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alonfic · 3 years

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second nature

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x reader genre: college + bff to lovers au | fluff, pining pining pining wc: 4,767 description: love is complicated; it tends to bloom in desire, in impulse. sometimes you just need to stop the overthinking and just do. in other words, you’re hopelessly in love with your best friend and decide to take matters into your own hands. author’s note: completely self-indulgent. i just wanted a scene where mc jumps into kuroo’s arms and kisses him after a win. sue me.

People do stupid things when they’re in love. You don’t know who said it, if this is some universal conclusion, or maybe Hercules’s Megara is a love genius who you should take notes from. Then again, she did twice, and was saved by her destined lover the second time around. You aren’t all that sure this is a fate prescribed to you by the stars nor is it one that you want for yourself, but it makes you wonder if your love life would be easier if it could have that Disney-esque theatrics just for a happy ending.

Then again, you don’t think Disney has any love stories about best friends turning into lovers, just strangers to lovers. But how do you fall in love with someone you haven’t spent years together cultivating memories with? How do you not look back and smile at the stories of chasing fireflies in the summertime or running from the ocean’s kiss because it’s just a tad too cold even in the late spring? Could it be possible to imagine a love built out of the blue?

Perhaps that part of unexpectedness could be the suspect. Being around him is comfortable; easy as breathing. He’s always been there, always a faint image in the back of your mind as you walk down memory lane, and still there as you walk down this strange path of adulthood. He’s never one to push too hard or let you fall without reaching a hand out to hold you steady.

In truth, you don’t think about loving your best friend. At least you try not to at first. It isn’t something you’re supposed to do or anything that could proceed painlessly, and you’re no masochist. Maybe you are. Wouldn’t you have extracted yourself from the situation sooner if you weren’t?

Then again, you didn’t choose to love him one morning, it just happened.

You consider ignoring Kuroo when it happens. Or if there’s any chance of going back.

It isn’t anything against him because you obviously wouldn’t feel the way that you do if you considered him a shitty person. But that’s the problem. Well, not the problem, more like the reason. The heart of your pining has always been a consistent figure. A loving one that has always had your back even when you both were kids; him the notoriously shy boy who clung to his father’s leg when you and your mother first stopped by, and you the painfully hard-headed one who lacked control when you came bounding up to him with the intent of friendship.

Funny how things seem to take on a reverse effect as he approaches you in the same confidence. His smile unaltered by the slight changes in you, how you tense up ever-so-slightly and squeak affirmations when he mentions going out later that night as a treat for surviving midterms. It shouldn’t mean anything more, really, these are normal interactions for you both. The small celebrations are your favorite things to do, so you hope it doesn’t feel weird when you say yes and he looks at you like he’s over the moon kind of happy.

You don’t say a word when his hand is on the small of your back in the slightly crowded ramen shop. It’s been a longtime favorite of your and his, and surviving the quarter is a celebration in and of itself. Everything is normal. These things, like guiding you to a table, are normal. Your hyperfixations on them are hardly normal though.

Was he always this touchy? Of course, you ponder this. It’s your brain wondering and hoping to figure out what the motivations of these actions are even if he’s done them before. He’s always been keen on physical touch with you. Ever the one to wrap an arm around your shoulders while you two walk around shopping centers or the park to keep potential intruders away and to keep you from getting swept up in the crowds. Sometimes holding your hand when things get tense and he wants you to know he’s there. They’re normal for him by all accounts, and there hasn’t been a time where any of that has felt out of place, at least until now. And it isn’t because of him, it’s you.

If you had an allowance to dream and believe in your idealistic side, this would be a new beginning and his way of easing you into intimate gestures. You don’t though. Your realistic side won’t let you. He just doesn’t make it very easy on you as he sits in front of you under very grainy incandescent lighting—the very non-ideal kind to consider one’s love for somebody—and still manages to get you feel the same things you had when you awoke to him cooking breakfast in your kitchen after a late night study session. The very stupid morning that brought you to this conclusion.

When he says your name, you realize the server is there. You’re naturally a little embarrassed because you haven’t even had a chance to glance at the menu, still a little more spaced out than usual, though it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. You already know what you want, and so does Kuroo.

He jumps in and asks if you want your usual choice, to which you simply nod so he can tell the server who leaves just as quickly as they had come. Kuroo looks like he wants to say something, probably ask about what’s going on with you, but instead something else catches his eye.

He leans over the table and his fingertips find some stray locks of yours dangerously trying to kiss the corner of your lip. His fingertips graze your cheek rather slowly. Painfully slow, even. It doesn’t help the sweat on your palms or the pounding of your chest. Hell, your heart feels like it might fall out if he continues going at such a snail’s pace, but eventually he gets the strands behind your ear.

He smiles at you again, and this time you know it’s all over.

There is no going back.

“You’ve been ignoring me.”

You almost deny it altogether, almost. But this is Kuroo. You know better than to try and lie to the boy you’ve known since middle school, the same boy who knows when something’s wrong before you even have a chance to register that something’s wrong. It sometimes makes you want to curse at him and wish this whole thing would just come to a halt instead of continuing on this weird precipice of change. But you stop yourself and step aside so he can enter your apartment, making his way through the long hallway and turning right to take a perch on the barstool at your kitchen isle.

He’s right anyway. It’s been days since you realized your feelings and even more since you two went out to get ramen together. But you’d be damned to admit the truth.

“Been busy.” You settle on this because it’s a safe answer, at least relatively so, though he hardly looks even the slightest bit convinced. The fact that you lean on the opposite side of the granite countertop is enough to solidify his doubt, but you decide to play the fool anyway. “What?”

“Are you alright? Have I done something to upset you?” Kuroo asks this genuinely, and you can tell most definitively by the slight crease in his brow and the small line his lips have become. It isn’t a frown by any means, it’s his pensive expression. He must be trying to think back on anything he’s either said or done in the past couple of weeks, but you know he wouldn’t be able to guess it.

Not that “it” is all that major. How do you even describe the sensation of falling in love with your best friend? How do you even dare face them after you’ve done it? And where do you even go from there when it’s happened? These are the things you’ve mulled over; they’re also the things that have stopped you from immediately treating your friendship with Kuroo like business as usual. You don’t think there’s any going back once you say something. No matter the times you’ve imagined what could happen or what it would be like to cross that bridge, a bit of reality grounds you from all impulsive acts.

Of course, you would love to just kiss him and run your hands through his beautifully soft sable hair. You wouldn’t hesitate to finally tell him your feelings if you didn’t think there was anything to lose or if you weren’t in the right state of mind, at least there’s the cushion of not caring and simple selfishness in all of that. It takes a lot to shake it all out of your head, at least to just try to, as he watches you in that unnervingly analytical way.

“Are you sure I haven’t done anything?” You can tell he’s trying to probe now, perhaps hoping for an opening to atone for any misgiving he might’ve done without realizing. His voice is soft, comforting. “If I did, I really am sorry.”

You shake your head again, this time for him and his question. You’re starting to feel a little bad for keeping this from him. “You haven’t done anything, I promise. I’ve just been preoccupied with some things. It’s getting better, so really, no need to worry.”

You hope the half-truths are enough to keep his interrogative questions and inquisitorial stare at bay. At least enough to change the subject, he’s the one who called about coming here, after all.

“If you’re sure?” He tries once more, just to give you an out. It isn’t like you to keep anything from him, and he knows this, but you can’t help but want to keep this one thing under lock-and-key. At least for now, or forever.

You nod. “What’s up anyway?”

“Well, I’ve been missing my best friend like crazy since someone’s been ghosting me for the past two weeks.”

