wanna ride you, Steve."

     Steve grunted in response and you slowly got up, crawling on all fours as you dragged out your fuzzy chest full of toys, lube, and other random things for your shows. It was like a cam girl treasure chest. You returned to the frame, smiling devilishly as you sifted through all your materials, finally pulling out the dildo you wanted to use. It was a good size, six inches, and pretty realistic. You waved it around in the air,

      "This how big you are?" you asked with a seductive gaze in your eyes.

Steve stroked himself slowly as he let out a sharp almost barking laugh, a surge of sudden and unexpected cockiness running through him (because let's be honest, a supersoldier like him was certainly bigger than six inches),

      "Little more."

You grinned obscenely, appreciating Steve's noticeable boost in confidence. And in the back of your mind you thought about the three fingers you had used to accommodate him last time. He was pretty consistent - you wondered just how big he really was. If you knew him in real life, you'd probably jump at the chance to fuck him.

   "Think it'll suffice? I'm not sure if I can take that much more right now," you asked teasingly.

   Steve chuckled, a warm, deep chuckle that made your insides churn. It was incredible how much a voice could turn you on, how much you liked hearing his voice and wanted to hear it,

    "I'll go easy on you, doll."

     You raised your brows in pleasant surprise,

    "You'll go easy on me, huh? Steve, you're getting feistier by the minute. I like it."

Steve laughed, slightly embarrassed. He just wanted you to do what you were comfortable with, wanted to see real pleasure,

    "I just want to make sure you feel good."

    "Little ol' me?" you snorted, bringing out your mirror to place on your carpet so you could place the suction dildo on top. You stuck it in place and kneeled before it. "Well, you don't have to worry about that, Steve. You always make me feel good."

     You winked at him and focused, beginning to lower yourself and arch your back, your ass in the air as you went face to face with the dildo.

   "I just wanna make you feel good," you huffed, eyeing the camera as you cupped your lips around the head of the dildo, pushing your hair behind the ear and looking down as you bobbed your head slowly. Your lips wrapped perfectly around the toy, suctioning and sucking and making it wet enough for you.

     "Wow," Steve breathed in slowly, truly in awe of you. He had really never seen anything like it, how dedicated you were to the performance. You were like an artist, a beautiful, twisted artist, and you knew just how to sell your show. And somehow you did such a salacious act with so much grace, made it so sexy and purposeful.

     He paused touching himself just to watch you, but that didn't mean he was any less hard. You moaned around the toy, looking into the camera as if you were making eye contact with the man you couldn't even see, as he goaded you on, his voice gentle and deep,

     "That's it baby, you look so good sucking that dick."

Your felt your pussy throb around nothing just at the sound of Steve dirty talking. You could tell that the more you did, the more you coaxed him into it, the more comfortable he got with everything. He had surprised you multiple times tonight.  You brought your head up, lips making a popping noise as they slid off the toy,

      "It's yours."

Steve licked his lower lip, bringing it slowly into his mouth and sliding his closed fist up and down his erection.

   "It's mine?" he asked, his voice going an octave lower.

   "Mhm, your cock. You ready, baby?" you hovered over the dildo, squatting above it as you readied yourself.

   "Yes, go slow," Steve instructed.

   "Is that what you want?" you breathed out in pleasure as you teased your slick folds with the head of the toy, rocking your hips slowly back and forth. "You want me to tease myself with your cock?"

      Steve let out an unbridled moan, pumping gently,

     "Yeah, please. I want this to be real, baby. Like your live show."

      You laughed quietly as you lowered yourself down onto the dildo, moaning as you took it in slowly, stopping a quarter of the way and just rocking back and forth, taking his request into consideration. And then, you had an idea.

"Honestly, if he keeps watching my shows, I wanna teach him how to dirty talk. I think then it'll be something serious."

That was what you had said to your friend Jane over the phone, and now was your chance to manifest it. You'd been kidding when you said it would turn your relationship into something serious, but if hearing Steve dominate you and dirty talk to you didn't make you want to fuck him even more, you didn't know what would.

   "Tell me what you want Steve. Tell me how you want me to do it. I don't wanna do a thing unless it's under your control," you smirked, waiting for him to come up with something on his own.

In that deep, husky voice of his he spoke,

     "Yeah? I want you to tease yourself, and go slow. Match my pace."

