#but he still took the chance to shoot his shot anyway

[fiannans]

Yearning (noun): a strong feeling of wishing for something, especially something that you cannot have or get easily.

[lunarw0rks]

Hiiiii❤️ I idk if this is a Drabble or a headcaon but here I go anyways😅 . Hear some context So you don’t think I’m some weirdo. So in the 2017 movie called the babysitter and this character Allison got shot in the b00b and she “omg he shot me in the b00b what kind of dçk shots a girl in the b00bs” (funny scene) so basically fem!reader with platonic!taskforce141. And there on a mission and suddenly they hear the same line on their coms and they’re like 😳

(feel free to ignore)

A/N: LMAO - I had to look up the scene for this as a reference. Just picturing Price's paternal disappointment when he realizes his team acts like a bunch of children. Sorry, this is rlly short!

Summary: Your attempt at comedic relief sets off a chain reaction of immaturity.

Warning(s): platonic!141, canon-typical mild injury, suggestive language, AFAB!Reader, no use of y/n

Word Count: 554

꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ 141 MASTERLIST // have a request? ⋆ ⚘ 🕊 ˚✧ ₊˚ʚ ao3 ver. | PART TWO

No Filter // 141 Drabble

Compared to some of the other operations you’d done with them, this was a piece of cake. A simple infiltrate and exfil mission where you’d be clearing house in one of Hassan’s safehouses—a mere breadcrumb leading to the man himself.

Price thought it would go smoothest if everyone split up, but to keep within shouting distance. It was only a small facility, after all.

Being ambushed? Shot? That was not something you saw in the cards for today.

Luckily, you got a bullet in him before he had a chance to do worse. But here you were, slumped against the wall with all the air knocked out of your lungs.

“Heard the shots, Sergeant. You broken?”

Captain Price’s voice crackled through near instantly, the second he had pulled the trigger on you. Though it took a few seconds, you managed to recuperate, and asses the room in front of you. The man who shot you K.I.A, and you very fortunate.

You peered down at your chest; indeed not broken, but injured. The vest had absorbed the shot, causing a relieved sigh to escape your lips. Obviously, if you really had a bullet in your chest, you wouldn’t just be sitting there—but the adrenaline of escaping death eliminated any rationality.

You unbuttoned the first few buttons on your shirt, seeing a welt on your breast as if the man had his gaze set on them when he pulled the trigger. Still, with your hand on the button of your radio, you finally gave some sort of answer.

“Bastard shot me in the boobs.” It was a mumble, but there was no way in hell they didn’t hear that.

As you winced, you seemed to forget that the entire team was on the other line—probably way more concerned with your life than the health of your tits. “What kind of dick shoots a girl in the boobs?” You asked rhetorically, despite the astonished silence on the other line.

“You were shot in your…?” Gaz was the first to speak up, his tone practically painting the picture of his signature squint.

Before the next voice chimed in, you could swear you heard whoever it was stifling a laugh. “Thanks for that.” Soap chimed in, accent crackling against the static. His smirk was visible even if his words; the natural flirt in him coming out no matter what.

Ghost had remained silent, probably muting his comms so he didn’t have to listen to this. And Price? Oh, Price… He’s got his head in his hands with pure disappointment. How did this status update turn so unprofessional, so quickly?

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Soap comes in again, a smug sneer on his face. “He shot you on the—”

“Keep it tactical, Sergeant.” Price blurts, interrupting the immature banter daring to be further set in motion. He was fighting every urge to crack a smile at the pure ridiculousness, but his poker face and stern tone prevented it.

“Tactical or not, John, it’s a tough break.” Laswell comes in, your only saving grace against Price’s father-like disappointment. She was the last superior of yours you’d expected to find it humorous, but she did, nonetheless.

This would definitely be the source material for the next HR meeting, you could see it now.

[luvyeni]

genre smut 𖹭 warning subby!wonbin, unprotected sex, toy usage pairing — roommate!wonbin x fem reader | back to library .

request. imagine wonbin is just sneaking around in readers room or hes looking for something or whatever n he finds her vibrator. his imagination is running wild and he HAS to use it on himself now ,, like poor boy just cant help it 🫣🫣 hes so lost in the pleasure he doesnt even notice her walking in on him 😖😖

he only needed the charger you took from him a week ago; you never returned it to him and he needed it. That is the only reason he was even in your room to begin with — he never expected to go looking through your things.

“what did she even need the charger for?” he said to himself , looking around your bed where he knew you charged your things; unsuccessful , he was about to leave when he saw the drawer to your night stand was open. ‘Maybe’ he thought to himself , maybe you put it in there for safekeeping and forgot to give it to him.

He opened the drawer; fully preparing to just take his charger and go — but it was right there , in the open; your pink vibrator. wonbin should've left, he knew shouldn't have picked it up; but he did anyway, his mind going through to so many place. did you use this often? What did you sound like? Have you used it recently?

He could feel his cock twitch in his pants, the visuals of you using it turning him on. he still had the chance to put it down and just go in his room and jerk off; but he couldn't stop himself , turning the toy on , feeling the vibrations through his fingers; moving it through his hands, his eyes closing as he reluctantly moved it to his clothes nipples , gasping as the vibrations went through his body.

moving it along to his body , down his stomach, past his waist to his clothed cock. he moaned out and pressed down harder on his length; it felt so good , he was so deep in his own pleasure , he didn't notice you come in, making your way into the room. “wonbin?”

he almost jumped out of his skin , trying to hide the toy; but it was too late , you saw it. “i-i was looking for my charger I lent you.” you look at his hand , and then back to the boy , eyebrow raised. “that doesn't look like a charger binnie?” you say, walking further into the room. “that looks like my vibrator.” he began to stutter out an apology. “did you like it?” you asked , taking the vibrator from his hand. “h-huh?”

you bring the toy back to his cock; turning it on. “y-y/n.” he moaned. “I asked you a question binnie, did you like using my vibrator on yourself?” you turned up the settings. “y-yes, shit!” he cursed, “i-im gonna cum.” he whimpered , you turned it off. “wh-why?” you smiled. “don't worry baby, you'll get to cum.”

That's how he ended up under you , his cock used beyond his limits; covered a mixture of both your multiple releases; tears streaming down his cheeks as he felt you turn the vibrations back on , placing it back on his sensitive nipples. “why are you crying binnie?” you move the vibrator down his stomach. “didn't you want to cum?” you tease. “so cum for me.” the vein in his forehead prominent as cum shot from his cock , leaking from his cock down to his base , puddling with his past releases.

“fu-fuck wait.” he felt you straddle his waist again. “I can't cum again.” he whimpered. “You can give me one more right?” you tilt your head, he knew he couldn't; but he wasn't thinking with his head; thinking with his cock, he nodded. “fu-fuck yn!” he moaned as you sunk back down on his cock. “Please don't move, I'm gonna cum.” you smirked. “cum then baby , cum as many times as you want.” you rocked your hips back and forth. “Come on , show me how you were about to cum, using my vibrator like a perv.” you moan out, bouncing on his cock. “fu-fuck wonbin.”

he literally felt like he was gonna shoot blanks as you moved the vibrator back to where you were connected; turning the vibrator on the highest level — both of you basically shaking in pleasure. “fuck fuck fuck.” he cursed, “I'm gonna fucking cum!” he sobbed out. “fuck I'm cumming!” he yelled , cumming for the final time, you followed soon after, your body hunching over as you both recovered from your orgasms, he was spent; his cock softening inside you.

“I've never cum so much before.”

©️LUVYENI

[cozage]

Hello! Could I request a one shot where you’re Luffy, Ace, and Sabos sister and you’re dating Law or Zoro and they see hickies on their neck and they get all protective of their sister? Thank you, please take your time!

A/N: I picked Zoro because :) He deserves some love rn 

AU: kind of modern?/school/college

Characters: female reader x Zoro (plus familial ASL) 

Cw: just brotherly gremlin acts hehe

Total word count: 1.7k 

Love Marks

You shuffled in the door as quietly as you could, trying not to disturb your sleeping brothers. It was still the early hours of the morning, the only one who might be up to catch you coming in would be Sabo. But with a bit of luck, you could make it up the stairs and into your room before he woke up. 

You softly shut the front door and clicked the lock back into place, flinching at the sounds that echoed through the foyer. You put your coat on the rack silently, and turned to sneak up the stairs to your room. 

“Ahem,” The voice came from the sofa in the living room, and you froze. Your eyes darted to the source of the sound, and you found Sabo and Ace sitting on the sofa, staring at you disapprovingly. Luffy was asleep on the floor at their feet. 

“Little lady,” Ace said, frowning. “We’ve been up all night worried sick.”

“I slept over at a friends,” you whispered, trying not to wake Luffy. 

“Without permission?” Sabo hissed.

“I don’t have to ask your permission for shit,” you shot back in a low voice. You weren’t even mad at their charade, you were just mad you got caught. They never let you be sneaky or rebellious.

You bounded up the stairs before they had another chance to interrogate you. They got like this sometimes, your two older brothers. They always felt like they had to be the parents, even if it was more so mocking the parental role than actually fulfilling it. Luffy must’ve found out that a scolding would take place and tried to stay up to see what would happen. 

You locked yourself in your room, but nobody tried to enter. You curled up in your bed to try and finally get some sleep, but your brain refused to listen. You tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. With your mind racing through all of the thoughts and feelings you experienced last night, you couldn’t really blame your brain for not wanting to sleep. 

An hour later, a knock at your door came. 

Ace’s voice came from the other side. “Breakfast,” he called, already walking back down the stairs. 

You really didn’t want to get out of bed. You had just finally gotten comfortable. Zoro had kept you plenty busy the night before, and all you wanted to do was sleep now. But your stomach was rumbling, and you had to admit the smell of the bacon was enticing. With a groan, you rolled out of bed and descended the stairs. 

“I’m surprised you’re awake,” Sabo said, flipping a pancake on the griddle. 

“Hungry.” You took your usual seat at the barstool between Luffy and Ace, reaching for a piece of bacon on the plate in the center. 

“Don’t eat yet!” Sabo said, smacking your hand away, but you grabbed a piece and shoved it in your mouth anyway. 

“Hey, does your friend have bugs in her house?” Luffy asked curiously. 

“No!” you scoff, shooting him a look. “She’s not like you with your crazy beetle obsession!”

“Then what are these marks on your neck?” He poked at a tender spot on your neck, and you could hear the deviousness in his voice. You cursed yourself for falling for such an obvious setup. 

Luffy pulled your hair back, revealing your neck that was littered with bruises. You swatted his hand away quickly, but it was too late. Ace and Sabo had already seen the marks that Zoro had made the night before.

“Some friend,” Ace muttered under his breath, and Luffy laughed at his words. Your cheeks burned as you readjusted your hair to cover your neck again. 

“Who is it?” Luffy asked, looking at you with wide eyes. 

“We’ll need to have a chat with him,” Sabo said. He put a pancake on your plate and gave you a toothy grin. 

“It’s nobody,” you said quickly. You pushed your plate to Luffy, hoping that food would distract him from the conversation. You had lost your appetite anyway. 

“It’s obviously somebody,” Ace purred. “Or else you wouldn’t be hiding it. But this guy must be important.”

“And he’s not intimidated by the fact you live with three guys,” Sabo added. 

“You’re my brothers,” you said, disgusted with the implications. 

“Zoro!” Luffy shouted. Your head whipped around to glare at him, but he was looking out the window, deep in thought. 

“How long have you known?” you gasped.

Luffy had to have noticed all the times you and Zoro spent together walking around campus, and how he always found you all sitting outside between classes. The two of you weren’t making out in front of him or anything obvious, but you and Zoro hadn’t exactly been subtle around Luffy either. Then again, Luffy wasn’t the most observant person in the world, so you were a little surprised that he got it so quickly. 

“Huh?” Luffy said, his eyes returning to you. “What do you mean?” He pointed out the window. “Zoro’s here.”

There was a knock on the door, and your eyes widened in horror at the fact that you had just outed Zoro as being the culprit. Sabo and Ace glanced at each other, a silent understanding passing between the two.

Ace took off down the hall and you felt your heart drop. You chased after him, but Sabo quickly jumped in front of your path, blocking you. 

“Sabo, move!” you tried to skirt around him, but he matched your movements perfectly to keep you boxed in. 

“Luffy, hold her down.” 

Luffy’s rubber arms shot around you, wrapping you tightly in his grasp. Sabo smirked at you, and took off down the hallway to join Ace. 

“Zoro!” You screamed, but Luffy’s hand covered your mouth to muffle your warnings. You tried to bite down on his hand, but he just laughed at your attempts. 

You heard the door open and you braced yourself. You could still see Ace and Sabo standing in the foyer, their cocky grins facing to where you knew Zoro was standing. 

“Zoro!” Sabo greeted him. “How ya been, buddy?”

“Pretty good, I’d imagine,” Ace answered slyly for him. 

“Wha..?” You could hear Zoro’s voice from the other side of the door, and you could only imagine what his face looked like. The poor man had no idea what he was about to get himself into.

“You look pretty sleepy, bud,” Ace smirked. “Late night?”

“Were you up training?” Sabo asked.

“I wouldn’t call it training,” Ace said, and you heard Luffy giggle behind you. 

You could hear the confusion in Zoro’s voice. “What are you-”

Sabo stepped outside, out of your view. “Come on in for breakfast, buddy.”

Ace stepped out to join him. You could hear him murmur something to your boyfriend, but you couldn’t make out exactly what he had said. 

The three of them stepped inside your home, Ace’s and Sabo’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, with Zoro squished in between the two. As he scanned the room, he saw you with Luffy’s arms wrapped around you and covering your mouth to keep you quiet. His good eye found yours, and you sent a silent apology his way for what was about to come. 

The moment he saw the position you were in, he tensed up, as if he were trying to decide whether he should bolt out the door or keep it casual. You couldn’t blame him, you’d probably consider running as well. But Ace and Sabo both tightened their grip on him, keeping him from doing anything rash. 

“Tell me, Zoro,” Ace muttered. “Who exactly did you come to see this morning?”

Zoro sputtered, his words failing him. He looked at you, dumbfounded by the situation you both were in. His cheeks were tinted pink from embarrassment, and you could only assume yours were the same.

“Luffy, you can let her go now,” Sabo said. “Let’s all have breakfast and a little chat.”

You all sat down, Zoro opting to sit next to Luffy instead of you, which you thanked him silently for. 

Once a full spread of pancakes, eggs, and bacon were distributed throughout five plates, everyone sat down silently. You couldn’t bring yourself to meet anyone’s eyes, so you opted to stare intensely at your eggs instead. 

“So!” Sabo said cheerily. “Anything anyone wants to tell the family?”

Silence filled the room except for the sound of Luffy shoveling his breakfast into his mouth. You could feel your older brothers staring at you, but you refused to meet their eyes. 

“I can start,” Sabo offered, briskly moving the conversation along. “Luffy found some super weird marks on Y/N’s neck this morning after she snuck back into the house. Zoro, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Stop.” Your voice came out a hoarse whisper, and you cleared your throat before speaking again. “Sabo, cut it out.”

“I think it’s neat you guys are dating,” Luffy said, oblivious to the mood in the room. “I’ve always wanted Zoro to be a part of the family.”

“You’re not helping, Luffy!” Zoro snapped at him. 

“Ground rules!” Sabo yelled out, trying to reign in the conversation before Zoro and Luffy’s fight got too intense. “We need ground rules.”

“One - No spicy business in this house,” Ace piped in. “I don’t want to hear it.”

You rolled your eyes. “You bring people home all the time, idiot.”

“I don’t want to hear my sister moaning out-”

“Stop!” you yelled, desperate to cut him off. “Fine! You win!” You weren’t planning on actually adhering to that stipulation, but you would agree to it for now if it got Ace to stop talking. 

“Two - Tell us when you won't be home,” Sabo said, eyeing you. “We were actually worried about you last night, you know.”

You nod, feeling guilty about keeping them up. You knew that Ace and Sabo had probably stayed up all night waiting for you, and not as some silly ploy to embarrass you. 

“I’m sorry about that,” you said, and you genuinely were. 

“Three,” Luffy said. “You take me on your dates and pay for my dinner.”

“Like hell!” Both you and Zoro shouted. You glanced at each other and smiled, realizing your synchronicity before your eyes quickly darted away and a blush rose to your cheeks. 

“Fine, fine,” Luffy said, pouting a little bit that his idea got shot down so fast. “Three - Zoro, you better not hurt her.”

“Or we’ll beat your ass,” Ace added. 

“Even with three swords, I don’t think you can take us all.” Sabo said, him and the boys smirking at each other. 

“Noted,” Zoro said. “Though I have no intention of hurting her. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how I was lucky enough to get her to look my way in the first place.”

You smiled at his words, a warm feeling rising in your chest. Suddenly, your breakfast looked a lot more appetizing.

[idleoblivion]

"An Unexpected Lesson in Envy" Cater Diamond x GN Reader

Synopsis: Cater wants to show off pictures of you on Magicam, but the online response is not what he was expecting.

Word Count: ~1.4k

A/N: Well it turns out that Cater’s speech and whole overuse of internet lingo thing feels so unnatural to write for me so I think I ended up making him more serious than I was supposed to lol, I did my best. Also the @ looks like that cause I almost accidentally tagged a real person lol

Warnings: jealousy, light reverse comfort

“Come on, just a few more!”

“You said that ten minutes ago!”

You loved him, you did, but your boyfriend had a habit of roping you into photo shoots that could be inconveniently long. You were too cute, he’d always say, he couldn’t help it. You were in the gardens of Heartslabyul, which made for the perfect background as well. Today though, you have a history essay that you really need to get started on. If you stuck around too much longer, you’d have to work pretty late into the night to finish in time. 

“You’re so cruel to leave me~” he whines, which you respond to with a lighthearted glare. “Fine,” he sighs, “We’ve already gotten enough good pics anyway.”

“Thanks. I’ll text you later tonight.” You quickly kiss his cheek before hurrying back to your dorm to work. 

Cater returns to his room as well. While he’s ascending the tall, twisted stairs to get there, he’s scrolling through all the photos he got today. He’s almost giddy as he looks through them, you ended up with some fantastic shots today. 