The emphasis on ‘someone’ makes you snort, just a little and only for a moment because he shoots you a playful glare. You hold your hands up in surrender in hopes of spurring the conversation forward. Just because you wanted to avoid him to keep the truth under wraps doesn’t mean you haven’t missed the cheeky bastard.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, with a faint smile. “Has it been that hard without me?”

“The hardest! Kenma’s sick of me, you know. Him, I’m used to wanting to keep me away. But you? That’s a different playing field.” It’s all in a playful jest, of course, and whatever the case may be for you, you know that Kuroo doesn’t mind. He knows it would be for a good reason, even if you don’t think this is all that good of a reason to try and push him away. It’s a hard thing to do when it’s clear that he has no intentions of being set aside, and how can you, given the history here?

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you, o’dramatic one?” Of course, you’ll play it off, just to see the toothy grin on his lips, and watch the light dance in the hickory of his eyes as he considers his next quip. You wonder if he’ll have you do something stupid just to make up for the sudden separation, although you’re grateful that he’s a more benevolent schemer where you’re concerned. You expect him to charge you a free coffee or something.

“Come to my game on Saturday, please,” Kuroo coughs the last word, as if it might be painful for him to say, or maybe he’s trying to play off sounding forceful, which has never been his forte.

You can’t help but smile albeit confused at the sudden news when it feels like it’s been ages since his last high school game. “A game? With who?”

“It’s just a reunion game against Karasuno, since it’s a rare occasion where we all happen to be free at the same time, and you know us. We’re always hankering for another Battle at the Garbage Dump.”

Before you can say anything, he adds, “If you love me, you’ll come!”

You probably miss the way he looks at you a little more longingly than he once did, as if there’s something he means in these cheeky words. They should mean nothing more than provocations, a mild itch of guilt tripping, but only in good nature. It couldn’t possibly mean anything in the way that you’re hoping. No, not at all.

You know he only means it all in a lighthearted way, but you can’t deny the way your heart seems to rumble with a very distinct sound of early springtime thunder and you feel the back of your throat go dry. Of course, you can’t deny this truth, not even when it’s disguised like this. And anyway, who would you be if you missed out on one of his games?

Of course, you’ll go.

When Kozume calls you over, you already know it’s a mistake to oblige.

The moment you get there, he’s playing a game though he pays a little more attention to you when he sees how much you tense up at the sound of Kuroo’s name. It’s enough for the conversation to completely focus on the former Nekoma captain, and you’re almost certain you want to go home already. If anything, you might be able to cite that you had some homework you need to sort out before the big game.

“You shouldn’t keep lying to yourself. Plus, I know you finished all your homework so you wouldn’t be distracted for the game,” Kozume points out, shooting you a brief pointed look. “You’ve been avoiding me too, you know.”

And this is why: visiting Kozume means speculations, and speculations means hopes, and those mean disappointments because reality is just that cruel. You tell him so in your apology, even when he pointedly ignores the question and instead asks you one.

“When do you think you’ll tell him?”

You look at him incredulously. “Why would I do that?”

The sheer idea is preposterous; confessing to Kuroo might invite trouble for the two of you and the state of your friendship. Sure, you tried ignoring him and seeing if that could help, but that was a bust. Telling him would probably be even worse. Probably the worst thing you could do in this situation. Is it even possible to be okay after confessing to your best friend?

“You’re both idiots who deserve to be together. Why else would I ask?”

He isn’t even looking at you as he says any of this, instead focusing his attention on the characters in his game. His own little fantasy. A part of you is envious of the escapism, wishing for a bit of that for yourself at the moment. At least you can forge a love story from camaraderie there, and in a game world like that, it’s acceptable. Loving your best friend in the modern reality? Not so much.

You’re a little confused at Kozume’s wording. What was he trying to say? Kuroo liked you back? The thought makes you shake your head.

“Easier for you to say,” you roll your eyes at him, certain he hasn’t seen it, but he clicks his tongue at you anyway.

“If you did something, or let yourself do something, life would be so much easier for the both of you.”

“You say this with the assumption that he feels something too,” you point out, still in disbelief. After all, why would Kuroo love you back as more than a friend?

“Why do you even love him anyway?”

You can’t help but reply so nonchalantly when it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “Why not?”

There are many answers to that question, probably more than you care to admit, let alone to Kozume. Even without meeting his eyes or saying a word about any of it, he seems to know already. It’s unnerving. Have you always been this easy to read? Does Kuroo know too?

“Why don’t you just tell him?”

“It’d make things too complicated.”

In other words: it’s easier to tell the truth when you’re not speaking to Kuroo about the whole thing. Hell, it’s easier to address it when it isn’t directly to him. It happened, and obviously there’s no way to strip the power from it now.

“Is that what’s really stopping you?”

You take a moment to consider this, and maybe the large part is the fear of consequence, if there will be one, what it will be, that sort of thing.

“Yeah…”

“Then stop thinking and just do something about it. I’ve never known you to take things lying down. Talk to him after the game or something.”

You don’t say anything, but you consider it.

The day of the game is supposed to be simple. It isn’t like it’s supposed to bloom into anything, and yet you find yourself thrumming with excitement when Kuroo easily finds you in the crowd before he’s set to enter the gym.

You don’t care to admit how much you enjoy this or the sight of seeing him in that vibrant shade of red. The same way you’ve seen him in countless games. It stirs something in your chest as you’re reminded of those days, like this revelation of your feelings might have bloomed sooner than you realized.

“Come find me after the game,” Kuroo tells you with that beautifully toothy grin of his, and you find that you can hardly breathe. “I have something to tell you when I win.”

When did he get so damn good looking? You want to wonder, though that would only be one of many ponderings. You don’t know what his words mean, or why the implication makes your heart react the way it does, but you hope against your own ideals just to remain in reality. At least you try to.

It’s hard once the game begins.

Watching him play feels like falling in love again.

You don’t know what it is in the way Kuroo carries himself or how he seems to dance across the court with a hitch in any of his movements, but it’s addictive to watch. How easily he remains himself even on the court. The very cheeky grin flashes at his opponents, particularly Tsukishima, who looks more and more fired up as they contain their rally. They don’t look much different than when they first played against one another in high school, though they all seem to carry a newfound sense of wisdom in this game they’ve been destined to play time and time again.

Each rally feels like it goes on for longer than the last, as if everything will be gone in a single drop, and perhaps it’s true to say that this mirrors that of love. How you may try as you might to keep the secret of loving away from reality, but it all comes crashing down eventually. It feels that way when you see the final round reach a neck and neck standstill. Neither side wants the ball to drop, to allot victory to their opponent, of course.

It’s Kuroo’s determination that stands out to you. The way he seems to cheer his team on even without words as he tries his best to keep the orange, green, and white ball in play. He’s never been one to give up no matter the circumstances. He’s always found a way to move things in his favor, and he’s never once wavered, even in the beginning of his time with volleyball, he’s always tried, even with losses under his belt.

It’s strangely beautiful to bear witness to this play once more. You don’t know what it is when he looks back at you before his notoriously accurate block with a small, yet triumphant smile, like he knows this’ll win the game, or even so, bring them closer to it, but it rouses something even stranger in your chest as you cheer alongside everyone else in celebration of the first point of two needed to finally win the game. This is by no means a big game like the Inter-high or anything, but it feels that way. Maybe that’s why everything seems to stand out to you. It feels like something big might happen.

Simple as this game might be, it feels like everything when they reach the end of the rally.

They win, and you rise from your seat without a second thought.

You don’t think about what you’re doing.