   You moaned at the thought of him stroking himself at the same pace as you, and lowered yourself a little further,

     "Is this allowed, Stevie?" you questioned curiously and innocently, prompting him further.

He got some idea of what you were trying to do, though he didn't have much experience doing it himself - at least not in the bedroom. While he wanted you to please yourself at your own pace, he also thought this might be interesting. You could do both.

    "Yeah baby, little more." You slid down further until almost all of it was inside of you, and he pumped himself a little quicker now. He groaned, the noise he made almost guttural. "Yes, that's it Moonrose. Now stop."

     You whimpered, your heat throbbing as he commanded you. You were almost losing sense of the fact that this wasn't all real, because it felt so good. You liked hearing him get more dominant with you, though you adored his regular state, which was almost needy.

     "Yeah, you can be the boss. You tell me what to do, baby."

     Steve grunted, holding back an orgasm as he watched how well you gripped the toy, imagined what it would feel like to really be inside of you. He'd be much bigger, no doubt, and make you howl with pleasure.

     "Ride it for me," he ordered. "Slow, then pick up the pace."

     "Ride you?" you repeated, beginning to lift yourself up, then back down again, slowly like he told you to. It was big enough to hit all those good places inside of you, make you wetter and hotter, give you those real time reactions. All the panting and moaning, the way your brows furrowed in concentration, the way you bit down on your lip with fervor.

      Steve watched you ride it, pumping himself at the same pace, feeling himself throb and twitch inside of his hand, speeding up when necessary. The both of your moans were loud and unhinged, filling up your respective rooms with righteous release. Steve loved how he could tell how good it felt for you, how you weren't holding back at all, your pussy gliding easily around it, leaving a trail of arousal along the shaft of the toy. You were bouncing fast and hard after a while, gasping and panting and moaning while Steve did the same in the form of groans, grunts and heavy breaths. Like you, he felt lost in translation in the best way - like nothing else was there, just the two of you and your needy bodies.

   "You feel so fucking good, baby, don't stop," Steve moaned, breathing harshly through his nose. He felt close, his stomach twisting and turning with yearn.

     "Fuck, Steve," you gasped out. You hardly sounded like yourself, in such an ecstatic state. "I'm so fucking close, baby. Steve, can I come?"

    You were still leading him, wanting him to be even more dominant and controlling with you, but you hardly needed to. You were basically giving in, you were fully committed to the act of being submissive now. Everything in and around you felt so good, "so fucking warm", as stated by you. And no doubt, Steve felt it too. Watching you take it, watching you moan in pure ecstasy as you threw your head back, your hair tumbling against your breasts, the glint of sweat forming on your forehead, the way your stomach flexed as you moved up and down. You were fucking invincible, Steve thought. Always gorgeous, somehow.

   But Steve thought he'd let this last a little longer. You wanted him to be in charge, he'd take that seriously. Like an order.

    "No, doll, hold it in for me," he huffed, though he felt himself growing close as well, and couldn't help but cum, feeling it leave him with a satisfied groan. "Fuck, I'm coming."

You whined, pouting,

   "Steve, I wanna be able to come with you."

Yeah, it was definitely easy to be submissive.

     Steve chuckled slightly,

   "That's okay, I can last a long time, darling. Keep riding that dick for me, don't come until I say so."

   With a shuddering moan you kept going. When you looked down at what you were doing, the toy disappearing inside of you each time you bent down, you swore you had never been more turned on in your life. Your brows were crossed and your mouth dropped into an o-shape. You were moaning and almost sobbing, the build up feeling unbearable. You brought your hand down, rubbing frantically at your clit,

     "Fuckkk, Steve, please let me come."

He came again with a sharp exhale and vicious grunt, but still wanted to hold off for one last one, in tandem with you. He almost felt bad, but the pleasure was so unbearable, and he knew you were enjoying it,

     "Ah, god. Hold on, I promise I'll let you come soon if you just wait a little."

You stifled a moan, cupping your breasts as you rode it without the support of your hands on your knees,

    "Y-yeah, you gonna let me come, Stevie? Please let me come, oh my god," you felt almost lightheaded with the overwhelming sense of fulfillment, rolling your head back, your eyes rolling back in your head, your glossy lips dropped open in the most sensual of ways. You didn't know what you did to Steve, how much you made him want you.