He flops onto his back on his bed and starts collecting his favorite ones to post. He decides on a short collection of them, and rushes to Magicam to show them off. 

‘Some adorbs photos with @ ididntasktobehere in the gardens! Some of my fav pics I’ve taken! #aesthetic #gorgeous #photoshoot #CayCaythebestphotographer’

He smiles to himself, satisfied with the caption he typed out. He posts them immediately, excited to see the response that they’ll get. And the attention starts coming within minutes of posting. 

He knew the pictures would get some popularity, his followers liked almost anything he posted featuring the gardens, and you were always a stunning model in his opinion. What he doesn’t expect is the amount of attention. The comments and likes start rolling in like they never have for him. No other post of his has gone as viral as this one. 

He’s ecstatic about it, until he starts actually reading the comments. 

-OMG, who is that? They are BEAUTIFUL 

-literally ethereal omg

-They could slap me and I’d actually thank them for real

-JUST ONE CHANCE PLEASE I BEG

He’s…conflicted. 

Of course you’re beautiful, and of course people would notice. That was to be expected, so why was his chest still feeling tighter and tighter the more he read?

He wasn’t the jealous type, really. He never got upset if you were affectionate with your friends. He never blamed you if some other guy flirted with you, because of course you always turned them down. And as long as they took no for an answer, he couldn’t really blame them for finding you attractive either. 

It’s never been so many people though. Especially all at once. It wasn’t just one person who wanted your attention, it had turned into hundreds thanks to his post. People were praising you with every compliment they could think of, and some were even asking if you were single. 

Your account was private, so he wasn’t worried about you being flooded with unwanted attention suddenly. But he was worried about what you’d think if you saw all the comments. Would you be uncomfortable? 

…Would you like them? He guesses he could understand if you did, everyone was being so nice and complimentary. But he realizes a part of him really doesn’t want you to. 

He was the uncomfortable one. As uncharacteristic as it was, he was jealous and had to admit it. 

Now he was at a loss for what to do, though. Does he delete the post? You followed him, so if you checked once you were done with your essay and the pictures weren’t there, you might ask what happened to them. He technically could respond to everyone that you were taken, but didn’t that make him seem insecure? He should be able to just brush it off, he thinks. 

It’s getting late by this point, and he decides to just try and ignore it for the night. He’d deal with any more comments in the morning, when his head was a little clearer. 

—-

He could not ignore it for the night. Every few hours he was up and checking for any more replies to his post, always finding at least a few new ones. His frown deepened with each additional comment. For the first time, he was actually loathing the popularity of his own post.

You could tell something was off when he greeted you with only a half-hearted smile and spent your whole walk to class together clearly lost in his own thoughts. He wasn’t any better anytime you spotted him in the hall between classes. He still wasn’t any better at the end of the school day, which is why you follow him to his dorm to confront him about it.

“Come on, you know you’ve been weird today. Are you feeling sick? Is something wrong?” “It really isn’t that big of a deal.” There’s absolutely zero pep in his tone, none of his usual Cater mannerisms present. He seems almost exhausted.

“That’s a lie and you know it. Cater, why can’t you talk to me about it?” He ponders for a second, still feeling guilty for being jealous in the first place. But clearly he wasn’t hiding it well, and making you worry about him didn’t feel very good either. So he takes a deep breath in before laying out everything that happened with the post.

“...That’s it? I saw the post, you even tagged me. I looked at the comments too when I saw you were getting so many. I honestly just rolled my eyes at them. I didn’t realize they were making you upset.”

“I…I guess I didn’t expect to be either? I just…I don’t know why. It’s not like I think you’d break up with me for one of them or anything.”

“It’s still okay to feel weird about it though. Do you want to take the post down?” “I thought about it, but I’m not sure. And the same thing might happen if I ever post more.” He seems extra dejected at the thought of that. Luckily, an idea pops into your head.

You grab his phone out of his hand. He looks at you surprised, but lets you open up his camera and sit next to him.

“Okay, now like this…” You put his arm around you and lean into him close. He seems to get the idea at this point and smiles widely before pulling you in tightly himself. You both position yourselves in frame, and you press your lips to his cheek as you take the picture.

When you pull away and hand him his phone back, his mood has already flipped completely. Even more so as he types out his next caption:

‘Thanks for the love on the pics we posted! Me and my lovely partner @ ididntasktobehere have been reading all the nice comments together! #cutestcouple #cutiesinlove’

“‘Cuties in love?’ Get rid of that, that’s embarrassing.” “But it’s true! We’re a couple of cuties, the cutest couple in the school!”

He laughed at himself and closed his phone with a satisfied grin. He was sure the two of you got the point across to everyone. With his confidence restored, he looks at you and starts brainstorming again.

“Oooh, maybe Vil will let us use one of the rooms at Pomefiore, everything in there is so fancy, it would totally blow up if we did a little shoot there.” “You’re seriously already planning another?” You laugh.

Of course he was. Now that everyone had it straight that you were taken, he was going to take every opportunity to show you off. 

Plus, if anybody had something to say, he could always just ask you to kiss him on camera again. In fact, he decides, he’ll probably ask you even if they don’t. Because as good as showing you off felt, it didn’t feel nearly as good as showing off that you were his and he was yours.

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

Hi! For the kink thing you're doing - could we please please get a Billy Russo competency + overstim kink (or competency and praise, whichever pairing you prefer). In my mind the reader gets *ideas* when Billy is building something (bc those damn IKEA dressers are difficult) or maybe she goes to Anvil one day and sees him doing like training with recruits or something? Anyway, sorry for the ramble and thank you in advance!

I am!

Masterlist

In the Sniper's Nest

Contains: Consent and kink negotiation, hand kink (you get an extra one), competency kink, fingering, overestimation, P in V, fluff.

1.5K words

You check out the new instalment at Anvil, a sniper's nest that Billy seems to love.

Despite his ear protection, he still heard you ascending the steps of the sniper's nest. It was Anvil's newest toy, the tall structure standing out above the skyline of the flat warehouse. He pulled aside his ear muff and pulled the earplug free, pushing himself up from his position lying on the table in the middle of the room to rush over to greet you. "Hi."

You tapped your own ear muff with a smile. "What?"

He pulled them off your head and placed them around your neck as you yanked the earplugs out. "These are a good look for you."

You chuckled. "Yes, that gun is very loud."

He smiled and leaned down to kiss you, his hand soft on your cheek as you leaned against him. He pulled away, brushing your hair from your face as he looked down at you lovingly. "Now what are you doing here?"

You sighed. "I missed you, you've been busy and we've been missing our lunch dates." You furrowed your brow. "Why are you in your suit?" Normally during training, he wore his grey fatigues.

He sighed. "I just got done showing our client our new space. They were very impressed."

You took the chance to look around the small room. It was set up like an embedded sniper outpost, the walls covered in large charts about wind speed and bullet type, even though it was furnished like a dining room in a dilapidated apartment. The only things that really stood out were the new couch in one corner and the shelves of binoculars and PEE along one wall. "It looks even better than the photos." It really felt like you were in enemy territory.

He took your hand and led you to the table, gesturing to his rifle with a smile. "You wanna watch?"

You nodded, and he walked around the table to the shelves, picking up a pair of safety glasses and a set of binoculars. He placed the binoculars on the table and pulled you close, sliding the safety glasses over your face before booping your nose as you held back your giggles. "You're being silly, Billy."

He bent his head and kissed you again before helping you climb onto the table and settling next to you. His shoulder was back bracing the riffle as you looked through the lens, and the shot shook the room while smoke billowed from the barrel. You didn't see anything until he tapped your shoulder and pointed to one of the trees at the very edge of the property. Another look clarified what he was shooting at as another shot rang out, and a left was blown clear of its branch.

It happened like that each time, the green leaves disappearing in a puff as the boom of the gun jerked the table until he ran out of bullets. When he finally placed the weapon on the ground, you still found yourself unable to look away from the sight, he hadn't missed a shot the whole time. He ran his hand all the way up your back, finally breaking your attention away from the tree. You removed everything from your head and turned backwards to face them. "That was very impressive."

He was smiling, his ego clearly boosted by the look of amazement on your face. "I gotta go back to the armoury and clean my rifle. You wanna come?"

You nodded. "Of course I do."

The trip was short, only down the stairs and through a door before you were standing in an expansive space loaded with guns. He made his way to the large table with you following close behind and began to dissemble the weapon, taking it apart piece by piece before cleaning each part with care, his face a mask of concentration as the burnt gun powdered turned into shiny metal.

"You see something you like?" He looked so smug.

You most definitely did, each movement of his slender fingers was precise and controlled more like a dance than a tedious process he could do with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. "Yes, many things, would you like me to list them?"

If you thought he was smug before, that was nothing compared to how he was now. "Nah, I think I have a pretty good idea."

The gun was put away in his personal spot, and he washed his hands in the slop skin as you watched on, swaggering up to you and lifting you onto the table when he was done. "You need something from be gorgeous girl?"

You nodded. "Many things."

He settled between your spread legs, his fingertips playing with the hem of your jeans as he gazed into your eyes. "Are my fingers one of them?"

It was hard to concentrate on anything when he was touching you, but you knew if you didn't answer, nothing would happen. "Yes, I would like that very much."

He smirked and popped open your jeans, slowly undoing the zip if only to toy with you before his fingers met your core. "You got something you need to tell me about, because there's no way my poor landscaping and the smell of gun oil has got you this wet."

He wasn't pulling any punches, there was no tease or slow build, he was doing exactly what he needed to bring you right to the edge before your brain could catch up. "You're very good at things…" You took a deep breath to gather yourself as heat spread out from where his fingers were on you. "And I like that you're good at things."

The feeling of his fingers leaving your skin shocked you into action and you tugged at his clothes while he tugged at yours, and before long, you were both naked with your clothes in little piles around you. "You know what else I'm good at?"

You knew exactly what answer he was looking for by the way his thumb was rubbing at the inside of your thigh. "Yes, yes I do."

He smiled and returned to touching you with the same insistence as before. It didn't take long for the pressure to build in your core, and he knew it. His beard scratched your skin as his lips worried at your neck, and he smiled into your skin as you clenched around nothing. He didn't stop there, his long fingers filling you before the aftershocks could fade.

Everything was so steady and practised, the fingertips on your G-spot, his lips on yours, each move intentional and purposeful until you were once again cresting the hill into bliss. He was unrelenting, pushing and pushing and pushing until one orgasm faded into another and space reduced to just the two of you in the empty Anvil warehouse.

"Please, Billy, I can't take it anymore." That was only half a lie, you could have told him no if you needed to.

He chuckled warmly, pulling his hand away and sucking his fingers into his mouth with a groan before speaking. "So you don't want me inside you?"

His tone held just a hint of mischief, and you nipped his shoulder as he chuckled. "I'll take that as a yes."

You nodded. "Yes please."

His forehead fell against yours as he slid inside you, taking a careful pace as you leaned your weight into him. He wrapped his arms around your body, controlling the pace as you wove one hand into his hair and held the table with the other. As his speed picked up, he pulled back to watch your blissed out face, grunting like an animal with every thrust as he took in the sight of your screwed tight eyes and heaving chest. "Billy..I."

He kissed you softly, whispering against your lips as his fingers made their way to your clit. "I know, gorgeous, I can feel it. How about you be a good girl and cum for me again."

You were powerless to resist his request, not when he said it so sweetly and as you were swept into the undertow of it, his teeth sunk into your lower lip as he followed you.

You stayed together for a breath before he finally stepped back, smirking as you twitched. "Sorry."

You huffed. "No you're not."

He kissed the corner of your mouth with a smile. "You're right about that."

He reached down for your clothes, dressing you piece by piece before dressing himself. Your eyes went wide, and he paused, looking at you intently as if he could decipher your worry. "Umm, is Jerry watching the cameras?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "I made sure they were turned off when we walked in here."

You fained offence and shoved his shoulder playfully. "You ass, you planned this from the start."

He nodded and kissed you again. "Yep. You can't be mad, you love me."

You sighed. "I do but I'm expecting you to make it up to me, I can't have you scheming all the time."

The look of lust on his face told you what he was thinking. "Oh, don't worry, I will."

Fin

@thegirlwhowritesfics

[jsprnt]

Americano PT. 9 | Jude Bellingham x Reader

What happens if two individuals who absolutely despise each other are forced to interact after unforeseen events occur?

A/N: phew! this took me five million years and a bag of candy to write. remember when I told you to remember the house layout? 😉 Enjoy!

small mention: I absolutely love knowing you all are curious about the next chapter of this series. I appreciate and love all comments I get, and try to keep all my promises I make. but, trust I’m human too and need some away from writing. Though, when rude and harassing words are used in my inbox- the joy of writing this series gets absolutely sucked away. (If I’ve answered your message, this isn’t about your comment 🫶) so, please keep your rude words to yourself or I’ll turn off anonymous inbox messages and block you the next time :)

W/C: 4.016

part eight

"I should've just taken a break to go on vacation."

Lina sighs, poking her salad with her fork, and guiding the mixture of greens and dressing up to her mouth.

"Didn't you take a trip to Paris last international break?"

Luis says, raising a brow at her words. He turns his head towards me, nudging me under the table.

"Can you believe her?" He asks, an exasperated chuckle leaving his lips. It causes me to jolt out of my half-asleep state, my eyes widening in surprise.

"What? Who?" I ask looking around and bring a hand up to rub the sleep out of my eyes.

I had rushed out of the house this morning, which meant everyone got the chance to admire my bare skin today.

Well, my stress-induced breakouts were on full display, but having some pimples wasn’t the end of the damn world anyway.

"Are you okay?" Lina joins in, placing a warm hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, just dozed off- been sleeping horribly." I reply, eyeing my lunch with a grimace.

"Are those exams still keeping you up?"

"More like waking me up.. Do you know how many nightmares of failing an exam a person can take?” I say, my words coming out harsher and louder than I intended. My eye twitches in irritation, and I give them a crazy look.

"Woah, you have an attitude today.." Luis mutters, shifting away from me.

"Don’t piss her off.." I hear Lina say, nudging Luis.

"Never mind, I'm going back to work." I state, quickly putting my tray of food away and walking out of the cafeteria.

I mutter curses under my breath, trying to look as normal as possible to my coworkers when I pass them in the hallways.

Exam season was practically sucking the life out of me, and the added pressure of the upcoming Champions League home game against Napoli was multiplying the stress.

Thankfully, it was international break, which meant that my normal workload was cut in half. Some players not playing for in the national team had requested leave for vacation, so the training center was pretty quiet and empty today.

I only knew of injured players being here for their scheduled recovery appointments.

I finally get back in my office, sighing in exhaustion when I get to my desk. I plop down, rubbing my face to wake myself up further, before starting to work on some more content.

"Why are you grinning like a creep?"

I turn to Luis, chuckling at his choice of words, and let go of the computer mouse.

"I just got a notification that said I passed my written exam." I beam, giving him a cocky look.

"Really?"

"Yeah, ninety-four percent..” I say, turning my head to look at the editing program. The training video we had just shot halfway edited already.

"You've been snapping at us for no reason, but I guess it was worth it- good job.." He says, shooting me a smile, and leaning in to give me a side hug.

"Yeah, sorry about that.." I apologize, fixing my wrinkled shirt. I move my hand towards the mouse again, cutting off a piece of blurry footage that we couldn’t use.

"It's fine, I guess it's payback for making you do random tasks back when you were a newbie.."

"You know, I haven't forgotten how you made me carry that heavy ass bag every morning..”

"I'm sorry, alright. You should've told me earlier that Ancelotti is basically your uncle."

I grumble at his words, jabbing his ribcage with my elbow, sending him a warning look.

"Stop talking and help me out with this.." I mutter, passing him the mouse.

He winces a little, rubbing his stomach, before snatching the mouse off of me with an attitude.

"Didn't know you were allowed to use your privilege to inflict such violence."

I roll my eyes, focused on the moving images on the computer screen. Starting to unconsciously pick at a fresh scab on my hand. Only noticing the damage I’ve done when I look down to see blood trickling down the back of my hand.

"Shit, made myself bleed.." I say, making Luis glance away from the dual monitors.

"Go to the physiotherapy room. They have a shit ton of bandages and bandaids.” He suggests, his hand going up to fix the curls falling in front of his eyes.

I nod quickly, getting up from my seat and walking out of the small, soundproof meeting room. I close the glass door behind me, hurrying over to the physiotherapy room.

I pass the glass panels facing the multiple pitches outside, the sun had been shining brightly this afternoon. Even though the sun had been setting quite early due to daylight saving time.

I knock twice when I arrive, only opening the door when I hear a loud 'come in' in response.

I clear my throat, realizing how silly it is to get a bandaid for a wound like this, but still walk in.

I'm greeted by the sight of first-team physiotherapist Iván, he smiles when he notices me, waving for me to come inside.

He was one of the nicest people working with me at Real Madrid. It would be especially fun when he would bring in his little two-year-old son with him. I couldn’t count on one hand how many times I had carried the cute boy around the training center in my free time.

"Oh, y/n. What brings you here?" He questions, shoving the white privacy curtain out of the way, only to reveal a shirtless Jude lying on the treatment table, his eyes opening to peer over at me.

The personalized shoulder brace he'd been wearing for the past couple matches, was taken off for obvious reasons, and placed on the other side of the bed.

I look away a moment later, feeling my chest tighten, internally wincing at the thought of Jude having a dislocated shoulder and still playing football. Despite all of the aggressive and offensive play we had gotten used to this season, he was handling it well- but I wouldn’t ever utter it out loud.

Because- who wants to inflate that ego even more? Or was that even possible?

"Hi, Iván.. Just wondering if you got a bandaid for me?" I avert my gaze to the physio, and raise my brows. I hold my hand up to show the wound, and smile when he nods in response.

"Yeah, just a second.." He shoots Jude a quick wink, washing his hands before coming over. He begins to rummage through the cabinet, flipping through a pack of bandaids before handing me one closest to my skin color.

"Here you go.. Do you need anything else?" He asks, eyeing the blood on my hand.

