#but hey at least I figured how to fill the gap in this AU

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

I've fallen down an internet rabbit hole on figure skating ever since I began thinking about that skating AU I mentioned, I think I have an idea that might justify Kaisa only coming to the national/international competition scene later in life.

Apparently the ladies' singles discipline is. Super problematic (sorry if it's obvious, I knew literally nothing about this sport until last Saturday), and I'm imagining Kaisa could have been a victim of that. Maybe she trained under Abigail or that other nameless witch who looks like Abigail. Maybe she was a pupil of her (their?) academy, and had hopes of competing as a teenager.

But her coaches kept pushing her, to do triple and quadruple jumps without proper technique, relying on keeping her weight low and on overworking her back. Pushing her to do the routines they wanted, without the artistry elements she loved. Pushing her to diet in unhealthy ways and overtrain. Maybe they convinced her she could only be a proper skater with those technical elements, that she was struggling to master because they are hard as fuck and because Kaisa is already a scrawny person, if you stop her from eating on top of that things are not going to look good.

Her coach(es) doesn't really have her as one of her favourites, keeping her from competing for a long time since she couldn't master those jumps. But eventually she does, at the expense of her own body. The coaches sign her up for a bigger competition, then, and maybe she even makes it the first time or two, but without ever getting to a nationals. Because at some point, when she's practicing her routine full of backloaded jumps for extra points, she falls and suffers an injury.

This wrecks her completely. She doesn't want to compete anymore, because she has realized that this lifestyle that is being forced into her is sucking all the joy out of skating. Good thing too, because her coaches decide to put their energy into even younger athletes. So Kaisa goes back to the ring where she used to skate for fun when she was a child, and asks Tildy for a job.

And then, years later, Tildy asks her to give private coaching to a pre-teen who is just sooo talented. And sure, Lauren annoys the hell out of Kaisa with her attitude (something Kaisa makes sure to retribute), but in her Kaisa sees something different. Here is a teenage girl in singles figure skating who isn't destroying her body for the sake of pulling dangerous moves that will earn her points. An athlete who actively chooses to practice just for fun even when everyone tells her she should be going competitive. An artist who does amazing programs that are loved by everyone even without those technical elements that Kaisa had been so unhealthily pushed to pursue when she'd been her age.

And, well, if Lauren corners her one day to ask her why the hell she wasn't competing since she clearly liked it so much, Kaisa had always been the sort of person to need a little encouragement to be pushed into action, hadn't she?

[flightfoot]

ML Fanfic Recs for 2023: 40K - 60K Words

So I’ve been going through and adding particularly good fics I’ve read throughout the year. Only Complete fics, of course. Enjoy!

---

The Two Worlds of Marinette by Liquifiedstars:

Marinette discovers a watch in her attic that allows her to travel back in time. Soon she is torn between her life with her rising star fiancé, Luka, and a romance with the enigmatic Adrien Agreste, who knows nothing of the fate that awaits him.

This fic is an AU based on the film The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan, which I’m afraid I’ve never seen. Still, I quite enjoyed this fic, with Marinette spending more and more time in the past, and trying to figure out the truth behind Adrien’s eventual death, and how to prevent it.

Fair warning to Lukanette fans though, Marinette does cheat on Luka during the fic, it comes with the AU. He takes it pretty well though.

---

Stone Streak by kingxuppu

Ladybug and Violet Tigress had been fighting the mysterious Duskwing for eight years now. Through the years, the two have grown stronger together and even gotten married, they are waiting until they finally beat Duskwing to start a family. At least, that was the plan. When Juleka gets confronted with the realization that her friends are starting families of their own, she realizes just how badly she wants to be a mother.

Due to unfortunate circumstances, Juleka and Marinette get the chance to adopt Juleka's young modeling friend Adrien.

Maybe they aren't quite a traditional family, but with magic, rockstars, and fame, normal was never an option.

Via Discovery: There are actually two terms of venery for tigers, depending on the makeup of the group. The first is a streak of tigers and this refers to a female tiger and her cubs.

Now this is a rare pairing, there’s not a lot of Julenette fics! Adrien and Rose actually have some ship tease going on, the whole kid group in canon got broken up into two groups here, one that remained around canon age (so like 13) which notably consists of Chloe, Rose, and Adrien, and then I think everyone else are adults in their mid-twenties. It’s weird seeing Adrien as Marinette’s and Juleka’s son, but hey it works! I love how Juleka really showed Adrien the ropes on modeling and became a Mama tiger for him, the fic’s mostly just very sweet, though with a surprisingly dark final act. 

---

The Parable of the Caller by @nemaliwrites

A week after Hawk Moth’s identity has been revealed, Adrien finds himself with nowhere to go, nothing he can do, and worst of all, strange gaps in his memory he can’t explain. In a stroke of luck, he stumbles upon a burner phone filled with voicemails from one of the Saviors of Paris: Chat Noir himself, who disappeared following Hawk Moth’s arrest.

But with each new voicemail Adrien listens to, he’s forced to confront the fact that there might be some kind of connection between himself and Chat Noir — and discovering it might leave him more broken than before.

I absolutely adore this fic, it’s a fantastic character study for Adrien! Basically in this universe, Ladybug and Chat Noir talked about who should be Guardian, with Chat eventually convincing her that he should be the one to take it on, primarily due to the whole “the Guardian gets amnesia about Miraculous-related matters” situation, and wanting to protect Ladybug from that. Then he finds out Gabriel is Hawk Moth, they take him down, and he relinquishes the Miracle Box and his guardianship to Su Han - all without having a Reveal with Ladybug, since well, he’s not in the greatest shape mentally at the time.

It’s a real treat to see Adrien’s thoughts and feelings about one of the Heroes of Paris leaving him all these voicemails, treating him like this close friend for reasons he doesn’t understand, and just seeing Chat Noir as this outside person. He’s got a very different viewpoint on Chat when looking from the outside than he would from the inside, with being able to see his heroic and good qualities far more easily when he doesn’t know that he is Chat.

Also Marinette’s struggling in the background of the fic with the loss of her partner and guilt over sending Adrien’s father to prison. It gets touched on at various points, and you can tell that she’s having her own story off to the side that we’re just not entirely privy to, what with this tale being told entirely from Adrien’s perspective.

---

Miss Dial by @mysticraven20

Adrien Agreste has always considered Marinette Dupain-Cheng entertaining. Whether it was the endless back and forth of their banter, the clumsiness he found so cute or the fact her anger levels could go from 1-100 in a mere millisecond; he always found there was something about her... if only he could get to know her better.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng has always considered Adrien Agreste a pompous, arrogant asshole. From his constant teasing of her, to the obnoxious laugh at her discomfort and the way he could anger her quicker than any other human being; she knew she hated Adrien Agreste with all she was worth.

But what happens when Adrien accidentally sends the wrong text to the wrong person and a new friendship blossoms - a friendship deeper than either have ever known?

Will Marinette choose to stay faithful to the budding relationship with the boy on the other side of the phone?

Or will a new job with an old foe fill the loneliness in her heart?

Great Adrienette enemies au here! I thought Mystic did a great job explaining how Adrien could be under the impression that he and Marinette were at least sort-of friends, while Marinette hates his guts. Adrien’s not great at understanding social nuances. 

Most of the relationship-building here is actually between Adrien and Marinette in the real world, with Marinette gradually learning that she had the wrong idea about Adrien. Turns out, all their friends really want them to get alng (and maybe smooch XD).

Oh yeah, while the summary doesn’t mention this, this fic IS still set in the canon universe, so they’re juggling identities as Ladybug and Chat Noir on top of everything else. Monarch’s been pretty quiet though.

---

Every Heartbeat by @epcot97

Reeling from a brutally difficult day, Marinette finds her life becomes amazingly complicated after impulsively inviting Chat Noir to spend the evening with her. But when the suave feline begins to weave his way into her heart, she realizes rather quickly just how conflicted her feelings for her partner truly are. (part of MariChat May 2021)

Okay so I’m cheating on this one just a little. This story was originally uploaded in 2021, but was taken down and then reuploaded in 2023. I didn’t read it the first time around, and I really enjoyed it and this is my list, so screw it, I’m including it.

Really lovely Marichat fic here! Gabriel fires Marinette from her designer job for unfair reasons, so Chat goes to comfort her and help her set up her own fashion business, becoming closer and closer as they do so. 

---

Midwinter Serendipity by Cakedecorator

Marinette is a normal woman living in her parents' bakery with her parents, and they have a monthly tradition: they take their bakery leftovers and any handmade clothes that Marinette has made and bring them to the local homeless shelter.

To paraphrase a common idiom, the best laid plans of people often go awry. In this case, they have to stop in the middle of everything when they find a young man lying out cold while IN the cold.

After they bring him to the hospital and he wakes up, they realize that he has a huge problem: he can't remember anything other than his first name! What will the family do?!

This is just a really comfy fic for most of it, though with some angst thrown in too. Adrien adores getting to spend time with the Dupain-Chengs, and honestly doesn’t WANT to remember his past, since the glimpses and memories and emotions he has recovered have indicated to him that they aren’t great, and he’s happy with his current situation. 

Unfortunately, just because he doesn’t want to forget his past, doesn’t mean his past will just forget about him.

---

The second Multimouse gets the Chat by charliepoet13

After a harshly fought battle Ladybug and Chat Noir have claimed the Mouse Miraculous. Obviously Marinette needs to test the strange new ring, and obviously the best way to do that is patrols with Chat. No, she will not be taking comments.

This is as adorable a fic as it sounds like! Marinette refuses to look into WHY, exactly, she really likes running around with Chat as Multimouse, even when she really needs a break. 

---

Ladybugged Series by RillRull

Summary of the first fic in the series, Ladybugged:

In which Ladybug accidentally gets turned into a ladybug, and it’s up to Chat Noir to fix it.

It turns out potion making is really hard when your best friend is a bug and you’re just some guy in a cat suit.

If you like “the heroes turn into animals” stories, this series should be right up your alley! The first one features Ladybug accidentally turning herself into a ladybug and Chat trying to figure out how to turn her back, the second fic follows up on some plot threads from the first fic, and then the final fic in the series, Catified, has Chat intentionally turn himself into a cat for the weekend (after making sure that everyone thinks that he’s at Nino’s place and that Nino will cover for him) because he thinks it’ll be fun, and him staying over with Marinette! I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories so they were a real treat to read XD.

---

I (Wish I) Knew You by @buggachat

University has been hard on Marinette. Making new friends and maintaining her grades is a lot easier said than done when she has to disappear at odd times to fight akumas. She's struggling, and with Alya away with family and Adrien painfully out of reach, she's never felt lonelier.

If only she could talk to someone who really understood her struggles... but it's not like Chat Noir would know anything about loneliness. Right?

Nice aged-up Ladynoir fic here! Marinette’s struggling with losing friends and lovers because of her flakiness due to her superhero activities, until at last she breaks down. Thankfully, Chat Noir’s there at least - and it soon turns out he’s got problems of his own that he’s been hiding.

There’s some fluff and angst, it’s mostly just the two of them navigating life, dealing with their feelings and talking things out.

---

Found by @trishacollins

Chat Noir and Ladybug need to tie up some loose ends. Unfortunately, one of those ends is Felix.

This is a fantastic fic! It’s part of a wider series wherein Adrien and Felix were friends with Nooroo and Duusu from a younger age, but Adrien’s memory was wiped of it by his parents, but this is the first fic you really need to read. Basically, after the events of Emotion, Chat confronts Felix about what he did, and Felix confesses to being a Sentibeing, and Duusu reveals to Chat that he is one as well, leading to Felix cooperating with the heroes. 

Of all the fics I’ve read that tackle the subject, this one does the best job of giving Felix a redemption arc for his actions in the season 4 finale, focusing not only on how he hurt the heroes, but the kwamis. I loved that he truly understood how much he fucked up with the situation he put the kwamis in, how much suffering he put them through, and that the kwamis were allowed to be angry at him for awhile afterwards, to be suspicious and untrusting towards him at first (and that Marinette was allowed to do the same). Felix screwed up and hurt people, and he had to really show that he understood what he did was wrong, why it was wrong, and try to help the people he hurt.

---

In Direct Opposition by @generalluxun

Alya Cesaire is a brand new student to Francis Dupont, to Paris even. The first student she meets is one Chloé Bourgeois, and Alya is determined to make a friend. Things advance Chaotically. Her new 'friend' is definitely a handful, and suddenly Paris has a supervillain and two brand new superheroes! Alya finds herself balancing a lot of things, trying to live up to her ideals and those of her icons.

And then reality seems to contradict itself.

As time progresses it seems to happen more often. Becoming a hero, battling villains, staying alive, working through friendships. Something is lurking, tweaking events at times, changing them, and no one seems aware. Alya will need all her wits to get to the bottom of this. Her investigative mind can only get her so far though, and then she needs to rely on her friends. This is not a foe you can beat head on.

I betaed this entire fic, it’s really good! I adore the focus on Alya’s philosophy here, her determination to be a hero, to help people and defeat evil - and that defeating evil means trying to reform the people doing bad things when possible, to try to save EVERYONE, even the “villain”. I thought it was really clever the ways Alya would redirect Chloe and subtly encourage her to be a better person, while also trying to get the people around her to give her a second chance and keep an open mind. 

Also Alya and Chloe are an adorable sapphic couple XD.

---

Chemistry With Him by @bbutterflies

It kind of sucked Nino was taking chemistry, but classes had filled up fast and he needed to take something and his advisor had said the credits would, somehow, count towards his major. It really sucked he was taking it first thing on a Monday morning (and Wednesdays, and Fridays, unfortunately). But he could get through it. He knew he could.

So no more boys. No distractions. He could do this all on his own.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Nino looked up to find the source of the voice. A blond, green-eyed, absolutely beautiful someone.

Okay. Maybe one distraction.

Ah, adorable Adrino. This is a universe where Adrien never went to public school, so while Chat Noir, Ladybug, Carapace, and Rena Rouge all know each other (and Marinette, Alya, and Nino all know each other’s identities) they’re unaware that they are all already friends with Adrien. I loved seeing Chat and Carapace excitedly tell each other about their awesome crush/boyfriend, not knowing they were talking about each other XD.

[silviaflowers]

|| Oh, You're So Traumatized, It Makes Me Wanna Cry! || Slaughter Drone AU Fic ||

(Actual fic under the cut, this is to keep from clogging up my page and the tags lol) cross-posted to AO3 : Oh, You're So Traumatized, It Makes Me Wanna Cry! - [Archive of Our Own] CW for murder (obviously)

The air was cold. In fact, it was freezing. Not that Uzi could tell, of course. And neither could her pawn. Uzi sat on the shoulders of a disassembly drone, his name was Serial Designation N, though when his squad was alive, they called him N. N didn't get many chances to act of his own accord, though when Uzi walked outside of the landing pod alone to think (always bringing her precious railgun, the method she'd used to subdue this specific disassembly drone) he would sit and talk to himself. Well, he used to, until Uzi had caught him talking to himself and threatened him for it. Now he just thought.

"N, don't talk to yourself. It's stupid." Uzi had spat.

N's eyes hollowed into outlines, and he nodded. "Yes Uzi." He went silent after that.

Uzi walked over to the controls of the landing pod, lifting her wrench with an ability N had never figured out the name of. Obviously, he would never ask. A symbol- a hexagon with three lines coming out of it, triangles at the end of each line- always appeared to replace one of her eyes when she used it. N knew Uzi as a stoic teen and a rather short disassembly drone who would blow up at him if he said the wrong thing. He went along with it though, of course he did.

"Hey N, do you need oil?" Uzi absentmindedly asked.

"I- Uhm- I don't think so, Uzi." N kept his hands behind his back.

"Too bad, we're going to get more, I'm overheating."

"Okay Uzi." N nodded dutifully, an X flickering onto his screen. He kneeled so that Uzi could climb onto his back. Uzi held onto him as he exited the landing pod and flew into the air. He scouted the area for any stray worker drones, his eyes wandering to the large colony of worker drones that Uzi had been hiding in. Well, that's what Uzi told him, at least. Uzi's excuse for knowing so much about the colony, down to even having a grudge against their leader, Khan, was that she had been sent by JCJenson in Spaaaaace as a new type of drone: a Spy Drone. A disassembly drone made to look like a worker drone so that it could infiltrate the worker base.

Uzi never elaborated on her past in the worker base. N always assumed it must have been really bad. Never mind that now. He landed just outside of the base and Uzi began to bang on Door 1. She put on her best terrified worker impression.

"HELP! HELP! THE GIRL AND HER DRONE ARE AFTER ME! LET ME IN!" Uzi begged, gesturing to N. His mind went blank at the motion before his eyes hollowed out with recognition.

"Oh right!" He whispered before beginning to cackle.

The door began to open, and N snuck his claws into the gap. He snuck his tail into the fort to corrode the door mechanics, making it easy to pry the doors open.

Uzi pointed at the drones, grinning as she said, "Fetch, boy."

N nodded, diving after the fleeing drones. Their screams filled the air as he pinned one to the wall and he knocked the head off. He tossed the body at Uzi and pursued a new worker to drink the oil from himself.

"Don't hog it all, N!" She shouted as he tore into the body of some worker. A quiet voice in the back of his head wondered if he should feel guilty for this, but it was quickly crushed by what he'd been programmed to do and what Uzi had told him. Eventually, he grabbed a few bodies and exited the worker base, going back to Uzi. She relied on him for oil access, given that she didn't have the best handle on how to use her abilities for violence.

She wiped a few drops of oil from her mouth, "Great work, N."

N smiled and gave her two thumbs up. The remaining workers watched as the two walked away from the destruction they'd caused.

...Now to collect themselves.

[superphantom]

Enthralled with the idea of Danny from Danny legit dies and has a physical corpse but can still kinda be human au and the Winchesters from just regular canon bumping into each other while... hiding bodies.

Three teens carrying a fourth by his arms and legs into the woods. Would they even be able to tell that it’s Danny’s corpse? It’s gotta be pretty much cooked through at that point. Hold on, I’m going to write something rq, apologies for any mistakes/bad writing but the concept is just too fun. If you think so too, go ahead and try your hand at it, this has so many excellent interpretations.

Edit but not really cuz I haven’t actually posted anything yet: I’ve only read back through this once but I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out, just wanted to add a quick warning for horrific death and descriptions of a corpse and all that. 

--

Digging graves always sucked, naturally. It’s hard to plow through a good six feet of rocks and dirt and bones and whatever other crap might be waiting below the surface (one time, in some backwoods in Ohio they’d hit a bathtub around three feet down. Never got an explanation for that one). But, of course, the muggy pits of July made things much worse.

Sam had shed his top layer in the car, and was now down to a single shirt. He probably would’ve taken that off too, had it not been glued onto his back from sweat. Dean, who’d made a dig at Sam earlier that night for not being able to “take the heat like a man” still wore his flannel over his shirt, though it was beginning to soak through.

Laborious elements aside, what really made grave digging so tedious was the inability to fill it with anything else. It wasn’t like they could play music or anything, when they were in graveyards they had to keep a low profile, and all the other smart places to go hiding a corpse don’t get radio reception. And talking? With the amount of dust and dirt they kicked up, not to mention the work itself, it was more like trying to reason with a bully as they threw sand in your face. Gritty, painful, and overall, not worth it. So the brothers dug side by side with only light from a half-dead camping lantern and the singing of insects to keep them company.

Sam hit a rock with the tip of his shovel to knock it loose from the wall, the scooped it up and heaved it over the side of the grave. It was still only about knee height, meaning they’d have to put in another two hours minimum if they wanted to get the man hidden.

He’d been working with a witch to dodge death as he cheated his way through some shady business dealings. Actually, he’d been fairly easy to subdue- probably why he needed the witch in the first place- but once Dean had yanked the hexbag from where it hung around his stick-figure neck he’d begun to convulse and when he stopped, well, he wasn’t going to start convulsing again. That, however, was a problem for tomorrow.

Sam knocked a few rocks loose this time, letting them pile around his feet then launching them all over his shoulder at once. With the sound of metal clacking against rock gone, he realized Dean had stopped digging and was leaning against the handle of his shovel cautiously looking out into the woods. Sam moved in next to him and tried to figure out where he was looking.