     "Go ahead, doll, come for me," Steve resolved, and when you came it was like a waterfall was crashing down on you. Both because of the intensity and because of the fact that you were squirting, letting go of all that held back release. You knew it was coming yet you whimpered in surprise when it happened, still continuing to ride the toy even as you were coming, watching as it flowed out of you, onto the mirror and more.

    "Fuck," Steve cursed, pumping fast and hard as he came again, and again, watching as you rode out your high. He could hardly even process the fact that you had squirted - completely natural, and yet a huge turn on. He slowed his hand, still hard as a rock, but coming down himself.

     You were blubbering and saying things that didn't even make sense, Steve slightly grinning to himself as you spiraled out of control. You got off the dildo with a final moan, covering your eyes with your forearm and fingering the rest of your cum out of yourself with two fast moving fingers.

      "My god," you groaned, sliding your fingers out of yourself. It was almost embarrassing how wet you were, how aroused you still were, throbbing like crazy from the aftermath. The comedown was a process, you breathing in deep and heavy.

      "That's it, doll. So good. It's okay, doll," Steve murmured, helping you come back down.

     "Mm," you hummed, removing your forearm from your eyes and forehead and instead covering your face with your hands, giggling. "Oh my god, that's so embarrassing."

      Steve laughed,

      "Not embarrassing. You did so damn good, baby."

      You groaned,

     "Ugh, don't praise me, that makes me wanna go again, and I think if I do I'll explode. On the other hand, please do keep praising me."

You laughed again and winked. It was true, because you were so turned on by his voice, especially when it was praising you and telling you how good you had been. Sure, other guys could be dominant, but with Steve it actually felt so real, it made you lose all sense of reality. It didn't feel forced.

     "Really, you were amazing." Steve tipped again - he had been tipping the whole way through. And of course his big tips were an incentive, but they weren't the only reason you talked to him. Not at all. "Jesus. I don't get worn out, but..."

   "You tired, Steve?" you smiled, teasing. "God, I don't know how I'm gonna clean this up. This is all your fault, you know."

You laughed playfully. To be fair, you had came, like, a lot. Steve's jaw clenched at the sight of it all, but he grinned.

     "My apologies."

    "Please," you shook your head, wiped the sweat off from your forehead and slowly started packing everything up.

You and Steve chatted for a while longer after that, about trivial things. This was a little unusual. Usually when you finished, you wrapped it up. But you had time, and he had time. And you both wanted to stay and chat. And it was also unusual because usually when you finished, your customer was done too, and there wasn't really room for "chatting" after that. But Steve seemed to want to talk.

    "You're fucking hot as a dom, by the way," you noted, pointing a finger at him through the screen.

    "Me?" Steve pointed a finger at himself in return. "I hardly even knew what it was, but I've got an idea now."

   "Oh, trust me, you're gonna wanna learn more. You're made for this, honestly." You sighed, and looked at the time. "It's late. This was... really, really great. Thanks again."

    "Thank you."

A beat passed, a silence between the two of you, though it was almost like you were still communicating. Maybe this really was different. Maybe it really did mean something. You were so in sync, could snap in and out just like that, and still have great conversation. You were both thinking the same thing - this was a real connection. And you were both beginning to give in to those thoughts you wanted to push back, just slightly. But this time, it didn't bring any worry. It just felt nice, blissful. Still not too serious, but still something. What you both didn't know was just how much it really would blossom.

     "Well," you said, a sigh of contemplation. "Think I really like this, Steve."

    "Me too," he swallowed hardly. He was feeling something, that same butterfly-like feeling he'd felt the first time. "I'm so glad we... uh..."

   You waved your hand with a grin,

   "It's late, I better go. It was great talking to you again, I actually look forward to this. Weirdly enough. I think I should go, though, I got school."

     "I-I got work," Steve stammered, thinking of how you said you look forward to this. He wasn't just another customer, and you weren't just some random girl. The realization was hitting him like a ton of bricks. "I'll see you."

     "Yeah," you cooed. Then, with a silly face, your eyes crossed and tongue hanging out you waved goodbye. "Byeee!"

     And just like that, there was a shift in his world, in your world. Steve didn't know what he had coming next.

🙈oof how was it y’all!!! i hope not too long LOLLL i had to fit a lot in... next chapter will be some tea! reply wit ya thoughts <3 thank u for reading, stay safe!!