"Nope, only this. Thank you.." I smile, quickly wiping down the blood from my hand and gently placing the bandaid on my wound.

I throw the bloody wipes and wrappers in the dedicated trash can, turning around again when I’m done.

I make accidental and involuntary eye contact with Jude instead of Iván, who's already across the room busy with some paperwork. Probably documenting the progress of Jude’s injury.

My eyes automatically dart down to his shoulder, and unbelievably, my eyes slip to his chest, then to his-

I stiffen when I regain consciousness of what I’m doing, and look away with haste. I fight the urge to smack myself in the face, instead biting the flesh of my cheek when I notice him smirk at me.

"What are you looking at?" He questions, voice low and his cocky tone too obvious to ignore.

My eyes widen slightly when he speaks, and I take a step forward as if to say I’m not intimidated.

"Just- looking at your shoulder.." I say, cringing at the way the words leave my mouth.

"So, you’re worried about me now?"

I give him a look of disgust, a chuckle of disbelief leaving my mouth.

"You wish, Bellingham. I heard Ancelotti is confident in putting you in the starting lineup on Wednesday. You better put your best foot forward, and if we don’t end up winning..." I trail off, threatening him slightly with my tone. I then turn around and leave the room.

I couldn’t lie, being rude to him after he'd dislocated his shoulder and still played made me feel a little guilty.

Though, he had a huge gift of being the ultimate douchebag, even when he’d been having his 'decent' moments lately.

“He’s only turned nineteen two- no three months ago, and he’s already scoring in the Champions League..” Luis gawks, grabbing the equipment bag out of my hand.

“I know, it’s so fun to see young players flourish..” I mutter, mentally recalling the interview I just did with Nico Paz. Since it was his first goal for Real Madrid, we had just done an interview in celebration.

“He is a year younger than you.. Is he really that young to you?” Luis teases, pushing me away when I pretend to kick him.

“What? Are you trying to undermine my accomplishments?” I question, trying to kick him again.

“Hey! See, this is how immature you are.. Step back, dude get off…” He says, and I scuffle with him for a moment, gasping when he tries to put me in a headlock.

“Okay, you always do this- stop everyone is looking..” I mutter, squeezing his arm.

“How fuckin’ childish are you?” I hear a familiar voice say. I snap my head up, Luis’ arm loosening as he immediately lets me go.

“As much as I want to be...” I state, my hand traveling up to fix my hair and clothes.

I hear Jude scoff, he gives me a nasty look before taking a step forward, but I notice him freeze in my peripheral vision when he hears someone calling out to me.

“y/n?!” The person shouts, and I look around for a moment before my eyes land on…

The guys from Naples?

What’s his name again?

“Chris?..” I say, my voice low and as enthusiastic as I can manage to pretend.

Fuck, I never even answered his DM’s..

Well, should I really give a guy who looks like trouble a chance?

My common sense says: NO.

I watch him bring an arm around my back, his hand resting on my shoulder blade when he hugs me tightly. Like we’ve been friends for freaking years…

“How have you been? Thought I’d see you here..” He beams, his hand going up to fix the fluffy mop of blonde hair on his head. Aussie accent undeniably mesmerizing like last time.

He is so pretty, but the kind of pretty that told me he was a full on man-wh*re..

“Hi? Good, what are you doing here?” I ask, trying to stop the grimace forming on my face. I lean in, taking a closer look at the badge hanging from his neck.

Surprisingly enough, it says ‘VIP’- I look up at him with a questioning look, waiting for him to explain.

“Oh- this.. someone I know gifted me this pass..”

Yeah, very believable.

He smiles nonchalantly, the skin of his cheeks denting as his dimples show.

I nod as if I understand, glancing at Luis, so he can get me out of this conversation.

“You’re the drunk guy from that night!” Chris suddenly exclaims, pointing at Luis.

Could this get even more awkward.

I tune out the stupid conversation they have, shuffling backwards only to bump into Jude.

Thankfully, not against his injured shoulder.

“Oh, sorry..” I whisper, not even registering his response before he’s rudely interrupted.

“Man- no way you’re the Jude Bellingham..”

I close my eyes in embarrassment, turning around to face Jude instead of both Luis and Chris.

I raise my brows at Jude, giving him a look only readable as ‘send this man away’..

He immediately plasters an all too good, fake smile on his face. Stepping behind me to greet Chris, and begins talking to him about the match.

I can only hear a jumble of both Brum and Aussie accents, it making me want to burst into a fit of laughter. Though, I manage to keep it in, looking at Luis to see if he’s still present in the conversation.

He isn’t, as expected. No surprise, he’s fidgeting with his damn camera again.

I stand there like a statue for the next two minutes, looking back and forth between the two accented men.

It’s a comical sight, especially when I can’t even understand some words.

I sigh in relief when Jude pats Chris’ shoulder, careful with his injury when he goes in for a handshake.

I watch Jude leave swiftly, his facial expression falters immediately, and his hand goes up to rip the shoulder brace off his body, harsher than I’ve ever seen him do before.

"My brain is going to explode, fucks sake.."

I mumble, stretching my arms and legs. I get up from the dinner table in order to walk around the backyard for a moment. Trying to get some fresh air, even though it's past midnight already.

I loved studying at the dinning table way more than upstairs in my room. It felt less lonely- especially since my dad had been gone for a couple weeks now. His work and the case had taken an interesting turn, which meant that his stay had to be prolonged.

I didn't mind, in fact, I loved living alone. Except for when I heard random noises at night. It could've been a bird flying against the window, and I’d still be paranoid.

Since it was our day off, after winning 4-2 against Napoli yesterday- I thought I'd go ahead and continue cramming for my last exam I had in a couple days.

I yawn and stretch my limbs, looking up at the clear sky and stars. It had gotten so much colder since December was almost here.

My pajama shorts are not providing warmth, but I can’t be bothered to go up and change when I’m going back inside in a minute anyway.

I can hear my back cracking when I turn to stretch, making me chuckle. I was only twenty, but those hard ass chairs and sitting in them for long periods of time, made me feel like I was double my age sometimes.

I'm brought out of my thoughts when I hear my phone ring loudly from the dinning table. I jog back inside quickly, throwing my slippers off my feet and snatch my phone. Confusion settling on my face when I read the caller ID.

I immediately pick up, pressing the phone against my ear. Worrying about something horrible happening in the middle of the night.

"Dad? It's late, something wrong?" I say in one breath, left hand clutching the backrest of my chair.

"y/n, nothings wrong. I just need you to listen carefully..”

"Okay." I spit out, just wanting him to get to the point, my brain making up all types of things.

"It's concerning one of my clients. Something unexpected just happened, and he's going to have to stay over at ours for a while."

I pause at his words, frowning in confusion, even though he can’t see my face.

"What? So, you're calling me- because I need to let an unfamiliar guy into our house- so he can sleep here? Is it a criminal?”

I gasp, hand gripping my phone tighter.

“A murderer?! Dad! How can you-”

"-y/n.." He cuts me off, voice stern, but I’m able to hear the grogginess of his tone. He'd probably been sleeping before he was awakened.

"It's no stranger- it's Jude, okay? He's not safe in his own home- relating the case I took on. I offered for him to stay over out of concern for his safety. So, he's going to have to stay with- you for a while."

I stay quiet, taking in all of the information he's giving me. I can already feel a migraine creeping up on me, letting go of my chair to massage my temple with one hand.

"I have to get the guest room- ready?" I say, processing everything and trying to understand what I’m supposed to do.

"Yes, I know you two are- friendly. Please be understanding and responsible. I'll call you in the morning, just get him settled and go to bed. You got that, honey?"

"Yeah, I got it. Uh- I'll get the room ready.." I say, already walking up the stairs and into the guest bedroom.

"Good, again- I'll call you in the morning- good night, sweetie.."

I quickly hang up after saying goodbye, running around, and making the bedroom look presentable. I change the bedsheets and wipe the dust off the vanity with a swift motion. It takes me about ten minutes and a sweaty forehead, before the doorbell rings repeatedly.

I run down the stairs, almost tripping due to my haste.

I take a deep breath when I reach the front door, trying to collect my thoughts and feelings before swinging the door open.

Jude's house was unsafe to stay in, so he's staying here- right..

The front door squeaks when I open it. An exhausted-looking Jude entering my sight, his black suitcase is on the floor, to his right- looking like it’s about to burst at its seams.

Cold air greets my face and naked legs almost instantly, making me curse internally for not changing clothes earlier.

I was too stubborn for my own good..

"Hi- umh, come in?" I say, my voice hoarse as if I hadn't spoken out loud in weeks.

He nods awkwardly, mumbling something incoherent as he begins rolling his suitcase inside.

I motion for him to take his shoes off, which he promptly does without hesitation. I turn away, grabbing some house slippers for him to wear out of the shoe rack.

I throw them next to his feet, watching his eyes flicker up and down as he steps back for a moment.

"You alright?" I ask, worried about the lack of words he's using.

It was unlike him, whether we’re arguing about some stupid shit or I’m filming an interview- he always had something to say.

"Yeah, I'm fine.." He mutters, looking up and finally making eye contact with me.

"The bedroom is upstairs.." I trail off, reaching over to grab his suitcase, but he snatches the heavy luggage up with one hand, immediately making his way up the stairs.

I watch the muscles in his arm flex as I walk behind him. I stop dead in my tracks when I realize what I’m doing and practically start running up the stairs to catch up to him.

I walk ahead of him when we reach the top of the stairs, opening the guest bedroom door for him.

"This is your room, bathroom is there, and the laundry room is over there." I point, turning around to face him.

"Thanks.." His Brum accent is thick, and he looks at me like a lost man in crisis.

I clear my throat, unable to pick between being nice and acting like how we normally interacted.

"Are- do you want to go shower?" I mutter, raising my brows.

I only realize how wrong my sentence sounds the second it leaves my mouth. To cover my embarrassment, I clear my throat again, putting my hands behind my back.

"Yeah- I should.." He responds, and I step aside to let him in the bedroom.

"I'll be downstairs.."

I inform, running down the stairs the second he shuts the door behind him.

I rub my eyes aggressively when I walk into the living room area. Sitting on the couch, I wonder if this is some delusional fever dream.

Maybe it’s just a different genre of dreams, next to those nightmares I had about failing exams.

I mean- who can make this up?

I get up to my feet again, walk up to the fridge, and begin filling up a huge glass with water. I bring the cup up to my lips, and slowly sip on the cool liquid, hoping it will help me feel grounded again.

I exhale deeply when I'm halfway through the cup. Going for my last gulp of water again, I fill my mouth with the rest of the water. My cheeks almost exploding from the amount of water in my mouth.

Suddenly, I'm absolutely- fucking-scared shitless as I'm poked in between my shoulder blades. I turn around in a shift motion, accidentally spraying out the water in my mouth- onto a shirtless Jude's chest.

My eyes almost bug out of my head in shock. My jaw slacks open when I observe the aftermath.

He can only look at me with a blank face. I can’t detect any emotion in his face, but he’s probably equally as mortified as me.

"Shit- sorry.." I blurt, turning around, and grabbing a kitchen towel. I scramble for a second, and start to vigorously..wipe.. his..chest..

I only realize I'm rubbing on his chest like I’m giving him a damn massage- mid-wipe and freeze.

My body goes rigid and my hands are resting on his now dry, naked chest.

I look up at him, only seeing part of his face with help from the dim lights in the kitchen. My breathing slows down, and he looks down at me in return.

I can feel my heart pounding in my ribcage, and I'm sure anyone within meters of me could hear.

His skin is soft and warm underneath my fingertips-

"I- was going to ask how the shower works.." Jude whispers, his warm breath hitting my face. I can make out his brown eyes peering into mine, a series of unspoken and caged words behind them.

His words make me stop breathing for a moment. I remove my hands off of him at lightning speed, the kitchen towel falling to the floor mindlessly and I step back immediately.

"Oh- yeah, sure. Follow me.." I scramble a couple words together, my brain working overtime. I walk up the stairs again. Leading him into the bathroom, noticing he had left the lights on, his discarded shirt on the bathroom counter.

"Here- left is hot, right is cold. This is the best temperature.." I instruct, pointing when necessary and don’t dare to look up at him as he stands behind me.

"This button is for the radio and this one for the ventilation.." I say, pressing some buttons to show him how they work.

"Okay.." He breaths out, his warm breaths hitting the back of my neck. I can practically feel his eyes drilling into the back of my head.

I finally turn to look at him, dragging my gaze up to make awkward eye contact with him.

"Anything else?" I ask, voice low and I begin fidgeting with the hem of my shorts.

"Not really..” He replies, sentence dragged out by his accent.

"Umh- okay.. laundry hamper is there. I'll be in my room.." I trail off, pointing my thumb behind me, and walk out of the bathroom without saying anything else.

I quickly clean up the mess I - no, he caused in the kitchen. I wipe everything down properly and grab my laptop and stationary off the dining table.

I carefully lock the front door and windows on the first floor, setting up the alarm and going back upstairs.

I can hear some noise coming from the bathroom. I begin averting my gaze, just in case Jude walks out of the bathroom half-naked again.

I finally get into my bedroom, jumping into my bed. I try to distract myself with my phone until he's done with showering. So I can finally wash my face and brush my teeth after a long day of studying.

Only, this time- my phone doesn’t seem to be all too interesting. Not even those brainrotting and attention grabbing TikTok’s.

Nothing, and I mean nothing- could distract me from anything that had happened within the past thirty minutes..

[eskawrites]

Thinking about the library scene and how that one shot of Nancy looking at Robin like she’s in love (not the cute and annoyed “you never know” look, the one after that where she looks a little lost and can’t look away from Robin, you know the one) and thinking about how that moment isn’t actually Robin saying something sweet or affirming or caring toward Nancy, it’s her contradicting her.

Nancy says that’s super convenient for Victor and Robin says ‘or super inconvenient’ and for the first time maybe ever in Nancy’s life, someone is arguing with her not to shoot her down, but to push her theory forward. And the fact that that is what has Nancy going all disbelieving heart eyes toward Robin—the idea that she finds someone who actually does believe her shot in the dark but isn’t just going to tag along passively and it has her immediately smitten—is 1) lowkey kinda hilarious, like c’mon Nance and 2) really just phenomenally sweet? And honestly what a strong central core for their budding relationship. What an excellent first example of the way they will continue to both challenge and support each other throughout the season.

And I think this is one of my favorite things about ronance: it really feels like Nancy finally meets her match. Other characters have been willing to keep up with her but it almost always comes from their own motivations (which is fine) or a sense of trying to placate her (which is less fine). Hell, Jonathan spends most of s3 not believing her but tagging along anyway, placating her and her wild theories, and that’s why they have such a huge fight when shit hits the fan. He was supporting her because she’s his girlfriend, not because he actually supported her.

And then comes s4, and Robin owes Nancy nothing when she goes to the library with her. She goes because she genuinely believes Nancy will have a brilliant idea that will save the day. And then she stays because, despite the fact that things aren’t going well, they still might be on to something. And as soon as there’s even a possibility that they might be right, Robin is the one arguing with Nancy that this might be the information they need

And so Nancy stares at her like she’s seeing her for the first time, because when was the last time someone argued with her in a way that wasn’t painfully personal? When was the last time someone challenged her without belittling her? When was the last time someone believed in her so freely and wholeheartedly that they took her ideas and ran with them before Nancy even had a chance to prove herself? Hell, I’d be immediately smitten, too

[chishiyaisasnack]

Dare, part 7

Part 6

Hello again! Long time no see. My writers block is still in full effect. Anyway, here’s a little fun one. It’s not very smutty but that was all I could muster this time. I do have bigger plans for the next chapter, and hopefully it won’t take me 6 months to finish it.

Disclaimer! This is (light) smut. Minors and those of you who don’t like the topic, please stay away.

It’s written and posted on mobile so I apologize for any wierd formatting.

How did you end up in a cleaning closet in the meeting room that all the executives were going to gather in, in approximately three minutes? And how did Chishiya end up in it with you? Those were some of the questions that were buzzing through your mind as of this very moment.

”I did not agree to this,” you scolded him, not sure what you did agree to, to be honest. The tiny room was filled with things such as vacuum cleaners (covered in dust, what an irony), mops, drawers and buckets stacked on top of eachother on said drawers - all lit by a dank, yellow lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. For such a nice hotel, this cleaning and supply closet had been severely neglected.

”You said that you would help me clean, remember?” Chishiya shot back at you, his back turned against you as he rummaged through some cabinet filled with different types of detergents and cleaning products.

”This isn’t cleaning though, is it?” No matter how many taps with your foot on the wooden floor, annoyed sighs you made or ”hurry up” coming from your mouth, Chishiya still wasn’t done when you heard the entrance door to the meeting room open. The air was filled with voices, becoming clearer after each person that entered the room. You were out of time, if you wanted to get out of here you had to go now. One last look - okay, glare - at Chishiya, who had stopped his rummaging and were putting something in the pocket of his hoodie before him turning around to face you, and you were ready to leave all this dust behind you (Chishiya included).

”You are just going through stuff in drawers,” you hissed at him, only making him smirk. ”That is not cleaning.”

In the background, chairs started scratching against the floor as the excecutives started to sit down. They were right outside the door now and you could hear every word they were saying.

”I guess Chishiya won’t grace us with his presence today,” the Hatter exclaimed loudly in the joined room, followed by a sigh that was probably heard across all of Tokyo. ”I guess we’ll start the meeting without him.”

Your heart was beating out of your chest as the stress of getting the hell out of there was pouring over you. They were going to hear you, they were going to think that you were listening in on them. Or worst of all - they would try to make you join them. Hell no, you were getting out of the damn closet.

”Okay I’m leav-”

Chishiya slapped a hand over your mouth before you even had a chance to turn away from him, and grinned back at your horrified expression. What the hell was he doing?

Your eyes were shooting daggers into Chishiya’s dark orbs, silently telling him to let you leave the closet before they started the meeting and said something that you didn’t want to hear. You were not going to be an accomplice to whatever scheme they were making. There was a reason why you refused to be in that group of idiots. Standing up straight, you took a quick breath and reached for the door handle, just to be grabbed by Chishiya’s hand and dragged further back into the closet.