Your limbs seem to move on their own accord as the rest of the team does a final bow to the audience. You don’t bother stopping to wonder if Kuroo’s searching the crowd for you as you make your way down the stairs, or what the little frown on his face means when his gaze lingers on the spot right behind the banner as soon as you reach the hallway across from the court. Your spot.

No, you don’t stop to think about it.

You don’t even stop moving as you call his name or as you see the light come back to his beautiful hickory eyes. You don’t stop to consider what that might mean either.

Instead you run to him at full speed without bumping into anyone, truly a miracle in and of itself, and instead of stopping right before him with your feet planted firmly on the ground like any other person, you choose to jump. You don’t know why. You don’t think about why either. You just believe that he won’t drop you because he’s never given you a reason to believe otherwise. In fact, you absolutely trust him to catch you now more than ever, and to no one’s surprise, he does.

There are so many things you want to do—reasonable things that any normal best friend supporting their best friend would do. You want to say congratulations. You want to just hug him and jump down because you want to believe that this will be like any other hug you’ve shared with this man you’ve known for years. And maybe it could’ve been that simple if you had just stopped to consider what your actions would mean to him, you, and everyone else. But you don’t bother with the frivolities, you don’t want to yet.

Because when you really look at Kuroo, you catch sight of something beautiful. A sight all too familiar to you and the years of memories you’ve shared together. It’s him in his most purest form; little drops of sweat falling at the sides of his face, an elated grin in all its toothy glory, and the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes becoming more and more prominent. And yet, there’s something a little too new in the way that he looks back at you, the way his gaze lingers on your lips and only snaps back up to your eyes when you say his name.

Your grip around his shoulders tightens and his lips fall a little closer together like he might say something, but you don’t give him a chance. It’s hard when you find yourself on a roll of impulses, like you’re untouchable from consequence.

Maybe you’ve watched too many romance movies, or maybe read too many stories where the best friends finally get together after years of pining and being called idiots by everyone around them. You know it’s all too silly, and you and Kuroo have spent evenings mocking the theatrics of boombox accompanied confessions and singing over the loudspeakers with the marching band as the main male lead’s instrumental track. They’re endearing in the moment, but so painfully unreal, you almost wish this world was entirely fantasy for just a taste of what could be with Kuroo. That’s the true villain, maybe. You can’t stop yourself now.

Everything everyone has ever speculated about you two flies over your head, and for once in a great while, you stop caring enough to just do what you’ve always wanted to do, to finally actualize the fantasies you’ve played out over and over in your head.

Fuck it, you decide. If there’s any time to do this, it’s now. The extra shit can wait.

So, before any words, you kiss him.

You take note of the way he responds so gently to the initiation. It’s a tentative pressure, as if he’s testing the waters to see what you can handle before you pull away. But you don’t. You remain, and maybe part of that has to do with the adrenaline coursing through your veins or maybe it’s the part of you that seeks this wish fulfillment and wants to bask in it before reality sinks it.

The whole thing is indescribable. Of course, it is. All of your fantasies have never gotten you as far as the real deal. You wouldn’t have guessed just how close to peppermint he would taste, or that there would be a slight hint of honeyed lemons in the aftertaste. Like the treat promises, you feel invigorated, rejuvenated, and maybe even worst of all, hungry for a little more.

This is why you readjust your grip around his shoulders as you attempt to deepen the kiss. In response, his grip on your thighs tighten, as if he might be afraid you’ll disappear. And to your surprise, he kisses you back with just as much fervor, like it might be the last time.

You don’t remember what draws you apart, whether it’s one of his teammates jeering at you two or if it’s your respective needs to breathe, but you’re inclined to etch this new sight of him to memory. The way his chest heaves, his pupils dilated, and his lips all pink and swollen. It’s new and beautiful, and you wonder if it’ll happen again.

And then it hits you.

What you’ve done. Your head spins just a little.

“I’ve fucked us up, haven’t I?” Your words are no louder than a whisper, but it feels like it’s only you two right now. Nothing else to cut into this moment, though you almost sort of wish for an opportunity to sink into the ground because what the fuck did you just do?

All you can do is try to shake yourself away from him, back down to the ground, back to reality.

Kuroo keeps you in place and takes the chance to really look at you. His eyes scan your face for a trace of truth, not that this would be a hard feat anyway. You’ve never been good at hiding anything from him, not when you were kids, and most certainly not now. You wonder if he can read, “I’m totally and utterly in love with you” from your eyes or if it somehow materialized across your forehead like Kozume and Nobuyuki have always teased you.

“That’s not entirely fair,” he says, still faint with his usual teasing.

“Huh?” Your eyebrows knit together, and your lips seem to pull into an involuntary frown.

“That implies that you were the only one who compromised our friendship…” he pauses for a second as his bottom lip trembles and he gives an inaudible swallow, “right?”

“What are you getting at?” Simply the implication is enough to bring lightning to your skin, as if to resuscitate you back to a more serene state. Your heart can’t seem to handle this overload, however. You wonder if he can hear it.

“I think you know what I’m getting at...”

His cheeks have gone pinker than the cherry blossoms in spring. Of course, it should’ve been enough to confirm your suspicions. You could’ve left it at that, but for your sake, for your very own heart, you tell him what you need.

“Say it.”

One more look at you and it’s enough for him. Somehow you know that without being told.

“I love you.”

Your heart trembles, even louder now, like a thunderstorm. That strange calmness remains. The kind only he can elicit in you.

Kuroo looks at you in wait, in wonder, as if your answer wasn’t as clear as day already. You laugh a little and the corners of his lips turn upward.

“I love you too.”

He lets you drop down, of course, but only after another kiss.

You hold his hand and walk through the double doors you entered through.

This time together.

#kuroo scenarios #kuroo imagines #kuroo fanfic #kuroo fluff #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo x you #kuroo x reader #emwrites #title: second nature

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fakeloveaskblog · 2 years

Note

Aaaaa thank you so much! It really means alot that you like it! Sorry for distracting you on you call jgjtbrjybr- And I did think about how to make it sort of match the aesthetic but unfortunately its hard to put a monocle on a snail)

ive already called a guy rowan, you have a call booked tomorrow for the voice of someone. I just up in a few favours and threats and he was positively thrilled to have you on board :)

And, janus nearly everyone has caught on a little about your crush dear, its ok to be embarrassed ᴬˡᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ ʳᵉᵐʸ ᵐᵃʸ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵃᵏᵉⁿ ᶦᵗ ᵃ ᵗᵃᵈ ᵇᶦᵗ ᵗᵒᵒ ᶠᵃʳ

Anywho, logan! Have you ever... taken a well deserved break without someone asking you to for self care and thought about how maybe you aren't emotionless? Ilyy and feel free not to answer :)

🐌🕸

Rowan shone up into a bright grin while shaking Patty around by the arm "AAAAHHHH!!!"

Her girlfriend smiled just as wide for her "You'll do great sugarcube!"

"Of course I will! I have even done some serious voice acting before!!"

"Pissy the only voice work you've done are ads for the local bike store"

"And those were the most credible bikes I have ever laid eyes on!" She suddenly gasped "I HAve to voice rest! Even if it's just a call about the role! I must sound perfect! I need tea! WIth HONEY!!"

"Can I get one as well?" Patty asked.

"Of course my honeypot" She pressed a quick kiss to her girlfriend's forehead before rushing out to the kitchen.

Janus pressed themself deeper against the couch cushions when they saw your big dark eyes turn to them. You said your comment about them in the sweetest tone a snail could muster.

"My what now? Crush? Deary you're mistaken! I said crash! I intend to crash into Remy....With a car....Several cars! Yes!" They blurted out the lie fully knowing it wasn't convincing in the slightest.