“What are y-“ he asked. Dean shushed him before he could finish, then signaled for him to listen and pointed just past a thick bramble, to a gap between two trees. It would’ve been impossible to spot without years of hunting experience, out about 100 yards away were little moving. They weren’t even shadows, it was simply just movement in the dark. “Dude-“

Dean shushed him again, and shot him a dirty look before pointing more forcefully in the direction of the movement and focusing back in place. He gestured once again for Sam to listen. For a few moments they stood in silence, barely breathing. It was faint, but Sam began to make out what was unmistakably English. a dull beam of light swung around towards them then went back to facing the other direction, effectively re-blacking out the figures. Sam reached back, not taking his eyes off the movement, and now occasional glimpses of light, and snapped off the lantern.

It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dark. Once they could see each other again, Dean tilted his head to the left, pointed a few times with two fingers in a two directions then held one finger against his mouth. Sam nodded and they both began creeping in opposite directions with the intention of surrounding who or what was having a chat out in the woods at night.

Sam moved as if he were gliding above the forest floor. He could vaguely make out Dean doing the same, though he was now could see Dean about as well as he’d been able to see the... three? He hovered further. Definitely three people (or, by his guess witches), earlier. Now that he was getting closer, though, he began to take note of a few things.

There were three short witches(?) standing fanned out around something slumped on the forest floor, their dying halogen flashlight held limp in one of their hands, flickering sadly. The witch farthest from flashlight-witch and closest to Sam held a shovel, though didn’t make any moves to use it. None of them moved, they all just stood there and stared at whatever was at their feet.

He signaled to Dean that he was going to go in from the front. He was pretty sure he saw the shadows nod to him, so he took that as an okay. Like a mouse on cotton, he positioned himself just far enough into the forest that they couldn’t quite see, Dean doing the same but behind them.

“I- What do we do?” the one holding the flashlight muttered. His nose was awfully clogged, it sounded like he’d been crying.

“I don’t know, Tuck.” The one holding the shovel answered. She also sounded upset, but more like she was doing everything she could to push back tears, a tone that Sam knew very well. “Danny, are you sure you wanna do this?”

The one in the middle, Danny, shook his head. Each of his arms reached across his middle, like he was trying to hug himself, or maybe more like he was trying to make himself look small, trying to hide. “I-“ his voice cracked and he let out a few sobs. The leaves and sticks made a simultaneous crack as he fell down onto his knees, folding over himself and shaking with pure, cutting sorrow.

Flashlight, or Tuck apparently, and Shovel got down beside him, hugging him from either side. They held one another and sobbed, one of them, Shovel, creaking out some pained “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”’s between wordless wails. From the looks of them, they couldn’t be more than 12 years old. Or maybe they could, Sam wasn’t a pediatrician. They were undoubtedly much too young to be in the middle of nowhere, all alone in a fragile mental state doing who-knows-what.

Sam looked to Dean then gestured with his head to let him know he was going to talk to the kids. Dean shook his head and violently gestured with his gun at the kids. Wait. Not /at/ the kids, beyond them. He’d neglected studying the white-wrapped body in front of them. That explained the tears. He couldn’t help but feel for them, even though for all he knew they’d just murdered someone in cold blood. He looked back to Dean and nodded, then signaled again.

Keeping his gun at the ready, but tucking it behind his back he slowly and deliberately stepped out of the trees, intentionally making noise so they’d see him coming. Tuck looked up with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. Danny and Shovel tensed but didn’t further acknowledge him.

“Um, hey,” he said, trying his best for nonthreatening and landing at the border of creepy and awkward. “Are you guys good?”

Tuck’s eyes flooded with tears, but he got up on shaky legs, trying to pull Danny and Shovel up with him. They weakly joined him, leaning against one another for support. Despite the warm night, all three were trembling.

“I’m, uh, I’m not here to hurt you,” Sam started, not really sure where he was going with this, “I’m Sam Winchester, what are your names?”

Tuck gave him the same watery stare he’d had the whole time, like Sam was the saddest thing he’d ever seen. Shovel looked up next, she was more angry. Maybe her smeared and ruined makeup should’ve made her look silly, but all it did was add to the aggression she exuded. He could see her squeezing both her friend’s shoulders and tugging them very slightly to the left, wordlessly signaling- or at least trying to- an escape plan. Sam pretended not to notice.

“I just wanna know what happened here,” he inched his way towards the corpse. As he got closer he could smell burnt hair and flesh, another thing he was all too familiar with. He didn’t break eye contact as he squatted down and gently pulled the sheet back from a tuft of what he assumed was hair.

He bit the inside of his cheek upon seeing the boy. Fried was the only word that could describe him. His mouth hung open, as did his eyes- or at least, what was left of them. Ooze had dribbled from every orifice and re-solidified in horrible mauve blobs. His hair was barely more than a charred mess, his skin was peeling and bubbled in places, and so discolored Sam could barely make out the dusting of freckles across his nose. This was a death in agony if he’d ever seen one.

He folded the cloth back over the boy’s head and straightened up, pulling the gun from where it had waited behind his back.

“Alright,” he said firmly, “I’m gonna need some answers.”

Danny looked up, letting Sam properly see his face for the first time. His red-rimmed eyes widened at the sight of the gun, lips tightening into a thin line. It was a look of fear and resignation. He ran the back of his hand across his nose. Sam noticed a dusting of freckles on it. He looked to the sheet and then back to Danny, then checked once more.

“What the hell is going on here.” Sympathy gone, Sam allowed himself to posture intimidatingly. Whatever freaks these- these- these... freaks! were, they weren’t about to get away with cooking some kid alive. “Talk.”

The “or I’ll shoot” was silent, but understood. Danny cleared his throat, one hand rubbed nervously on the back of his neck.

“It- I-“ he stuttered, then in a barely audible trembling voice he said, “I, uh, I think I’m dead.”  

[llamagoddessofficial]

what was it like the first time Mc met Skull in the portal Au?

Is it story snippet time? I think it’s story snippet time.

The vent cover was loose.

You’d noticed, as soon as you’d rounded the corner. It didn’t matter that the facility was dark, quiet, deep in one of its night cycles... in the faint illumination of the safety screens and directional arrows left on, you picked up the silhouette of the cover. You were so familiar with the area of the lab around the room you slept in that you probably would’ve seen it anyway... but what immediately made all your attention snap to it was the fact that the glint of sleek metal in the darkness was, in fact, misaligned.

... Sans wanted everything neat. Sans wanted everything right. Red liked it that way, too, but Sans seemed to have the final say. And it showed- the entire facility was neat, angled, symmetrical and impossibly clean. It was so regimented and unnatural that you felt like an outlier yourself; a strange, curved, imperfect biological creature in a space that seemed to bleed robotic perfection from every corner.

... So... something about this one plating... this one vent cover, at a bad angle, tilted just against the grain...

... You were hyperfocused.

You moved over to it, bare feet cat-silent on the warm white floor, crouching down. You weren’t supposed to be out of your room at night, Sans didn’t like you wandering around when he was unaware, powered down for system maintenance and repairs... your fingers sealed around the loosened ends of the vent cover, and with the gentlest of tugs the whole thing came off, leaving a gaping hole in the wall large enough for you to crawl into. 

...

It was like you had a fog, separating one half of your mind from the other. Every day in this strange lab was confusing- and when you tried to ask yourself normal questions, like “where am I?” or “how did I get here?” or “why do I have no memories before this place?” your brain supplied you with absolutely nothing. And not only that, it couldn’t even supply you with the concern you knew you should be experiencing... the fear, the panic, it wouldn’t come. It was the most paradoxical and horrible sensation... the feeling of knowing something was wrong, of knowing you should be scared, but something in your head just not letting you access it.

... Maybe that was why the sight of the hole in the wall, the gap in the artificially perfect world around you, made your heart skip in excitement instead of fear. Maybe that was why you normally would have stuck to what was safe and not done stupid shit like going into vents...

... But this time, you got on your hands and knees, and crawled right in.

You weren’t crawling for a very long time; after what couldn’t have even been a minute of moving in a straight line through the smooth metallic system, the dark space opened up above you, more than enough for you to stand up to your full height in. Your eyes were wide, childlike in wonder- unlike the rest of the facility, that at least seemed to try and fake an air of safety, this place behind the walls... every surface around you was dirty, stained and rusty, there were tubes and buttons and tangled wires sticking out of the floor and ceiling, the whole place was lit up with an unnerving orange glow that was leaking through slits in the flooring. The air was filled with a nasty tang, metallic and almost blood-like, heavy and claustrophobic...

... It was like you’d crawled into hell. Like you’d gone from the head of the facility to the entrance of the throat. Another world...

...

As your gaze lowered...

... There was something in the room with you.

The hairs on the back of your neck bristled. Near the other end of the room there was a large, metallic box, most likely containing important wiring of some kind. From where you were standing you could judge that it was about your shoulder height... pretty big. 

... But it wasn’t the box that had your attention. It was what it was blocking from your view. A perfectly circular crimson light was peeking out from behind that box... a turret eye, bright and awake and alive, cutting through the murky coloured darkness. And the more you stared, the more you could make out, the more you could see the partially obscured hunched figure attached to the eye that was trained directly on you. 

...

“H-hello?” You whispered.

...

“sh-ouldn_t.. be.here.”

... The voice was like nothing you’d ever heard. Deep, deathly deep, you could feel it in your chest like standing next to a speaker- vibrating in your stomach, the palms of your hands, even tingling along your scalp. It sounded... automated, jittering and autotuned and with inflections no human would use, but so clearly with thoughts and feelings behind it, the unmissable edge of somebody who’s cautious, afraid... a downright uncanny mix of machine and man.

“... Should you?” Your voice sounded so... weak. So biological. Your heart was pounding.

... The eye noticeably changed; the dot in the centre became a fraction wider. It took an odd shape, too... from your distance it... looked like a heart...?

A soft, low “... no_.”

“... Then that makes two of us. Right?”

...

The owner of the eye stood up. 

He stood slowly, too. And as he did, the box he’d been crouched behind just got smaller, and smaller, and smaller... a beast, made of the facility’s leftovers. Large enough to crush you like a beetle. The dim orange light touched his silhouette to reveal thick tubes, misshapen metal plates, wires hanging off him like cut vines... a gaping cavity in his chest where a half-broken plasma motor was faintly humming and glowing. One of his hands looked vaguely humanoid but the other was just a badly affixed pincer claw... the plate on his face had been haphazardly cut away so his one red eye could see, and a skeletal nose shape had been carved into the centre. Everything about him was asymmetric, uneven, mismatched... 

You opened your mouth-

[Bleep!]

...

It floated through the room. A light noise, like a phone notification. You took note of the fact that you couldn’t hear it echoing through the rest of the facility... something that was only heard in the backrooms, perhaps? It was a very gentle little sound, nothing more than a light jingle...

... Except he flinched like a gunshot had gone off, eye blinking out entirely. Immediately, he turned around- you let out a little “H-hey, wait!” and raised your arm but it didn’t stop him. In a few giant steps he’d completely disappeared around a corner, clanging sounds moving so much deeper into the metalworks in such a short amount of time that you found yourself immediately disoriented. How... you were just standing there, how did someone that huge and heavy move so fast?

...

You wanted to pursue. You wanted to chase him deep into the bowels of the lab, down where you weren’t ever supposed to go, where no light would reach... you wanted to so badly you’d already moved a few steps without realising.

... But at the same time, you felt like you’d done enough for one day. Your nose stung from the strange smells in the air, your eyes were straining in the orange darkness... you wanted to go to sleep, back to your relaxation chamber, to rest for now and figure out what the hell you’d just seen.

What the hell you’d just spoken to.

... You turned, and clambered back through the vent. It took no time at all to re-emerge back in the regular facility... back to the whiteness, the cleanliness, the perfect and fake.

...

You had no idea why he’d reacted the way he had to that sound. What did it mean? You trailed your hand along the wall as you walked, making your way through the halls back to your chamber, the floor smooth and faultless under your bare soles. Was it... some kind of warning? An alert system? Was he running toward something, or away fr-

“subject.” 

- You almost jumped out of your fucking skin.

You were never sure where Sans’ voice was coming from. It always seemed to just spontaneously exist all around you, disembodied and impossible to describe, surrounding you on all sides as if emanating from the air in the building itself. No matter how hard you searched you could never seem to find any speakers on the cold, unfriendly white walls or floor... just further adding to the confusion and dream-like quality of this whole place. You clutched your chest, taking a little breath, trying to disguise the wild flinch that you’d just experienced.

“Y-yeah?” You said, smooth as always, and totally completely not-startled.

Sans always heard you, no matter how quietly you spoke- and judging by passing comments he’d made he always seemed to be able to see you and your expression. God, you hoped he couldn’t read the panic in your face.

“the facility is in night cycle.” Calm, emotionless, slightly autotuned, as per usual... but a little softer than the norm. “why are you out of your relaxation chamber?”

You glanced up at the nearest camera, a small black orb close to the ceiling with a gently blinking blue light.

...

“I-I can’t sleep.” Was all you could think of.

...

“... perhaps it will be easier to sleep... if you are reclined in a position, in which you can actually sleep. you should return to your chamber.”

“... I’m just walking around.” You kept moving, hoping he wouldn’t think about where you’d come from. “I mean... N-not all of us have a ‘go to sleep instantly’ button. I’m clearing my head. I’m fine, I'm on my way back anyway.”

...

“you’re stammering. your heart rate is elevated.”

Shit. Shit. No, it’s-

“... did you experience a nightmare?”

...

“O-oh. Yeah. Uhm...” You rubbed the back of your neck, eyes drifting down to the floor. “You know about those?”

“i have access to the combined entirety of human knowledge. yes, i am aware of nightmares.”

“W-well... yeah. Yes. I... had one. I’m walking it off.”

... A pause, on his part. 

...

“... i can turn the lights back on. if... you’d like to walk around.”

“No thank you. It’ll just make me feel more awake.”

“i see. ... well. i need to complete some more system reboots. i will be partially offline again. if... you need me, just call.”

“Okay. Sure. I will.”

[missvelvetsstuff]

The Cowgirl & the Engineer

James 'Bucky' Barnes x Reader

Aarrgghh! I had to repost this because I couldn’t make any edits or anything. Sorry

Notes: this is some sort of Heathers/Mean Girls/The DUFF mash up, in college au. I tried to make it original but will admit to being influenced by other stories I have read. I have not intentionally stolen or copied anyone else's work.

Summary: Reader is a hard working vet science major. I tried to keep the description vague except she's a she, tall and not thin. Bucky is a studious engineering major with a mean girl girlfriend, Sharon whose sister is Steve's ex Peggy another mean girl. Steve & Nat, Sam & Wanda, Brock Rumlow is a dick, brief reader x Jack Rollins

Warnings: Swearing, bullying, marijuana use

Chapter 1

Y/N raced up the stairs and thru her shared apartment door to find the living room full. Her roommates Natasha and Wanda were in the kitchen making drinks while 4 Guys and another girl were sitting on the sectional.

The tall blonde guy, she already knew, he was Nats boyfriend Steve, the shorter blonde her bff Clint. There was also a dark haired guy with a gap in his smile, introduced as Wandas boyfriend Sam and a gorgeous dark haired guy with blue eyes that twinkle when he smiled and introduced himself as Bucky. A blonde girl came and sat on his lap like she was staking her claim, introducing herself as Sharon and Bucky's girlfriend to which he rolled his eyes.

They were all Nats friends as Y/N didn't really have any besides her roommates.

Nat offered her a drink.

Y/N smiled"Thanks, Nat, but I'm running late for my class tonite. One of the cows was calving so we were kept on the farm late. I figured I should shower before tonites class. Don't worry, I'm throwing these clothes in the wash before I go"

As she headed into the bathroom she heard Sharon loudly comment "A shower is the least she could do. Damn, Nat, you won the DUFF lottery. No one will ever notice her over you."

Nat sighed "Don't be a bitch Sharon, she's really sweet and funny and smart."

"How is it bitchy if it's true? She needs the personality to make up for her looks" Sharon retorted

Bucky chuckled uncomfortably, he didn't want to upset Sharon because he wasn't in the mood for a fight tonite. Steve looked at him in disappointment.

"I think she's cute" Sam commented

Sharon laughed "Oh please, stop sucking up to Wanda.

Y/N heard all of it and turned the shower on so no one would hear her cry. She had seen that movie The DUFF(Designated Ugly Fat Friend). She knew she wasn't the prettiest, especially next to Nat and Wanda but it still hurt. She wasn't really fat just not a size 2, closer to a 12.

She shook herself off and rushed to get clean and dressed and out of the apartment with a "class is over at 10 so I'll see y'all later."

Nat called after her "We will be at Weber's if you want to have drinks after class"

Y/N looked skeptical "Yeah, I'll see how I'm feeling then"

Nat came up and hugged her "Don't let Sharon scare you off, she always feels threatened by new girls."

"Thanks Nat" she smiled

Sharon looked annoyed, "Why are you sticking up for her so hard, she doing your schoolwork or something?

Nat shot her a dirty look "Look Sharon, I know being nice for the sake of it is beyond your understanding but some of us are into it."

Sharon rolled her eyes "Don't act so high and mighty Natasha, you're no better"

Sam speaks up "Actually Sharon yes, she is much better. So can we stop the mean girls crap and go to Webers before the booths fill up?"

After class y/n decides to drive by Webers to see how crowded it looks. She sees an open parking space and takes it as a sign, she promised herself she'd get out and socialize more. She parks, fixes her hair and puts some lip gloss on, looks in the mirror and sighs. She walks thru the door and plasters a smile on her face, looking for Nat, Wanda or Steve. Unfortunately the first person she sees is Sharon who sees her and waves her over while laughing.

"Hey Nat your charity case is here. Maybe you should teach her how to wear make up or something"

Nat gives her a dirty look then smiles at y/n "I'm glad you made it, first drink is on me."

Y/N smiles "Thanks, Nat. I'll have a Jack & coke" she tells the waitress as she sits.

Everyone welcomes her to the booth and moves to make room.

Sharon smirks "So, Nat says your a vet science major? You must really love animals. I guess they're easier than people since they don't care how you look or smell"

Y/N just stared at Sharon shocked at someone being so blatantly nasty "yeah, they have more depth than your average cheerleader" she replied.

Sharon gasped "What did you say to me, Farmer Jane?"

Y/N laughed "Sorry, I'll use smaller words and speak more slowly so you can keep up" she drawled.

Sharon stood up pissed, "Nat come to the bathroom with me"

Nat shook her head, "I'm good."

Sharon huffed "Bucky, I want to go. Now!"

Bucky rolled his eyes "Guess that's my cue" and mouthed 'sorry' as he threw a couple of bills on the table.

The whole table cringed when Sharon started screeching at Bucky on the way out of the bar.

Y/N grimaced "So, she seems nice. Sorry if I caused a problem"

Nat shook her head "You didn't cause anything, she's just a bitch. I don't know why Bucky puts up with her."

Y/N smirked "Maybe she swallows" the whole table roared laughing.

Sam put an arm around her "I like this one, can we keep her?" everyone laughed and nodded.

"What's so funny, Stevie? Where did Sharon go? And who's the new girl" A girl with curly brown hair and red lips came up to Steve's side and Nat clenched her teeth

"Peggy, this is my roommate y/n, y/n this is Peggy, Sharon's sister"

Peggy smirked "Y/N? The slob that was checking Bucky out earlier? Sharon told me all about you." Peggy looked her up and down "I don't know what she's worried about, Bucky is way out of your league. Besides when Stevie and I get back together she won't even have to see any of you losers anymore."

Steve pulled away from her, "in your dreams, Peggy, we're done"

Wanda was getting mad "Gee Peggy maybe you should go see where Sharon went and y'all can wait for Steve to come looking for you when Hell freezes over"

Peggy smirked "Stevie will get tired of your friend and come back to me. He always does" she flounced out of the bar.

"Wow, like the wonder twins but extra bitchy" cracked y/n.