”If you leave now they’ll force you to join in,” he whispered, so amused by the situation that you wanted to kick him in the shin.

”If I don’t leave now they’ll think I’ve been listening behind their backs,” you hissed as low as you could while pulling your arm out of his grip.

”Are we starting this or not?” Niragis irritated - make that irritating - voice broke the stare off between the two of you and you made another leap for the door. Just to once again be stopped by the man next to you, who this time decided to force you out of his way and block the door with his body. God damn it.

”Fine,” you muttered. ”I’m not listening to them though,”

Chishiya smirked and watched as you took a few steps further back into the small room. You thought that the further in you were the less they would be able to hear you when you eventually would cuss Chishiya out for whatever he would do next. What he did do next was not a scenario you had expected.

”This might take a while,” he whispered, following you like a shadow. ”We should do something to pass the time.”

Reaching the end of the closet, now fully turned towards him again, confusion took over your annoyance for a second. What did he mean with ”something to pass the time”?

Before you could utter even a ”huh”, Chishiya had gotten closer, now so close that you could feel his body against yours. His hoodie was soft against your skin when he took one last step and was now flushed against you. Soft lips and pointy hair tickled the side of your neck as he spoke again.

”I dare you to not make a single noise before those people leave the room,” he said, his voice barely a whisper aganist your ear but still so loud that every nerve in your body turned to life. Slender fingers ghosted over you arm, from your fingers to your elbow, then back down again before running them along the bottom of your shirt, teasing them along your stomach. Oh, that bastard.

Still, you couldn’t deny how good he was at getting you going. Your breath had already sped up, your hands clenched onto the sides of his hoodie and that tingling feeling between your legs was already there. You barely registered that his hand had moved further down and was now playing with the waistband of your shorts, successfully popping the button open before reality finally hit your lust clouded mind and snapped your eyes open. When did you even close them? Moving your head back so that you could look at him, you shot daggers into his eyes, seemingly making him even more amused than he already was.

”What the fuck are you doing?!” you mimed at him, but that only made his grin wider and his hand snake it’s way down your pants faster.

You wanted to stop him, but you also wanted him to continue and get into your panties already. Conflicting feelings, but you knew that the latter was the one that was going to win. Pissed at yourself for giving up your pride so easily, you spread your legs a little to give him better access. Chishiya was so happy with himself right now, you could feel it in the way that he wiggled his hand under the waistband of your underwear and gently stroked over the skin above your center, taking an extra second to linger there just to tease you just that tiny bit more before finally moving further down.

A warm finger slid over your outer folds, treathening you enter at any second but still taking its sweet time. You dug your nails down into Chishiya’s arm to try to ground yourself while you were waiting for him to stop toying with you and touch you properly, but as usual he had other ideas. You could feel the smile on his lips as he pressed them against your neck, right below your ear, dragging out a soft sigh from your throat.

”Shh, they’ll hear you,” he whispered softly before pressing his lips down again. A light dab from his finger reached your clit, and even though it was barely a touch it sent a jolt through your body. Smirking at your response, Chishiya finally started to move his finger - unfortunately it seemed that he had lost all memories of how to do it properly. You knew that he was having fun messing with you by the way his finger just happend to miss your clit while drawing circles around it. If you didn’t know better you would think that this was his first time ever touching a vagina. You rocked your hips in frustration, trying to get him to stop his teasing, and with a silent, snickering, huff of air against your ear he stopped playing and started stroking you just the way you needed him to. Slow, calculated motions that sent electricity through your body. He knew exactly how much pressure you wanted, what speed you needed, and he gave it all to you.

”Feel good?” Chishiyas words were barely there, so soft and quiet that you almost thought that you imagined them. A tiny nod was all you could give him, your face now buried in the hoodie on his shoulder to make sure to keep quiet, and to muffle any possible noise you unthinkingly made. You would not lose this time, you refused.

The voices outside were long gone from your mind. Even if they were there, your ears had blocked them out and replaced them with the sound of your own heartbeat mixed with Chishiya’s breathing. It was almost as fast as your own, flowing next to you like a calming white noise. That, blended with the smell of him clouded your mind and let you enjoy the warmth that his fingers quickening pace was giving you. It felt good. So good.

It didn’t take long for you to feel it, the tightening in your belly, the fire heating up your body, the bliss that was going to spill over. You dug your nails down a bit harder, earning more pressure from his finger, driving you closer and closer and-

*SLAM*

Both you and Chishiya froze, teeth clenched to not make any sudden noise and give away your position.

”Let’s just fucking kill them off then!” Niragis voice echoed through the room, merely a few meters from where you and Chishiya was fixed in place. His hand was still between your legs but he had stopped moving it in preparation of getting caught. Slowly, you lifted your head up from his neck and stared at him, trying to find any help with how to react, but Chishiyas eyes were excited. How was he always so calm during situations like this? One noise and you’d both be busted, and yet here he was, with that stupid smirk while waiting for what would happen next.

Seconds felt like hours as you both stood there in complete silence, waiting for Niragi to walk away from the door seperating the group from the two of you. Your heart was racing and beads of sweat were starting to form on your neck as you held your breath. Fuck, what if he tried opening the door? What if he slammed his gun into it instead of the wall and accidentally broke it open? Just to see you standing there with Chishiyas hand inbetween your legs. There was no bullshitting your way out of that. You would have to live with the constant harassment of the beach making fun of -

The finger pressing down on your clit abruptly interrupted your thoughs and you couldn’t help but to almost squeal in suprise. Thankfully you were clenching your teeth hard enough to not let it slip out, but Chishiya’s face was amused nontheless.

Thankfully Niragi decided to head back to the table and leave the door alone without any further slamming on walls. As soon as you heard the footsteps become lighter you let your head fall back onto Chishiya’s shoulder, choosing to ignore the excited expression that was plastered all over his face. If you didn’t know better you would think he was trying to get caught. You barely had time to let go of the breath you had been holding in, before his fingers returned with full force and pushed your body right back to where he had left you - on fire and with that tight knot in your belly that was so close to unravelling.

”Hmm…” he hummed happily into your ear, fingers not relenting. ”It feels like you enjoy almost being caught.”

”Shut… up…” you tried to mouth back at him, but as soon as your mouth opened his fingers found their way to your entry. Inch by agonizing inch two of his fingers sank deeper until he started to rythmically move them, stroking your walls with ease from how wet you were. He let the palm of his hand rub against your clit while his fingers rubbed your sweet spot over and over again, guiding you to the orgasm your body had been holding in.

You came with a huff of air, muffled by the white fabric that you were desperately clinging on to. Chishiya continued to pleasure you through your climax, softer and slower but still enough to drag out every possible second of bliss. When you were finally coming down from your high you raised your head back up and took a deep breath, which you almost choked on when you heard the chairs in the room outside all slide over the floor at the same time.

”Okay, the first one to see Chishiya will tell him to come and see me,” the Hatter loudly ordered the crowd, clearly bothered that he would have to repeat the meeting to the man who had heard it all, but ignored it to play games with you. His voice was followed by footsteps, and just like that the room was empty again.

”Good job,” Chishiya smugly whispered before removing his hand from your panties, to then nonchalantly wipe his fingers on his own swim shorts. Your eyes followed the way they curled into the fabric, swirling around on there to dry off any traces of you before heading out. You crinkled your nose at it and hoped that he would wash them as soon as he got back to his room - but then realisation hit you like a brick.

”How are you not hard?” The slight squeak in your voice turned his attention towards you once again. The front of his shorts were flat as a pancake and his hoodie wasn’t even covering up that particular area.

”Why do you ask?” Chishiyas was enjoying your suffering and shame, no doubt about it. ”Do you want to get me off too?”

He swung his hips back and forth, mocking you.

”No thanks,” you retaliated, sour that he was able to keep such control of his body while you had just let him finger you in a dusty closet with people outside. You decided to change the topic. ”So what do I get for winning?”

”You get the honour of washing my shorts later.”

[wizzdot]

The Patron Saint of One Way Trips

Ch8

Description: More progress. Laika is trying her best, bless her - Johnny is tasked to look after a pre-rut Ghost. Laswell is a queen, I will not be told otherwise. Anyway, enjoy more slow burn with sweet gorgeous Kyle, and a bit with Cap too. Thanks for all the comments and kudos. They are so very much appreciated. Wizzdot xx

*Laika's (Y/N's) POV*

The helicopter ride back to the base was.. nice. I'd sat with Gaz and Soap, who both had talked the entire time. I really did try and listen but found myself zoning in and out, worrying over what I had actually signed myself up for. I also couldn't shake the unwelcome vibes I'd been feeling from the Lieutenant. This was his pack. His mates. And I'd just turned up and gotten in the way. I felt like I should tell the two younger Alphas to back off, for Ghost's sake. I wasn't welcome. And I totally understand why.

We arrive at the base. I'd been told it was called Credenhill , in Herefordshire. Turns out Hereford was pretty dull during winter. Everything had died back and was totally devoid of life. I hope I wasn't headed the same way. The base seems to stretch on for miles. I watch from the windows as we lower toward the big red 'H' landing spot. Several uniform red brick barrack buildings and one larger HQ looking building - the one we were landing on top of. It looked as if there were running track and shooting ranges, along with an array of assault course type obstacles. Jesus - what had I signed myself up for by agreeing to Laswell's idea.

I am not a talented, or naturally gifted soldier. Hell, I hadn't even been properly trained by the Russians. I'd been taken and molded into an obedient weapon as a teenager - but I'd just been stupidly lucky so far. I had learnt to survive. I stood no chance up against the physicality of these trained war machines. Why did I agree to this?!

My fast track 'training' with the Russians consisted of being told to run until I collapsed, climbing things with no safety harnesses, target practice with knives and guns. If I didn't improve, I didn't get the privilege of eating or sleeping - this was the punishment for being useless. It took nine months of this - day in, day out - until they deemed me to be of a suitable standard to leave the facility. This was when they started upping the dosage of the drugs. I don't think they truly expected me to return from that first mission. I still remember how their eyes widened as I practically crawled back to the exfil point, shot twice but still standing, somehow. Objective completed. The wounds got infected because they refused to treat them properly. That was my lesson. It was simple. If I didn't get shot, I wouldn't have gotten the infection. Don't let it happen again. Stupid mutt. I licked my own wounds from there on in.

My mind is snapped back to the present as the ramp of the helicopter lowers with a creak and thud. Ghost stands and makes a beeline to where ever it was he was headed. I await instruction. I am the 141's puppet now. Hopefully they are kinder puppet masters. I didn't belong in this world. I was cruelly dropped into it and, like a bug in a bathtub, I couldn't escape. I guess I had to stop looking for an escape. I cannot run away from my life for the rest of time. It was time to stop running and face the music.

I am escorted from the helicopter. I follow Gaz closely. He leads the way to a meeting room. Laswell is already there. Her scent is calming, she smelled like honey, or the smell of a kitchen after a cake had been baked. Warm. She is Beta. There is no sharpness to her scent like there would be if she was an Alpha. She looks my way as we step into the room.

"Laika, we have been keeping an eye on the facility in Siberia since we departed. The good news is that they haven't sent search teams out for you yet. The bad news is that they know you are still alive. I managed to get some of my CIA tech specialists to override the facility's CCTV system and listen in. They know you've been taken by another group - they are not sure who is responsible, yet" - I nod along with furrowed brows, worried that she is about to deliver the final blow - "But.. they seem to believe that if you are still alive, you'll return to the facility. Why do they think this, Laika.. Is this a risk we need to be aware of..?" She asks with suspicion in her voice.

"Lass, why the fuck would you ever want to go back?" soap asks, not quite believing that this was even an option I'd consider. "Yeah, surely not.. you're here now.. you wouldn't go back, would you?" Gaz asks with big eyes and a slight pout. "I - I don't think I'd go back.." I stutter, unsure.

"What d'ya mean ya don't THINK you'd go back, Lass?!" Soaps says, totally perplexed.

"I - I don't know.. what if Dr-Dr Dimitrov gave me a command.. what if -"

"That willnae happen, you've got us now.. and he willnae find you anyway. No point in thinking that" he now turns to Kate "She willnae run away to go back to them bastarts, Kate. Not after what they've done to her.."

"Thank you, Johnny.. but I need Laika to speak for herself".

"I- I don't *want* to go back.. I *want* to stay..." - "That's good enough for me, Kate" the Captain cuts in, effectively ending the conversation. I don't know why I couldn't just say no. But at the end of the day, a caged bird is hesitant to leave when the door opens. There was a morbid safety in the facility. I always returned. Even when they thought I was dead, I'd show back up eventually, accepting my punishment for being behind schedule.

"In that case, the Captain will ensure you settle in. I have requested your quarters be in the same barracks as the 141 pack. I don't want you left unsupervised around the base. I would like you to attend the medical wing within the next couple of days and find out if we can get the drugs flushed from your system. If we can, we can then assess your designation and if you wish to medicate, that'll be your call. It'd just be far easier if we knew for certain - I understand you believe that you are Beta, but full confirmation won't do anyone any harm. I trust this is all under control, John?" - "Affirmative, Kate" he rumbles. "Good. I will check in within the week. I have more pressing matters to attend to back in the US. Something about missiles."

I take in all of the information, trying to push down the feeling of dread. I'd really rather not see another Doctor in a white coat for the rest of my life. I'd seen enough to last me a lifetime. And it wasn't pleasant. Kate turns to me and grabs my hand. "Y/N - it's been nice to meet you. I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks time - I hope you'll have settled in and found a home here by then. I understand how intimidating this can all be - as a woman and a non-Alpha. But these men - I trust them entirely. Even ghost.. Goodbye, Laika".

She squeezes my hand and strides towards the door, rushing back to the helicopter. "Bye" I whisper after her, not sure if she'd heard. I turn to meet the Captain's eyes. "Right, lets show you to our quarters,then. We all have our own spaces and individual nests for privacy, as well as our pack room. Luckily, we do have a spare room. You're more than welcome to do what you like with it. I know that Beta's don't nest much, but you can redecorate to your taste. I will take you shopping tomorrow, buy you some proper.. girl.. clothes and - cleaning products" he says with that raspy voice of his. "Just make a list of things you need and Gaz and I will drive off base with you first thing tomorrow. Does that sound ok?" he does that damn youthful smile again. Before I can answer Soap protests "Naw! Aht's not even fair.. why can't I come shopping with yous too??" - "Ghost wants you to himself for a while, Johnny. He's been touchy for the past week. Think his rut is coming but you know how stubborn he is.." I feel bad. It was my fault he had been angry. I'd been effecting his behavior within his own pack just by being needy and useless. Soap sighs and heads off to find Ghost.

"I-I can wait to go shopping if the Lieutenant needs his pack.. I understand. I don't mind just managing until he is better.. I don't want to get in the way.." - "Nonsense, Simon is a big boy, he always gets grumpy before his rut. This has nothing to do with you. Johnny usually helps him the most anyway. He was the first one to break through his walls, before we formed the pack.." Gaz explains, gently squeezing my hand. "C'mon, I'll show you your room. It's right next to mine! Cap's is right across the hall too!" He says excitedly, leading me so we are walking down the long hallways hand in hand.

I use my free hand to quickly feel for my hanky, it's still there safe in my pocket. Gaz stops at a closed door, opening it wide. I almost step inside, thinking it was my room, until I'm knocked back by the scent of Alpha. Gaz. "This is my room.. " I scan the room quickly, noting the blankets and pillows organised on his bed. That must be his den… he shuts the door and moves to the next one. "And.. this is yours! Taadaa!!" the room had clearly been sprayed with de-scenting spray. It had a totally neutral scent. I step in and look around the room. The bed has standard military sheets, there was a small walk in cupboard and an en-suite bathroom. There were a couple of bedside tables and a chest of drawers. This was going to be my room. My space. I was happy. I look up and meet Gaz's eyes. He looks so hopeful..

"I love it.. thank you.."

He squeezes my hand gently, twice. "Remember, if you need anything.. I'm just next door, and Cap is there.." he points directly across the hall. I nod.

"I'll leave you to it..remember to make a shopping list for tomorrow.." I nod again.

"Goodnight, love"

That damn word, stop it. So casually giving a name to something I can never have. He says it so easily, too. I try to smile but only manage an inverted, upside down smile.

"Goodnight, Gaz"

"Call me Kyle, yeah?" I nod again before I can stop myself. For gods sake, use your damn words, my brain shouts at me. You're allowed to now! I keep nodding with the stupid upside down smile.

"Goodnight.. Kyle"

He steps back and gently closes the door. The last thing I see of him before the door clicks closed, is that blindingly bright, genuine smile.

[googleitlol]

I want it to be known that every time I finish one of these, I let out the most gremlin, 'heeheeeheeheehee' you could possibly imagine.

Why don't we start off with a different POV? Find out what a certain monkey has been up to?

Dove Masterlist:

Storm

That little menace has Sun Wukong at his wit’s end.

The Monkey King flies east atop his cloud, with nothing to do but fume over this new obstacle as he makes his way to his destination. Sure, maybe he could have said something to the others about the disguised demon they found dangling from the tree. Maybe taking care of that brat quicker would have been the better solution, but the sage didn’t want to kill the demon outright and risk a painful headache in case his master didn’t give him a chance to explain. Still, the risk of that might have been worth it, seeing as that little imp took both his master and Dove. It irritated him, how the kid stuck to her like that.

Wukong and his brothers were lucky enough to meet some of the gods of the mountain, they were more than willing to tell them about Red Boy and where he lived. It’d be a lie to say the Monkey King wasn’t surprised to hear the boy is the son of his bond-brother, the Bull Demon King, he doesn’t remember his old friend living anywhere near here. If he gets the chance, he’ll have some words to share about his nuisance of a son.

He would have beaten that child easily if it were not for his obnoxious little trick. Just as Wukong was about to land a blow, the boy began to punch his own face! As if that wasn’t off-putting enough, fire began to shoot out of his face. The fire wouldn’t have bothered the sage all that much, but before it could even touch him, the smoke it emitted completely obscured his vision. He couldn’t find the entrance to the cave amidst the heavy fumes, much less the brat who went in for some cheap shots with his lance. Nephew or not, Wukong cannot wait to get his hands on that little terror.