"aww it's okay Janny" Remus reached out and patted their shoulder "Having a crush and wanting to crash cars into people are both valid. But like uhhh Even I have noticed your whole" He gestured to them "Thing with Remy. And I never notice lovey dovey stuff!!!"

"I've known lesbians who have realized their mutual interest in each other quicker than Janus has" Logan said dryly.

Patty nodded to show her husband had a good point and added"You told me you two had kissed! Does it even still count as a crush at that point?"

"Yeah we secretly got married as well" Remy joked.

They had just been casually laying half zoned out on Janus' lap this entire time. They were playing with one of the beads in his hair like a cat toy. He was fine with it since Logan already used his hair like a stim toy all the time.

Either Remy had already zoned back out so much they didn't hear your small comment towards them or they simply ignored it. They let out an annoyed sigh when their phone notif went off again.

Janus rubbed the bridge of his nose "Please can we just talk about this later"

Logan noticed the tone of his partner's voice and quickly said "Of course. We most likely have a large amount of time to spend talking about this. As well as make fun of your buffoonery"

He moved his arm around them and Janus sunk their face against his warm cardigan. He kissed the top of their head and whispered out a quick check if they were okay. A quick sorry if they'd gone too far. They mumbled back that everything was okay. That no one had said anything wrong. That they just wanted some alone discussions with Remy first.

He looked up when he heard the next question was for him. He poked up his glasses to give himself time to think.

"I am aware that I am not emotionless since I have two partners and I very much love both of them, and as we all know love encompasses many different emotions. I am however probably bad at showing my emotions. I also do not have that high of a capability for empathy, which is nothing inherently wrong"

"Aww honey you show emotions well!!!" "Anyone who says you don't show it well hasn't spent more than 5 seconds near you" Patty and Janus replied at almost the exact same time.

Logan nodded before leaning forward to take his shot of wine.

In a quick motion Patty had moved forward to stop him. She literally grabbed the glass of wine and held it while sitting down on the armrest next to him.

"Nuh-uh sweetiepie! It was a double question! And you do not take enough breaks!!"

"I take plenty of breaks. I sleep at least 7 hours per night"

"Sometimes you don't even take lunch breaks at work!" Janus chimed in. "Snaily you would not believe the amount of times I've had to drag him away from his task to the lunch room"

"It is only when I am in the middle of task. I simply can not stop mid categorizing can I"

"Yes??? That's the whole point of a lunch break!"

"My wonderfully stupid lil Logie barely even lets me do the dishes!!"

"You don't like the feeling of soggy food on your hands" Logan argued back "And you already dish so many cups at the daycare"

"Oh don't even get me started on how many times he's forgotten to sleep because of his current hyperfixation. His passion is very cugte and admirable but sleep!!!" "You always tell me to drink water and yet I've never seen you drink anything better than iced coffee!" His two partners continued.

Logan held up his hands as if to say he had been defeated. "Half a shot?"

His wife squinted at him ".....Sure"

He emptied half of the wine and put it down on the table again. Patty moved her arms around him and he leant his head against her chest. She trailed her fingers from his neck down to his back and up again.

"Don't worry though. I've lived with him long enough to know when he needs a break. It is very rare he can say no to taking 15 minutes away from work to hear me out about whatever thing I find important, or say no to some cuddling, or kissing, or a star trek episode"

Logan had closed his eyes and had this rare calm look on his face, a look he usually only ever had when his partners pushed just the right buttons.

"She does know how to turn my brain off in the most wonderful ways" He murmured out to which she smiled. While he still had his eyes closed she took the rest of his wine.

Rowan came back in with two piping cups of tea and sat back down on the couch. She put on a fake pout and made a showing of looking terrible lonely.

"Oh my! I leave for a minute and my wonderful warm cuddly girlfriend is gone! Oh! Oh misery! Now I shall freeze in my lonesome!"

Patty snickered. She kissed her husband before moving back to her girlfriend. Logan kept his arm relaxed around Janus. Remus was trying to build a tower out of popcorn.

#ask #thanks for the ask!#sanders sides #loceit #logicality #🐌🕸

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 102

102

Keith felt crusty. Scabbing felt gross. His clothes rubbed at against his scabs, but he was trying not to be cranky. Nope. He wasn’t going to be cranky today at all. Not cranky in the slightest. He was going to be the cool, not-overly-protective, supportive, tongue-bitingly-silent boyfriend... as he watched this bad idea play out.

Coran had set up extra cameras in the gym, which was closed for the morning. The Blade werewolves were on standby, as if that’d stop two fighting vampires totally vamping out. Keith had talked Lance through warming up. His boyfriend dressed in sinfully right pants and a singlet, preferring yoga poses to listening to him. Keith itched to be moving, blaming his constant need to shift his weight on that and not being physically itchy. Bending forward with his arms stretched behind his back and fingers laced together, his boyfriend was too damn flexible

“See something you like?”

Asked with a cocky smile, the vampire was a shit. Yeah. He did. That fucking arse in those pants had driven him half mad all morning

“I’m thinking about all the positions I could bend you into”

Lance blushed, leaning down further, before rising and stretching himself high, showing off his snail trail and the “V” of his hips

“I am kind of flexible”

“I know. Now, do you remember what I told you?”

Lance let his arms drop, shaking out the stretch

“Don’t get hit?”

“Don’t be like that”

Lance sighed dramatically

“Babe, yeah. I remember. Tap out if I need to. And if I need to stop, the word is “red””

Lotor had to respect Lance’s bounds. Coran had set things up, after Keith had talked to Lance over what he wanted to do. It sucked that Lance couldn’t train with him how they’d trained before, but Lance knowing how to protect himself came first

“He’s going to be messing with your head”

“I know. One training set before we go home on the weekend and I can go home and practice with Matt and Curtis”

“And you’re sure you’re up for this?”

“Babe, I’ll be okay. You better leave before Lotor comes. You smell like blood still”

“I’m not leaving you alone”

“I’m only going to be alone for a few minutes, if that”

Keith was trying not to leave. He wanted to be with Lance and act every way he’d told himself he couldn’t. Swallowing down the burning need to whisk Lance away, he shuffled over to his boyfriend, wrapping his arms carefully around him, before kissing him softly

“I love you”

“I love you, too. Thank you for being understanding”

Keith didn’t quite have the right response for that

“I’ll be watching in the briefing room. If anything happens, or you don’t feel well, say red and we’ll come”

They were going to be watching in one of the conference rooms. The cameras would provide them views of every angle possible during the fight

“I know... I’m sorry I’m probably going to scare you”

“I’m less scared with you training here. None of will let anything happen to you”

“I know you won’t. I love you and I’ll see you soon”

“Stay safe, my little sharpshooter”

Lance snorted. Keith thought himself rather clever, Lance might have too as he earned himself another kiss. His boyfriend smiling stupidly. How he loved that damn smile

“You shoot one target in the nuts and they never let you forget it. You’ve got it, Samurai. See you soon”

Lance watched Keith leave the gym. He knew this was hard for his boyfriend. He’d read the offer the Blades had put before him, it wasn’t a bad offer really. He’d have stable pay, days off to deal with his heat, rolling shifts and would be trained by Kolivan with assistance from Blade werewolves. Plus, he’d be able to tag along with Keith and Shiro. Yet, he hadn’t accepted. Keith and Shiro worked without the need for words. One look said it all, and they didn’t need a third party between them. What the Blades needed was a vampire they could trust and knew the city. They were tired of chasing their tails and never getting closer to Sendak’s base of operation. Sendak had said he was there for Lotor, but the vampire could have easily spirited Lotor away at any moment he wanted. His lie wasn’t holding water anymore. He was clearly aiding Honerva, probably the boss and lord over whatever Honerva was doing to fuck with Platt.