"Yeah, I used to date Peggy, she was sweeter then but I caught her with John Walker and I'm done. I traded up" Steve said as he hugged Nat.

"All we need is to get Bucky away from Sharon for good" Nat cackles and looks at y/n thoughtfully.

Y/N looks at her, shaking her head "I don't know what you're thinking but the answer is no. I have too much work to get involved in some I Love Lucy type scheme and I'm definitely not interested in romance of any kind."

Wanda frowns "spoilsport".

"On that note, it's been a slice but I have a lab in the morning and hate to dissect a pig without a good nites sleep. Thanks for the drink, Nat" y/n heads out as they say goodnite.

On the drive home Y/N patted herself on the back for taking the step. It started out bad and she couldn't pretend that Sharon and Peggys words didn't hurt but they didn't see it and she felt like she made friends. Maybe it would start getting easier.

The next morning y/n drank too much coffee and was almost too jittery to finish her lab, her hands kept shaking. After class she went to a cafe on campus and had some tea to ease her nerves.

A dark haired guy with dark eyes that had a mean glint, asked to sit with her and tried to start a conversation with her. "I'm Brock, you're Y/N, right? I've seen you around campus and you're kinda cute. Would you like to go out tomorrow nite?"

She looked at him nervously "Nothing personal but I don't really have time for dating between classes, work and volunteering but thank you."

"Aww, come on. It's just one date, a free meal and stimulating company" Brock pushed "You're not a butch, are you? I'll be at your apartment at 7 tomorrow nite. Dress nice."

She looked nervous "How do you know where I live? Never mind that, I said no. I'm not interested."

Brocks face hardened "Don't be a prick tease, I'll see you Saturday."

She was relieved when she got home but stressed out about a date she didn't want and didn't know how to get out of. She called her mom who was so excited she had a date that yn couldn't get a word in. "But mom, I don't even know him and don't have time-"

"Well, if you don't make some time you'll never find a man. So stop making excuses and pretty yourself up the best you can and for gods sake please try to make a good impression."

"But mom-"

"Sorry honey, I have to go. Have fun tomorrow and call me this weekend to tell me all about it."

Her mom hung up on her after encouraging her to go out with some stranger. She slumped her shoulders and started looking thru her closet for a nice dress, she didn't have many since they weren't appropriate for most of her classes and she almost never socialized. The black dress she bought for her grandmother's funeral would have to do.

The next morning she went to the barn to work with Frostie, the rescue horse that turned out to be a barrell racer so she was working on getting him back to full strength as he had been horribly neglected by his previous owner. One day a few months after she rescued him she had been riding him gently in the arena where some barrells were set up and he just took off around them like he'd done it a million times. After that she started conditioning him to join the collegiate rodeo team and he was coming along nicely and was also her best friend who always kept her secrets.

She told him about he upcoming date. "I'm trying to get excited about it but I really don't want to go. How do I get him to leave me alone?"

Frostie snorted and rubbed his head on her "I don't know if a snot filled sneeze will help but I'll keep it in mind".

After a couple of hours working with Frostie, she headed back home to get ready. Wanda and Nat were there getting ready for a double date with Steve and Sam.

"Hey yn, why are you getting all done up? Got a hot date?" Nat asked

"I don't know about hot but I have a date. A guy named Brock came up to me at the cafe yesterday and wouldn't take no for an answer so here I am."

Wanda looked concerned "Brock? As in Rumlow? Be careful, I've heard he's pretty aggressive."

"Oh, well I can take care of myself" yn tried to reassure them and herself.

The doorbell rang and yn went to answer it "Hi Brock"

He looked her up and down "That's what you're wearing? I guess it'll do." He grabbed her hand and she told her roommates goodnite.

At the restaurant Brock ordered a chicken salad for her and cut her down when she tried to speak up "I know you don't want to cause trouble or make me look bad in public. A salad is plenty for you and you don't need any dessert." Y/N cringed. Once they started eating he explained how she would need to look, act and dress if they were going to be in a relationship. "I have a reputation to uphold and can't be associated with a dumpy fat chick."

"That's fine because I'm not interested in dating you" she retorted "Besides why did you ask me out if you think I'm fat and dumpy?"

Brock scoffed "Because fat chicks usually put out. You think you can do better? Fine then you can help me get Natasha. She's who I really want"

Y/N looked confused "Why would I do that? She's happy with Steve"

"Whatever heifer, lets go then."

On the car ride home it started to rain and he started reaching over trying to run his hand up her thigh and she smacked it. Brock raged "You stuck up bitch! You better give me a blow job or I will ruin you."

She refused and he pulled over "Then get the fuck out of my car"

"But it's raining" she objected

"Blow me now or get out" he demanded, so she got out and started walking home in the rain.

It took over an hour for her to get home and in the process she lost her phone, ruined her only dressy shoes and walked in the door soaked and defeated. At least her roommates weren't home to ask what happened. She took a warm shower, put some sweats on and cried to sleep after a joint and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked.

Chapter 2

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Wrong Number, Asshole - A Bakugou Katsuki Soulmate AU

All Parts

Part 8:

Once again you found yourself hunched over your desk and frustrated. 

Your current pile of homework seemed to just be mounting by the second and you felt like you were drowning. There was just so many assignments to turn in and papers to write, let alone all of your outstanding projects left sitting on the horizon. And that’s not even counting The project- your final one which you hadn’t even touched that day.

It seemed like there was just too much work and not enough time. You felt overwhelmed, tears pricking behind your eyes just as fast as you could blink them away. 

Truthfully, you didn’t know what you expected. You knew the path you’d chosen was hard. Especially since you weren’t one of the blessed who were naturally gifted. You knew that, and yet you still chose engineering; but whether that was a product of endearing stubbornness or pitiful delusion seemed to become more unclear by the day.

You lifted your head, eyes just barely focusing on the TV hanging on your wall. The local news station was replaying footage from a recent villain attack, and maybe it was your already sensitive state, or maybe it was that dream that you just couldn’t quite let go of, but your heart ached at the sight. 

The heroes flying across the screen were mesmerizing. They were powerful, and brave, and strong, and above all? They were saving lives. 

You’d always wanted to do that. Always yearned to help others and do good and be apart of something bigger than yourself. With your quirk, you thought that going into engineering and support would help you get there. That maybe it would give you the tools you needed to work alongside those heroes you looked up to- even if you couldn’t be on the front lines with them. 

But now? Now you just felt like you were drowning.

You sighed tiredly, glancing at the time on your laptop. 6:54 PM.

Oh well, you think, Can’t really get anything done while I feel like this anyways. Might as well take a break.

You pull your phone out, suddenly taken aback by your loss for words. You’re not sure what to say to him- can’t really seem to think about discussing anything other than how miserable you are right now. And maybe that’s selfish, but aren’t soulmates supposed to confide in each other? Aren’t they supposed to vent and listen and just generally support one another?

Even you roll your eyes at that thought. Other soulmates, sure, maybe- but this? This was Bakugou; and sure, he might generally care whether you’re still alive or not to talk to him, but you really weren’t sure he’d care enough to listen to your problems. 

But hey, your stubbornness is what got you into this miserable mess in the first place, so even with rolling nerves, you texted him anyway. 

You tried joking. You tried your usual routine of ribbing him, but you just weren’t feeling it today. You decided to just bite the bullet and tell him- and whether or not he responds like an asshole is up to him.

Alright. Truthfully, his last jab sort of hurt.

Actually, scratch the ‘sort of’. It hurt. It just hurt.

You already felt stupid and you really didn’t need him confirming that- even if it stemmed solely from his bad attitude and not from any actual concrete evidence.

Oh. 

Oh.

You read his words again, your eyes tracking each individual letter until you could feel more hot tears rising behind them. You dropped your head on the desk, phone falling from your hand.

Jesus, it was that simple, wasn’t it? Your answer to Bakugou’s earlier question was even simpler, immediate, came easier than breathing. You loved your engineering courses. You loved your support courses. 

And even though it felt like you were burning out, the problem was always the amount of work, not the work itself. You enjoyed each assignment- at least when you really thought about it. 

He was right. Nothing else mattered. You suffered through your course work because it was a necessary step towards your dream. There was no room for doubt, or anxiety within that statement- it was the truth. Plain and simple. So you’d stick it out. You’d be fine because you had to be. Because there was no other option for you. Because you’d never feel content until you could help people the same way all those heroes on TV did. 

You wondered idly if all your problems were really just over-complications from your anxiety-ridden brain. You wondered if maybe Bakugou’s blunt point of view could help with those too.

You phone suddenly buzzed again. Twice- one after the other in quick succession. You couldn’t help your smile when you saw the messages. 

You snorted, hardly believing your eyes as he typed out the smiley face. 

You already knew Bakugou was funny, but apparently he was pretty smart too. At least, smart in the ways you weren’t. 

And you figure maybe that’s what being soulmates is really about- filling the gaps and making one another complete. You think you could live with that. 

[cinnaminsvga]

intermission • vi | moonlight

→ summary: When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

→ pairing: bts x reader (feat. jungkook) → genre: college!au, crack, fluff, angst → warnings: none!! it's just jungkook being a cutie!! → words: 3.7K → a/n: this intermission chapter was actually written by @jincherie!! i'm posting it on her behalf since she's currently on hiatus. she had this chapter mostly finished a few months ago and we were waiting to post it until we were both more active (lol) but yeah... things change i guess... anyway see you guys next year (i wanna say /j but really... is it really /j...)

— • masterlist | prev | intermission vi | next • —

Jungkook's strength has never been making friends.

In his mother’s words, a “pleasant and sweet boy” though he might be, that didn’t help much when it came to meeting someone new and the storm of butterflies in his stomach would grow so strong that it froze his limbs and caught his tongue. He’s not too good at first impressions.

A “pleasant and sweet, but terribly shy boy” is actually more along the lines of how Jungkook’s mother describes him, now that he thinks about it. That’s probably a little more accurate.

The sprawling complex he lives in is full of kids, and Jungkook knows each and every one of them. He might be challenged in the social area, but his mother is anything but. She says he takes more after his father, and since his father is usually relaxing inside and reading or drawing when Jungkook sees him at home, he figures that makes enough sense.

Every time someone new moves into the complex, Jungkook’s mother goes to greet them. Of course, he is graciously asked (read: forced) to come along too, just in case they have any kids around his age. This is how he normally meets the other kids on the block. It’s fine, he can’t complain. He has to admit it’s nice meeting all the new and different people that come through. His family is probably one of the ones that have stayed in the complex this long.

When the house next door is emptied of the family he knew, it’s a while before the next one comes in. By the time Jungkook peeks out his window one morning, woken by the telltale sound of a truck beeping as it reverses, and finally sees some movement in the house next to his own, his mother isn’t home. She’d moved into the hospital just a few days earlier, looking ready to pop with the little brother he’d heard so much about in her belly. He’s excited to meet his little brother, and now as he stands on his tippy-toes to get a good look from the window, he finds himself a little excited to meet the new neighbours, too.

It only has a little bit to do with the great, big, fluffy dog they have. Just a little.

It takes a few days for them to move in fully. Jungkook watches from his window every now and then, seeing all sorts of different cars come through. This family has lots of helpers, he notices. By the time they seem to really settle in, Jungkook doesn’t see much of them. Actually, to his disappointment, he doesn’t see anyone around at all. He still hears the dog, glimpses it every so often, but realised that they probably walk it in the mornings before he wakes up.

His mother is home before long, his baby brother cradled in her arms. The first thing she asks as she steps through the door is, “Have the new neighbours moved in? Have you met them yet, Kookie?”

This is perhaps the first time all week he hasn’t cared about the neighbours-- he’s transfixed with his brother. It stays that way for a few days, until the allure wears off when the tiny baby won’t stop crying at night. Perhaps his little brother is something best loved from afar for now, Jungkook surmises.

Back to the window he goes – except this time, there’s actually something to see.

There’s a child! A combination of nerves and excitement bubbles within him as he sees a kid in the backyard playing with the dog, throwing a Frisbee for the massive puppy to leap up and catch in its mouth. The kid looks a little…. feral. Like the baby from that one funny caveman movie he watched with his parents. They’re rolling around with the puppy, uncaring of the way grass and dirt get on their clothes and tangle their hair-- they laugh the whole time. It takes a second for the sound to reach him, but when it does it makes his heart do something funny in his chest.

Ah, the neighbour's kid is a girl.

It’s you.

Jungkook has always been a little more shy around girls, but has never known why. To meet you, he’s going to need his mother there for backup. This is probably the first time he’s outright wanted to go meet one of the neighbours. It’s a little embarrassing, so he elects not to think about it too much.

He thought he would have to pester his mother more to get up and go greet them, but it seems she’s a little sick of being in the house so much because she jumps up the second he mentions it. His baby brother is graciously asleep when they make the trip one morning to the house next door, nestled in his mothers arms looking like an angel wrapped up in fluffy clouds. Jungkook wonders if you’ll like his brother as much as he does. If you don’t, then he doesn’t know how good of a friend you’re going to be.

The doorbell is different, it’s the first thing he notices about the house. Your family must have changed it when you moved in. It’s a bubbly, fun tune now, and he doesn’t even realise the smile it brings to his face. His grip on his mother’s hand tightens, but he misses the fond look she casts over him.

When the door opens, Jungkook thinks his nerves just might eat him alive. He’s so stiff he’s worried he might turn to stone and disintegrate into dust on the spot.

It’s you who answered the door.

You don’t look as wild and unkempt as you did that day he saw you from the window. Actually, your hair is in two cute little buns on top of your head and there isn’t a spot of dirt or grime on your overalls.

The way your eyes light up when you see him and his mother, as well as the baby held to her chest, is enough to make him forget to breathe for a moment. When he remembers, he feels like running his head into the pole of the awning.

“Hey, sweetie,” his mother greets, that big smile on her face that normally wins everyone over. “We’re from the house next door! We wanted to come say hello and meet you. Are one of your parents home too?”

“Hello!” Your response is instant, and the smile you return is so big Jungkook can easily see the gap where you’re missing a tooth. It seems like you’re beating him, he hasn’t lost that one yet. “Yeah, my mama’s home-- you should come in! She said she wanted to meet you guys! Oh, also, we have a puppy! She’s big, and actually maybe she’s too old to be a puppy but… she’s cute. I want you to see her!”

You’re rambling, but you don’t seem to realise. Jungkook couldn’t get a word in edgewise if he wanted to, but he finds himself more than happy to simply listen as he and his mother follow you into the house.

Your mother isn’t as wild as you, but he notices the same little sparkle in her eyes that you have in yours. He wonders if he and his mother have their own matching sparkle. That would be cool.

Right away, his mother hits it off with yours – two socialites of a feather, it seems. You fawn over his baby brother for a few minutes while they talk (he knew right then that you were a good one), before grabbing him by the sleeve and insisting on showing him around. You get a full tour in, and miraculously Jungkook finds it in himself to ask a few questions as you go.

“S-so, you like it? Here?” Every time he opens his mouth the words don’t come out how he wants them, but he can’t do anything now. At least he only stuttered once.

“Yes! It’s so much better than my old house! There’s so many more kids here, and they’re all so nice too!” You’re more than happy to blabber on, a hand thoughtlessly carding through the long, fluffy fur on your dog’s back. Jungkook’s own hand is doing the same (the fur is just as soft and fluffy as he imagined). “There’s more room for Poopie to play, too.”

Jungkook still isn’t quite used to the name of your pet, but something more important in what you said is taking hold of his attention. “Wait, you, uh… you’ve met some of the other kids?”

“Yep,” you say, gaze off in the distance as you try to summon them all from your memory. “Not all of them, but some! Um, I think one of them is named…. Chanyeol…? He lives down the street. Then there’s-- …”

A queasy feeling fills his stomach. He thinks it might be disappointment. For some reason, he thought he was going to come in here and be the first kid you met, that he was going to tell you all about the complex, maybe show you down the street. If you turned out to be a real good egg, then he had even planned to show you his secret place. But now that he thinks about it, it’s a bit silly to think that none of the other families would have come to greet you by now. You’ve been here for more than a week, after all.

He had a good time when visiting you, but for some reason after that day, he finds himself hanging back a bit. He wants to go out and play with you and the other kids, but when he sees you getting along with them so well he’s reminded of that queasy feeling from that day and he stays inside. Which, oddly enough, makes him feel even worse. He feels like no matter what he does, he’s losing progress with you. Maybe you won’t even want to play with him at all, you might think he’s boring after having so much fun with the other kids.

“You gonna go out and play, Kookie?” his mother catches him staring out the living room window one afternoon. She’s bouncing his brother on her hip, the demon baby sated for the time being. “There’s still plenty of time before dark.”

“No, I’m okay,” he answers, hating himself a little bit for it. Why was it so hard to say that yes, he wanted to play, but also that he didn’t. He thinks his mother would be able to help, but he has no idea how to tell her his woes. “I think I might draw a little.”

“Okay, sweets.” She comes over and ruffles his hair. “But if you do decide to go out and play, just let me know so I know where you are, okay?”

He nods, and she leans to kiss his hair before wandering back into the depths of the house. Maybe he will do some drawing, he ponders. It might distract him from the sight of you getting along so well with all the other kids.

Jungkook’s strength has never lain in being outgoing. This proves itself over the months when his attempts to grow closer and befriend you turn out unsuccessful, without fail.

You’ve made a good space for yourself amongst the kids of the block. You’re nice, caring and understanding, and never mean – sure you pushed Chanyeol off the seesaw once, but that was because he was being mean to Suzie. He didn’t do it again afterwards, and peace was maintained in the playground in the park at the end of the complex. Your friendship is sought-after, and with the beginning of the school year looming so close he’s running out of time to establish a friendship between the two of you.

When he spends an afternoon riding his bike at the end of the street, looping around and through the park, it’s definitely not just because you’re sitting there with some of the other girls on the block. When he summons all the knowledge stored in his brain from watching those bike tournaments and attempts to do a little trick, it’s definitely not because he thinks you might be watching. If you happen to see and think he’s cool, then it is what it is. It’s not like he’s actually trying to impress you or anything.

It goes okay, for the most part. His legs are a little tired though. He probably shouldn't attempt the trick he’s thinking of next, but he swears he sees you glance his way and he feels a surge of confidence flow through him. He attempts it.

He botches it.

The bike clatters to the ground and he rolls a bit, but his knees take the brunt of his meeting with the concrete path.

Lucky he wasn’t trying to impress you, because that was pretty humiliating. Lucky you probably didn’t see, either. His knees burn and he feels tears prick at his eyes, probably not just from the pain. He feels so embarrassed, so dumb. He’s touched his bike five times since he got it for his birthday last year, why did he think he would be able to do awesome tricks on it? Dumb, so dumb. He flees the scene before anyone can notice what happened, and completely forgets his bike.

He’s made it all the way home before he even realises it, his vision blurred from the tears that just won’t stop falling and his knees still singing in pain each time he bends them. He almost goes inside, craving a hug from his mother and her gentle hands on his wounds, but then he realises she would ask what happened, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to tell her. It’s too embarrassing. He’s so embarrassed.

So he bypasses the front door, going around the side and slipping through the gate. There’s a tree that lines the side of the house where his window is, and it’s so tall it reaches well above the roof. Without pause, he climbs it, hands finding familiar grooves. He halts, hissing at the sudden sting – it would seem he’s scraped up his palms, too. His eyes burn with the added humiliation and he darts up the tree, making quick work of the climb until he reaches his special spot.

The roof of his house is mostly slanted, but there’s a flat bit at the very top on one side of the house. This is where he likes to go. No one ever looks for him here, plus the view is always very pretty. He doesn’t appreciate the sunset right now, though. He feels like he doesn’t deserve it.

The whole way home, Jungkook held in his cries. He didn’t want anyone to hear and tell his mother. But now, in the embrace of his little ‘safe haven’, he lets them out. He buries his head in his arms and sobs, the pain of moving his palms only making it worse.

He doesn’t know how his little body can handle so much embarrassment, let alone so many tears, but for the moment he doesn’t think about it and surrenders himself to his woes.