The Bull Demon King really ought to teach that kid some respect, what was he even talking about? Evil urges?! The gall, ugh! What a– why would he–ugh! What does that boy take him for?! He has no clue what he’s talking about. That kid is the one who wants to eat them, he’s the one with evil urges! Wukong only wanted to protect his friends, it’s not that he wanted Dove to himself. What a ridiculous accusation!  How else is he meant to react when any of those idiots find themselves in danger?!

The king can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. Damn, that comment really got to him. Why did the boy's words irritate him so much? Looking down at the terrain below as he rushes towards the ocean, he can’t help but sigh. He’d rather feel this annoyance, this irritation than what has really been prodding at his chest.  Every time Tripitaka has been kidnapped, he’s known he would get him back. Sure, there've been brief lapses of doubt, but they only ever lasted so briefly; the time he was blinded, or when those demon brothers trapped him under all those mountains. But whenever he had those moments of doubt, she was there to snap him out of it.

He hates the worry that has been building in his chest. She was right there, he nearly had her… close enough to feel her slip out of his grasp. Ugh, it’s infuriating!

At least after his fight with Red Boy, Sandy came up with the idea to ask Ao Guang for help. If that kid’s fire is the one thing that stopped them, then certainly the Eastern Dragon King will be able to help them extinguish those flames. It was strange, the boy’s fire. Despite not taking any of the flames head-on, Wukong could have sworn he felt their heat. It didn’t feel like any fire he’s ever been near. The heat… it almost hurt.

Perhaps he’s just overthinking this, there’s a lot of things he’s been feeling lately that make no sense to him. Besides, fire has never hurt before, not since gaining his immortality. No fire can truly burn him, not celestial nor earthly, he had to have imagined it.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. What is important now is getting the aid of Ao Guang so that he can save his master and Dove. Wukong can only hope those two can last on their own until he comes with reinforcements.