Turning to examine the gym, the room was interesting. There was as much to do on ground as their was to do on the roof. The rear wall was for climbing, then footholds and ledges ran around the ceiling. A set of monkey bars were anchored into the roof, as were rings, netting, knotted ropes that were kind of intimidating. Sport hadn’t been his favourite subject, yet he might have actually made an attempt if the room had been like this. Behind him the door opened, Lance turning to face Lotor. The man never out of a suit, even when it came to training it seemed.

They both moved to meet towards the middle of the room

“Lance! Splendid to see you again. I’m excited that you took up my offer”

Lance was not excited. His ego didn’t like how Lotor made him feel. He wasn’t compelled to drop to his knees and pledge his ever living allegiance, but his ego did feel inferior

“It’s nice to see you too. Thanks for this”

“No worries. I’m very curious to see what you know”

“I’m looking to retrain. I’m used to fighting werewolves and humans”

Lotor crossed his arms

“Filthy mutts and mortals are child’s play. We are above them in terms of strength”

Ugh.

Lance felt as if he had all the strength but the will of a dead snail to match

“Look. I know you’re some big arse important vampire, but I like humans and werewolves. We need humans, and not just for their blood. We need them to keep sane and keep our egos under control. If you rely too much on your ego you’re going to lose your mind for it”

Lotor sniffed at his comment, the actually sniffed the air before smiling. What the hell was that? Lance didn’t think he was releasing pheromones... Lotor... just didn’t do it for him. He wasn’t blind, but Lotor wasn’t Keith

“A very... particular answer, for a very particular man. In your current situation, I think perhaps you should rethink your words”

Lance raised an eyebrow. What situation was he in?!

“Meaning?”

“If you do not know, it isn’t for me to point out. Now. Today’s exercise will be about avoidance. You will try to hit me, and watch how I avoid you”

Lance wasn’t impressed. Ego flaring at Lotor’s disinterested air. His nails were staring to cut into his palm as he clenched his fists. What a wanker!

“Are you serious?”

“Very. You will endeavour to strike me, I will avoid. Feel free to make use of the whole room, though we’ll avoid weaponry today. The humans would call this game “tag”, though that implies you can catch me”

He was going to make Lotor eat those words

“Bring it on”

Lance held back as Lotor moved, watching the ease and grace in his movements. There wasn’t a day that passed where Lance wouldn’t somehow trip on thin air or walk into something, not like Lotor who seemed to defy gravity. The man nearly looked like he was teleporting with how fast he moved. Lance’s ego was stung. It didn’t like feeling inferior to Lotor, despite the huge differences in their skill set

“Your opponent would never give you this much space in a real fight. Or are you frozen solid with fear?”

“I’m not afraid. Charging an unknown beast asks for trouble”

“Staying open in all directions also asks for trouble. I could have snapped your neck a hundred times over”

Lotor climbed the fair walls with ease, pulling himself up, then swinging out onto the netting and across to where he perched up on a knotted rope, resting left hand over right

“And you favour your left side over your right!”

“What good is that if you don’t do something about it?”

Lotor looked smug. Like Blue when she climbed to the top of her cat tower to survey her kingdom

“If I move to follow you up, you’ll jump down. It’s obvious”

“And yet, I won’t move until you do”

“And then you jump down and I chase you around... How does that teach me anything?”

“All I’m hearing is that you don’t want to use the gifts given to you by being turned”

“I’m quite happy living like a human”

“But you’re not a human. You have more speed and power than those hunters have in their little fingers”

So fucking what? What good was power when all he wanted was a small simple life with his friends. He envied all of his human friends so fucking much... The only good thing being dead had ever brought him was Keith

“I never asked to be a vampire”

“So you’d rather deny who you are? Live a broken life?”

“My life isn’t broken. I won’t be a slave to my ego”

“Because you’re too afraid. You could have anything you wanted”

“I have what I want and what I need”

“Then why is it that you can’t control your emotions. A little ego isn’t a bad thing. Doesn’t it get boring playing the good guy? The saviour? The dependable one?”

“I’d rather be who I am than listen to my ego”

“And that’s your problem. You fight your ego too much. Your ego gives you strength. You need to channel that strength if you wish to protect the ones you care for. You wouldn’t stand a chance against Sendak in your current state, yet your friends are ready to run to their slaughter to capture him. I could deliver him right into their hands with one phone call, but I don’t because they’d die before they ever landed a blow. Now, Little Lance, let that ego go. Show me that vampire that refused to cower before my ego. Unless you’re too scared to show that precious human of yours that side you keep hidden”

Lotor kept trying to get under his skin. For all Lance’s talk, it was working. He had to fight to not let that side loose

“He’s seen it before. He isn’t so scared as to run”

“Perhaps. But will he always stay by your side? Or will he run when he learns the situation you’re in?”

“And what situation is that?”

“You’ll soon learn...”

Lotor dropped down from the rope gracefully, Lance stepping back as the vampire landed in front of him. Leaning in, Lotor whispered, eyes fixed on Lance’s, preventing him from taking another step back

“Your scent’s changed since we met. You think you’re in control but you have no idea the things you’re capable of. If you want to learn what I know, you need to beat me”

Lance felt dreamy... almost foggy as he stared into Lotor’s eyes. Gritting his teeth, he mumbled

“Your games won’t work”

“This is no game. Let that hold go. Learn to use that ego when you need and you’ll learn how to control that bat form of yours. I was watching that night. Those wings. That form. That human of yours doesn’t appreciate how rare a trait that is. We are the sons of kings. Their blood carries through out very veins with their hate and rage from where that human god cast us aside. The war’s already begun, the die is cast and very soon this city will be pushed to the brink. Choose to fight, or watch it fall”

“If you’re that fucking knowledge, help the Blades! Do the right thing!”

“I am no match for Sendak alone. Together we could take him... with no need for those humans to hurt”

Lance felt as if Lotor was trying to get into his head hole. Baring his teeth, he tried to focus on the feeling, pushing against it

“You’re manipulating me”

“And you’re finally showing your colours. Go crazy with me”

“You’re already crazy”

Lotor laughed in his face, before grabbing him by the shoulders and throwing him down. Zero appreciation from his ego. Snarling at Lotor, his face twisted, eyes narrowing. He wanted blood... Lotor dared to lay hands on him like this. No one touched him. No one but his precious little human Keith

“You shouldn’t have done that, half-breed”

Watching Lance thrown aside by Lotor, Keith jumped to his feet too fast, grunting and staggering sideways into Allura’s hold. Lotor had kept provoking Lance, over, and over, and over, but it wasn’t until Lance hit the floor that he couldn’t sit still any longer. His boyfriend had resisted provocation. He’d smartly watched Lotor’s moves, keeping a safe distance and somehow that’d gotten Lance thrown on the floor. Groaning as Allura supported him, Keith was not a happy camper. He’d opened his scabs up again. Lance was going to be cranky... just like he was fucking pissed that Lotor had laid hands on his boyfriend. Lance’s voice like ice as he threatened Lotor. This was all going to go to crap. He could see it right now

“Quit fussing, Allura, I’m fine. I’m going to go get Lance”

Coran interrupted

“I would suggest waiting right now. Lotor’s finally provoked him. I know this hard to see, but this is what we were aiming for today. If you would prefer not to watch, you may wait in my office”

Keith wanted to stop this. He didn’t like this at all. Something in him screamed to go to Lance and stop this... but right now, he may have moved too fast and hurt himself... Lance would be madder about that than whatever happened with Lotor. Trying to sit down, pain shot up his spine, Keith shooting upright. He was going to be in so much fucking trouble with his boyfriend

“Keith?”