He must be up there for a while before his crying ceases. By the time he lifts his head, the last of his tears drying against his cheeks, the sun is just beginning to disappear beyond the horizon. It’s pretty, how it casts light around the shadowy silhouette of the city buildings in the distance. He kind of wants to show it to you. That thought is quickly shut down. He’s going to ask his mother if they can move cities so he doesn’t have to face you again.

Alas, the world just doesn’t seem to be working in his favour today. He hears the rustling of the tree before he sees it. By the time he looks over to investigate, you’re already clambering onto the roof, an oversized fanny pack bursting at the seams with whatever you’ve shoved inside slung over your shoulder.

“Hey!” You greet with a smile, apparently oblivious to the dumbstruck look on his face. “Man, it took forever to find you! If I didn’t see you from the window in my room, I never would have known where you went!”

That was the idea, he laments. He hadn’t wanted to be found.

“Anyway,” you say, plopping down a foot away from him, safely away from the edge of the roof. You swing the fanny pack around so the zip is at your front, and rip it open. Immediately, a tsunami of bandages and band-aids flow forth, fluttering to the tile before you. They’re all sorts of different sizes, but one thing is common across them all – they all have pikachu’s face plastered on them in one way or another. “These are my special band-aids! My mama uses them when I hurt myself, and they always make it heal really quick! I didn’t know how big your owie is, so I brought them all.”

Jungkook is still stunned into silence as you sort through them, organising the chaos at least a little. One of your buns has come loose, he notes. One pigtail, one bun. You look a little more like that wild child he first saw from his window. The knees of your overalls are smeared with dirt, too. He wonders if it got like that while you were looking for him. It makes him feel a little warm inside.

And a little warm outside – his cheeks are starting to burn. He doesn’t remember scratching them too, but maybe he did…?

“Let’s see…” you’re practically just holding a conversation with yourself at this point. He surrenders his leg without protest as you grab it to inspect his knee. “Yep. That’s a big ‘un.”

His whole face has lit on fire. Even his ears feel hot. Is that normal? Probably not. He’d have to ask his mother to take him to the doctor. Maybe he’s dying.

He notices how close you are suddenly, realises this is the first time you’ve been fully alone together (without Poopie), and suddenly he can’t think. Like, at all. He may as well not have a tongue because he can’t remember how to use it anyway.

Somewhere amongst the bandages you’d shoved some tissues. You pull them out now, gently clearing the dirt away from the wounds on his knees. You’re talking as you do it, but his brain is full of static. Your hands are even tinier than his. Is that normal? Wait, no-- they’re the same size. What is he doing…?

Is he going to get in trouble for being alone with a girl…? His mother hasn’t told him about the birds and bees like she said she would yet-- is that what this is? Will he turn into a bird if he gets any warmer? Jungkook doesn’t want to be a bird.

You are placing large plasters over his knees when he finally tunes in to what you’re saying. “… -that last trick was pretty cool, too. It would have been even cooler if you didn’t fall.”

Jungkook squeaks, “You saw that?”

You nod, apparently unaware of his utter humiliation. “Yeah! You’re pretty good on a bike. Can you teach me sometime? I want to show my dad.”

He makes a noise that sounds enough like an affirmation that you accept it, a big grin on your face. For a few more minutes, you finish patching him up.

“There! All done!”

Pikachu stares back up at him from his knees, looking a little wonky because of their shape. The band-aids are a bit wrinkled, but you look so proud of yourself he forces himself to ignore it. He looks up, the words of thanks he took so much courage to summon dying on the tip of his tongue as he sees you.

The setting sun changes the colour of your eyes a bit – it’s pretty, he finds himself thinking. Immediately afterwards, he blushes. Even more embarrassingly, he finds himself unable to help but observe that the sun suits you, actually. Bright, persistent, a little bit sparkly. In the sun’s last reaching rays of afternoon light, you look a bit like you’re glowing.

Of course, Jungkook is used to his silence, but it seems you’re only just noticing it. You seem to misunderstand it’s cause. “Oh, do they hurt?”

Your words tear him from his reverie, and the startled look on his face doesn’t exactly help his case. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realise they were that bad-- oh! I almost forgot the next step! My mum always does this whenever I hurt myself.”

Then, without a second spared for him to prepare himself, you lean over and plant a kiss on each of his bandaged knees.

Jungkook thinks he might explode. The entire neighbourhood is going to see him take off and zip through the sky like a rocket. His earlier thoughts of moving cities and changing his name come back full force.

“There, they hurt less now, right?” But you’re still grinning, still bright as ever with shining eyes hoping for a certain response. Despite himself he takes a moment to assess the level of pain he’s feeling – oddly enough, it does feel a bit better.

There’s no way he can manage to say that, though.

Instead he nods, wide-eyed. You let loose a sigh of relief, muttering about how you didn’t know what you’d do if that didn’t work. He swears he catches the slightest warmth in your cheeks, but doesn’t know whether it’s a trick of the sun.

“Thanks,” he finally manages, his voice just shy of a whisper. You hear him anyway and flash that gap-tooth smile his way.

“Of course! This is what friends are for!”

You think of him as a friend? Jungkook can’t help the dumb smile that rises to his face. He likes that. Friends. As the two of you stay on the roof until moonlight begins to filter through the tree and your parents are calling your name, he thinks he’d like for things to stay that way.

He’d like to be friends with you. Always.

[ohheyitsokay]

safe

part 9 of the ‘hey batter batter’ series

pairing: Francisco (Frankie, Catfish) Morales x reader

wordcount: 2.3k

warnings: none, lots of kissing 

summary: it’s a Triple Frontier baseball AU! Trust me, you don’t need to know anything about baseball.

In this chapter, you discover how truly committed you are to a man you’ve only been on one real date with.

notes: just a head’s up, next week will be the last chapter of this series! I’ll give a proper thank-you then, but I also have a couple (at least three) one-shots in the universe because I... want to. hope that’s okay!

<<

When you were younger and you attended the baseball games under the summer heat with James, you spent more time watching the people in the crowd than the players. Vague knowledge of the rules and even your grandfather’s enthusiasm weren’t nearly enough to keep you interested during the long stretches of advertisements. Now, the moments when Santi was getting strike after strike were exhilarating instead of boring and you grinned with pride, like it was personal each time the ball found it’s home in Frankie’s glove.

This season had been a whirlwind as you began to appreciate the game because of the players, and you didn’t think you had any more room for excitement.

That was, until Francisco’s mother decided she wanted to attend with you and James.

The sweet catcher hadn’t even had time to apologize and offer an alternative before your grandfather stepped in, and the rest was history. You didn’t mind, of course you didn’t, how could you? It was strange, spending time with her so early in the relationship but it made you happy that she was so excited about you. The two of them hung on your elbows, and you laughed at how awkward it made walking through the narrow gap to your seats.

From somewhere in her bag, she produced an entire tupperware of homemade pan dulce, sugar filling the grooves on the bottom, and you settled in. You were fairly sure that wasn’t allowed but you were helpless against her sweet, determined face so it only made sense security would be too.

It wasn’t work, talking to her, she felt like an auntie or a friend’s friend – someone you half already knew, and who certainly knew you. She filled the silence with stories and questions and only heard the first half of your answer before excitedly pointing at her son and his friends on the field. It felt like you were at a kids baseball game, how she clicked her tongue and freely gave them advice as if they could hear her.

At some point, Will stole second base and her and James began a conversation around you. She called them niños and matched your grandfather in her personalized affection for them. You wondered if you should feel guilty for your lingering eyes on the son of the woman next to you, but she half encouraged it, telling you he got his legs from his padre.

When the opposing team was up a point, she muttered pobrecitos and grabbed your hand and prayed for Benny’s next hit.

You caught pieces of Frankie, in her. Or more accurately, you realized what parts of her he had grown into, and learned about his younger self from her eyes and her tone and her smile. Your poor grandfather was probably exhausted but you drank it in.

“Francisco was saving all his money from his work for the neighbors – his team was taking him to watch a game at this very stadium!” Without even looking she handed you a pastry, shaking sugar onto your lap until you took it. “But then his escuela collected donations for the orphanage. I told him, you know? I told him if he gave all his money I couldn’t help him, he wouldn’t get anything from the stadium.”

Her eyes were warm in yours and she squeezed your arm, trying to communicate her pride. “Mi frijol gave it all! And he did not even complain, not even once!” You smiled at her, trying to answer however you could that you understood. Maybe not completely but you saw how much he cared about other people, how hard he tried.

Around the eighth inning, she quieted, smiling gratefully when you produced an extra water bottle. Her hand was soft and maternal as it rubbed your shoulder, a foreign but pleasant feeling.

“His hermana tests him all the time,” she murmured, and you nodded cautiously. When she resolutely added, “You give him strength, hija,” you almost cried right there in the stands.

You settled for covering her hand with yours and squeezing back.

When they won, no one cheered louder, no one was prouder, but you and James gave it your best shot.

-

“So,” Frankie looked at you, his big brown eyes full of questions. Alone, you couldn’t resist him, much more when the rest of them matched his gaze.

You were all at Tom’s rental, unexpectedly. He didn’t tell anyone, but he had burst into Molly’s office, only to find it empty. It had bothered him, and when he was bothered, he took extra effort to pretend that he was not. The new opportunity to spend post-game evenings with decks of cards and childish snacks had already become the highlight to his friends, so he figured he could do that. Just a little bigger, a little better. And it’s not like any of you had enough information to say no.

The elders had long since gone home, and now they all wanted to know what secrets his mother had spilled about them.

You laughed at their faces, feeling a little devious with the power. Before giving anything up, you stuck your tongue out at Santi and meandered to the kitchen, feeling them watch you as your filled your champagne flute with apple juice.

“She didn’t say anything,” you said with exaggerated elegance, lounging against an unnecessary column.

The act broke when you had to dodge a pillow.

“Okay, okay,” you held up your free hand in surrender. You looked at your catcher with a wink before grinning almost maliciously at Santiago. “She told me she had to bring Santi socks twice last season, and one time she saw Benny eat a hot dog off the ground.”

They erupted in teasing and you waited for it to quiet a moment before you added, “And she shared that Tom,” you drew out his name for extra emphasis, “Goes to the same hairdresser as her, and she once threatened to dye Will’s pants pink for calling her ma’am one too many times.” The men were howling with laughter like they hadn’t since college, shoving each other and half tackling one another, shouting their defenses and stories alike.

When Frankie extracted himself he found you curled on the armrest of the couch, watching with amusement. His hair was messed up and his eyes crinkled in the corners. “What did she say about me?” he asked under the noise and he settled next to you, trying to be confidant as he wrapped his arm around you shoulders.

He liked that he could feel your shrug.

“That you’re practically perfect in every way,” you relaxed into him and it felt so natural he could hardly imagine it wasn’t always like this.

-

Francisco was spending his day off with his family, doing some projects around the home, but so it surprised you when your phone rang.

It surprised you even more that it was Benny, inviting you to lunch. Just to talk, I’m not being weird, he said, backpedaling when you teased him about being a little late to ask you on a date. Is that okay? He seemed just a little bit nervous, which made you laugh. Of course, you were more than happy to.

The longer you knew him, the more you understood why they all treated him like a little brother.

He was already at the restaurant – Thai food, his choice – as friendly and kind as the first time you had met him. Unlike then, you weren't even a little bit nervous sitting across from him, despite the glares of the women at an adjacent talking the two of you were still new friends, so it wasn’t quite effortless, by the made up for it with his genuine enthusiasm.

If he had something on his mind, he didn’t get to it right away, the first half of your lunch hour spent talking about you. For how loud his personality seemed sometimes, he was well spike and well mannered, and curious about almost everything. You checked the time, before finally asking if everything was okay with him, and the shortstop ran his fingers through his hair, looking past away.

His foot tapped on the rug, and you used your chopsticks to push your remaining food into a small mound in the middle of your plate.

“I’m paying, by the way,” you looked up, back into his eyes, your own eyebrows drawing together to shake your head.

“I owe you,” he defended himself before you could voice your dissent, and when he added, “for looking out for me,” you softened.

“Relationships aren’t transactional, Benjamin.” It was a gentle scold, true, but relenting.

Broad shoulders shrugged.

“Think of it as a thank you,” he said, and you let him talk. For all that his brother and the guys worried over him, he wasn’t as young and naïve as they thought of him. His eyes and ears were sharp and it’s not like he hadn’t heard the stories, seen what they were protecting him from.

“You help us look after each other,” it was almost like he rehearsed it, and his blue eyes confirmed he had been meaning to say this to you for awhile.

“And you look after me.” That nervousness from before came back, and you wondered if he still hadn’t quite gotten to the part he was meaning to say. Ben launched into a story in between flagging down the waiter and you let him pay, but even when the receipt came, he didn’t stand.

The story stuttered to a halt and you rested your chin in your palm.

“Will and Frankie have been talking about Tom – saying he’s been off.” It was abrupt, and you waited. He was restless, his habit of changing the topic becoming even more prominent. Both of you knew what he meant.

It was messy, hard, existing with them.

“Would you… will you stay?”

There was a burst of warmth in your chest, a wave of affection as if he confessed outright how much you mattered to them.

You stood, smiling and offering your hand, as if he needed help standing.

“Yeah, Ben, what are friends for?”

He looked so relieved that you hugged him. Although, you suspected he would’ve hugged you regardless, if you had given him a moment.

-

After work you had a voicemail and a text from your… from Francisco, and you drove over to his place. Walking up the stairs in the cooling evening air felt strange, like it was humming with potential.

He greeted you with slow kisses, his rough hands wandering your skin and clothes like he was still grasping that you were real. If you could’ve thought, you might’ve wondered why he called you over or looked around his apartment but it didn’t matter because all you could think of what him. The gentle scrape of the hairs on his face over your cheek, your neck, the needy pull of his fingers as he curled his fists into your outer layer.

His mouth, moving in ways you’d thought you’d never quite felt before, leaving you breathless.

It didn’t escalate, neither of you pushing for more, but when he finally moved away, he was pulling you onto the couch and under his arm.

“Hi,” he said, looking flushed and happy, despite the flash of anxiety in his eyes.

“Hi,” you figured you mirrored him, and you let out a rough cough of laughter.

Francisco joined, and your head found a rest on his shoulder, cheek squishing from the closeness. The tips of his fingers wandered over your skin, and it felt like a habit years in the making, to catch up with him about his day, his family. A stretch of silence followed, and your realized he was tired.

“I should probably make you dinner or something,” he whispered, almost to himself, dark eyebrows drawing together. Suddenly you felt shy, aching because you should’ve brought something, should cook or… he was the one who had a long day, but this was his home.

You had memorized the feeling of his hairs on your waist, and yet you didn’t know if he would be okay with you cooking in his home. Actually, you didn’t even know anything about his home.

Looking around, you compromised.

“I’m good, Frankie, I had a big lunch,” taking in the simple furniture and quickly cleaned surfaces, you didn’t notice his head tilt, shoulders rising slightly with tension until you looked back at him. The sweet man had realized he hadn’t heard about that part of your day yet but he didn’t want to pry.

“Benny got me thai food,” you offered, which only increased his distress. Your hand slipped into his as you explained.

“I think he’s just scared I’m not going to stick around,” you sighed, hoping he felt like that was as unlike as you did.

Against your head, you felt him nod, but he didn’t say anything for a moment.

“He’s right, though,” his voice seemed higher, as shy as you’d been a moment ago. “Things with us, with me are… a lot.”

As he always did, he was asking you more than you said, and you wanted to honor it so you though, really thought about what you were getting yourself into.

“Frankie, you told me you wanted me to be a part of your life,” you kissed the corner of his mouth, which pulled as he smiled hopefully. “I want that too, if you’ll be part of mine.”

A little rougher than they’d been before his hands tugged you into him, a solid kiss. No questions were buried in the touch, and it made you feel like you were floating.

Long moments later, you laughed a little, too warm to feel shy.

“Does this make me your novia?”

You weren't sure if the color on his cheeks was warming because of embarrassment that you caught the word in his mother’s talk, or because he hadn’t actually asked yet.

“Yeah,” a final kiss, on your forehead sealed the deal.

And when you moved away, it was to explore his kitchen for something to cook for the both of you.

<<

translations:

pan dulce: pastries

niños: boys

padre: father

pobrecitos: poor babies

escuela: school

mi frijol: my bean

hermana: sister

>>

hija: daughter

novia: girlfriend

taglist:

@fangirl-316 @scribbledghost @writeforfandoms @beautyagegoodnesssize @princess76179 @mrsbentallmadge

hey batter batter taglist:

@icanbeyourjedi @studyofawearymind @hnt-escape @athalien @the-witty-pen-name @daffodin @sarahjkl82-blog @pintsizemama @anaaaispunk @pjkimrn @dobbyjen @stuckontheceiling

edit: take 3 having tumblr save the taglist on this thing

[bigskydreaming]

And one more bit from the “Kings of the Sky” AU albeit several installments in, because I just......don’t know when or why I stumbled into an obsession with the dynamics between Dick and Jason and Cass as the eldest three Wayne siblings, but its there, its real, and its happening. I’ve stopped fighting it. I just....enjoy writing those three being dumb siblings who are dumb like so, so much.

Anyway, in this AU series, Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia and die, but rather eventually joins Dick at Titans Tower more regularly and is Flamebird. Both are closer with Bruce here than in canon because Dick helped Bruce and Jason get through the Garzonas stuff and Jason helped kick Bruce in the direction of Dick and adoption papers right after the Brother Blood storyline. Then Cass is actually the third to join the family, by way of Babs, and she’s Batgirl and then Black Bat, but there’s a period of time when its just Dick, Jason and Cass as the Wayne kids. 

(PS - this is the same series as where Jason ends up with his own age group of Titans, and accidentally falls into a love quadrangle of doom that is absolutely NOT a polycule dammit, with Tom Bronson (Tomcat), Ray Terrill (The Ray) and Todd Rice (Obsidian). Which amuses his brother and sister to no end).

Tim and Duke are both next, but sorta at the same time? Like Tim’s story takes a sharp turn when Robin II never dies and obviously is Flamebird now like Robin I is Nightwing, and Tim winds up in foster care after his parents die differently than in canon. Duke is also in foster care at this time, though a different placement, and while no Robin has died here, its been awhile since there’s been one in Gotham, and to kids who grew up with the idea of there always being a Robin, that feels weird and wrong ultimately. 

So Tim and Duke both hit on the idea of being Robin like, at around the same time and totally disconnected from one another, and that leads to them both joining the Batfam around the same time, and co-sharing Robin until Damian arrives much later and they both move on to new identities. But there’s no real confusion between Robins because Duke is the daytime Robin with more yellow coloring in his costume and Tim is the nighttime Robin with more red, and people say Red or Yellow if they ever need to differentiate which Robin they’re talking about. Anyway.

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

So [Tim and Duke] run into trouble eventually and then when running from trouble they run into each other and they’re like….huh. Awkward. And then they decide well, might as well both run from trouble in the same direction, I guess. So they do.

“Did you have a plan for dealing with these guys?” Tim yelled at Duke. The other boy looked back over his shoulder briefly and gave what would probably have been a half-shrug if he didn’t awkwardly try to barrel-roll over a car two seconds later.

“Umm, sorta?”

“How sorta are we talking about? Maybe the two of us together could fill in the gaps in the plan and come up with one full plan?”

“Uh yeah, no, its not that kinda sorta. I meant sorta in the sense that I thought I had a plan but it didn’t work and that’s why these guys are after me. Sooooo…”

“Not helpful, basically.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And hey, I don’t hear you offering up a plan! Did you even have one at all?”

“Uh….I mean I kinda didn’t think I was going to need one because I figured some kid running around in a mask making a nuisance of himself was the sorta thing that was bound to attract Batman. And so I was just pretty much running around until that happened, and then I’d make a case for how I obviously need training and Gotham needs Robin and if its not me its likely to be someone else trying eventually anyway so why not be me?”

Duke paused just long enough to squint at him. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Tim rolled his eyes. The effort didn’t pair well with his huffing and over-all exertions from running for his life and all that, but necessity demanded. “Yeah I know, that’s why I never said it was a plan! It was mostly….more…idea-ish.”