…Who is he kidding, he can almost see Dove fighting with every tooth and nail to get the monk and herself out of that cave.

~~~~

“You see, what I’m doing is focusing on your energy and giving you some of my own.” You kneel in front of Red Boy in that same room your burn was wrapped in. You hold the boy’s face in your hands gently, focused on taking care of his black eye.

The demon child is silent, leaning a bit into your healing hands while his attention stays entirely on you. “A little bit is enough to give you a little peace of mind, and if I need to, I can use some more to heal physical injuries.” Once you finish, you stand back to take a look at his face. It looks as though it was never injured in the first place.

You rise to your feet a bit too fast and take an unbalanced step back. You sway a bit, lightheaded but otherwise fine. Usually, you only use your gift like this in more dire circumstances, and you’re used to it taking more out of you than just this.

Still, Red Boy is quick to take your hand and guide you to sit down. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I just need a moment.” You reassure him, sitting back with a bit of a sigh. “Your injuries were pretty mild, but maybe you can restrain from punching yourself in the face anymore, alright?”

The boy quietly nods, frowning with this inquisitive look. “Is this why you said you couldn’t do it until your arm got better?” He asks with a hum.

You look away with a slight chuckle. “Ehh, that may have been an exaggeration. But generally, it’s easier for me to heal if my body isn’t busy trying to fix itself.”

Red Boy nods in understanding, his head tilting a bit in curiosity. “Well, if healing other people tires you out too much, can you take other people’s energy to make yourself better?”

“I, uh…” You hesitate, the question is a little uncomfortable. “…in theory, yes. That would involve putting another person at risk, though, so I wouldn’t even think of using it like that.” The idea of using the gift Guan Yin gave you to help people in such a way made your skin crawl, you wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

The boy’s brows furrow. “Why not? Father taught me that all my abilities have a use.” He argues, taking a seat next to you. “ I think that draining your enemies of their life would make things much easier for you and your monk friend.”

His reasoning makes you shake your head. “The easy way is not always the best route. Besides, I only fight to protect, and I can do that with my own strength and wit.” You smile, though your words are met with a disbelieving look.

“Do you really believe that?” He deadpans, apparently quite doubtful.

“I do.” You cross your arms, refusing to drop your smile.

Red Boy rolls his eyes with a scoff. “I think that’s nonsense. If you can make things easier for yourself, you should do it! The Samadhi Fire makes everything easier for me.”

“Really?” You hum, raising a brow to give him your own look of doubt. A fire you make when you punch yourself in the face doesn’t seem like the most practical power.

The boy’s eyes light up. “I’m not the best with my lance, but it doesn’t matter when I can just burn all my enemies to a crisp!” He looks down to his hands as he speaks, a mischievous grin crossing his face.

You frown for a moment, a little confused by his excitement. “I thought you said it’s difficult to control?”

“Oh, it is. Sometimes it just comes out when I get too mad.” He admits, glancing away as he rambles. “When I summon it, the fire just comes out of my face really fast– like my eyes and my mouth and stuff. I can’t really see where I’m shooting it, but as long as it hits whoever I’m fighting, it doesn’t really matter.”

“What if you’re fighting with an ally at your side? Or what if someone gets caught in the crossfire?” You question, which makes the boy look back at you for a moment. He goes to speak, but stumbles on his response before stopping himself.

You turn a bit to face the kid more. “I know the easy path feels– well, easy– but you should still work on controlling that fire of yours.”

Red Boy frowns, turning to look away from you with a grumble. “I know… it’s part of why Mother and Father sent me out here.” Oh?

He’s mentioned his parents a few times, but their lack of presence has definitely left you with questions. “They sent you here to learn how to control the Samadhi Fire?” You ask, leaning over a bit to see the troubled look on his face.

“I think I set a few too many fires at home. If I get too mad, it’s hard to stop the fire.” He confesses, bringing his knees close to his chest. “Plus, things are awkward right now and I don’t think they want me around.”

That makes you frown, why would he think that? You put a hand on his shoulder. “What makes you say that?”

Red Boy keeps his eyes wandering the room, his voice a bit annoyed. “Father left to live with some other woman, and Mother isn’t very happy about it.” He explains. “She said something about how Father forgot his manners and gave into his evil urges, like all men do.”

Oh. Oh, wow. That poor woman, this poor kid. “Mother said I could stay here for now so I can focus on training and getting better at controlling the Samadhi Fire, but I’m already good at that!” He pouts, looking back at you with an offended frown. “Yeah, I’m not really great, but I can control it enough!”

Wow, that was more than you were expecting. “Maybe so, but there is no such thing as too much practice. I am sure your mother would appreciate you keeping up with your training.” You offer him a small smile, it’s hard not to sympathise with the boy.

“Yeah, I know.” He groans, letting out a huff before resting his arms over his tucked knees.

“Make sure the next time you see her, she can see all the progress you’ve made.” You suggest. “I’m sure that would lift her spirits to see some improvement.”

Red Boy looks back at you, his brows furrowing at your words, thinking them over before cracking a little smile. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Mother would like that.”

His response warms your heart a little. From how he’s spoken before, it’s clear he cares deeply for both his parents and what they think. It’s unfair to him to be in a situation like this, away from the both of them.

With a sigh, your gaze trails up to the ceiling. “You know, I never knew my own mother. She passed away when I was an infant, but my father was able to care for me. If I remember correctly, he had many duties in our village, but he mostly worked as a physician.”

“So being a healer runs in your family?” Red Boy hums, the question making you chuckle a bit.

You haven’t thought of it like that before. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

The boy hums, seemingly content as you lift a hand to massage your temple. You’re still feeling a bit light-headed, but you shouldn’t take too much longer. Part of you feels bad leaving the kid now, but your first priority is Tripitaka, and with your side of the deal done, there’s nothing stopping you from going back. You’ve already spent enough time here, but maybe you could check in on the boy after the journey is complete.

“I should be on my way now, Red Boy.” You sigh, glancing over to see the boy's look of disappointment.

Red Boy pouts a little. “Aw, already?”

“The others are still waiting for me.” You remind him. “I’ve spent enough time stalling our journey, and I still don’t know where Sun Wukong went off to.”

You go to stand, though you’re still a little shaky on your feet. Red Boy follows you to stand as well. “Are you sure? You still look drained.” He holds your arm to help steady yourself, the gesture sweet.

It’s funny to think he’s the same boy that wanted to eat Tripitaka and egged on Wukong. “It’s alright, I can rest properly once I’ve reunited with my friends.” You smile as he walks you to the cave opening, still holding onto your arm to help you. It’s like you’re an elderly woman he volunteered to assist.

When you get to the cave opening, you’re surprised to find the sun is nearly gone. Only a small trace of light remains in the west. It’s nearly night, did you really spend so long in the cave? It might be harder to find the others under the cover of night, but not impossible.

You step away from Red Boy, but he quickly tightens his hold on your arm. “The sun has set, you can’t go now!”

“They’re probably worried for me, Red Boy, I have to go.” You offer an apologetic look with a shrug, but he refuses to give in.

“But how will you find them in the dark? All the wild animals hunt at this time, it isn’t safe for you to wander through the mountain on your own.” He reasons, not giving you a chance to argue as he continues. “A-And you’re tired, too! Please, Miss, just stay here for another night? You said you would feel better after you rested, right? Mother would say a gentleman should never send a woman off on her own at night.”

You’re a little taken aback by his insistence, though you find his offer and reasoning cute. “I can even get you a fancy pillow, if you prefer to sleep as a dove!”

That gets you to laugh a bit. “It sounds like you’re being overly-sweet to get me to stay the night.”

“…Is it working?”

You shake your head in amusement, letting out a tired huff before looking out to the sky again. You’ve maybe got a half hour before the little light that’s left sinks into the horizon. With how far the flight was before, and with how tired you are now, you doubt you’d find them in time.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you rest here for the night, right? You have your weapons with you now, which definitely makes staying in a demon-filled cave feel a bit safer. You doubt Red Boy would have his demons do anything, and you can leave first thing in the morning. An insulated cave to protect from the wind is also a much nicer option compared to sleeping on the mountain in the open.

With a bit of a dramatic sigh, you look back at Red Boy. “Alright, I suppose I could stay the night.”

At your acceptance, the boy practically beams with excitement. “Great! Come, I can show you where the guest rooms are.” He drags you back in with a big smile, and you stumble a few times just to keep his pace as he runs through the halls. “My mother has some clothes she leaves here for when she visits, you can borrow her sleepwear if you want. I don’t think she’ll mind.”

Red Boy takes you to a nicely furnished bedroom before leaving you to rest. The minute your head makes contact with the pillow, your eyes begin to droop. It really has been a long day, as if getting pulled into a wind storm wasn’t exciting enough this morning. At least it’s all resolved now.

You’ll rest, wake up early, and find your friends. Hopefully Sun Wukong will be with them by then. Ha, to think the peach-loving sage was so concerned about you carrying Red Boy. It was a little rocky at first, but the kid isn’t so bad. He ended up being surprisingly sweet. You wish you could do more for him, he would definitely benefit from having someone around that wasn’t one of his soldiers. Someone to re-enforce those better habits of his and show him how not to do things like… well, like eating people.

As you drift off to sleep, you smile to yourself. You’re glad to have met the kid, but you can’t wait to see your friends in the morning…

.

.

.

.

.

.

You wake to the crack of thunder.

You jolt up in bed, your heart racing from the sudden wake-up call. Several thumping footsteps can be heard outside your room, people shouting to one another in a panic as more thunder rumbles from somewhere outside. You’re not sure what time it is, but however long you slept has you feeling more energised now. But maybe it’s more than just your well-needed rest doing that.

The noise outside puts you on high alert, and you quickly jump out of bed to see what’s going on. When you exit your room, you’re nearly trampled by a horde of demons running through the corridors, handing off weapons to one another and fixing their armour.

More thunder echoes through the cave as you manoeuvre around them in an attempt to get outside. It sounds like there’s an intense storm, but yesterday had been nothing but clear skies! You make it to the cave opening, only to nearly be blinded by a flash of lightning.

The sounds of metal clashing and angry shouts are almost entirely drowned out by the storm overhead. Rain pours down over the scorched land around the cave, soldiers in scaled armour meet Red Boy’s army with steel, there’s fire everywhere you look. What is happening?! That scaled armour… is this one of the dragon kings? Why would one of their armies be here? What is going on?!

There’s so much rain, the stream that ran down the mountain by the cave has grown into rushing rapids. Even in the heavy downpour of the storm, the fires only grow, as though the water fuelled them more than the air around them.

All that fire– where is Red Boy?! You run out of the cave, scanning for the boy before hearing a shout from above. Overtop the mountain, the vicious cloud of smoke shoots out an unending spiral of fire.

Acting quick, you begin to rush up the mountain to get closer to the boy, switching between avian and human form to avoid flying arrows and spears, Flying up steeper parts of the mountainside while running where you can. You nearly slip a few times, the rain leaving you drenched and the ground a slippery mess.

As you get closer, you finally see him. It isn’t Red Boy you spot, but Sun Wukong jumping out of the smoky fumes atop his own cloud. He’s breathing heavily, his staff held securely in his grasp as he narrows his eyes at the fire that shoots out from the smoke.

“Wukong!” You call out to him, the monkey demon immediately freezing when he hears your voice. His head whips down to where you stand, and in an instant he is at your side.

He  tucks his staff into his ear before wrapping you in an embrace. The demon lets out a heavy sigh as you feel his arms wrap around you, one holding you by the back of your head. “Thank goodness you’re alright, I thought I might’ve taken too long.” He mumbles into your shoulder before lifting his head up to face you. The worry on his face is almost palpable, and you feel something pull at your chest.

You hate to see when he gets so worried. “Where’s Master? I need to get the two of you out of here.” His hands drop down to yours as he looks out over the two armies.

“He’s not here.” You frown, and Wukong looks back at you in confusion. “I got him out yesterday, he’s with Pigsy and Sandy. I was going to leave in the morning– where have you been?!”

“I went to find help dealing with the demon brat after our last fight.” He explains, his brows furrowed. “Sandy thought of using water to put out his flames, but…” The two of you look out to the battlefield. All the fire Red Boy is creating is only spreading, reaching farther and farther out.

Red Boy screams, and you look up to see the spiral of fire growing larger as it shoots wildly through the air. Your eyes widen in realisation, the boy’s words echoing in your head. “He can’t stop it.”

You take dove form, taking off before you’re caught by your foot. “Where are you going?!” Wukong gives you a look of exasperation, his hold preventing you from going any further.

He lets go as you turn back. “I need to calm him down! At this rate, he’ll kill everyone beneath him!” You explain, throwing your arm up to gesture to the boy.

“You think I’m letting you near that thing?!” Wukong steps closer, taking your shoulders in his hands. His tail lashes out, reflecting his anger as you shoot him a glare.

What does he think he’s talking about? Let you? “I’m not asking for your permission! Wherever the others are, there’s nowhere they’ll be able to hide if his fire burns down the mountain!”

The Great Sage returns your glare, but you refuse to give into the look. You won’t argue with him on this, not when all these people could get hurt, not when that kid needs help.

His nose scrunches for a moment before grumbling something under his breath. He looks away and summons his cloud, letting go of your shoulders. “You’re the most stubborn woman I know.”

“I’m well aware.” You nod before returning to avian form, the two of you flying up to the boy as his fire blazes across the battlefield.

The closer you get, the more the two of you have to duck and weave to avoid being hit by the flames. It’s near-impossible to predict where he shoots it next, sometimes the fire flickering out before coming back even greater than before and accompanied by the boy’s cries.

You look for an opening. If it weren’t for the thick cover of smoke, you might be able to figure out how to grab the boy. You dodge out of the path of the spiral again, finding an opportunity as it moves away, and you make your move.

As swift as you can, you dive for the smoke. Your vision quickly becomes obscured, the fumes heavy and thick. You can barely breathe, but you can’t stop here. You listen out for Red Boy, following his voice to navigate through the smoke.

 “Dove, look out!” Just as you’re about to reach him, you hear Wukong hurtling towards you. You’re about to grab the kid, there’s no time to look back before you hear Sun Wukong scream. You crash into Red Boy, he’s hot to the touch, like blood boiling beneath the surface of his skin.

You use your gift to soothe him while whipping around to look for your friend. Where did he go?! That scream– he must have been hit. But he’s the Monkey King, how could it have hurt him like that? Where is he?!

As the boy calms, the fire begins to dissipate. The smoke clears and the two of you begin to fall out of the sky and towards the rushing water below. You turn back, holding the now unconscious Red Boy in your arms as you search the sky for Sun Wukong. “Wukong!” What happened? Where is he? Why can’t you see him?! “Wukong!”

The fires across the battlefield extinguish all at once, and through the downpour you finally spot his limp form– just for a moment before he crashes into the water rapids. Wukong vanishes beneath the waves and you prepare to go in after him, turning your back towards the water to shield Red Boy before making contact with it. You slam into the water, plunging down before getting pushed downstream. You fight to surface, holding Red Boy and your own head above water.

With the boy in your hold, it’s a struggle to stay afloat in the rapids, but you do your best to scan the waters for your friend. “Wukong! Wukong, wh–” You can barely speak, the water choking your speech as your head goes under.

Once you reach the surface again, you start to push yourself to the riverbank and back towards the cave. You see Red Boy’s men falling back, all rushing to get back into the cave while you inch closer to land. By the time you reach the edge of the water, you’re hardly able to pull Red Boy onto land.

Your head swivels to and fro, searching for any signs of your friend as you run back to the cave. Red Boy begins to come to as you make it up the steps of his home, coughing up water while you're swept into the horde of demons rushing to get back inside. Arrows fire with lightning tight on their heels, and in the chaos you’re pushed inside.

Red Boy looks around in a worried panic, and seeing that he’s conscious, you set him down on his feet. “Are you alright?” You ask, the boy nodding hesitantly, confused. “Stay here, okay?” You don’t give him the chance to respond, your heartbeat echoing in your ears so loudly you couldn’t even hear him if he did say anything.

That scream– how hurt is he? Did he surface after he fell into the water? You run out to the lip of the cave, pushing past soldiers to try and get a better look. Where is he, dammit, where is he?!

“Wukong! Sun Wukong!” You call out, your throat scratching in pain. There’s nothing, not even a body floating downstream, where could he be? 

Bolts of lightning strike at the cave, but you refuse to move. You’ve never seen him go limp before, did he lose consciousness? Surely he would have resurfaced by now if he was conscious, right? What if he can’t? Can he drown?! Sandy and Pigsy usually take care of any demons underwater, dammit! What happened to him?!

He’s been hit by fire before, he should have been fine! No, what if the rapids pushed him further downstream? What if he’s at the bottom of the river? You have to move, now!

You move to run out when another lightning bolt strikes, this time hitting the cave just overhead and breaking off chunks of rock that come crashing down. They fall just at your feet, and you step back to avoid them. You look up in time to see more following, just barely giving you the time to jump back and avoid being crushed. You slip on the wet stone floor, falling back and scooting away as more of the entrance caves in.

By the time it stops, the only source of light in the surrounding area are the torches that are posted on the walls. The thunder begins to quiet, but your heart refuses to slow as the reality of the situation sinks in. “No… no!” You jump to your feet and throw yourself at the rubble blocking the entrance.

You begin to dig at the blockage, your mind racing with worry. Wukong, he’s hurt! You can’t be stuck in here, he’s– how is it even possible for fire to hurt him?! Forty-nine days in the Trigram Furnace did nothing to him– not even the Jade Emperor could kill him with fire, how is this any different? He might still be in the river, he can’t drown, there’s no way– but you thought there was no way he could get burned!

You fall to your knees, your mind racking with different questions and thoughts on what just happened– what you have to do. What can you do? Before you can spiral any further, Red Boy steps up to you. His eyes are watering, wide and scared. “I– I’m sorry.” His voice is shaking, barely even able to get the words out.

“I was trying to stop, I was trying to! I tried closing my eyes b-but it hurt– it just wasn’t stopping!” Tears run down his face, and the trembling boy is enough to ground you for a moment. You pull the child into your arms as he sobs. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, I promise! They just attacked! I didn’t mean to use it, I swear!”

“It’s okay…” You mumble to the boy as you hold him close, rubbing his back in comfort. You can’t believe your own words, but it’s all you can think to say to him in the moment. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Sun Wukong, please be okay.

[heyyallitsbeth]

Kirito's Quest Reward

In Alfheim Online, a small party of friends were taking on a boss monster. The giant salamander itself wasn’t particularly threatening, even with it’s attacks leaving multiple debuff effects, but the party enjoyed taking on large bosses together, and definitely enjoyed the payouts from selling the rare Fang Daggers these beasts drop.

“Remember, the one to finish it gets whatever it drops!” teased Leafa, who had been dealing most of the heavy hits this rotation. She knew they always shared rewards anyway, unless there was only one unique item per quest. However noticing her health had decreased due to the monster’s poison, she was prepping to take defensive. “Now switch!”

In a swift movement the girl and her attacking duo Klein had fallen back to the defensive and support lines, and two new attackers came in, the romantic crossed sword duo of Kirito and Asuna. Between them 3 swords cut deep and heavily into the salamander’s HP. Flurries of shortsword stabs and rapier pierces were landed before the rest of the team had assumed their new positions. Leafa began supporting her teammates with spell buffs alongside the cait sith monster tamer Silica, and Klein took a defensive stance beside the mace wielding blacksmith Lisbeth, preparing to run in to assist the mainline attackers. As the HP of the beast faded lower and lower, a rain of arrows shot down from above as the cait sith archer Sinon unleashed battalions worth of arrows. Not to be outdone, the blackswordsman Kirito rushed in unleashing a devastating combo to the creature, taking it’s final health points down to zero.

“Hmmph, all that effort in the last moments and you still go and killsteal.” Sinon sighed and huffed jokingly.

“Heh relax Sinon, we’re all sharin’ in the rewards nomatter what” Kirito replied, smirking.

As the monster turned to glittery dust a gift box fell from it’s place and landed square on the battlefield.

“Ah crap.” Lisbeth complained “That special drop events still goin’ on. All that work and we still might get a freakin’ steel dagger out of it.”

“Shoot! And I just barely made enough yuld off of it to buy back the potions we used.” Klein huffed.

“Hey we still have a chance for it to be good, even if we haven’t had much luck with it” optimistically chimed in Silica.

“Well, in that case if nobody wants it, I’ll be the one stuck with it I guess” Kirito said, striding over to it. “I was the one who took it down after all~” He playfully taunted to the other partymembers. 

He tapped on the box to open it and reveal it’s contents, fully expecting something mediocre.

“Hmm?”

A dialogue box appeared in front of him “1x Classic Maid Outfit added to inventory”

He closed the dialogue box before anyone else could catch up and see what it was.

“So whatcha get?” Asuna inquired looking right over his shoulder.

Kirito jumped from the sudden break in silence, hoping she hadn’t seen the box’s contents. His face flushed red and he flailed his arms. “N-NOTHING- NOTHING AT ALL HAHA-”

Real smooth there Kazuto. He thought to himself. You know how your friends are. That’s just inviting problems.

“Ooooooo~ somebody got something special~” cooed Lisbeth, now nearly hovering over the poor boy.

“So what rare item did you steal from me hm Kirito?” Sinon peered down.

“Heh- no. Th-there wasn’t even anything in it. Guess we got screwed by it haha-”

Next quest: Get better at lying. 

“Oh nuh uh, you aint keepin whatever it is for yourself, if it’s worth a buncha yuld then we’re splittin it okay Kirito?” Klein tossed out.

Kirito wanted to clear his inventory, he would sooner lose Excalibur than reveal what he had received.

“Hey Yui, if Kirito isn’t gonna tell us, could you check his inventory for us?” Silica spoke between small giggles.

“Yui please don’t-”

But it was too late. The small navigation pixie had already opened up a tab to review Kirito’s items.

“Hmmm let’s see. Ah it seems Daddy received an event item from one of Alfheim’s prior Valentine’s Day Events”

Valentine’s Day Item? Well that’s not gonna arouse any suspicion at ALL. Kirito grumbled to himself, his face so red he was matching the color of the holiday itself.

“Spill the beans Yui, whats it worth?” Klein inquired.

“Hehehe~ I just wanna know what it is that’s gotten Kiri so embarrassed~” teased Lisbeth. “Is it some toy you’re gonna share with Asuna later?~”

“AAAA Nononononono it’s nothing like that-” Kirito stammered out.

“No it’s not a toy- it appears the item itself is a clothing item labeled ‘Classic Maid Outfit’” Yui innocently stated.

The group went silent as Kirito’s face went from a flush red to a stark white pale. Then they all started laughing. Lis and Sinon were all but banging the ground laughing at the mortified boy. It took countless agonizing seconds until anyone spoke.

“S-*snkr* So you gonna model it for us Kiri-Chan?~” Lisbeth managed out between snickers. 

“Yeah it’s all yours oneesan~” Leafa joked out.

Sinon who had previously been laughing the hardest now had a more neutral but smug look on her face “Jeez if you wanna see him girly so bad you should join us in GGO sometime.”

GGO… Kirito thought. Yeah that model was quite something. I swear that there was something special in my eyes there. They just seemed brighter…

Kirito slapped his cheeks out of that thought.

“I’m not making it out of here without putting it on am I?” he sheepishly responded. 