Allura gently asked his name

“I’m okay, sat wrong...”

He might have to wheel himself down to the gym...

“Do you want to me to try manipulating your quintessence? Perhaps see if I can lift some of your pain?”

Allura could do that? That sounded too much like magic... He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone messing with his quintessence. Her blue eyes were soft, staring at him rather at the screen past him

“Nah, I’ll be okay. How’s Lance?”

He’d have to work up to turning back towards the screen. He didn’t want to see Lance hurting

“I don’t think I can watch... I do hope they don’t injure each other”

“Me too... Lotor won’t hurt him, will he?”

“No. No. He was quite happy to meet with Lance. I think he’s rather happy to have found a kindred vampire here”

The expression on Allura’s face drew dreamy. Oh, no. He knew that look. Lance gave him that look. Allura saw something on Lotor that she liked... Good thing he already knew she wouldn’t let him walk all over her, or he’d have to be worried. Deep down under all that effortless glamour, Allura was a little bit scary. He didn’t want to ever piss her off

“Yeah. Right...”

Inching his chair around, Keith forced himself to watch Lance and Lotor. Lance wasn’t holding back, but somehow he’d been injured, his arm across his stomach as he held his side. His boyfriend wasn’t used to fighting like this, knowing that idiot, he’d probably pulled a muscle. All Keith could describe the scene as was what he imagined Kosmo would be like if got into a bag of sugar, both vampires constantly moving, thought Lance clearly hadn’t landed a touch on Lotor by Lotor’s smug impression. Not that his boyfriend wasn’t trying... he just had a very clear tell of when he was about to move. Keith seeing his own stances thrown in there as Lance threw repeated jabs, only to to hit air. This was way worse than watching Lance and Matt bond. Lance was faster and deadlier than he’d been with Matt. But never lost focus enough to be striking recklessly... for that, Keith felt proud. Scared slightly, but proud. Lance could do real damage if he ever wanted to, but those cold hands of his held a special kind of warmth reserved for those he cared about. Lotor wouldn’t feel that warmth. Lance couldn’t care less for him, and Keith couldn’t be more relieved that he didn’t. This Lance was a far cry from the Lance told him to pull the trigger. This Lance fought like he wanted to protect... though what he wanted to protect, Keith wasn’t sure.

Letting the fight play out, Coran finally decided it was enough after Lance was thrown for a second time. Crashing into the training dummies, the wooden frame splintered, Lance smacking hard into the wall, before pulling himself up and spitting what seemed to be blood. Wiping his mouth, his boyfriend grew faster still. Lotor not quite escaping as Lance grabbed him by the arm and slammed him into the ground with a sickening thud. Lance was as human as a vampire got, but still... vampires really could take a beating. Lotor sweeping Lance’s feet from under him, and they all felt the air in the room shift, despite only being there through the cameras.

Leaping back from Lance, Lotor smoothed out his suit jacket. Lance climbing to his feet like a drunken animal. Swaying as his arm came back across his belly

“I think we better stop it there. Any more and they’ll destroy the gym”

Keith couldn’t agree more. He worried about Lance spitting blood, and worried that his boyfriend had been impaled or hurt by being thrown into the training dummies. Shiro volunteered

“I’ll come with you”

Coran shook his head, replying firmly

“No, no. You stay here, number one. No one should approach until they’ve had a moment to regain themselves”

On the screen Lance went for Lotor, Lotor grabbed by the lapels of his jacket. Breaking the hold, the vampire tried to throw Lance, only for Lance to bite Lotor’s arm. Allura let out a gasp, betraying her emotions. Lotor growling as he shoved Lance away hard enough for his boyfriend to fall backwards badly. There was none of Lance’s softness on the screen. His eyes black as he snarled. Hurriedly, Coran left the room. Keith tried to stand, his legs shaky as he forced his knees to cooperate. If this was the training Lotor expected, Lance was the wrong vampire for the job.

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid

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sallyface-incorrect · 5 years

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The Struggles of Having ADHD

- Only Being able to sleep either 2 hours or 16, there’s no in between. I am legit typing this at 3:02 am because I can’t sleep and I haven’t slept that much and it sucks. Summer is for sleeping, not for stress.

- Not being able to remember basic information about someone like their name, but being able to remember that they once told you that their great great aunt had a mole on her foot the shape of Texas. True story btw, sorry Amber.

- Feeling like your being rejected if your friend can’t make it to hang out with you because of family reasons. RSD is a bitch. Like the tiniest thing can make you feel rejected. Ie, your mom telling you not to be so loud, someone asking why your sneezes are so loud, someone asking you to return their pen, etc.

- Having your medication ware off/forgetting to take it and being the most annoying bitch in the galaxy. I once went on a school trip and my meds wore off and I ended up spending the 2 hour bus ride back annoying the guy who was trying to sleep in front of me, again, I am so sorry Max.

- IDK if it’s just me but, chewing on literally everything. Bottle caps, paper, fabric, rubber (my favorite), and much more. I used to get punished all the time for chewing on things I wasn’t supposed to. Nail biting is also a big thing. And so is hair chewing.

- Being told “You’re too smart to have ADHD”. Well Susan, I have a neurological devolpmental disorder, I’m not retarded.

- Either giving too much information or not enough when in conversation, and also bringing up really irrelevant things in the conversation like, I know we’re talking about the Louisiana Perchance but can I tell you about this one time it rained and I saw a snail?

- Being botherd by loud and/or repetitive noises. Pen clicking and high pitched sirens make me want to scream. They suckkk harder then Travis wants to suck Sal’s dick. And the worse is when people think you’re weird or that you have a problem with them for asking. I understand you like to click your pen and I’m so sorry it’s just so loud...

- Being afraid of your friends rejecting you. Again, RSD is a bitch. Like you’re afraid that one day your bestie will get up and leave and never come back and it’s all your fault and you suck and ughhhhhh. You’re also afraid their s/o / parents hate you and one day they’ll convince them to just leave you.

- Medication is a godsend but it’s also problematic. The stuff that I take fucks up my sleep schedule, my appetite, and make me tired and nauseous. It also gives me headaches and belly aches :(

- Either being so hungry that you also eat everything in your fridge or being so not hungry that even the concept of food disgust you. And sometimes, you even throw up because food is so gross and you’re gross and all that gross is inside you and eww.

- Intense, powerful migraines. They get worse in the winter months. Last year I took almost a week off of school because my migraines got worse and worse and worse and I couldn’t do it.

- Having no measurement of personal space or how to physically interact with someone. I just said hi, do I hug you, do I high five you, idk? Like idk how many potential friendships I’ve fucked up because I was too handsey.

- Being really particular about the type of clothing I wear. I love LOVE long sleeve shirts/ sweatshirts/ sweaters/ hoodies and shorts. I also love to wear socks around the house. I hate HATE wearing socks with shoes though, it makes me anxious. I also hate wearing certain types of pants. I literally only have 2 - 3 pairs of pants I’ll wear because pants sometimes feel like a tent and I hate that.

- Not being able to loose weight. I’m not fat, or chubby, I mean I have abs for God’s sake! It’s just that I have thick ass thigh I h a t e and I wish I could just get rid of them but my medication prevents me from loosing all that weight. On the bright side, I can eat a lot and not gain weight either.

- Having certain little routines you can’t skip. For example, every morning I must shave my legs and brush my hair or the world will end. I also must have all the doors and windows closed or else I’m gonna scream.