“I’m just saying, I thought I was doing this wrong, but at least I had a plan! I mean yeah, it might have ended up with me accidentally busting in on what I thought was a bunch of Riddler’s henchmen setting up some kind of clue thing, only it was actually a bunch of Intergang type guys with alien space guns or some shit all dressed up as Riddler henchmen for some reason? I dunno what they were trying to do honestly, but so yeah I might have ended up running away on foot from like twenty of them and some kind of hovercycle -”

“I’m going to cut you off there and say wherever this is going its probably not the superior vantage point I think you think you have.”

Meanwhile, Batman was not going to be coming because he’s off on a JLA mission. However, in his absence Dick and Jason are in town filling in, and they finished taking out the bad guys several blocks back and caught up to whomever was running from them, figured out the situation and are currently sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching them realize they’re totally lost and trying to figure out where to go from here. Mostly because Dick and Jason are incredibly amused listening to their back and forth and also just…this whole situation.

Dick justifies not piping up to let them know they’re safe now by saying this is good intel gathering so we can offer Bruce our assessment as to whether they’re gonna try and keep doing this whether we train them or not, and also how they handle this whole being lost situation. Not knowing they don’t have to run anymore isn’t going to hurt them and really, this is a good field exercise almost.

Jason justifies not piping up by saying this is fucking hilarious and I will hurt you if you end this any sooner than we have to, I deserve this, I had a rough week.

Which is right around the time that Cass pipes up from where she’s been lurking unnoticed behind them this whole time: “Oh no. Was it Tom? Or Ray? Or was it Todd?”

And she does it right in Jason’s ear so he kinda aborted-shrieks and almost falls off the roof except Cass is ready for that and grabs his arm to steady him.

“I hate when you do that!” Jason growls in an attempt to cover up how badly she got him and also because he hates when she does it which is why she does it a lot. Again, they don’t hate each other at all, but they do seem to act like it a lot, and neither of them is entirely sure why. They kinda just started doing it and have each been trying to get the other back ever since and ended up locked in an unending spiral of gotcha-gotchaback, except, y’know, Batfam style.

Dick occasionally picks sides just to muddy the waters. And then he randomly switches sides without warning, so neither of them ever wants to risk getting too peeved at him even when he’s helping the other, because that might push him fully over to the other side and leave them permanently outnumbered, so they’re kinda stuck, which is exactly as he likes it, lol.

“Why are you Satan,” Jason hisses dramatically as he gets up and stomps over to the other side of the roof to sulk, lest she almost knock him off again. Its not the almost falling part that bothers him, its that she’s the one that snatches him to safety each time. She’s like a freaking cat toying with a - yeah not going there, just blaming Selina. Knew them hanging out was going to be bad news for me somehow, he gripes.

Cass just shrugs and smoothly sits down cross-legged right where she is, grinning Cheshire-cat style at him from there. “Childhood trauma,” is her answer.

“Great, and now you’re stealing my comeback on top of it?! Is nothing sacred to you?”

She offers another shrug. He would like to return those for store credit please. Maybe get something useful instead. “Haven’t decided yet. Babs is still helping me explore my options. We’re going alphabetically and we’re only on  the E-religions.”

“God, you’re the worst. I can’t believe you ruined sisters for me.”

“You already used that same line last week when you came out of your room still half-asleep and she was just sitting directly across from your door waiting and staring unblinking and you yelped and dropped your laptop on your toe, and then cursed so loud that B came running around the hall thinking we were being invaded,” Dick reported idly, still perched in the same position he’d been in all along and watching the boys below them. “Just in case you thought no one noticed when you recycle.”

“I noticed too,” Cass added solemnly.

“I have no siblings,” Jason intoned. He threw up his hands dramatically and then loudly jumped down to the street below with a little help from the fire escape. It drew both Duke and Tim’s attention and they startled before realizing it was Flamebird. And that he’d landed on the street and was stalking past them while barely acknowledging them. And that that was Nightwing standing on the roof now with his hands on his hips yelling after him.

“Oh, reeeeeeal subtle. You’re not having fun anymore so you gotta make sure nobody else does either. Wow, the Brat-like behavior, just jumped out of the shadows with that one!”

And that was Flamebird not even turning around and just yelling back. “I HAVE NO SIBLINGS!”

And also they were both pretty sure that was Batgirl crouched on the roof next to Nightwing now, and she was…..sticking her tongue out at Flamebird’s back? No, Batgirl very much definitely was sticking out her tongue, that wasn’t in doubt, it was more just….very unexpected to see.

What was happening right now?

********

Eventually Tim and Duke have inevitably worn down [Bruce’s] resistance to training them by insisting they’re gonna keep doing this and if its not them its gonna be someone sooner or later anyway. Because, as they put it, you guys may not know this but Gotham’s gotten used to Robins by now and it freaks people out not to see one and Robin’s as important as Batman really and there needs to be a Robin and its not just us that will think that, like look at the fact that already two of us had the exact same idea, huh? And also, we’re gonna keep doing it anyway, sooooo….there’s that.

And then Cass vouches that they’re both 100% serious about that.

And then Dick vouches that as a former determined daredevil kid that was absolutely going to keep doing the same thing no matter whether you’d helped me or not, B, I also am of the assessment that these two mean it all the way.

And not to be left out and just to have something to contribute but also grumpy because his brother and sister are picking on him and he’s eighteen going on ten, Jason throws in: “And my assessment is that they both definitely seem dumb enough to keep doing this without help anyway and they definitely need help or they definitely will die, I’d give it a month, month and a half tops.”

And then Bruce dryly thanks his children for their contributions, their keen insights in this matter have been absolutely invaluable, he has no idea how he would make a decision here without it.

“Oooh, a rare sighting of Bat-snark in the wild. Someone call Nat-Geo quick, maybe he’ll do it again,” Dick says.

Bruce sighs. Duke and Tim look like they’re trying to decide if they’re allowed to be amused or if that’s also part of some weird Bat-test that they’re probably taking without even knowing it.

So Tim and Duke move in, start training together, and then also get sent to school together and it takes a month or so of settling in before they decide whether or not they actually are happy about this. There’s a period of deciding they’re supposed to be bitter rivals who snipe at each other back and forth across the dining table at every available opportunity, but that changes the first night Dick and Jason come back from the Tower since Tim and Duke have moved in and where Cass is also home instead of at the Clocktower with Babs.

Since all three of the older Batkids, upon seeing Tim and Duke squabble at dinner, decide to obnoxiously coo about how adorable it is watching the kids play. Which pretty instantly cements Duke and Tim as realizing their best chance of surviving the sudden acquisition of three older superhero ninja foster siblings who all can be as obnoxious as they are dangerous but also as much as they are - Duke and Tim are convinced - all quite insane.

A belief further cemented the next morning, with all three of them having spent the night at the Manor as well. Treating Duke and Tim to their first Saturday morning episode of the Cass and Jason show.

In this episode, Jason emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas still but warily peeking his head out first to look both ways down the hall before deciding it was clear…..and then makes it just almost to the end of the hallway leading to the stairs, when Cass drops down from where she’d been waiting perched above the other side of the door, in such a way as to suddenly fill the doorway just in front of him, hanging upside down suspending herself just with her feet wedged above the doorway, all while keeping her hands crossed her chest, a dead-eyed expression on her face, and with her tongue hanging out like she’s some kind of vampire hanging upside down in mid-slumber.

Jason shrieked and stumbled back a foot before catching himself and shoving two fingers in a cross shape in her direction.

“Demon! DEMON! Goddammit, I abjure thee, that’s supposed to fucking do something about having a demon sister, now what the fuck does it take to banish you!?”

“Can’t be banished,” Cass informed him, still upside down. “Can be bought though.”

Jason halted. “What?”

“I’m really surprised you never figured it out,” Dick said from his room further down the hallway. He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms casually crossed.

“Why did you think she never goes after me?”

Jason swiveled back and forth between his siblings suspiciously, trying to scry both their inscrutable (and in Cass’ case, still upside down) faces for signs they were telling the truth. “You’re telling me that Little Miss Monstrous has been a pain in my ass from day one and the reason she’s never so much as eked a single boo in your direction is you’ve been bribing her all this time?”

Dick shrugged. “Its all about getting in on the ground floor.”

Jason squinted, still unconvinced. “Nuh-uh. No way. You’re just fucking with me. Like if this is for real, what have you been buying her off with?”

Dick smiled beatifically. “Cuddles and hugs.”

“NO! NO! Bullshit! I am NOT falling for this crap again, you are not gonna get me this way this time. I call BS, fuck you, nuh uh, you’re lying out your ass and your ass-face both.”

“Wait, what is this ‘this’ that I did before? What ever are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Is this about the Care Bear you had when you were fifteen?”

“Shut upppppppppppppppp, I didn’t have a Care Bear then, you’re such a - “

“Oh, I dunno, I’m preeeeetty sure there’s some holiday photos from that year that would say otherwise, pretty definitively in the form of you and your Care Bear….”

“That I only had because you literally just gave it to me as a present solely so that you could claim that I had a Care Bear when I was fifteen, you douchebag!”

“Just because I gave you the Care Bear didn’t mean you had to keep the Care Bear and hold the Care Bear and love the Care Bear, Jay. You chose to do all that.”

“I only kept the damn thing because you’re an asshole who lied about it being a family heirloom so I felt like I had to or I’d be a total jerk. Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I didn’t lie! It is a treasured family heirloom! Its the first Care Bear I gave to my little brother to teach him the important and valuable lesson that Care Bears - say it with me now - “

“Finish that sentence and they will never find your body.”

“CARE!” Cass shrieked from behind him before jumping on Jason’s back and bearing him down to the floor in an undignified tangle as she splayed atop him like a starfish and he stared up at the ceiling in a kind of strangled frozen fury, like there was so much emotion he wanted to process he’d overheated and now was stuck like that until he cooled down.

That was when Dick leaned over him and solemnly added one final thought, as though it was a crucial addition of the gravest importance:: “A lot.”

Jason’s eye twitched.

Dick’s eyes went wide in response. “Uh oh. He went to the Danger Zone. Run Cass. We’ve unleashed the dogs of war!”

Cass was off and on her feet in a second, taking off down the hall like a rocket. “Not the dogs of war!” She yelled.

Dick was only seconds behind her when behind him, Jason rose like an eruption, growling wordlessly and sparks practically flashing from his suddenly flinty eyes. He charged after them like an enraged bull.

“Kenny Loggins wouldn’t want this!” Dick yelled over his shoulder as he rounded the doorway and vanished. Jason rounded it in hot pursuit.

“Poison Ivy won’t even be able to make compost from what’s left of you when I’m through!”

The yelling and running vanished into the distance. Duke and Tim finally looked at each other blankly.

“What?” Tim asked. Duke shrugged helplessly.

A door opened at the end of the hallway. Bruce stuck his head out. “Is it safe?”

Tim just stared at him.

“What?” Duke asked.

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

LOL mostly I just want to get to the tail end of the series, when Dick and Jason go undercover as supervillains in the Society of well, Supervillains....Dick as War Shrike and Jason as Gray Jay. (A kind of bird usually known for or referenced as being thieving and unpredictable and unexpectedly dangerous despite its size. Jason never went into the Lazarus Pit here and so isn’t as huge as he is in canon, he’s on the smaller side due to his early life’s malnutrition. Living with Bruce helped him catch up enough that he’s not TINY tiny, but he’s still smaller enough that this particular mantle fits him a little better than it would his massive canon depiction).

Cass also partakes in the undercover storyline, just showing up uninvited in a persona she’s crafted for the mission and calls Black Swan. And War Shrike and Gray Jay are both so startled and obviously a little freaked by her unexpected arrival, that combined with her being ticked at her brothers for leaving her behind, RUDE, and them sufficiently cowed and guilted by her wrath, that it all adds up to the other villains as being clear evidence that she is the boss and they are her advance minions. 

Which mollifies and satisfies Cass immensely, and leaves Jason grumpy that their mission was hijacked and also his sister is The Worst, and leaves Dick temporarily disgruntled because This Whole Thing Was His Idea DAMMIT but then five seconds later finding it hilarious because Dick is a chaos connoisseur and he has an appreciation for whimsy and the unexpected.

“I can’t believe you not only gate-crashed our extremely sensitive and delicate undercover operation, but you completely hijacked it as well! This is so typical,” Jason grouched.

Cass simply swept ahead of him and strode down the hallway with lethal grace. “Silence minion.”

Jason spluttered behind her and she grinned to herself. He really made it too easy sometimes.

[iamdeku]

Little Patch of Heaven: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

A convenience store au in which a certain explosive blonde is your boss, and you have a little crush.

Warnings: age gap! There is a slight age gap here between Bakugou and the reader. Reader is meant to be about 20, while Bakugou is 26-27-ish. This isn’t a huge gap, but if it makes you uncomfortable please don’t read on. Also sexual innuendo and a sleazy guy hitting on you.

You weren’t sure when you had started crushing on your boss, of all people. It had all started off very innocent, a friendship with the ornery man you had wanted to like you. That was all you had wanted. For him to not actively hate you like he did everybody else.

Somehow you had ended up here, throwing furtive glances his way, afraid he would catch you but unable to stop. While he worked the register you stocked the shelves, taking the time to admire him. The muscles in his arms flexed beautifully when he turned items to scan them, and you swear the red light of the scanner highlighted the veins in his arms like that was its designated purpose. Light filtered through the window, the beams hitting his white blonde undercut and fluttering through your heart. You couldn’t be doing this.

There were, as far as you could figure, three main problems with your crush on Bakugou Katsuki. The first was that he was your boss, and you had a strict policy against dating coworkers after watching your best friend in high school date a coworker and have a disastrous breakup resulting in her refusing to step foot in the local mall. Yeah. It was that kind of bad.

Second, Bakugou Katsuki hated everyone, and you weren’t an exception. Sure, you were pretty sure he didn’t hate you the way he hated everybody else, but that didn’t mean he would ever feel the same about you as you did about him. The biggest problem of all, however, was his age.

He wasn’t that much older than you, but what with you working this job while attending college and him being a fully functional adult man who had long passed his college days, you knew he would only ever see you as a kid. It was one of those unfortunate facts of life you’d prefer to ignore.

That being said, you weren’t short of suitors, oh no. Working at a convenience store like this, there were plenty of sleazy guys who liked to come by and pick on you when your boss was nowhere to be seen. You usually just ignored them, trying to make the best of it and laughing it off. Sometimes though, they got bold.

Bakugou had gone into the back room to check something out, and you were covering for him on register when things took a turn for the worse.

A gruff looking man who was probably in his mid-40’s came in, and the moment he walked through the door you could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. He reeked of drunkenness, a fact that filled you with dread. You hoped he was harmless.

He headed straight towards you, and you felt every muscle in your body tense up. The store was basically empty right now, which did nothing to comfort you.

“Hey sweetheart. A pack of cigarettes, if you please.” He leered, leaning against the counter.

You shrank back, trying not to be too close to him.

“Sure, what kind?” You asked, customer service voice still firmly in place despite your disgust.

He specified what he wanted, and you grabbed them for him, intent on checking him out quickly so he would get out of here and leave you alone with no further incident. He had other plans, though.

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

“No. Not my style.” You shrugged.

“You should. Your lips would look real pretty wrapped around a cigarette. I can think of some other things they would look pretty wrapped around, too.”

You pretended not to understand him, ringing up his total and reminding yourself he would be out the door mere moments from now without any further complications, and you would never have to think of him again. You took his cash for the cigarettes, returning his change hastily and wishing him a good day.

“Now hold on there just a minute,” he said. “You forgot something. You still haven’t given me your phone number.”

You laughed nervously, pretending and hoping that he was joking. He was not, and he stayed put, staring you down.

“I’m afraid it’s against store policy for me to provide my number to customers while on the clock,” you lied diplomatically.

“That’s bull,” he said. “If I was one of those cute little boys that come in here I bet you’d be tripping over yourself to give me your number. I think somebody needs to teach you a lesson. A little girly like you probably has a thing or two to learn that she can only be taught by a real man.”

“Do tell,” you hear a voice behind you start. “What qualifies as a real man? Because I’m pretty sure you’re slime somebody pulled out of the gutter and rolled into a ball.”

Bakugou’s voice behind you comes out as more of a growl than anything else, but the man is too drunk to register the very present threat.

“Oh, is this your little girl then? You should teach her to obey better.”

The word makes you bristle. He’s talking about you as though you’re a dog to be trained, and with Bakugou at your back like this you aren’t afraid of this man hurting you. He couldn’t even get close, especially not with your boss’s powerful quirk.

“I’m not an animal. The only person I obey is myself. I do what I want when I want, so you should leave before I decide I want to castrate you.” You spit the words with all the venom in your body.

“You’d better watch your mouth,” the man growled.

He raised a hand, and for a moment you felt the tension build in your body before another much larger hand wrapped around his wrist in a vice grip.

“You lay a single finger on her and I will blow up this hand. The other one I’ll do just for fun.”

Katsuki runs some sparks through his fingers to make his point, and you watch as the man’s face pales.

“You- I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Get out of my store. Before she makes you.”

Bakugou doesn’t need to say any more before the man is skuttling off, feet barely moving fast enough to stay underneath him. You take a shaky breath, a bad taste left in your mouth from the encounter. You hated when things like this happened, and though you could have easily taken care of it on your own you were grateful for a little backup.

“Thanks Bakugou,” you said. “I was afraid that one was going to get messy, but you never know. Sometimes they just like to play with their food.”

You shrugged, turning back to the register and going back to work.

“What do you mean?” Bakugou asked.

“Oh, you know guys like that. They’re usually pretty much harmless, but sometimes they don’t take no for an answer, and then I have to get a little strict.”

“That…happens a lot?”

The surprise in his tone confuses you. Surely a man who runs a convenience store had to know that the customers here were not always the friendliest. Or rather, they could be altogether too friendly.

“Yeah. At least once or twice in a shift. It kind of comes with the territory of working here.”

You turn around only to be confronted with Bakugou’s horrified face, and you know the sparks crackling along his arms this time are no controlled display.

“If one of those bastards ever tries anything like that again or so much as makes you uncomfortable, you come get me right away. You got that?”

You frowned, crossing your arms. “I can take care of myself. Besides, it’s no good driving away customers.”

His fists clench, the silver rings on his long fingers clicking against each other. “I don’t care what you think you can do. If that happens again, you come to me.”

That pissed you off. Who did he think he was? You knew he didn’t think much of you, but you could handle yourself.

“Listen, I get it, okay? I really do. I’m just the kid who stocks your shelves. You think you need to take care of me or whatever because you’re in charge of me. Well, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything, and you might just see me as a dumb kid but I’m not. I have it handled, thanks.”

Bakugou’s mouth fell open at your little speech, eyebrows coming together in something that looked suspiciously like anger.

“You think that’s how I see you? As just a kid?” He took a step closer, very nearly invading your space.

“Yeah. I mean, that’s why you hired me, isn’t it? You felt bad for me, trying to pay my way through college.”

“I hired you because I liked you better than all of the other idiots that applied for this job. I kept you around because you’re good at it, but not only that, you’re…” he blushed. “You’re funny. You always tell really good stories about the customers. You see them in ways that I don’t, that I can’t. I probably shouldn’t say this, and you can quit if you want because of it, but I think you’re beautiful. I spend half my time working just staring at you and hoping you won’t notice. I wouldn’t help you out with those guys because I think you can’t take care of yourself. I would help you because…it’s my job, okay? I’m supposed to protect you.”

There was something vulnerable about his last words that caught in your throat as he took a step even closer, close enough to reach out and touch you. He didn’t though, wouldn’t make another move. You weren’t scared to move though.

You took one of his rough hands in yours, stomach turning in knots and face growing warm.

“I didn’t think you saw me that way. I always figured you were looking because you didn’t like me, not because you liked me back,” you admitted.

“You…like me too?”

“Yeah. Why do you think I’m always staring at you? It’s because I think you’re beautiful too. I always wanted you to like me, and at some point it just turned into a different kind of like. I didn’t think I had a chance though. You barely like anybody at all. You don’t even like your best friend. Every time Izuku comes in you yell at him.” You giggle a little.