“Honey you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I can’t say I wouldn’t mind seeing-” Asuna trailed off, imagining Kirito’s toned physique in a maid outfit.

Add that to the online shopping list later. She thought, her mind filled with devious thoughts.

“You’re just scared you’ll like it-” Klein teased before getting one of Kirito’s boots directly to the jaw.

“F-fine. Just- Everyone turn around. If anyone peeks as I change I’m deleting this account!” Kirito stammered out.

The giggles of the group grew louder as they turned away. His fingers fumbled with the prompts to switch outfits, as if the outfit itself was attacking.

You’re just scared you’ll like it.

The words echoed in Kirito’s mind as he hit confirm. 

He got a good look at his reflection in the mirror view of the UI.

I look like one of those freakin’ anime twin maids Klein loves. Wait… Nononono- I look like Sugu…

Kirito wasn’t wrong, if it werent for his modest chest, he’d easily be mistaken as his sister. But like this, he looked like his sibling’s little sister more than her big brother. His face was soft. His hair had updated along with the clothing, now appearing more similar to his GGO avatar, with the only substantially shorter in the back. In addition to the dress, he had been gifted with a cute little hat and was adorned in ribbons and stockings. The outfit was a dark lavender, with the ribbons appearing a slightly brighter purple. The purple really brought out the color in his dark grey eyes.

“Everything okay Kirito?” Squeaked Silica. “I know we were teasing but if you’re uncomfortable you don’t havta show us…”

Why is she the only one with any decency here? He took one last look at himself in the mirror. Those lights are back in my eyes… He pushed down that thought and sighed.

“You can look now…”

He closed his eyes and braced for the worst. He expected laughter and mockery. What he got was… Silence? Silence for far far too long.

“Guys is everything okay?”

He opened his eyes and noticed everyone was just staring at him, shocked but… not giggly or amused… Almost confused? With the exception of Klein, who was frozen in place, and slowly tipped over before logging out.

“Jeez tough crowd” Kirito joked, trying to make the situation more bearable for himself.

He noticed as the slight breeze blew past, the skirt picked up a bit and waved effortlessly in the wind. Without thinking, he spun around, watching as his skirt effortlessly spun with him. He giggled.

Hmm. Not so bad… EH? What am I thinking I need to get this off-

“K-kirito?” Asuna quietly broke the silence.

“Yes ma’am” Kirito almost chirped out. 

He was happy to see he was now taking it better than anyone else. And then the whole group pounced on him, tackling him to the ground with a hug.

“You’re so cuteeeeeeeeeee!” they all echoed.

Even Sinon, the most modest one seemed utterly infatuated.

“Jeez Sinon, you’ve seen me worse than this- And Sugu you’ve DEFINITELY seen me worse than this-” Kirito thought of playing dress up with her as a kid, but a memory that should’ve made him shudder now brought him a surprising warmth.

That’s not good. He thought to himself. Yeah I’m gonna have to do some serious thinking about this. Or better yet I should simply never think of this again.

“Okay funs over now” Kirito exclaimed, tired of being at the bottom of a pile of bosoms. “This has been exhausting and I wanna go to bed now.”

That night Kirito dreamt of his wedding in Aincrad with Asuna, only now he looked like his GGO Avatar.

…

…

…

Kirito woke up early the next morning and his heart ached. He sent a good morning text to Asuna, despite knowing she’d probably be sleeping in still. He paused before he knocked on his sister’s door to wake her up, and chose not to, just sending her a quick “running out for groceries, be back soon.” text before he got on his bike and left.

Maybe a little ride can clear my head.

Kirito cruised down nearly empty streets, trying to think of anything other than his dream and yesterday. He hadn’t lied about the groceries, he just walked through the supermarket picking up a few essentials for him and Suguha for the week, passing through on his way to checkout when a glimmer caught his eye. He had wound up in the women’s clothing department, and beside him standing tall was a mannequin wearing a basic black skirt. It was nothing special, it was cheap, it was just a department store clothing brand. He looked at his reflection in the black screen of his phone, seeing sparkles in his eyes. He sighed, knowing he was about to make a mistake and placed it in his basket and checked out. He rode home from the shops with his mind racing. 

Why did I do that? I’m such an idiot. What the hell am I doing? What would Sugu say? What will Asuna say? I- I just need to try this once. I’m just gonna go home, try it on, nothing will happen and I’ll burn the damn thing.

Kirito tried to enter the home as quietly as possible, dropping the groceries on the table and tip toeing to his room with the bag with the skirt in it. He closed the door behind him, but in his anxiousness to try on the skirt, he neglected to lock it. He slid out of his black sweatpants, staring at his body in the mirror. His figure was slender, almost effeminate in nature. Years without hardcore exercise and barely eating while in SAO clearly took it’s toll on a previously toned figure.

Maybe I do look like Sugu…

Back when they were little, Suguha and Kazuto were always mistaken for twin girls, despite Kazuto being older and not even Suguha’s blood sibling. He never minded back then, he just liked being close to her. They’d occasionally swap clothes to mess with their parents. Kazuto softly smiled at the thought. He slipped on the skirt. She slipped on the skirt.

His eyes met hers in the mirror. Where a dull grey void once sat, a galaxy of stars was now present, with shimmering highlights and purple hues never noticed until now. There was a subtle curvature to her hips. A natural softness to her face. Her slender physique made him jealous. He stared at the girl who looked back at him, she shyly smiled and as the words left her mouth, they followed in his. “So, this is me?”

She looked down, and the girl was him. The girl was her.

She nervously laughed and shook in place. She watched as her skirt flowed side to side with every subtle movement. She spun herself around, watching the skirt flare up. She giggled to herself. She spun herself again. And again and again. She was giggling to herself like crazy. There were no thoughts left in her head, it was just a pure moment of bliss. And it came crushing down as the door opened behind her.

“Yawnnnnnnn~ Kazutooooooo please could you make a little less noi-” Sugu entered the room with her eyes closed yawning, but her eyes quickly shot open as she saw what was once her big brother in a tiny black skirt.

“S-Sugu??? EH! Don’t Look! I’m not decent!” She blurted out, not realizing she was pitching her voice higher than normal. She scrambled behind her bed, trying to cover up her shame, hiding her blushing face behind her hands.

Suguha smiled softly and walked over beside her as she softly pet her sister’s head.

“Well, it seems like I’ve stumbled into something big huh? Listen Kazuto. Or… whatever you may wanna be called. I’m always gonna support and love my big sibling, nomatter who they are.” She kissed the timid girl’s forehead. “I’m gonna go make us breakfast okay. You can wear that if you wanna. It’s just us home today. You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to tell anyone else if you aren’t ready. You don’t even have to tell me if you’re not ready. But I’m here for you.”

She walked out the door, and Kazuto sighed, knowing she meant every word of that.

…

…

…

Kazuto followed not long after, choosing to wear the skirt downstairs to the kitchen. She was blushing the whole time, still unable to meet her sister’s eyes. She slid a stack of pancakes over to her.

“Here big sis, I made your favorite.” She smiled sweetly down at Kazuto.

“...I like that.”

“Hmm?”

“I think… I think I prefer being your big sister.”

Suguha smiled brightly.

“Yayyyyyy! Now we get to do fun girly stuff together! This is so exciting!- Oh and of course, thank you for trusting me enough with this sis. It means a lot.” Suguha felt a warmth she had never felt, and she felt like it was due to the beaming smile on her big sister’s face.

“So, what are you thinkin’ for a name?”

…

…

…

A few days pass and nobody outside the Kirigaya household hears from Kazuto. He seemingly vanished from the ALO party, and only returned a few texts with “Sorry I’m just busy, miss you too” or “I love you too Asuna”. Truthfully, Kazuto had been training up a new ALO avatar with her sister, creating a swordfighting cait sith, with a name she chose for herself, Kiriko.

“Hey I’m gonna head out and make some lunch for us okay Kiriko? Don’t go far, and I’ll meet you in town.” “Sounds good Leafa, thank you!”

While Sugu’s cooking wasn’t the masterpiece Asuna’s was, Kiriko was always happy to indulge in some of Sugu’s fine craftsmanship as well. Leafa signed out, and her model disappeared. And Kiriko was alone.

She strolled through the town, wondering what to do in the meantime.

“I could really use some sword upgrades…” She muttered to herself, knowing that the only blacksmith worth caring about was Lisbeth, and she didn’t know who Kiriko was yet. 

“Ah well I can help you with that one!” A familiar voice made Kiriko jump, her ears and tail standing on end. “Heh, didn’t mean to scare ya, I’m Klein, and if you need some smithin’ done, I know just the girl for you.”

Kiriko did her best to pitch her voice up to not be recognized “N-nice to meet you Klein, but that’s okay- I- I think I might just wait until I get a better sword drop…”

“Nonsense, Liz is the best in the business, she can make a starter sword scale right alongside Excalibur” He laughed to himself. “What’s your name by the way?”

“K-Kiriko…” She embarrassedly managed out.

Great. I look like my little sister, and the name I chose is 1 letter off of my old handle. I am the smartest woman alive.

Luckily for Kiriko, Klein was the dumbest man alive, and did not question it at all, leading her to Lisbeth’s Smithy.

“Hey guys, I’m back, and I found a newbie who needs some sword help.” Klein announced to the full party.

Kiriko gulped. Everyone but Leafa was here. Asuna, Yui, Strea, Lisbeth, Silica, Sinon, Philia, Agil, even Argo.

With my luck, somehow Sachi is gonna walk through that door isn’t she…

“H-hi everyone, I’m Kiriko… Klein said that Lisbeth is a master blacksmith. At least I think he said ‘master blacksmith’ but all I really caught was ‘master b’-” She knew this was gonna be dreadful, so the least she could do was tease Klein before the whole thing fell apart.

“H-HEY! I said nothing like that- She is a master blacksmith though! She’s been working at it since Sword Art.”

“Yup yup! The best in the business!”

“It’s nice to see you again Liz, I haven’t had a chance to see you since SAO I suppose” Kiriko lied.

It’s not too farfetched to be another SAO survivor… Gives me some leeway if I mess up and say more than I should known…

“Ohmygosh sorry- I usually don’t forget my customers faces…” Liz pouted.

“Hey now, cheer up, consider us equal for me breaking your sword.”

Smooth one smoothbrain. Kiriko thought to herself.

“Eh?” Liz cocked her head. “I don’t think anyone but Kiri-”

“Y’know out in the field, I abused the poor sword, I should’ve taken better care of such expert craftsmanship” She smiled out the quickest excuse she could muster.

“Ahhhh I see. You just reminded me of my favorite customer hehe.” She took Kiriko’s sword from her and got to work on it. “Cute guy, but he’s dumb as rocks. Broke my best sword and made me go on an adventure to forge him a new one.”

“Sounds like a bit of a jerk to me.” Kiriko joked.

“Nah, he’s the sweetest guy, but he’s a little bit off.”

“Yeah, he helped me revive my Pina!” Silica butted in.

“And he saved me from the Hollow Area” Philia added.

“And he’s like, the sweetest husband ever” Asuna swooned.

“And he’s the best daddy ever!” Yui chimed in. 

“He’s helped me in more ways than I’d care to say” Sinon said blushing.

Kiriko herself was now blushing and trying to stifle a smile, hearing all these kind things from all of her friends.

“Jeez, put the boy on a pedestal some more will ya? You’re just begging for this girl to be competition in that polycule you’ve got brewin” Klein sighed “Course, ya cant help but love the guy, after all, he saved us all so many times.”

She felt at home for once, the moment was so warm and peaceful.

“Hmm, you even look a lot like Kii-boy” 

Crap.

Argo’s intuition was always top notch. She’d sniff out the fact that Kiriko was Kirito faster than anyone. She needed excuses and fast.

“Well, I’ve been told I do look boyish-” Kiriko idly fiddled with her skirt, kicking her feet a little.

“Nono- You don’t look boyish at all! Infact it’s more that Kirito looks girlish” Philia tried to console Kiriko.

“Yeah! He actually wore a dress recently and he was really cute!” Silica was practically meowing out the compliment.

“We’ve all been thinking, we haven’t seen him since he did it, we’re worried that maybe we teased him too much and now he got self conscious.” Sinon looked down shamefully.

Kiriko could barely manage to keep up her facade. 

Focus focus focus. Think of things to say to make this go away.

Kiriko chose to simply say the truth. “Well, I think if they were willing to put on the dress, maybe they were just finding an excuse to try it out. Maybe they ended up liking it and has been taking some time for themself to work some things out.”

The room went a bit quiet. All that could be heard was Agil talking to customers and Liz hammering away in the background, but both were clearly listening in intently.

“Whatcha mean?” Silica asked.

“W-well… There’s this thing I’ve been reading about on some MMO forums. Apparently some guys will dress up with female avatars as a joke, and then realize something, that maybe they were girls all along. Maybe your friend is doing that?”

Kiriko was stuttering out almost every word. There’s no way they wouldn’t catch on.

“Well, then I’d be the luckiest woman in the world to have the best wife in the world.” Asuna announced.

“Yeah, and I’d get to have the two best Mommies!” Yui said, with Strea nodding along with her.

“Nomatter what, they’re always our Kirito. We’ll always love them nomatter who they end up being.” Sinon added. 

“Yeah, and I can have my own big sister instead of a big brother” Silica giggled to herself.

“Well, she already has a little sister, you sure you can compete with that role?” Kiriko pet Silica’s head and then she realized what she just said.

“Wait… how do you know Kirito has a sister?”

“W-well I’ve been playing with a girl named Leafa whose been teaching me everything- and she keeps talking about her brother Kirito so I just assumed since you both brought up the name.”

Next quest: PLEASE GET BETTER AT LYING BRAIN Kiriko screamed at herself internally.

Argo mischievously laughed. “Yknow Kiriko, I have gotten some inside scoops that Leafa’s been playin alongside a new account and callin her ‘big sis’. Now aint that somethin Kiriko? Or rather Kii-gal?”

Crap. That’s Argo for ya. She knows me better than… well even me probably.

As the tension grew thick enough to cut with a knife, Leafa walked through the door to the Smithy, and Lisbeth returned to listen to the gossip more intently. 

Hopefully Sugu can tell I’m blinking an S.O.S. to her…

“Ah I see you’ve met my friend Kiriko! She’s really sweet right?”

Kiriko shifted in her seat.

“... Fine ya caught me. It’s me…” Kiriko mumbled out. 

No escaping this one chief.

Leafa glanced down a look of “are you sure Kiriko?” to which Kiriko could only nod.

“While you’re about to lose some polycule points for forcibly outing me Argo-” “Polycule points?” Lisbeth inquired.

If I can earn those I’m taking them- Liz thought to herself

“Yes it’s me. I… I just couldn’t stand being Kirito anymore.” The small catgirl looked to be near breaking point. “I.. I didn’t wanna lose any of you. I never had friends until now. And I was so so so worried I’d lose you all. I’d been keeping this down since GunGale. That avatar stuck in my head like a parasite. I couldn’t stop thinking about having long hair, and cute outfits, and twirly skirts, and- and after I tried on that stupid maid outfit, I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t be that same person I was anymore.”

She couldn’t stop the tears anymore. She just balled herself up on the couch. But then she felt a warm soft embrace around her. And another, and another, and another.

“Kiriko, I’m so proud of you. And trust me, you’re still the person I fell in love with in Aincrad. I’m not gonna leave you because you found out more about yourself. That’s just more of you I get to love. I get to fall in love all over again with a wonderful wife.” Asuna held Kiriko tight, and rubbed her cheek against the girl.

A hand was placed on Kiriko’s shoulder. “Heh, you’re so used to playin with chicks that you became one yourself, good for you.” Klein smiled every word out. He may not have been the best with words, but Kiriko appreciated the meaning behind each one.

“We’re all gonna love you nomatter what Kiriko…” Silica was gripping onto her even tighter than Asuna.

Yui and Strea held onto Kiriko for dear life, trying to make their new mommy happy.

“Yeah, you’re our favorite gal to tease, and now we can tease you even harder and in new ways!” Lisbeth smirked devilishly before hugging Kiriko with one arm and poking her cheeks with her free hand.

Kiriko felt another hand on her other shoulder, and looked up to see Agil.

“I’m proud of you for finding out who you are. I’m blessed to have met ya.”

Kiriko’s tears turned from fear and sadness to joy and love.

Sinon came walking up to where Kiriko was sat and hugged her from the front then pet her head. “Truthfully, I thought you were trans the moment you said you were actually a guy in that avatar in GGO. Every time we fought there I saw that light in your eyes you’ve got now. I’m so proud of you.” She kissed the girl’s forehead. “And now we can confirm that two GGO Winners are girls too” she smirked.

“Hehe, sorry for gettin ya to come out if you werent ready” Argo tossled Kiriko’s hair. “But ya know I’m just like ya too! I just wanted ya to rip that bandaid off hehe. Makes it better in the long term.” Kiriko could only smile at the rat in front of her.

“And can I please have my polycule points back”

“T-there’s no such thing Argo. And if there were I wouldn’t take them from my favorite rat…”

“Hey I know we already talked Kiriko” Leafa held onto Kiriko’s hand “but I’m so proud of you and I’m so happy to have a big sister.”

All Kiriko could do was smile, she was finally herself, and surrounded by all of the people she held dear. 

And in the back of her head, she heard the faint singing of familiar christmas music, and relaxed.

Heh. I guess even Sachi was here afterall.

“I love you all. Thank you so much. All of you.”

[fairyhaos]

. ˚ game on !

requested by 🫧 anon: what about strangers to lovers with wonwoo, the guy that you met at the arcade 😌

pairing: wonwoo x gn!reader

genre: college au, meet cute, arcade au, fluff

word count: 1256

warnings: 1 curse word, maybe mildly ooc

notes: this took way too long for me to write,,, i hope y'all enjoy anyways <3

Every competent, sensible, slightly-more-sane-than-the-rest college student has a safe place. A haven, a refuge, somewhere they go to be alone and clear their thoughts to relax after a stressful day. 

For some, that place is one of the libraries. Maybe a secluded place in a park. Maybe meeting up with their friends in a coffee shop a little ways off campus. Maybe even just hopping on a train and going all the way home. 

For Wonwoo, however, his place is a little different. 

Wonwoo goes to the arcade. 

There is a small arcade a little ways away from where he lives, on the corner of a busy street and yet, oddly, seems to remain empty for the majority of the day. On the off-chance that there are people there, they're mostly small kids with adults, or pre-teens giddy at having been able to go out without parental supervision. All of them however, know to avoid Wonwoo’s arcade game. The one he’s staked claim over all the way back during his first year.

It's nothing special, simply just one of those shooting games with the plastic guns and bad graphics and weird, tinny sound effects, but Wonwoo likes it. It reminds him of the terrible arcade games back at home. 

It also helps that he's really, really good at it. 

And so, it's another one of those days for him, where he wants to run away from the stress of college life, wants to ignore Mingyu's texts for once and Seungcheol's endless offers to go out for a drink and stand there and shoot at pixelated images without a care in the world. 

When he arrives at the arcade, however, he finds his plans are somewhat disrupted. 

There's someone using his game. 

Wonwoo blinks, surprised. He doesn't move from his spot, a few metres away from the machine, watching the person play and listen to the crackly sounds that come from the speakers every time a successful shot is made. 

They're actually really good.

Eventually, the game finishes with dramatic closing music and the words 'GAME OVER' flashing in front of you, and you set down the arcade gun, sighing. 

You've never played in this arcade before. Coming from another area of the town, the arcade near where you’re staying has been closed down for apparently engaging in "suspicious business" and, without your usual escape, you've had to scour the town for another place to seek refuge in. 

This arcade certainly looks cleaner and more looked-after than the one you'd been frequenting before. Maybe yours really had been engaging in "suspicious business". Old Mr. Song’s oily moustache had been rather suspicious-looking, now that you think about it.

The games are more or less the same, however, and whilst you haven't played in a while, you're pleased to see that you aren't doing too badly, seeing your score flash up as first place in the leaderboard on the game's screen. 

Well, as expected, really. You've been playing this game literally every week for years, whenever you have time or want to chill. Even in a new arcade, you're still a pro. 

You raise your eyebrows at the second place score, however, surprised by how high it is, noting the barest difference in number compared to yours. Not bad, stranger who apparently is as addicted to arcade games as me, you think. 

"Hey," a voice calls out behind you, and you whip around to see a boy standing there, hands in his pockets, walking towards you. 

Oh, shit. The first thing you register is that this guy is quite possibly the most attractive person you've ever seen. 

His black rimmed glasses glint in the neon signs of the arcade as he tilts his head, a bag slung over his shoulder, and there's the faintest smile on his lips. He stops beside you, nodding at the flashing screen. "You're pretty good."

You raise an eyebrow. "Pretty good?" you echo. "I beat the high score that was previously held on his machine. On my first time here, might I add. I think I'm more than 'pretty good'."

That makes him laugh, surprised by your quick-witted response. "Ah, of course. My apologies. You're incredible."

You grin, pleased by both the compliment and the way you managed to pull such a delighted sound out of this boy. Who was really, really attractive, damn. "Thank you. I know."

He smiles again. "So it's your first time in this arcade, hm?"

“Yep,” you say. “I’m not from around here, actually. The arcade in my area closed down, though, because apparently the owner was using it as a cover for a money-laundering scheme, or something.”

The boy’s eyes are glittering behind his glasses lenses, amused. “Or something?”

You shrug. “Something like that. I can’t remember. It was something illegal, anyway, so they shut down and I haven’t been able to let off steam since.” You pat the machine like it’s a long-lost friend, and he follows your movements with that mildly amused expression on his face. “This is the game that I normally play. Well, not this exact one, but we had one of these in my old arcade.” You pause. “Before the illegal—”

“—before the illegal business, perhaps,” the boy says, and you grin.

“Exactly. I don’t know, but something about these games are just so… stress-relieving. I love them so much.” You glance at your score on the screen, still somehow flashing up even though you’ve finished the game a while ago, and smile proudly. “Back at my old arcade, this was ‘my territory’. No one could touch this game because they knew it was mine.”

That has the boy smiling, an amused twitching of the lips, glasses flashing as he holds out his hand to you. “I’m Wonwoo.”

“Um.” You blink, a little confused by the sudden introduction, but you shake his hand. Wonwoo’s grip is firm, warm, and his eyes seem to light up when your palm makes contact with his. “I’m Y/N?”

“You’re Y/N?” he says, voice a little teasing, mimicking the questioning lilt you’d unintentionally added to the end of your sentence. “Are you sure?”

You roll your eyes, unable to help the small smile that tugs at your lips. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

He laughs, a soft chuckle that makes your heart clunk oddly in your chest. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” he says, releasing your hand to gesture to the game machine, “and in this arcade, this game is my territory.”

You blink, and then your eyes widen. “Oh my god,” you say, laughing a little. “That’s such an incredible coincidence. Wait, does that mean that all of these scores are yours, too?” You point to the screen, and Wonwoo grins.

“Maybe. No one else has touched this game in years. Not since I’ve claimed it.”

You nod appraisingly. “You’re pretty good,” you say, as if giving him your grudging respect, and he smiles again. “Not as good as me, unfortunately.”

That makes him pause, raising an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, Y/N?”

“Maybe,” you chirp, drawing yourself up to full height, looking him right in the eye. “Will you be willing to take the challenge, Mr. Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo tilts his head, observing you quietly for a moment, before the corner of his mouth quirks up in a half-smile, confident and gentle and shy and eager all at once. He drops his bag from his shoulder and steps closer to you, eyes bright with an emotion you can’t quite name.

“Game on.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @butiluvu @zozojella @kawennote09 @thedensworld @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @evasaysstuff @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @sakufilms

[observeowl]

Second Chance | Chapter 7 - Sighting

Series masterlist

After your intense training, you realise despite knowing the right form for shooting. This body has yet to be conditioned for shooting that many arrows. In a competition, you have to be able to shoot a minimum of 83 arrows. In your current condition, you have to take a few minutes break after every 10 arrows, and that’s not possible during a competition. 

Knowing your impending muscle ache, you returned to your room to recover your energy as your friends went out for lunch. You sent a quick text to Andrew before knocking out on your bed, not having any energy to do anything else. Thankfully, Andrew knew a few people from your club as he was quite sociable, and the sports team often came together at an event. After having lunch with his friends, he texted you after he went back to his room, and when you didn’t reply, he asked your friends to check on you. He was told that you were still asleep and that you were probably only going to be able to meet him during dinner. 