- Also idk if this is a problem for anyone else but doors and windows being open. I can’t stand it, I mean please, I don’t care that you’re just coming up for 1 thing but p l e a s e for the love of g o d, close the door that leads to upstairs. Having it open just isn’t right.

- Hyperfixiating on something for soo long that you forget to do basic hygiene like shower, use the bathroom, brush your hair, brush your teeth. It can get you in really big trouble but at least the job is done.

- Having a comfort item. Like I have this stuffed lamb whose name is “Lambchop” but I call “Lambie” and I sleep with them each and every night and carry them around the house with me when I’m home and if I’m upset I NEED to cuddle them bacuse it’s the only thing that will make the world go away.

- Being insanely good at certain academics and shitty at others. For example, when I was in 5th grade I was reading at an undergrad level and had the ability to understand science concepts a senior would be learning but my math was at the level of a second graders.

- Idk how to describe it but like, doing movements half way and the forgetting about them. Like this one time I was at a piano recital and I went to reach for something and forgot what I was reaching for so I just kinda held my hand up in a grabbing motion for half a song and then forgot about it until my mom reminded me to put it down.

- Not being able to understand that people don’t want to hear about your hyperfixiation. I’ve had 2 cases of this in my life, my “ghosts are definitely really and now this is my only personality triat” and my “I’m not a weeb but Tokyo Ghoul is so good now let me tell you all about the plot.” (Tokyo Ghoul gang REPRESENT)

- Having 3 different moods, hyperactive, normal, and cold. Like you’re normal most of the time but sometimes you’re sooo hyper that your an entirely different person, or sometimes you’re sooo distant you’re a different person too.

- Not being able to identify your emotions very well. Like, this guy just told me that my dad and my bestie are asshole who deserve to die in a fire, what am I feeling? Am I sad? Angry? Scared? Do I think this is funny? Am I gonna laugh? Cry? Idk, throw hands? Or the dreaded crush. Do I have feelings for this person or do I just want to be really good friends? Do I hate them? Love them? Am I gonna cry the next time I see them? Last time we hung out was fun but idk???

- Also like I mentioned, romance/sexuality is hard. Last time I dated I dated this guy I really liked, or at least I thought I did. We dated for three months before I blew it off because he asked to put his arm around me and it was weird when I said yes. Also sexuality. Idk if this is a problem for anyone else or just my bisexual ass. Like it’s so hard and I really like guys but hey, girls are hot. And like I like guys more than girls?? Sometime it makes me feel really fake.

- Really enhanced weird hearing. I know at least 80% of my classes drama because I have superhearing and I’m a literal hearing god bow down, bitch. I can hear the smallest of sounds and such, but for some goddamn reason I can’t understand how loud I’m being.

- Extestensial nihilism and just being cool about it. Like, dude, idk if there’s a god out there? I’d like to think there’s some sort of Devine power and we have a purpose but idk, we probably don’t have a purpose. I mean, we’ll be forgotten after we die anyway unless we’re Tom Holland. And love probably doesn’t exist either and it’s only stigmatized by movies and books and media and we’re all gonna get married and be miserable for ever and such. But like does it really even matter? In the end we’re all alone so go off I guess.

- Being really sensitive to smell. Certain smells drive me through the roof. For example, I have an extreme fish allergy and even smelling the slightest hint a salmon can give me a migraine so intense I think I’m dying. Or essential oils. Ughh I hate those. They send me through the roof.

- Being able to remember something you heard in a YouTube video you watched back when you were nine but not being able to remember when you birthday is some days because it really be like that.

- Being really good with little kids. Idk if everyone is like this but I am very childish myself and little kids love me. I have at least 3 little boys in 1st - 3rd grade who think I’m their girlfriend and 8 little girls in kindergarten - 5th grade who think I’m their big sister, it’s really sweet.

- Always apologizing is a big thing for me. When I was a child I used to get in trouble for saying sorry when I did anything and that carried to teen hood. Last year at my dance class my teacher noticed this and tried to help me break my habit god bless you Christine.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk bois. ADHD sucks but I know you can do it👌🏻

#aaa i know this doesn’t fit this blog’s aesthetic #i just felt like making it #sorry guys #not a quote #adhd #add #adhd rsd #adhd inattentive #adhd awareness #tw mental health #mental health

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screensirenfic · 5 years

Text

Black Leather - Chapter 36

“Okay. So he should fit now.” Said Dustin as he chucked another shelfload of food onto the Byers kitchen floor.

Him and Steve had been trying to fit the dead Demodog into the refrigerator for the better part of half an hour, failing more miserably with each consecutive attempt.

The whole process was as you’d imagine, pretty disgusting, with the rapidly heating cold blooded creature smelling worse by the minute.

“Can you guys hurry up. You’re making the place stink.” I complained, covering my nose from the stench as I sat myself on the edge of the countertop.

“You know; this would go a lot faster if you actually helped.” Steve commented, struggling with holding onto the blanket wrapped corpse in his arms.

“Oh no! I wanted to bury it in the backyard; you two were the idiots who thought it would be nice to keep it as a souvenir.” I refused point blank, because I drew the line at acting as body disposal for the whims of thirteen year olds.

Steve wisely gave up on petitioning for my help, and instead focused his efforts on manhandling the thing into the icebox, Dustin offering minimal help with the ordeal.

“Is this really necessary?” Steve asked the kid; his nose wrinkling in disgust at the close quarters to the decomposing monster.

“This is a significant scientific discovery. You can’t just bury it like some common mammal.” The kid argued, attempting to wrestle one of the creature’s claws into the small space.

“Alright; well, you’re explaining this to Mrs Byers.” Steve conceded, finally managing to get the damn thing to fit.

He slammed the fridge door shut; him and Dustin working together to hold it closed in case it tried to burst open from the force.

Lucky for them, it didn’t.

With the dead Demodog bagged and tagged for later analysis, Steve and Dustin sank down against the icebox, resting their backs against it as they sighed in relief that they didn’t have to deal with that god awful smell anymore.

——————————————————

We’d only been waiting for about half an hour, but Jesus Christ; did it feel like longer. Time ticked by like a snail on molasses, and I found myself glancing at the clock only to be convinced it was broken.

I knew being left behind wasn’t gonna feel like no picnic, but I honestly didn’t expect to feel so bored!

“Mike; would you please just stop it already? You’re making it worse.” Complained Lucas to perhaps the only person who was even more tense than I was as he paced up and down the hall in a display that was so frenzied; I couldn’t help but imagine my dad.

“You weren’t in there; okay Lucas?! The lab was swarming with hundreds of those dogs—“ Berated Mike with all the consternation of a worked up parent.

“Demodogs!” Corrected Dustin from the kitchen, cueing a well timed eye roll from Lucas.

“The Chief will take care of her...” Stated Lucas; his faith in my father almost touching.

Of course; I knew better. But I wasn’t about to say that out loud.

“Like she needs protection!” Exclaimed Max; her apparent awe of my little sister still not wearing off.

“Dude- if the coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it—“ Steve agreed, sounding the most like a jock I think he ever had in his life.

“Okay, first of all; this isn’t a stupid sports game, and second, we’re not even in the game; we’re benched...” Mike argued; his rationale making far more sense to me than it probably should.

“I mean; Lola, aren’t you at least a little bit worried about your dad?” He asked; clearly sensing my sympathy to his cause and honing in on it.

“Well; yeah, but it isn’t like there’s anything I can do from here—“ I shrugged, my arms crossed across my chest, because as much as I hated to admit it; I was as useless as anyone else here at the moment.

“The point is...” Steve interrupted, only to lose track of what his fucking point is in the first place.

“The point is... right; we’re benched, yeah?” He finally found his train of thought, nodding at me as if I was somehow in support of his analogy.