Bakugou frowns. “I yell at stupid Deku because you give him more attention than you give me. He’s banned, actually, but good luck getting that through his thick skull.”

“I thought you wanted us to get along! I figured it would be a good way to get you to like me if your friends liked me.”

“Yeah, well, Deku likes you a little too much.” Bakugou pouted.

You roll your eyes.

“You’re a little possessive, aren’t you?”

Bakugou grinned. Confident now in the knowledge that you liked him, he caged you in, body trapped between his arms and the counter you were pressing your back up against, the afternoon sunlight streaming down and highlighting your lips, which were suddenly very close to his. He leaned forward, tilting his head just so.

“Only possessive of the things that are mine.”

He closed the gap between you, giving you a honey sweet kiss right there in the empty convenience store, your personal safe haven. If somebody had asked you before starting this job whether you thought you would have a job you loved or a boss you kissed, your answer would have been an easy no. Things had changed a little since then.

You let yourself melt into the sensation of his kiss, fingers trailing up and down the muscle hiding beneath his black tank. You didn’t hold back, having waited too long to do this. By the time he pulled away, you were both a little breathless.

“Tonight, after we lock up, I’m taking you to dinner.”

“That didn’t sound like a request,” you tease.

He looked back at you, shooting you a feral grin. “It wasn’t.”

“And if I don’t go?” You raised a brow, unable to fight off the smile playing on your lips.

“Then you’ll have to pay for your own dinner.”

“Then I guess it’s a date.”

Needless to say, the date went well and you did a lot more making out in the stockroom than you would have predicted, but it was all worth it to have your little patch of heaven.

[blu-archer]

Sharing is Caring?

Just some more AU sickness because why not?

snz based

Sickie: Tae - mild Jimin

Caretaker: Jimin [kind of?]

m/m [squinting at Yoonmin] and mentions of what I’m poorly portraying as ace. I’ve never tried to write about it before so forgive any misrepresentation please..

anyway...

Apart of this little universe; Flower shop and Bakery au 

This piece mostly felt like me rambling, but it was kind of fun so I’m posting it.. sorry for any errors

-

-

Taehyung sniffled as discretely as possible as he wondered through the isles of the large supermarket, doing his best to avoid people even though he had made sure to grab a face mask before leaving the apartment to avoid spreading his germs. Technically they could be considered Jimin’s germs… but he wasn’t one to blame his platonic soulmate.

After all, they lived together. This outcome was inevitable.

 So he hovered awkwardly through the store trying to move as quickly as possible by grabbing immediate necessities rather than the usual browsing of the shelves. And after the desperate sneezes that had surprised him by the canned foods and had kicked his headache into 5th gear, he wanted nothing more than to already be at home and back in bed.  

The photographer paused a bit away from the freezer holding the ready-made meals – something that had become a must-have for the pair if they wanted to survive living together – waiting for the few people there to finish before he made his own snatch. He blinked lazily at the rows of boxes that he could just barely make out. He would have to grab a few, they hadn’t done ‘grocery’ shopping for the month and it had come back to bite them. The few supplies he’d gotten days before had dwindled to nothing in a blink of an eye. He’d woken up that morning looking for food so he could take his next dose of medication and had been met with a small portion of days old take out from the noodle place down the street and what was left of the soup Jimin’s boss had dropped off for him after he’d called in sick.

And Tae was getting really tired of soup, despite only being on his second day of feeling like warm death.

So he had taken the courageous, probably mildly stupid, step to go shopping. They needed more tissues anyway, and he didn’t really know anyone in the area that well yet despite having moved a few months ago so it’s not like he could make a plea for help.

Jimin had been thoroughly knocked out in his bed with a mound of extra blankets that hadn’t moved from their place since Yoongi had put them there after bringing the smaller man home from work the day before. So Taehyung had just scribbled a brief note and pinned it onto his door so that Jimin would know where he was if the slim chance of the elder waking up did actually happen.

A gap formed as a couple broke away from the freezer and Tae swiftly slipped in front of it, muffling a cough into his arm before he made a move to slide open the glass top. Taehyung was jolted from his actions as something – a body, definitely a small body – crashed into his legs, immediately reaching out with one hand to steady the child that wobbled upon impact even though his own balance wavered drastically. Thank god for fast reflexes, if he hadn’t dropped his basket and rested his hand on the freezer then he probably would’ve fallen straight on his ass. That would have been almost as embarrassing as the canned food isle incident just minutes before. This day just wasn’t getting better.

He had just barely looked down at the small boy who had almost caused his next disaster when his foggy attention was dragged away to the next rapidly approaching figure.

 “Sehjoon!” An exasperated voice snapped before the small boy was pulled from Tae’s weak grasp. “I’m so sorry, he’s wild. Did he-“The man’s eye widened a bit and then he smiled, losing some of the tension in his body. “Its Taehyung, right? Jimin’s new roommate?”

 Tae blinked, nodding slowly although he couldn’t really be considered ‘new’ since a few months had already passed, and it wasn’t the first time that he’d shared a space with Jimin. The man looked familiar, and he clearly knew who he was, which meant he was probably one of Jimin’s friends from work. Taehyung tried not to feel too bad about not remembering whose name went with which face, he was often busy with his own work when Jimin would tell him about what happened during his working hours, so he couldn’t be expected to remember too many details. It was a similar situation when he tried to explain to Jimin the different editing terms while trying to perfect whatever photos he had done. He couldn’t count the numbers of times he’d just watched his best friends eyes glaze over with some familiar vague nodding.

 “I’m Hoseok, we met a while back when you first moved here.”

The man seemed to ooze happiness as he picked the boy up to rest him on his hip. Taehyung shuffled on his feet. He was a little unsure of what to say next. Usually he didn’t struggle with making conversation, but his head felt like it was filled with cotton, he couldn’t be faulted for this flaw of character right now.

 “Sorry,” Hoseok chuckled, rubbing at his neck with his free hand. “Jimin speaks about you all the time and even Jungkook and Jin mention you every once it in a while, it kind of feels like I know you.”

 “Uh…oh. Yeah. Jimin speaks about you a lot too.” Tae replied, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. His voice coming out deeper and with the beginnings of the congestion he’d hoped wouldn’t come so soon in the day. He cleared his throat in hopes that it would help. “The florist, right? With Yoongi?”

 It clearly didn’t help.

Hoseok’s smile faltered, turning more sympathetic. As if he had quickly pieced the obvious together.

 “Yeah, that’s me.” He shifted the boy on his hip when small hands grappled to be let down. Hoseok dropped his smile for a moment to give a stern look of disapproval that seemed to work like a spell over the boy as he went silent and placid in the mans hold. “I’m sorry about Sehjoon here. My sister asked me to look after him for the day and I think she both underestimates my babysitting capabilities and overestimates her sons behaviour. I was actually sent out of work for a bit because Yoongi needed a break from this level of chaos… Hey, he didn’t hurt you or anything right?”

 “Oh, no. No.” Tae gave a croaky laugh that irritated his throat. It already felt rough from the amount of coughing he’d done during the night and it appeared that he was nowhere close to being done with that. Turning away, he coughed deeply into his arm, twisting away despite wearing a mask, and winced at the spark of pain that had shot into him. God, he was so over this cold. “Sorry. He barrelled into me, but he would probably be at more risk of hurting himself than me. Has a hard head though. Definitely able to knock some people out with that.”

 That brought a bubble of sudden laughter from the other man that left Tae slightly bemused and yet, it was an odd feeling watching Hoseok laugh. A warmth of sorts spread over Taehyung when the man tossed his head back and seemed to glow as his shoulders shook. It was more contagious than Jimin’s illness and Taehyung couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the man as he began to tease his nephew shamelessly about being a new weapon of destruction. The boy simply whined and curled his head into Hoseok’s neck, apparently not seeing the same humour as his uncle.

  “I should get him a leash to be honest.” Hoseok joked, but Tae had a feeling the glint in the mans eyes meant he was deeply considering it.

 Taehyung didn’t really know how to reply so he just nodded slowly and turned his attention back to the freezer, recollecting his basket before just grabbing a few different meals at random and tossing them in with the juice and tissues he’d already gotten. Whatever it was he and Jimin would eat it whether they liked it or not. He had been out longer than he wanted to be by now and he wasn’t wasting more time on things that they probably wouldn’t taste much of anyway considering how this cold was progressing.

 “Not much of a cook?”

 Tae glanced to Hoseok who seemed to be shifting his weight as he looked towards the meals casually.

Sniffing lightly, Taehyung tried to suppress the desire to rub at his nose through the mask. He shrugged, his hand moving up to brush some hair from his eyes. “Never really learned. Jimin can’t either, but this is better than living off of take out.”

 “I can see Jin rolling in his figurative grave.” Hoseok chuckled. “If you want I can mention to Jungkook how I ran into you,  despite you clearly not feeling well. I can guarantee that you and Jimin will get visited by Yoongi and Jin with at least a months-worth of premade meals to be frozen because they heard from Jungkook that you were both malnourished and possibly dying.”

 He blushed at the call out on being sick, but to be fair, he hadn’t thought he’d run into anyone that would actually talk to him or that this store would be so busy during work hours. He also didn’t doubt Jungkook’s ability to exaggerate, Jimin had told him about some previous examples that had at the time probably caused Jin a lot of stress. It mostly seemed innocent but very few could look into Jungkook’s eyes and not believe everything he tells them. Tae had only just started speaking to him more and he already knew that.

“Please don’t. I can’t even bear to look at soup after these past few days and I have a feeling that would be a strong contender of what one would give a sick person.” Against his original will, he rubbed a finger to his nose as it twitched with an itchy irritation. “I need to get home actually; we had no food left so I should try to get back before Jimin wakes up. And I am about ready to sleep for the next week.”

 “Oh wow. So you really are in need of pre-made meals filled with some love and care.” Hoseok’s voice dipped into one similar to how he had teased his nephew. “Well, I won’t keep you then. You should get home and rest, but if you want to take me up on sending the s.o.s. message for food delivery, Jimin has my number.”

 Taehyung thanked the elder man shakily, and even managed to get a small wave bye from the boy, barely having time to hear the small apology for bumping into him before he abruptly turned away and buried his face into his elbow.

 H’EESH..hH’HEGXSHhh..

 There was a startled ‘oh’ and then deep chuckles. Taehyung winced as he gave a liquid sniff with a low groan, feeling even more congested than before.

 “ ‘cuse ‘be.”

 “Bless you,” Hoseok laughed with a hand instinctively holding his nephew closer. He dipped his head in a small bow. “Sorry, it’s not funny. That sounded awful, but I got a fright and now I feel dumb for jumping.”

 If he had blushed before, then this was him setting himself alight. That had never happened before, he’d never scared someone with his sneeze. Jimin was never going to let him live that down.

 “I’ll leave you be now,” the man grinned. “Go home and get some rest. But when you feel better we should hang out some time. Jimin speaks about you all the time and I just think it would be great to see more of you… like with everyone. Welcome you to the city properly.”

 “I…yeah. Okay.” Taehyung brushed his hands through his hair and took a starting step back, trying to hold back any more sniffling. “I’ll see you around then.”

 “Feel better soon, Taehyung, and get home safely.”

 ******************* 

HEESHHU..H’HIESHH…snfff.. … Heh..h..hhh..HHeGXTCHh…hnnxgGTSCHew!... nghHEHHSHH!!!

 Taehyung panted out hot hitchy breaths as the tissue box was set in front of him as an offering. He laid a hand on the box to take it, his other hand hovered desperately over his face as he geared up for the next sneeze. His teary eyes had barely blinked open before they were forced shut once more, his throat and head pulsed with each sneeze that ripped out of him.

 “Ble-e’hh-hh-ss yo-uishhhiew.. H’ingxtshh… hih’itishhew!”

 Taehyung grabbed a few tissues and let Jimin keep the box as the elder coughed and crumpled into the seat beside him, before following Tae’s example of blowing his nose tiredly.  

 After shopping, Taehyung had managed a slow drive back to the apartment with multiple stops to tear open one of the tissue boxes he’d bought. It hadn’t helped much, and he had felt progressively worse as the minutes ticked by until he’d made it into the house, where he had promptly collapsed onto the couch with his tissues – only having to get up again to dump the food he’d bought in the fridge and freezer before sluggishly dragging himself to the couch once more..

When he’d been coaxed awake by Jimin gently shaking his shoulder, he had been met with a dim early afternoon sun and a plate a steamy food that had definitely been nuked in the microwave for longer than necessary. And from there they hadn’t really moved much, other than Jimin having forced some medicine into them and making tea before joining Tae on the couch.

There was some drama playing softly on their tv, but neither of them really had the energy to focus on it properly and Tae could barely hear the dialogue anyway once the congestion in his sinuses began to interfere with his ears. Jimin had dragged in a blanket from his room and draped it over both of them as Tae added to the pile of used tissues that had begun to form on the floor in front of them. Nothing seemed to stop the constant tickle that plagued him, nor his noses inability to do what he wanted. Tae was considering just stuffing his nose with tissues at this point. Since the trip to the supermarket his nose had turned into a mess that was seemingly draining the life out of him. Jimin had assured him that despite what he thought, it would get better, but he was sure that his friend was just trying to be his usual hopeful self. Always ready to reassure and look out for him.

At least they were suffering together. That was an upside. Jimin claimed to be feeling a lot better than the day before and it seemed to be mostly true, he was definitely being more active than Tae wanted to be. Although that could also have just a factor of the smaller man sleeping like the dead for almost 20 hours and Taehyung thinking it was wise to leave the apartment earlier. He was just deeply glad that he wasn’t alone again.

 Tae hated being alone. Even when he was well, he’d tried living by himself before and it had eaten at him mentally. It’s a big reason why he had convinced Jimin to find a new apartment that they could share when he switched towns, instead of just finding a cheap single flat somewhere. Thankfully his Soulmate had been searching for something already, so he didn’t feel like too much of an inconvenience. Jimin had always teased him relentlessly for needing people but never wanting relationships, always just content with a friend to cuddle up to or hang out with. Yet watching Jimin and others grow into bonds and commitments always made him doubt. Jimin meant well with his chirps and edgy teasing, but it always made Taehyung worry about his future.

What would he do when Jimin finally moved on in life? It’s not like anyone would want to invest in a person that would never give themselves entirely to a partner... He would never fall into the trap of letting someone take what he didn’t want to give again, yet that was all everyone seemed to want from him. … Maybe he’d start up a cuddle site, or a hug program, he’ll think of a way to get the skin ship he needed without being a bother or a hazard to himself.

 “You’re thinking too loud again…” Jimin whined hoarsely and sunk into Tae’s side, rubbing his cheek into the other shoulder as he curled into him. “Your brainwaves are hurting mine.”

 “You’d need a brain to have brainwaves, you’ll be fine.” Tae mumbled as he ran a tissue under his nose with a sniff and yelped out a weary laugh when Jimin pinched at his ribs.  

 “Asshole.” The elder snipped, but the smile in his voice was evident.

  It took no prompt for Jimin to snuggle even deeper into Taehyung’s embrace, relishing in the warmth despite the dampness that had begun to seep through Tae’s shirt. It would probably be wise for them both to get in the shower – at the very least to rinse off their sweat and germs – but they were far too comfortable to move. Tae felt as if his body had become moulded into the seat and the heat that was created between himself, Jimin and their blanket; paired with the medication he’d taken, only made him dozier. Even as his mind raced through various what-ifs of the future, his eyes gradually drifted shut up before jerking open with any sound or movement. Soft hands brushed soothingly up his side, edging him closer to sleep with low humming, and just as his eyes closed again there was a sharp knock at the door that caused both of them to groan.

 “If we ignore it, they might think we’re not here.” Jimin whispered.

 Ah…H’ERSHH! ..

 “Never-“

 HE’ETCHSHH!!

 “… Never mind. Thank you Taetae.”

.

.

“Sorry..”

Another softer, more hesitant knock sounded through the apartment as Jimin pushed himself to his feet and handed control of the tissue box to Tae solemnly. He accepted it more desperately than he would have liked, but Jimin wasn’t going to judge him considering he’d been in the same situation just the day before.

 With a reluctant sigh, Jimin tried not to shiver against the loss of heat. “I’ll go see who it is then.”

  The photographer pushed himself up to sit cross legged instead off slouched down in the seat while Jimin left the room, so he could blow his nose as productively as he possible. Although his nose ached after so much blowing and he had immediately tumbled into a bout of coughing that had left him gasping and spitting into a tissue with a grimace, so he couldn’t really call it all that productive when it ultimately made him feel worse. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with a yawn before considering just going to sleep anyway. From the front door he could vaguely make out Jimin’s voice – deeper and scratchier than usual – as he spoke with familiarity.

 Hopefully it wasn’t their neighbour. She had been hounding them about tidying up their balcony that, quite frankly, wasn’t that bad. Sure, it had way too many dead and dying plants and the chair out there had definitely seen better days, but if she didn’t like seeing it, she didn’t have to go out of her way to look. It wasn’t like they shared it.  

He leaned his head back to rest on the back of the couch and shut his eyes once more, trying to force himself to sink into sleep, yet it was now low grumbling and airy giggles kept him from rest. Irritated, he shifted so that he lay curled up on his side, tossing his heavy limbs around until he’d managed to get the soft, fluffy blanket over his body completely and tucked under his chin. Now if Jimin could get back so that he could at least have someone to cling onto, then he’d be ecstatic.

 Muffled coughing grew closer until Taehyung heard Jimin call out to him just loud enough to not disturb his penetrating, consistent headache.

 “Look,” Jimin practically collapsed on top of the photographer holding a small bouquet. He slid off quickly when the force of the landing set off Taehyung’s own thicker and hoarser coughs. “Sorry but look what Yoongi brought.”

 Ah… so there was a definite hold on the ‘cuddle’ part planned in their day. Once he didn’t think his throat was going to rip to pieces, Taehyung blinked heavily at the various bright flowers that had probably been put together with more thought and precision than he could possibly imagine in that moment. Clearly Yoongi had decided to call in a delivery, he wasn’t really surprised. Jimin’s eyes shone as if he truly hadn’t expected the florist to stop by, and Taehyung didn’t think the elder really cared what he thought about it, he had merely fallen into an instinctive habit. Although, Tae would have preferred not to be assaulted with things that would possibly trigger his sinuses.

He scrunched his nose and pushed away the hand that held the glorified weapons. There were quiet steps and a gentle murmur from behind them that he would have brushed off as him hearing things, if only Jimin didn’t glance up with such a warm, wide smile.

“Beau’iful Chim.” Tae sniffed and rolled so that the blankets rolled higher to hide his face.

 His cheeks were heated and Jimin turned his smile to him knowingly – albeit apologetic for letting Yoongi inside when Tae clearly just wanted Soulmate time. Jimin pressed a quick kiss to the small visible section of Tae’s damp forehead before getting to his feet with a stifled cough.

 “I’ll put these in water... You really didn’t have to come and check on me, you know.” Jimin said softly as he walked towards their kitchen. “Probably safer to just call.”

 “I’m not scared of getting sick, Jimin.” A low voice that could only be Yoongi, reassured as he followed the other. – So more than a delivery then.-  “I just wanted to make sure you were okay after yesterday. Hobi said he ran into Taehyung earlier… Although from the looks of things he should have probably stayed home, poor guy sounds worse than you did – than you do.”    

 Jimin hummed, and Taehyung shifted to cover his head entirely beneath the blanket, trying not to listen to the couples conversation. Maybe he should just move somewhere else and let them have some space without having to hide in the kitchen. Of course Yoongi would have to accept the fact that he was entering an area of disease, but he seemed more than willing considering he was already in their home.