It was time to get ready for the team dinner, and your friends tried all sorts of methods to wake you up, but you were still sleeping like a log, and they had to splash you with a cup of water. “It’s your fault for sleeping so deep.” 

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Andrew called out when you walked in. “Saved you a seat.” 

You walked sheepishly towards him and sat down. “Thanks. Sorry for being late.” 

“It’s not a problem.”

As everyone began eating, people started talking with their friends. Andrew talked about what he did while you were sleeping and mentioned that he just got the schedule of when his basketball competition was going to be. It was going to be held at the end of January, giving them time to practice before serious studying started. 

“Training must have kicked your butt.” Andrew said. 

You sighed and nodded. “I’m totally dreading the second session of training later.” You slumped on your chair, not wanting to go anywhere.

“Ohh poor you.” He took your hand. “Just think about the competition. I know it’s tough, but all the effort is going to be worth it in the end.” He encouraged you. 

“Do you want to join?” You asked him since you figured he had nothing else to do. “You could help me sight.” 

“Me? I don’t know how though.” 

“Don’t worry; it’s very simple. I’ll teach you.”

“I should help you sight.” Natasha offered when she joined your training one day. She came with the intention of seeing Clint, but when she saw you trying to figure out where your shots landed, she went forward to assist you. 

“Natty!” You turned around in shock. “I didn’t expect you to be here.” You went to hug her the best you could with all your equipment. “I don’t have a scope though.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get one from Clint. He can’t say no to me. He doesn’t miss his shots anyway. The scope is useless to him.” Without even asking, he went to take his scope from his bag and returned. “I’ll tell you your score and the position so you can adjust.” She made you return to your spot and get ready. 

“8, 9 o’clock.” You shifted your scope slightly to the left and fired another shot. “9, 9 o’clock.” You shifted it a bit more, taking a deep breath before shooting again. You had the level right; you just needed the arrow to move to the right. “10.” 

“See, you’re about to adjust better with someone helping you.” She said when it was time to collect your arrows. You managed to see the correction of the arrow - moving towards the centre.

“Yeah, but there’s often not enough people as there are many people shooting at once.” You explained as you pulled out the arrow and placed it back in your quiver. 

“I’ll be here for you.” 

“So, do you understand?” You asked after teaching Andrew. 

“Yeah! It’s really simple.” He went to his spot and started reporting where your arrows landed. 

Everything was going well. Everyone was minding their own business except for the few small talks you have with the person next to you while waiting for everyone to be ready before starting to shoot each time. You were shooting rather consistently each time, even though you haven’t been hitting many tens. Your groupings were small, and that’s the most important thing. “8, 3 o’clock. You have been shooting to the right a lot.” Andrew commented. You hummed, not wanting to move your mouth too much, shifting your anchor point. 

“Hey, Clint.” Someone said, affecting your release, you landed a shot way off.

“Oh, that’s a 1, 2 o’clock.” Andrew noted, surprised at your sudden deterioration in scoring. You nodded and took a deep breath before loading another arrow. You were unable to get your breathing rhythm back, and your hands were shaking a lot. Deciding to get over with it, you released the arrow, knowing it was not going to land anywhere close to where you wanted it to be. “2, 12 o’clock.” 

You placed your bow in your bow stand, not intending to shoot for a while. “Are you tired? Should I get some water for you?” You smiled at his attentiveness and nodded, going with him. You’re not willing to be in the same space as Natasha. 

“Let’s take a seat here.” You pulled him to benches that scattered the place. 

“You sure you can skip training?” Andrew asked tentatively. 

You chuckled a little. “Relax a little. Are you always following the rules?” 

He wiggled his hands a little. “I can probably count the number of times I went against the rules with one hand.” 

You smiled at him. “It’s alright here as long as you shoot 200 arrows during training. I just don’t want to enter now. I won’t be able to shoot right.” You had your hands together. He could tell there was something you were hiding, but if you didn’t want to share, he wouldn’t pry. 

You rest your head on his shoulders. He was the perfect height for you, it was very comfortable, and you drifted off without realising. 

===

“Nat. What are you doing here?”

“I’m just passing the time.” She sauntered over to him while looking at the others. After spending much time with Clint, she learned a few archery skills and could tell who needed more help. 

“Let me ask you something since you’re here.” Clint pulled Nat aside to speak in more privacy while still being able to see the rest. “Are you sure you’re dating Maria? You seem to jump from being friends to being girlfriends. When did you guys even go on dates? I never knew you two were this close.” 

“I don’t have to tell you everything I do. Maria and I like each other; that’s what matters.” Natasha angrily defends. 

Clint sighed and shook his head, “That’s okay if that's what you truly think. If not, you’re just going to hurt people around you.” He left Nat with his words before going back to guide his teammates. She’s mad that his best friend didn’t trust her. 

When she left the range, more smoke was coming out of her ears when she saw you sleeping on Andrew’s shoulders. Why was everything going your way, but she has to fight for every ounce of happiness to come her way? Isn’t it enough that her marriage with you has turned sour? Why does every relationship she gets into have to be so tough on her? Does she not deserve the relationship that every girl dreams of?

After a few shots, she decided that drinking by herself was boring and lame and called Maria to join her. By the time Maria arrived, Nat was already drunk on her shot. The bartender was a bit hesitant to give her any more, especially when looking like a student. 

“Maria!” Nat cheered when she saw her arriving. “What are you doing here?” 

“You asked me to come,” Maria said, wide-eyed. “Never mind, how much have you drunk?” She counted the number of shot glasses on the table. “You can really drink.” 

“Sit with me!” Nat pulled Maria closer and pushed her onto a chair. “Come on! Don’t waste it since you’re here.” She forced a shot glass into her hand and nodded for her to drink it. After knocking it back once, more came her way, but she refused it. Vodka shots were not something Maria liked, and someone needed to be responsible for bringing her back to her room. 

“Come on; you’re drunk. Let’s get back to the resort. Of all the days to get drunk, you choose to get drunk on the day before you leave. You’re not going to like the hangover you get tomorrow.” Maria said, more to herself as she knew Nat wasn’t listening. She paid for the drinks before swinging Nat’s arm over her shoulders and bringing her back to the resort. 

All the way, Natasha kept complaining about how Clint didn’t trust her. Her mouth kept running until Maria covered her with the duvet. As much as Natasha puts on a serious and menacing look on the surface, she’s a cute little one when she’s sleeping. She looks harmless when she curls up asleep. 

“I know you won’t remember any of this tomorrow. But I still love you for it.” Maria sat next to her and combed Nat’s hair with her hands as she watched her sleep peacefully. She hesitated a bit before placing a soft kiss on Nat’s hairline. “I have loved you ever since I laid my eyes on you, Natasha.”

Series masterlist

[punkascas]

okay, so i don't want to, like, Start Something or whatever so we're doing a barely-tagged, separate post. i also realise this is mostly pointless because others have already said what i'm going to say, and did it better, with far more grace, and sound less like an asshole than i do.

but jesus louise helen christ, the weird fucked up ideas people have around abuse and personal responsibility and the effect of trauma. like as an abuse and csa survivor, it genuinely alarms me to read posts that use arguments i remember my dad making. like, i'm assuming most of this rhetoric comes from gen z — maybe that's inaccurate; maybe that's unfair. but right now i'm very much Having A Moment Here that the kids aren't alright.

no 22-year-old should be repeating the same awful, manipulative, logically and morally bankrupt justifications for violence and torture my dad says. like literally what's in the first two episodes of ofmd s2 is torture.

i love ed; he's an amazing character. taika is hella wowza top marks acting him. but like.

like.

torture, my dude. physical and psychological. trauma. harassment. that we see the lasting effects of through s2.

just. i. what??

so here we go, okay. have too many, zealously highlighted screenshots so i can dig into details.

cut to save your dashes. content warning for discussions of abuse and trauma (if that wasn't obvious), as well as spoilers for ofmd s2.

re: ed knew what he was doing was wrong and felt guilty about it at the time:

we have no on-screen, textual examples of this. not in the dialogue; not in the acting; not in the blocking; not in the cinematography or music. nothing.

knowing the crew are overworked and kind of traumatised by all the violence, ed bribes them with cake. because, as we know, cake like tea fixes everything. only ed wasn't even with them to share in the eating of the cake. he made izzy responsible for that. he doesn't give the crew a break; he doesn't choose less ethically-fraught prizes to hunt. there is not one scene of ed talking directly to the crew — until he points a gun at each of them.

we see ed crying (and drinking, and rhino horn-ing [way to help further extinction, man]) but it's always paired with shots or flashbacks that reference stede. ed is still all up in his feelings about stede, and ed confirms this when he tells frenchie the myth about albatrosses never needing to return to land. ed cannot go back, does not want to go back, because he was rejected. (like, stede is literally landed gentry, come on!) all he wants to do instead is stay at sea committing to this unhinged version of unstable, sadistic piracy.

but okay, okay. say we ignore all of that. let's say ed does feel sorry and guilty and ashamed of his actions. he knows what he's doing is wrong and unfair and cruel. that it's harming others. that it's particularly harming the dude that ed has, for better or worse, basically spent his life with (izzy; i mean izzy). ed… still continues to do the things! how far off are we at this point from the definition of malicious? you know action x hurts person b and then you do it anyway. is that honestly a better, happier, more ethically defensible reading of the character?

re: the crew didn't mutiny because they love ed despite his violent, sadistic actions.

mutinies were a thing, yes. but both historically and in the world rules established by the show, mutiny is disincentivised through threats, distraction via extra work, and corporeal punishment. we see both ed and izzy use all three of these to try to prevent the crew from disobeying orders. they didn't wait until the storm and izzy shooting ed to mutiny because they understood or sympathised with ed; they took the chance to kill him then because that was the first real opportunity they'd had. the reward finally out-weighed the risk given that ed was going to kill them all that night anyway.

again, we have no scenes, no dialogue, no visual or audio cues to tell us that the crew understands or loves ed — excluding izzy, obviously. fang could also be on that list, if you take into account his personality and his behaviour both in s1 and later in s2 in the fishing boat scene. but in the first two episodes, we only see the crew show trauma responses around ed. they talk about him but almost never to him. and when they do have a direct conversation with ed, it is either confrontation or head down, submissive, "of course, blackbeard; anything you say" placating. i'm so baffled where the show points to any sign of love from the crew towards ed before his "death".

re: ed can't be held responsible because he was suicidal.

uhm. no. hard no. a harder no than stede's brazilian cherry wood mast. fucked up people do fucked up things but part of being an adult is owning your fucked-upped-ness and not fucking up others while you work on unfucking yourself. children, children are not fully responsible for the impact of their actions on others when they're deep in their feelings, especially if they're feeling their feelings as a trauma response. this is because literally their brain cannot do that kind of control. it doesn't have that software pack installed yet. ed does have all the adult updates installed, even if he isn't running them at that moment. he has no right to take out his feelings on other people: to maim them, to psychologically torture them, to abuse them, to work them to exhaustion. to kill them. he does not get a free pass to do suicide by abused employees. (like suicide by cop but more indirect and passive and harmful.) talk about passive aggressive.

secondly, ed is not just passively suicidal and happy to find new risks that might end his life. he is very purposefully taking izzy with him (see: literally removing the bits of izzy that would help let him walk away from ed; the fact that ed becomes actively suicidal only once he thinks izzy is dead; the whole keeping izzy's corpse in front of his and stede's beach shack i mean inn — the codependence, she runs deep). ed is also putting the crew through the same risks, the same isolation, the same danger. both stede and izzy agreed that ed had gone full scorched earth policy. you don't get forgiven for the murder part of a murder-suicide pact just because of the suicide part. not to mention that no one (once again, you could potentially argue izzy as an exception) was good on a murder-suicide pact with blackbeard.

and then to say the crew felt guilty? i assume i'm misreading that. the crew. felt guilty. for ed's actions. that is, if not victim blaming and if not darvo, a very close inbred cousin of them. like hapsburg jaw inbred close.

re: ed healing and his view of himself as a monster.

to heal means, in part, to accept responsibility for the harm you've caused, whether it was intentional or not. it means making amends. it means building or rebuilding relationships where possible. it means putting the other person or persons' feelings and boundaries and need for safety above your desire for absolution or forgiveness. it means working through your own guilt and shame and anger (or whatever drove you to act the way you did) in a separate space, not with the people you hurt, but someone who can be a step removed, more impersonal and objective to help you reflect and face hard truths as needed. i say this as both someone involved in activism and community reparations and as an abuse survivor who has done nearly 30 years of therapy learning this in order to not hurt people. it's not ed's fault he's fucked up just like it isn't my fault i am. but it is on me, like it is on anyone, to make sure i limited as much as possible the harm i can cause to others because i learned some awful but very effective tricks at a young age to survive.

ed does not really do any of the above. he doesn't say "sorry". he speaks in generalised language. he complains about the cat bell (which he seems to wear only for one day, given the implied timeline with lucius and pete's engagement). i have a model ship on a stand that says "this is a safe space ship" as a joke because i work for the government and have written press releases that sound just like ed's "apology". where you take no responsibility and encourage "the culture" to move on.

so, really, my question becomes: ed sees himself as a monster. in s1, we had enough balance between ed's current actions and his referenced past actions to see this belief as likely untrue. in s2 though — i mean, is it? is that an unfair or inaccurate belief? i can understand how carrying that belief can get in the way of ed's growth and eventual healing but like. from an outside perspective of ed-the-fictional-character. he's not a "good" person. he's capable of and has done and continued to do horrible, cruel things. ethically, can you argue with that statement about him?

re: ed trying to destroy relationships because of his self-worth issues and instead the consequences of his actions proving that he's loved.

this is the point that made me go: right, no, i need to respond. i need to say my piece about this. izzy and the crew suffering ed's violent tyranny and then sticking around on the revenge anyway afterwards is not a sign of love. it is not showing love to bear pain for someone. it not showing love to let someone mistreat you, threaten you, hurt you, maim you. their actions are selfish and done to give them feelings of power and control over you. lying back and thinking of england to get through it is not love. it is absolutely a survival technique. but it is not love when you do it at the expense of yourself or others.

i also disagree that ed was trying to push people away or break his relationships with others. we know from s1 that ed is fairly blasé about whether crew members die. again, we don't see any friendly or intimate exchanges between ed and any of the crew to imply any kind of relationship there beyond "tools who accomplish ed's goals". the one exception, as always, is izzy. and as previously stated, ed seems bound and determined, in a very conscious way, to bring izzy into death with him. ed does everything in his power to make izzy want to kill ed, or at least agree that it's best if ed dies, and to want to kill himself so ed doesn't have to die alone. that isn't ed breaking that relationship; it's making it permanent in a really fucked up shakespearian way. the only relationship we see ed waffle between wanting to keep and wanting to push away is stede. after his corporate "apology" and the fishing trip with fang, all of ed's dialogue is with stede and a little bit with zheng until izzy's death scene. the crew loving ed just isn't a thing, at least not one we're shown. not from either side. ed's relationships are with stede and kind of, sort of with izzy (because he does manage to, if not fully break, do some major damage to that).

love did not save ed. ed wanting to live, because stede came back, because he didn't want to jump off hornigold's cliff in the first place, saved ed. izzy saved everyone else.

so yeah: that's it; that's the post. the rhetoric that abuse is love or that abuse can be "cured" with love or that trauma isn't lasting and serious and has impacts on people's daily lives is just. wild. wild.

and terrifying.

my dad was born in the 40s. why is anyone born in the 80s or later still defending this mindset? it honestly, truly freaks me out.

guess it's good i have a fucking therapy appointment on monday.

[dreamwritersworld]

Once Innocent. Part 3. (Sully family x reader)

Just a friendly reminder that is a mini series showing more back story of Y/n past and all her hardships in life! 💗

Y/n remained cold. No one could keep her promises, but she was supposed to keep theirs. She took care of everyone but who took care of her…? Her dreams haven’t allowed her to see Rey’akana, it made her frustrated. Her mother was nearing the end of pregnancy and it’s only made her colder. She needs to protect her family. So y/n took in the mean words the kids would say to the obviously neglected child. Trained relentlessly. Stood up for herself. and she closed herself from the clan, that way no one would even get the chance to stab her in the back. Y/n’s words leaked her true thoughts, the people were just too blind to notice.

Today I was ordered to hunt with Neteyam and bring back food for the feast. Everything was going just fine until we heard unusual ruffling. Suddenly a human with a gun popped out right in front of Neteyam. I sneaked through with zero hesitation and shot my gun. Only thing was my bullets wouldn’t fire ‘fucking guy, I knew he was sneaky, he gave me blank bullets’ so I had to settle on disarming the human even if it was risky. I put his hands behind his back. Then he started pleading “I am a scientist i was just coming out to pick things they needed. Look I’m no threat to you ok? I surrender.” That’s funny because to me he was a threat, I’ve never seen him around and he didn’t even have the usual id’s they wore.

Neteyam looked at his younger sister focused on figuring out what to do next, but Y/n already made the decision.

“Well…that’s obvious seeing how you didn’t shoot Neteyam yet you were waving the gun around. Like an idiot. Now don’t do anything stupid. Cause I’m not as nice as you. I won’t hesitate.” I look up at my brother and decide to send him to take our food to the camp.

“Take the food and go Neteyam.” I turn to face the scientist “I’m taking you to my father and he will tell me who you really are. I’ve never seen you around before.” I say this as we start walking through the forest, with the guys hands tied and my gun ready for anything to happen. The scientist says “is this really necessary…?” I don’t hesitate to answer his question. “I don’t know you, I don’t trust you and I’m not taking any chances. So it’s safer for both of us if your tied up.” The scientist says he understands and we introduce each other. However the scientist knows about the amount of animals that come out and can attack so he’s still concerned and tries to ask for the gun back. “For all I know you’d turn around and use it on me. If I give you a weapon, I can’t take my eyes off of you. At least this way you won’t run around shooting my people or me.” The scientist starts talking, asking about every animal In the forest especially since it’s his first time. “It’s just animals ok? Look I’m just- I’m not used to being around other people. Not for awhile anyway. Usually it’s just me.” The scientist looks back at me “sounds kinda lonely if you ask me.” Are you kidding me? “well I didn’t ask you. And anyways I prefer it that way. People like you are messy.” I drop the scientist off to my father, hiding my gun and holding onto my bow instead but to my surprise he wasn’t exactly happy..?

“Y/n. What are you doing?! Why did you bring Newt here?” Now I’m confused this guy doesn’t have any sign he was a scientist and the humans know the rules on wearing their id’s. “Father are you serious? Do you not even care that he was walking here with zero identification, I’ve never seen him, and he was waving around with a gun. I had to disar-“ I can barley finish my fucking sentence. “Let me make this clear . Y/n I do not care what you had to do. Or what your intentions were. You are wrong. Do not speak to me that way. Take him back to the lab. Now.” I look at my father in disbelief and push the scientist onto my ikran with me to go back to the lab. “Don’t talk. I don’t need your talking. I’ve heard enough today. Just hold on.”

After dropping off the idiot scientist I decided it was also time to confront the sneaky navi who gave me blank bullets.

Neteyam was talking to his brother about what happened, avoiding saying how Y/n had a gun when they aren’t allowed to. How did she get it in the first place? He watched as she walked into the tent brushing it off until he heard her voice get louder.

“Don’t turn away from me. I’m talking to you.”

Neteyam walks in an tries stopping me “Woah y/n what’s going on?” I no longer care that he knows that I have a gun. “This guy ripped me off. I traded him a bag of perfectly made arrows and he gave me a box of bullets that won’t fire. He could’ve gotten both of us killed.” The sneak scoffed and said “you can’t even prove those are the ones I traded you.” I pointed my gun to his face “He knows the bullets don’t work. Listen to him. He’s not even nervous. I’ll be the one who breaks out at night and cuts your throat while you sleep.” The sneak began opening his mouth to spit some bullshit. “Ok kid, I’ll give you back your arrows” seriously? “I don’t need arrows! What I need are bullets that won’t get me killed-“ I was saying this aiming the gun towards the floor and suddenly the gun shot a bullet that was loaded and fully working. “Oh no.” They heard their fathers voice in the background. “Say I was requesting the arrows I traded in for some broken cloth. He attacked me and he was going for his gun to take a hit on both of us since you tried to stop him.” She then turned to the man “you better comply.” Their father rushes into the room.

“Dad he attacked me! He only shot because-“ there he goes again, not letting me speak “Shut up you’ve done enough talking. Go home.” Jake deals with the sneaky Navi who’s known for tricking people.

Neteyam and I decided to help around the village, then go home and we agree to keep the whole gun thing a secret but he decides to ask how I even got my hands on one. “A soldier gave it to me ok? He trusted me with it and I haven’t done anything with it until now. What was I supposed to do Neteyam? he had a gun aimed at you. Shooting him was better than having to disarm him, he could’ve shot me too. It was harder to get that gun out of his hands trust me.” Neteyam stayed quiet from there while I remembered the day I was given the gun.

*flashback*

“Rey’akana was excited to be the one to graduate you to a gun. I know it’s not him giving it to you but can you accept it? It’s his.” I look up at the old partner with tears in my eyes “w-what? Thank you truly I’ll accept it! You’ve made my birthday.” the old partner smiled, glad he kept was able to keep Rey’akana’s memory alive for the girl in some way. Knowing that her birthday wasn’t even remembered by her own family. *

The silence was there until we heard my moms painful screams. We sprinted into our home walking into her giving birth. Everyone was there waiting for the new child. I was staring off, sighing at how crazy today was and now a new baby..? This is tiring. “One last push, Neytiri.” Cries were heard, baby cries. My siblings all rushed walking in closer. While I took my time, wanting to savor the beautiful moment for the new baby…oh she was beautiful. Tuktirey was her name. She calmed down from her tears, looking up with beautiful innocent eyes. she held some type of form of light. She was truly captivating.

💜!

Soo…what are you guys thinking? Y/n has now gone cold and no longer innocent of the world. After everything she’s been through, it was expected…but to this extent? It was very clear in this part. She didn’t hesitate to shoot. She fought. Held zero remorse in her eyes. Spoke about killing, like it was nothing..? She said she liked being alone…this is nothing compared to the sweet innocent girl who wanted to hold everyone and make them happy. Yk Hanging around and asking everyone questions curiosity was clearly evident, just like the scientists curiosity. I mean she Even TRIED arguing against her dad?!? Now her dark, cold eyes now have light against them! Tuk has entered and I wonder whats going to happen next! Will Tuk give Y/n the strength to just finally FULLY go against all of her fathers words? In order to keep her safe…? Like it said “she needs to protect her family.” is Jake even considered…her family?

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