Tae gave a sigh and then a deep sniffle. He plucked a fresh tissue to wipe at the tender skin under his nose. It took a moment to work up the energy but eventually he was able to twist so that he practically rolled off of the couch. His knees and hand connecting a lot harder than he’d predicted to the floor, while trying to keep the blanket as steady as possible on his hunched frame. With sluggish motions, he tried to sweep most of the used tissues up with his hands and dumped them into the wastepaper bin kicked under the table, then after achingly persistent hitch started up that had left him feeling frustrated at the lack of relief – he considered the area clean enough before standing unsteadily. Making sure the blanket was wrapped tightly over his shoulders, he grabbed the tissue box to take with him – Jimin could find something else, he felt he needed them more. Then he had almost tripped on the way to his room and had muttered half-hearted curses at the blanket for betraying him and getting caught up in his steps, until finally he was able to collapse onto his bed.

Sure it was cold and probably smelt of sweat but it was at least more comfortable than where he had been lying and it had pillows that he could hug in replacement of Jimin. He buried his face into his arm almost immediately, sneezing harshly twice before he was able to bring a tissue to his nose and smother three more, breaking off into an exhausted, thick cough that left him feeling miserable and wanting nothing more to recollect the bottle of medicine he’d taken earlier and take the rest of it.

God, he really was so over this stupid cold.

[anagentinwriting]

Lifeline - Part 10

Summary: (First Responders!AU) Moving to Los Angeles and living with your brother, Thor, was never part of your plan nor was being a 9-1-1 dispatcher, but plans change when you are faced with your own emergencies. In your case, it was leaving behind a relationship that wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. Will this be the fresh start you were hoping for or will your past find a way to catch up with you?

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Odinson!Sister Reader

Word Count: 3800+

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language

Lifeline Masterlist / Main Masterlist

Thor walked up to the gate to your condo to find a couple of guys installing a camera and a gate lock mechanism. “Hello, gentlemen. Who are you, and what are you doing to my sister’s gate?” Thor asked, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“Whoa, big guy.” The guy on the ladder held up his hands. “I’m Dave, and he’s Kurt. We’re from X-Con Security Consultants--” he pointed to his shirt with the name stitched on it “--and we’re installing a new security system update for Ms. Hill.”

“The lady asked for an installation, and we do it,” Kurt mentioned with a Russian accent.

“Huh, okay then, as you were, gentlemen.” He nodded, continuing through the gate and going to your front door. 

You were making a batch of your mom’s cookies when you heard an unexpected knock at the door. Setting down your cookie scoop, you wiped your hands clean to answer it. “Hey, Thor. Whatcha doing here? Thought you had a shift today.”

“I do, an overnight shift,” He pointed over his shoulder. “Why are their strange men at your front gate?”

“You’re one to talk, ladies man,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes. You turned away from the door, allowing him to come in as you returned to the kitchen. “If memory serves me right, you had plenty of strange women over at strange hours of the day.”

“Come on, they were my friends,” Thor reasoned, following you to your kitchen. “I love women, but you know, not in a creepy way.” 

“Fine, if you must know, I mentioned to Maria about updating the front gate’s security system with a code and buzzer mechanism, and she thought it was a good investment for the property. The other tenants thought it was a great idea, too, so we're all going to pitch in and help pay for the upgrades. Plus, it will help me sleep better at night.”

“Oh, so it’s an investment. It’s not because you almost hit Steve with the bat the other day.” You averted your eyes to the cookie dough bowl, chewing on your bottom lip.  “This is what I didn’t want to happen, YN. I knew you would move out, and you wouldn’t feel safe and…”

“I know, Thor,” you interrupted him, your eyes connecting with his. “But, it’s going to take time for me to adjust and feel safe. This new gate code system will just help me sleep better at night because I will know who is here before I let them in.”

Thor nodded, keeping a watchful eye on you. “I understand, but why didn’t you tell me Billy contacted you?”

“I can’t rely on you every time,” You sighed, shrugging your shoulders. “I have to learn how to fight my own battles again, and you have to be able to trust me.”

“I DO!” He raised his voice, making you flinch, then he immediately dropped his voice. “It’s Billy I don’t trust, and if he thinks he can hurt you, again, he’s got another thing coming.”

“I know, I know.” You shake your head, pinching the bridge of your nose. 

“I just want you to know you're not alone here. You have me, Nat, Carol, and everyone else at the station.” He reached out, giving your shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You have improved so much since you arrived, and I don't want to see you revert back to your old ways. You have no idea how proud of you I am, and I trust you with whatever you decide to do. I want you to know I’m here for you.” You nodded with a small smile. “On another note, I’m glad you finally talked to someone about Billy.”

“You mean Steve.” You eyed him over, not missing the side grin appearing on his face. “Why did he tell you about what happened?” 

“He was worried about you and thought I should be aware of what occurred,” Thor replied, scratching his head. “When we work these long shifts together, we learn many things about each other; Stories are told, secrets are shared, and we learn to trust one another. Although he never did say why he stopped by that night?”

“He gave me a housewarming present.”

“Is that what they call it these days?” He winked with a carefree smile on his face. 

“Oh my god, STOP.” You felt your cheeks grow warm, throwing a ball of cookie dough at him. He caught it, chuckling and popped it in his mouth.

“You should see your face right now. All flushed and agitated.” He motioned to his face as you covered yours in your hands. “Your hands aren’t stopping that blush color coming through on your face. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you got a sun-burn, but let’s get to the real reason, you have a crush on Steve.”

You removed your hands from your face, staring him down. “Okay, sure…maybe I do. He’s a great guy with a caring personality but…but I’m not ready for a serious relationship.”

“Neither is he, that’s why you two are perfect for one another,” he grinned, making you shake your head. 

_____

Steve startled awake from something crashing to the floor in the communal kitchen. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, and let out a long yawn. The last twelve hours have been a blur from the restaurant fire to a car accident to an ax-throwing competition. It felt like call after call came in with little to no recovery time in between. Steve glanced at his watch as he sat up and pulled on his boots. He sighed, realizing he only got about four hours of sleep, but lack of sleep comes with the territory. He ran his hands through his hair, walking into the kitchen, taking a seat at one of the stools by the island. 

“You’re up early,” Carol commented, sweeping up a broken dish.

“A crashing sound startled me awake,” he smirked, forcing her to roll her eyes.

Carol dumped the remnants of the ceramic dish in the garbage before grabbing two coffee mugs from the cabinet. She poured coffee into each of them and handed one to Steve. Steve nodded to her as a thank you and blew the steam off the top of the hot liquid. “Did you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or oatmeal with some peanut butter to go with your coffee?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh please, don’t act all innocent. I know you’re the one who’s been eating Sam’s peanut butter, not Bucky.” Carol narrowed her eyes at him, and he raised his hands in surrender.

“Guilty,” he smirked. “It’s so good, though, especially in oatmeal. I’m still surprised they haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Those two share a deep tolerable dislike for each other that even I can’t explain how it works. They get along but don’t get along, but somehow work really well together. It shouldn’t work, but it works. I don’t know; it still baffles me. I’m sure if you confessed, Sam would think you were only covering for Bucky anyways.” She shook her head, and Steve nodded his head in agreement. 

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from those two,” Steve chuckled, taking a sip of his coffee. 

“YN told you, didn’t she?”

“Told me what?”

“I might have overheard you and Thor talking about it, but she told you about Billy the douche?”

“Oh...um...yeah.” He shrugged. “I went to her house after she got a call from said douche, and she almost hit me with a bat.”

“Good,” Carol chirped as Steve snapped his head to her. “Well, not good she almost hit you, but good that he doesn’t have that control over her anymore.”

“I agree.” He stared down at the contents in his mug. “Billy sounds like a real piece of work.”

She hummed in agreement. “I know you’re a good guy, but I want you to know if you hurt her, I’ll kick your ass.”

“Oh, trust me, I would never hurt her like that, but I’m not ready for a relationship.” 

Carol smirked at his response, remembering you saying this whenever she tried to find you a new man. “What? Don't you like her?”

“No, no, it’s not like that at all. She’s…she’s great. It’s just…” Steve fumbled over his words.

“Oh, he hesitated,” Sam added, taking the stool next to Steve. Steve glanced at him, seeing a huge, gap-tooth smile on his face. “He’s into her.”

“It’s not that I’m not, it’s just that I have been through some things, and I know she has been through some things, very recently. I don’t want to push her if she’s not ready.”

“Well, you’re getting pushed into the friend zone, Steve,” Bucky added, taking the other stool next to him.

“Come on, don't say that...it's just...it's…”

“Called the friend zone,” Sam finished for Steve.

“Okay, fine, then why am I planning on hanging out with her later.”  

“Keyword is hangout as in not a date so…” Bucky dragged on.

“Friend zoned,” Sam and Bucky said in unison.

Steve shakes his head, letting out a big sigh. “You two are unbelievable, but at least you two finally agree on something.” Sam and Bucky both looked at each other with a slight shrug and nod. 

“Who are we speaking about,” Thor asked, patting Steve on the back.

“YN,” Carol smiled, forcing Steve’s eyes to meet hers.

“It’s not what you think. We were…”

“Steve wants to ask her out on a date,” Sam added, getting off the stool and walking over to the cabinet where his peanut butter was.

“Is that right? You--” he gestured to Steve with a slight smirk on his lips “--you want to date my sister.” Thor shook his head, letting out a soft chuckle, grabbing a mug from the cabinet and filling it up. “I like you, Steve, I do, and out of all these morons, I find you are the most suitable to date her. I think Loki may even approve of you, too, but he may be skeptical of you. He might even mock you upon meeting you, but he means well.”

“Thanks, but I wasn’t asking for your permission to do anything.”

“OOOOH, Thor, are you going to let him talk to you like that,” Sam hollered, pulling his peanut butter from the cabinet and unscrewing the lid.

“I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Thor joked with a carefree smile. “Sure you didn’t,” he stated more seriously this time, eyeing Steve over, taking a sip of his coffee.

“GODDAMMIT, BUCKY! Why do you always eat my peanut butter? It wasn’t this empty the last time I opened it,” Sam shouted, giving Bucky a stern look as Carol shot Steve an all-knowing smirk.

_____

You stepped into Jabari Tribe Training Center, hearing the whirls of the jump ropes hitting the mats and the punches hitting the heavy bags. Everything in this gym was nerve-racking to you at first, but now it excited you. This gym was a little more run-down than most and could be unpleasant to some, but you found the dedicated atmosphere inspiring. 

You went to the locker room to get ready for your session, feeling your stomach tingling with nerves. Val had a last-minute schedule change at the station, so she wouldn’t be training you today; instead, she scheduled you with M’Baku, who in the ring was known as the Great Gorilla. You’ve watched him coach a few athletes, and he was intimidating. He stood tall and broad, and he’d always do his signature gorilla bark to get himself or his trainees fired up. He was a scary dude! Val knew your movements and boundaries, but this guy wouldn’t, and you weren’t sure how this session was going to go. 

You grabbed your boxing gloves and walked out to find M’Baku by the ring talking to one of his athletes. “Hey, M’Baku, I’m YN. Val mentioned you would be helping me with my session today.”

He looked at you with a stern glare and nodded to his trainee that they were finished. He looked back at you with a snarl on his lip before a smile broke out across his face. “Yes, you were told right. She told me about where you are, and I will say it’s impressive since you only started a few weeks ago.”

“Oh...um, thanks,” you smiled, feeling a warmth rush to your cheeks.

“Ready?” You nodded. “Okay, we will do some warm-up exercises, hit the heavy bag, ring work, stretch it out, and call it a day. Does that work for you?”

“Sounds great.”

“And if there is something you are not comfortable doing, or you don’t know what something is just ask. I won’t bite...hard.” He let out a deep chuckle, making you crack a smile.

“I will.”

“Let’s get started.”

It was a quick warm-up with some basic stretches, squats, jump ropes, and rowing. There were a few stretches you didn’t know what they were, and M’Baku showed you what to do and explained what muscles it was stretching. He couldn’t stress enough how stretching and warming up helped reduce injury and how it would improve your recovery time. M’Baku was knowledgeable, and you could tell he loved what he did.

Every time you worked on the heavy bag, it intimidated you because it was a constant mind game with yourself. You had to think about every punch you threw, making sure to hit it with your knuckles; otherwise, you could sprain your wrist, or worse, break it. You had to move around the bag with quick feet while throwing jabs, hooks, and uppercut punches. It wasn’t a natural feeling you had with the bag like many others did; this is why you preferred sparring in the ring.

You could feel his eyes watching you as you hit the bag with your straight and hook punches. The bag moved slightly as you switched positions and hit the bag from a different angle. 

“Okay, stop,” M’Baku called out, and you dropped your hands to your side. “I am not getting anything from you. You’re too quiet, stiff. Loosen up, girl, let out a grunt, roar, or better yet, bark. Do the…do the gorilla bark.” He raises his eyebrows at you, and you shake your head. 

“I’m not doing the gorilla bark,” you whizzed with your hands on your hips, taking deep breaths. He stared at you, narrowing his eyes before he started barking. “Still not doing it.” He stepped closer to you, barking louder as he walked circles around you. You rolled your eyes, taking a deep breath, and finally let out a bark.

His face broke into a smile, and he nodded. “Thata girl. Now get into it, have fun with it, don’t be so tense, loosen up, and jump around. I’ll demonstrate.” 

He takes his position at the bag, tapping it with his glove before doing a set of punches. It was almost like watching a dance. As it swayed, he would be quick and move and then attack with a series of different shots. He looked so relaxed that it didn’t even seem like he had to think about it. It was like second nature to him. 

“Alright, your turn,” He breathed, looking back at you.

You shake your head. “I got tired just watching you. You make it look so natural and easy.”

“It comes with practice, and it doesn’t help you're scared of the bag.” You nodded, giving him a half shrug. “Don’t be scared. Being scared only makes you feel weaker, so you won’t give it your all. Think of it like--” he paused, thinking “--taking a call at dispatch. If you’re afraid, you’ll overthink the situation and make a mistake. If you’re confident and think fast on your feet, it will lead to a better outcome. The more confident you are with yourself, the stronger you will become. Understand?”

“Yes,” you replied with a nod. “Thank you, I needed to hear that.”

Sparring in the ring was your favorite. It was the chance to learn how your opponent moved and how to throw a hard punch. With Val, you knew how she moved in the ring and could time when to throw a punch. With M’Baku, you didn’t know what to expect.

“We are not going to spare,” M’Baku stated as you both got into the ring. He had punching mitts on, and you had your boxing gloves on. “You’re not ready for this,” he chuckled, motioning to himself as you smirked in his direction. “We will do combo drills with your punching technique, watch your stance, and I'll give you a few pointers. I might even show you a few moves, so when you spare with Val again, she’ll wonder where you learned them.”

“I’m ready.”

You throw a few punches at his mitts. “You’re doing something wrong. Do you know what it is?”

 “Am I lifting my feet?” You heaved, wiping the sweat off your forehead. 

“So you do know,” he smirked, dropping his hands. 

“Val is always on me about that.”

“Do you know why she wants you to keep your feet planted?”

“It keeps me more grounded and gives me better balance. It also helps me hit my opponent harder. If I don’t plant my feet, I will be off-balance making me more vulnerable to my opponent's punches.”

“Good, yes. I’m glad my coaches are teaching their trainees.” He let out a deep chuckle. “Also, remember to breathe as you throw your punches. The worst thing you can do is forget to breathe.” You nodded.

After a few more rounds of drills and a lot of great advice from M’Baku, he ended the session.  You went to the side of the ring to get a drink of water. 

“YN, is there a reason you wanted to learn to box or did you wake up one morning and go, ���I want to fight.’” He asked with curiosity in his eyes. 

You chuckled. “No, not really. I wanted to try something new for once instead of doing the same boring workouts. A friend of mine mentioned Val’s self-defense class, so I tried it out, and it was fun. Then, I asked her about boxing, I was sort of curious about it, and she offered to train me. Plus, it’s a good workout.”

“It is a great workout,” he chuckled. “Val is a wonderful coach and does a great job teaching that class. I’m glad you gave boxing a chance, and you like it so far.”

“It’s been fun,” you smiled with a nod. “And thanks for coaching me today.”

“Anytime,” he said, waving it off. 

M’Baku's other client showed up, so he told you what stretches to do to cool down and to drink plenty of water. Good hydration leads to better recovery. It was really different working out with M’Baku, but it was a good different. He came off as intimidating and cold, but he was the complete opposite. He was knowledgeable and helpful, and you couldn’t wait for your next session with Val to show her the moves he taught you. 

______

“Anyone have any exciting plans for the evening?” Thor asked, unloading the duffle bags from one of the hatches of the truck.

“Have a drink or two, and fall asleep on the couch,” Val stated, patting him on the back and walking over to restock the ambulance.

“Going to dinner with my girl,” Bucky winked with a smile on his face. 

“When are we finally going to get to meet this woman? I would like to have a conversation with her about what she sees in you.” Sam joked from the ambulance, earning an eye roll from Bucky.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself.” Bucky pointed to the door, forcing Sam to get out of the back of the ambulance and see Nat at the door.

“Good one, Bucky, but I’m being serious. When do we get to meet her,” Sam questioned, looking back at him. Bucky shook his head as Nat went over to Bucky and kissed him on the lips.

“Does that clear everything up, boys and girls? Bucky and I are dating.”

Steve smiled at them and got back to work reorganizing the hatches while Thor nodded, giving them a thumbs up.

“How...wait...when did this happen?” Sam narrowed his eyes at them.

“We have been dating for a couple of months now,” Bucky smiled down at Nat beside him.

“Way to go, Buck. Didn’t know you had it in you to handle her,” Val saluted him from the back of the ambulance.

“Nat, what the heck? I thought we shared a common enemy.”

“Sorry, Sam.” She shrugged with a tight smile. 

“And here I thought you two were going to keep it a secret,” Steve hinted. 

“Wait, you knew?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of old news these two.”

“Congratulations, but can everyone get back to work, so we can head home,” Carol redirected everyone, earning mumbled replies. 

______

You laid on the couch, turning a page in your book, when there was a buzzing sound at your front door, signaling someone was at the front gate for you. You got off the couch and looked at the new little monitor installed by the door to see Steve waving at the camera. You smiled, buzzing him in. You quickly glanced down at your worn-out t-shirt that had a few holes in it and decided to run up the stairs to find a sweater to cover it up. You were a hot mess, but you didn’t want to look like a hot mess. He knocked on the door as you came down the stairs to answer it.

“Hey, Steve! What's up?”

“I was in the neighborhood, and Thor told me about the security upgrade, so thought I'd check it out.”

“I didn't know you were into security systems,” you smirked, crossing your arms across your chest, leaning against the door frame.

“Oh yeah,” he huffed out, nodding his head. “I am very tech-savvy; whenever I don’t know something, I just Ask Jeeves.”

“Wait, Ask Jeeves?” You narrowed your eyes and burst out laughing. “That search engine with the Butler?” He nodded with a slight shrug, putting his hands in his front pockets. “That’s still around? Isn’t it ancient!”

“Is it?” He chuckled, his signature smirk tugging at his lips. “I’ve used it since high school, but I think the butler retired because it's called Ask now.”

You shook your head, laughing at his subtleness. You glanced over your shoulder at the blank tv screen and back at Steve, biting your lip. “I was actually gonna watch a movie if you wanted to join me.”

“Ahh--” he shifted back and forth on his heels “--yeah, sounds fun.” You nodded, opening the door and inviting him in.

____

Thanks for reading part 10! Looks like her and Steve are finally having a little date/hangout night?! Do you think Steve is getting friend zoned like Bucky and Sam suspect, or do you think he will finally make a move? Or will it be her? I thought it would be funny to throw in that old search engine, Ask Jeeves, some may remember it, some might not have any idea what it is. But I thought it would be a funny throwback and a joke about Steve's age! It's like using map quest and printing out directions instead of using the GPS these days! 😂😂 And what about Thor showing up and being the supportive brother after finding out what happened. He is definitely trying to be better, and he still has no problem teasing her a little bit! Haha! We also found out who the real peanut butter thief was, thanks to Carol for being the observant one! Haha! And isn’t M’Baku the best!! Anyways, comments, likes, and reblogs always welcome. Thanks again! 

[romijuli]

HELLO I am tossing you a card to talk about an OC (or multiple OCs) of your choice >:D

oh oops i forgot to reply to this. too busy figuring out what oc to do.

ACTUALLY since i've been thinking about them nonstop, i'm gonna talk about my tmm ocs that have existed for like six wholeass years. back when the reboot was just a dream...anyway i love these kids i'm gonna shove razz in a locker.

also tsu i have NO clue if you've watched/read tokyo mew mew so if you haven't this is gonna make like no sense. whoops. (go watch it it's good) (or at least read that one post where i ranted about how funny the love interest is i love him)

OKAY so. fuck what were my notes. basic premise is that this takes place in an au where the original series' villains were like a scouting party that everyone rEFUSED to listen to back home ("uh hey yeah this is a bad idea they kicked our asses and kinda stockholm-syndromed our boss? also they're kinda cool ngl" "fuck you we're invading anyway") and now there are like. a LOT of aliens. and thus a lot of mew teams. it's an ongoing problem with the expected outcomes (which is to say sometimes people die). this is an abbreviated version it's fine who cares.

SO THE CHILDREN. if you're curious they don't have to be all girls it's just kinda how they spawned. presented in approximate join order also not including the characters who aren't on the team when the story is going. extra reblog either later tonight or tomorrow because this is a bit of an unreliable narrator situation?

Melanie Rasley (Mew Raspberry, or Razz for short; grabbed her codename from her surname hehehe) is the team's de facto leader, in that she's been here the longest and the last leader trusted her to be responsible. (Horrible decision, Cocoa.) Pink! Got DNA from the Danube Crested Newt apparently! Fights with a mace! Kinda what you'd expect from a team leader in a magical girl series; bubbly, maybe a bit clumsy, but determined to do what's right and keep her city safe from both the invading aliens and whoever on their team is working against them! ...or so she presents herself, anyway.

Sarah Brighton (Mew Blueberry, or Blue for short! her hair was dyed blue when she joined) is the team's second-in-command, not because she's dating Razz (though she is) but because she's one of the more responsible team members. Got DNA from the Halmahera Blossom Bat, which means she gets sweet bat wings! I gave her a sword for reasons that even past!Chel doesn't remember! But honestly I trust her with that. Usually found keeping the rest of the team in line.

Evelyn Britt (Eve for short, or you can call her Mew Plum. She just liked that idea.) god her notes are so small. Actually the oldest of the group, though her temper would have you believe otherwise. Got DNA from the Wattled Guan, which past!Chel informs me is a bird of some sort. Fights entirely fisticuffs which is honestly the outcome I was hoping for when I went back to read these notes. As stated, she's pretty hot-headed and very stubborn, which are actually pretty solid qualities for a magical girl in these situations to have.

Cecilia Emerson (Mew Cotton Candy, though you should call her CC!) has my FAVORITE design because I picked her designated food on the idea that i could give her afro puffs. Also she has two theme colors because she deserves it. Got DNA from the Black-Footed Cat, which means she gets kitty ears and a tail, but doesn't explain how she fights with a fluffy fan. (Wind magic?) She's the youngest on the team; actually, she's technically younger than any respectable Mew team would normally allow (she's 13 and they prefer Mews to be 16+), but they made an exception for her. Sometimes Razz complains that she's not taking it seriously, since she's usually the one trying to drag the rest of them into Fun Bonding Time, but CC's plenty mature.

Kaylee Merill (Mew Kale! Wonder where she got her name) is the newest member, recruited to fill the gap left by their former leader (a Career Mew who got sent to help rebuild a team elsewhere). Got DNA from the African Wild Dog, so she got dog ears and a tail! (Chel Fact: tiny!Chel's tmm-sona got this one too <3) Kinda nervous due to being the newbie and also just general anxiety, but definitely eager to help out, especially since she's a bio nerd and generally fascinated by the science going on with the Mews. Unfortunately, this does kinda make her suspicious while everyone tries to figure out who's causing problems behind the scenes...

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph!! I was wondering if you knew of any really long fics (like 25k or more) that are only one chapter, I travel a lot sometimes and some places don't really have good enough internet for multi chapter fics. So yeah, any really long one chapter fics about John and Sherlock would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hey Nonny!!

LOL OKAY FUNNY STORY. I almost replied to this with “oof I’ll have to read EVERYTHING so I’m sorry.... and then... I remembered.......

I put chapter counts on everything 🙃😐 

I’m not the brightest crayon in the box. 🖍 

Anyway, so yes, I can definitely rec you some fics! BUT I should also offer you two suggestions you can totally do to read ANY fic!

On Ao3, you can click on the “Entire Work” button to load ALL chapters of a fic (it’s the very first button along the top) and in turn you can then just read it all there! 

And the very last button along the top, you can Download copies of the fic to your phone or computer with eBook file types (AZw3 for Kindle, ePub for iPhone’s Books app, and MOBI is for other mobile devices and e-readers), the HTML if you want to read it as-is in a web-browser, or the PDF format which is a universal file format that is supported by everything, even web browsers, so it’s a good one to download if you don’t know what format you need :) If you read on an eReader, though, I can’t recommend enough just downloading the format for your device. You get to keep a copy of the fic AND the eReader keeps it nicely formatted. It’s a BRILLIANT, BEAUTIFUL feature that Ao3 gave us, because I like downloading all my fics and read them later in iBooks. Once you start that, Nonny, you can’t do it any other way. AND at the VERY END of the fics, it links BACK to the original post so you can bookmark, kudos, and comment on it!! <3

So yeah, two options you can do to solve your poopy internet and still read long fics hee hee! <3

ANYWAY EXCUSE FOR A NEW LIST LOL. 

ALSO, side note, check out @silentauroriamthereal; a large chunk of her fics are both long AND one chapter, so it’s a good place to go and she’s a brilliant author so I don’t think you’ll be disappointed! <3 Plus a lot of her fics are on this list, so I am sorry hahah.

AND I wanted to make the list a bit longer than I had, so I picked fics over 20K, if that’s alright :) As always, if you wrote a 20k+ single chapter fic, let us know!

SINGLE CHAPTER FICS OVER 20K WORDS

A Life Well-Lived by Kate_Lear (E, 20,121 w., 1 Ch. || Original Male Character, Sherlock Woos John, Jealous Sherlock, Reluctant Bi-John, Past Abuse, Insecure John, Reassuring / Caring Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Understanding Sherlock) – John got scared off men by an abusive past relationship. Sherlock has to try and woo him while not scaring him off with protective possessive rage.

The White Lotuses by SilentAuror (E, 20,340 w., 1 Ch. || Slow Burn, Domestic, Romance) – One day John realises that he just isn't where he belongs, which is back at Baker Street with Sherlock. So he goes back and Sherlock, in his own way, courts him. Romance.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

You're On the Air by prettysailorsoldier (M, 20,616 w., 1 Ch. || Unilock, Matchmaking, Radio, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Flirting, Bisexual John) – The Consulting Detective and The Woman dominate the airwaves of their university radio station, doling out advice on everything from meeting the parents to sexual positions. When their ratings start to dip before the holidays, however, manager Mike thinks it's time for some fresh blood, and who better to fill in the gaps than rugby captain--and notorious flirt--John Watson? Part 1 of 25 Days of Johnlock

whiskies neat by Ellipsical (E, 20,660 w., 15 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, POV Second Person Sherlock, Slow Burn, One Night Stand, Rimming, Blow Jobs, Anal, Soldier John, Crying, Emotional Lovemaking, Switchlock) – Home and hearth and whiskies neat, or, alternatively, Sherlock Holmes falls in love.

Achieving the Together-Coloured Instant by teahigh (E, 20,776 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel, PTSD, Codependency, Fluff & Angst, H/C, Smut, Demisexual Sherlock, Experiments) – John wonders if this is how it’s going to be: A life speaking in code, because they’re both too stupid to figure out how to say, “I love you.”

Winter's Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter's Delights

Love Is by SilentAuror (E, 21,508 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, UST / URT, Post HLV, Romance) – At Mrs Hudson’s urging, Sherlock finally decides to tell John how he feels about him. Part 1 of Love Is

echoes through time by chellefic (E, 21,619 w., 1 Ch. || First Time, Romance, ACD & BBC, Epistolary) – Mummy sends a trunk from the Holmes cottage in Sussex to 221B. Its contents alter the way John and Sherlock see themselves and one another.

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w., 1 Ch. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

Sonatina in G Minor by SilentAuror (E, 22,574 w., 1 Ch. || Case Fic, POV Sherlock, Angst, UST, Sherlock’s Violin, Post-S3, Romance) – John has come back to Baker Street, but Sherlock doesn't understand the strange tension between them, even after he begins teaching John to play the violin at John's request.

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU, Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

26 Pieces by Lanning (E, 28,236 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Torture, First Time, Happy Ending, Schmoop, Past Abuse) – Mycroft gives Sherlock the apparently simple task of solving a puzzle box containing a stolen microchip. It isn't simple.

The Wisteria Tree by SilentAuror (E, 29,773 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S3, Emotional Love Making, Amnesia/Memory Loss, Sherlock Loves John So Much, Sherlock POV, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending, First Times, Hurt/Comfort, Est. Rel., Retirement) – Sherlock wakes up from a month-long coma only to discover that he has no memory of the previous six years to his own shock as well as John's...

Shallow Grave by SilentAuror (E, 31,672 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Angst, HLV Fix It, Infidelity, Pining Sherlock, First Person POV Sherlock) – Starts as Sherlock's plane is taking off at the end of His Last Vow. When he finds out that Moriarty is alive and that he's being recalled from his mission, Sherlock decides that he should have told John how he felt before he left. So he walks off the plane and kisses him.

The Midas Touch by flawedamythyst (E, 32,231 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Magical Realism || John has a Magical Cock, Dub Con, Healer John) – John Watson has a medical condition that means everyone he sleeps with is instantly healed of all illness and injury. This causes complications when Sherlock breaks his arm, and even more complications when Sherlock falls in love with him. Yes, this is a story where John has a literal magic healing cock. It's a lot less cracky than you're probably imagining. Warning: Contains complex issues of sexual consent, although not between Sherlock and John.

The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl by out_there (E, 32,897 w., 1 Ch. || Past Drug Use, Blowjobs, Toplock, Mentions of Switching, Rough Sex, Background Cases, Sherlock’s Past, Sherlock’s Sexual History, Experienced Sherlock, Past One Night Stands, Fingering, Cuddling, Possessive Sherlock, Paris Holiday, Bed Sharing, Naked Lie-Ins, Bathing Together, Confessions, Worried Sherlock, Laying in Bed All Day, Meddling Mycroft, Naked Lazy Day) – Sherlock walks into a room and takes all the space right out of it. He does the same inside John's head.

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (M, 32,961 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Fluff and Angst, H/C, Post-TRF, Case Fic, Mild Gore, Sherlock Whump) – The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.” The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

Bedtime Stories by Liketheriver (M, 34,388 w., 1 Ch. || Emotional H/C, Romance, Angst & Humour, Bed Sharing, John First Person, TRF, John Whump) – John's POV during Season 2 and beyond when Sherlock takes up semi-permanent residence in his bed. A collection of codas and missing scenes wrapped up into one long fic and topped with a bow that takes the story beyond Reichenbach and into happy territory once more. Part 1 of Bedtime Universe

The Yellow Poppies by SilentAuror (E, 34,952 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Nightmares, HLV Fix-It, PTSD, Trauma, POV Sherlock, Doctor John) – Sherlock is threatened and assaulted in the hospital immediately after having been shot in the heart, first by Mary, then by Magnussen. As he recovers at Baker Street with John and plans the attack on Appledore with Mycroft, he fights to work through the trauma caused by these two visits. Set during His Last Vow.

The Unfinished Letters by SilentAuror (E, 37,391 w., 1 Ch. || Post S3 / S3 / HLV Fix it, Angst with Happy Ending, Romance, Infidelity, Depression, Case Fic, POV Third Person Sherlock, Love Confessions, Pining Sherlock, Letters) – A fire at Baker Street leads John to read something he was never intended to see: a notebook of half-written, unfinished letters Sherlock wrote during his time away...

Set in Stone by SilentAuror (E, 39,309 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Wedding, Therapy, Fluff and Angst) – Sherlock and John are back from Ravine Valley and planning their wedding. However, as they move past the trial of the human traffickers, Sherlock can't help but wonder if he's imagining that John is becoming a little distant. Surely he isn't getting cold feet about the wedding... Part 2 of The Ravine Valley series

Act IV by SilentAuror (E, 39,707 w., 1 Ch. || First Person POV Sherlock, HLV Fix-It, Infidelity, Angst, Drama) – After Sherlock is shot, John moves back into Baker Street. They spend the autumn together as John tries to make sense of his life and make some important decisions about both Mary and Sherlock. Canon-compliant, excerpts from His Last Vow.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Can we get some fluff in the 2b2t!Eret au??

Eret’s been stuck in hell for almost a month straight, there’s been no sign of her friends, no word. She’s given up on them coming for her, but she’s going to get back to them even if it kills her. Anywhere is better than here.

She keeps an ear to the ground at all times. Information can be a life saver out here, so over a month in to the worst period of her life she hears about the strange new group of fighters almost immediately. They move in a group, probably some sort of new faction. It doesn’t affect her right now so she dismisses it. She’ll keep an eye out if she needs to.

It’s been two months when Eret walks right into an ambush. Her glasses had been shattered beyond repair in a crystal explosion her second night on the server. She’s given up on trying to hide them, ignoring the usual unease at people seeing them for the advantage of night vision and the intimidation factor they give her. The night vision doesn’t save her. There’s an explosion, her ears ringing as she hits the ground. The shine of enchanted armor emerges from the dark, at least five people, possibly more. She tries to push herself up but a foot lands solidly between her shoulder blades and pushes her back down.

“Well well, look what we have here”

“I’ve heard of you. Ghost eyes. Herobrine’s descendent.”

“Bet you’d look lovely decorating our base.”

“I say we just take the head”

Eret presses her forehead into the dirt and tries to breathe. She just needs to get her hands on something, anything from her inventory.

Someone grabs her wrists and she manages to push past the ringing in her head enough to struggle. Her helmet is pulled off and someone starts tugging at the straps of her chest plate. There’s tears pricking at the corner of her eyes but she viciously pushes them away, this is hardly the time or place. She considers calling out, but that would only make things worse, though she might just have a chance to get away if whoever shows up decides to fight.

She’s still struggling under the weight of the people pinning her down when there’s the familiar whistlling thud of arrow fire. Some of the weight disappears from Eret’s back, sliding sideways to crumple to the ground with an arrow put precisely through the small gap between their armor plates. The people around her stand at attention, pulling out crossbows and axes, “the fuck? Is this you?” one demands, kicking her solidly in the temple. Eret isn’t sure if she cries out or not, but she’s definitely sure she’s bleeding now. He goes down in the next moment with a choked off cry. His buddies start to shift, looking nervous. One says “fuck this!” And takes off, he screeches as a figure looms out of the darkness. Barely raising his enchanted sword in time to block a heavy axe blow. More figures drop down and the person sitting on Erets back stands up and nervously backs away, “heyyy let’s talk about this” they gesture to Eret, “you want it you can have it, seriously. Just let me go and that’s all yours”

Eret scrambles for her helmet, her chest plate, anything. She’s alone and unarmed and vastly outnumbered and she dearly want to cry but this is quite possibly the worst possible moment for that. Someone touches her shoulder and Eret nearly jumps out of her skin, instead she dives forward. She’s got no gear, and no chance of beating a single armed fighter, let alone a group as clearly organized as this one. Her only chance is to get away and hope the two groups will be too distracted killing each other to go after one lone runner. She’ll have to start over, but at least she’ll be alive.

One of them is still coming after her, armor gleaming in the faint moonlight. Their arms are out stretched and they’re saying something but Eret’s ears are still ringing from the blast and her breath is starting to quicken. They reach for her again, get a hand around her wrist. Eret panics and plants a foot on their chest, sending them flying. They must not have been expecting it because they’re in full armor and Eret has nothing. She scrambles to her feet, swaying and starts to run. She only manages a few steps before she slams into something solid and unyielding. She bounces off of what must be someone’s chest before they tug her back, her back slamming into their chest plate. “Eret!” The person is shouting right next to her ear, pinning her arms, how did they know her name? “Eret calm down!”

Eret’s temple throbs, her eyes hurt from overuse, and her wrist aches where one of her first assailants had ground their heel down on it. She’s been hunted down for weeks, ambushed and trapped and finally caught and she’s so tired. She just wants to go home. She sobs and her knees go out from under her. The person pinning her -it’s funny she could almost swear it feels like a hug- sinks with her, murmuring something.

The last thing Eret sees before she passes out is the stars.

When Eret wakes up, she’s lying in a bed. She panics immediately, flailing upright. She’s not restrained and she’s wearing a loose shirt and pants. But the last thing she remembers doesn’t exactly fill her with confidence for her safety. The room looks almost comfortable, cluttered. It reminds her of- Eret shuts that thought down hard. She doesn’t have time to break down right now. Whoever is keeping her has obviously underestimated her because there are multiple things she could use as improvised weaponry. She refuses to entertain the thought that her captors are good enough that they don’t have to worry about her not insignificant combat skills, because that means she’s fucked from the start.

She’s deliberating over what to do when footsteps sound out from the hall. Eret grabs whatever’s nearest, long fingers wrapping around a metal candlestick. She flattens herself against the wall behind the door and slows her breathing. The door opens and the person hums as they walk in. Eret shoulders the door closed and gets a hold of the back of their jacket. She jerks them backwards against her chest, the candlestick braced against their throat. The person squawks and drops the tray they were holding.

Eret licks her lips and tries to sound as threatening as possible as she says, “You’re going to tell whoever’s-“ she breaks off as she gets a good look at their face, “Fundy?”

The fox hybrid stares up at her, blinking owlishly, “uh, hey Eret.”

Eret blinks, dropping the candlestick from Fundy’s throat, “I... what?”

Fundy shifts, “sorry it took so long to find you, we’ve been looking for ages. That server is crazy, it’s a good thing we showed up when we did, huh?”

Eret stumbles backwards, sitting down hard on the edge of the bed, “Fundy? I-what?” She repeats.

Fundy crouches down, looking concerned, “Eret? are you alright?”

“But- but-How are you here?” Eret bursts out, sounding like she’s second away from tearing her hair out, she feels about three seconds away from screaming into a pillow and not stopping.

Fundy wrings his hands together, “oh I yes-I guess you wouldn’t know, huh? So uh Dream? You know Dream?” Eret flinches at the name and Fundy hurries to continue on, “of course you know Dream. So anyway, we kind of figured out, finally, that’s he’s been um. Manipulating everyone. Yeah, really creepy hall of things people cared about. Like there was a cage for Skeppy? It was weird. Then someone pointed out that there wasn’t anything for you and then someone else pointed out that they hadn’t seen you in a while. And then Dream started laughing so Tommy made him tell us what he did and um. yeah.” He fidgets again, his voice going quieter, “sorry we didn’t notice sooner.”

Eret blinks, “so I’m, I’m back on the smp? We’re not in- we’re not... there anymore?”

“No! We left as soon as we got you, and Techno finished murdering those assholes who jumped you. It kind of took a while to convince him to stop.” Fundy grimaces, looking squeamish.

“Oh,” Eret says faintly, the thought of Technoblade in a protective rage over her causing some cognitive dissonance.

“Are you alright though, Eret? You never answered my questio-“ Fundy is cut off as Eret envelops him in a tight hug.

Her voice is choked as she says, “I am now.”

“Oh! Eret, you’re awake!” Niki claps her hands together delightedly in the doorframe, before the door slams open wider to reveal Tommy and Tubbo and Ghostbur standing there, behind them is the entire rest of the server, “We’re so glad you’re ok! Everyone was so worried.” She hurries inside, everyone pouring in after her and suddenly Eret is surrounded in the biggest cuddle pile she’s ever experienced. There’s legs tangled in hers and someone is running their hands through her hair and Ghostbur is humming something soft and soothing. She lets out a slightly choked laugh and tugs Fundy closer. It’s good to be home.

I love this. Oh god this is good fluff. Just fluff after hurt and hurt/comfort is something I love. Oh my god.