“There’s nothing we can do.” He stated; clearly expecting that would be the final word on it.

“Well.... that’s not strictly true...” Corrected Dustin, forcing all eyes to fall upon him.

The boy had a plan. I could already see it on his smarmy face, and now we were gonna hear it.

“I mean; the demodogs have a hive mind. They ran from the bus because they were called away...” He explained; his rationally reminding me of his status as a child genius, rather than the annoying thirteen year old I’d had to put up with for the past five hours.

“So if we get their attention—“ Continued Lucas, already picking up on his train of thought.

“Maybe we can draw their attention away from the lab—“ Added Max; already proving how she earned her place amongst a gang of ultra intelligent preteen boys and a super powered girl.

“And clear a path to the Gate.” Finished Mike; the simplicity of the plan almost beautiful when said out loud.

“That’s— actually not a half bad plan.” I admitted, trying and failing to find a hole in their logic.

“Yeah — except you forgot the part where we all die!” Exclaimed Steve; clearly not on the same page as the rest of us at all.

“Well, that’s one point of view...” Shrugged Dustin, looking disturbingly casual about the conclusion.

“No; that’s not a point of view. That’s a fact.” Objected Steve; clearly having chosen his hill to stand on.

But the kids weren’t going to listen. They’d already begun putting their little heads together, hurrying over the primitive map drawn out across the Byers’ walls.

“This is where The Chief dug his hole. This is our way into the tunnels...” Stated Mike, already pointing at a large cross drawn onto the map.

“And look; right here...” He continued, dragging his finger along a tunnel to a large chamber of some sort.

“This is like... a hub. See how all the tunnels feed into it?” He asked, cueing a series of nods from all the kids.

“So maybe if we set this on fire—“

“Okay— yeah; that’s a NO!” Objected Steve, standing as a barricade at every step of the way.

“The Mind Flayer would call away his army...” Theorised Dustin; not put off by Steve in the slightest.

“They’d all come to stop us...” Continued Lucas, and already I could sense this plan coming together.

“And we’d circle back to the exit here.” Mike further explained; clearly having quite the head for battle strategy.

My dad would be proud. Angry, but proud.

“By the time they realised we were gone—“

“El and my dad would already be at The Gate.” I finished; seriously impressed with this kid’s planning.

“Guys!! HEY!! HEY!!” Yelled Steve; outraged and frustrated with the clear lack of concern we had for our own safety.

“This—“ Steve lectured, pointing at the map angrily.

“This is not happening.”

“And I can’t believe you’d even consider this!” Steve turned to me; a strange blend of accusation and disappointment in his voice that I wasn’t used to hearing.

“Come on, Steve—“ I whined, hoping I could win him over.

“No—“

“But—“

“No. No Buts!” He refused point blank; his adamant stance really surprising me.

“I promised to keep you shitheads safe and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He stated, turning his attention back to the kids just in case they decided to jump in on out little couple’s argument.

“And as for you...” He said; turning a sweeping finger back in my direction like a smoking gun.

“I told your dad I’d look after you, and I’m pretty sure if I don’t; he’ll wear my skin as a suit. So; just NO!”

“We’re sitting here, on the bench, and we’re waiting for the starting team to do their job.” Instructed Steve; returning to his coach persona with renewed dedication.

“Does everyone understand?”

“This isn’t a sports game—“ Muttered Mike under his breath; clearly not buying into the whole Coach Harrington thing.

“I said; does everyone understand?” He repeated himself; basically yelling now as if he could force his point across.

“Jesus; Steve—“ I sighed, rolling my eyes, because for a people person; Steve really needed to work on his inspirational speeches.

“I need a yes...” Steve demanded, but really; he had to stop with this.

“Steve; come on...” I said, walking up to him to take his arm and lead him away.

“No; I’m not done yet.” He argued, pulling back against me as he snatched his wrist from my grip.

“Come on; Steve. Let’s go talk.” I tried again, taking his arm, and this time he came without protest.

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hollandroos · 6 years

Text

Run To Me; Part Eighteen

Summary: Dad!Mob!Tom. Sequel to BAK but you don’t have to read that one first. If you wish too, the link is in my bio masterlist!! Where old feelings arise but other things get in the way. Whether it’s kids, fears or things from your past coming back to haunt you.

Run To Me: Series Masterlist!

Words: 3.2k

Warnings: Sexual content that doesn’t surpass R16

Notes: Hi! So you may have noticed that my chapters are getting shorter, and that is due to the notes dropping drastically on this fic. That doesn’t mean I’m going to just drop this fic because I do enjoy writing it and I can’t leave my babe's story incomplete!! But it means that the chapters are shortening in length and the storyline is coming to a close. Please remember to leave comments and send asks and lemme know if you’re enjoying it :)

One hand securely placed in yours, breathes– low pants against your neck and toffee coloured curls tickled the side of your face. It was definitely the same shampoo you used that one time you borrowed his bathroom and you welcomed the familiar, slightly musky scent. Everything was intimate. He was touching you still, heart beating profusely against your own chest and you weren’t afraid of the consequences of the situation. Those consequences included falling deeper into your own feelings and spiralling into a repeat of traumatic events.

There was a dull ache on your hips where he’d rested his hands at one point, one that you didn’t think twice about and there had previously been a trail of kisses, soft and loving between your thighs. The blanket, nothing more than a thin sheet now rested around your waist covering the small trail of bite marks along your hip bones.

“How was it?”

Tom's voice was husky but filled with a level of concern that could compete to his voice before you went through with your events. The way he’d asked you repeatedly if this was what you wanted, checking as he touched every part of you and slipped down your body, the way he took care of you with such ease. You had melted into him.

You try to suppress a laugh, swollen lips curling up anyway. “You said that as if I wasn’t just moaning your name two minutes ago.”

“I just want to make sure that I didn’t take it too far, sweet girl,” Tom tells you, floating on cloud nine himself as he continues to decorate the area scattered with colourful hickeys with gentle kisses. “Wanna make sure that you’re okay and not regretting anything.”

“It was perfect, you were perfect.” Your hands come up to brush up against his fluffy curls, brushing them away from his forehead with a gentle hum.

He sighs, forehead warm against yours and you feel the remains of a thin layer of sweat. Tom bites the inside of his lip. “You’re too good to me.”

“C’mere.” You practically complain, doing grabby hands and Tom pulls you closer, almost impossibly close. “If anything happens, I have the ring. I–I have it and I’ll be wearing it. Remember that”

He halts his movements, the gentle circles he’d previously been rubbing across your arm come to a sudden stop and out of pure shock, Tom tilts his head down so he can look at you, brows furrowed and eyes squinted in confusion.

“You kept the ring?” He asks gently.

You shrug your shoulders as best you can while laying on your side. “Of course I did.” Was your reply, sliding your bottom lip between your teeth.

“I thought you wanted to takes things slow?”

You suppress a laugh. “I threw that out the window the second I threw my shirt off.”

Memories of your activities flash through your brain, memories you hoped you would get to relive sometime soon. But life was unexpected, so, for now, you relied on memories. If you tried hard enough, you could still feel the mattress next to you caving slightly as he cupped the sheets with a deathly grip, hips thrusting into yours at a steady pace. There were probably dents in the wall from where the headboard had smacked against the plaster in a regular pattern.

You could still feel his wet kisses down your jaw, and reminisce while staring at the not deep– but jagged scratches down the skin of his back. Every single touch sent shivers down your spine, goosebumps to rise on your skin and dear god– Toms' arm had done a fine job at keeping your hips flush against the bedding.

“Knowing that you’re wearing that ring would really make things a lot easier.” He says, smirking gently against the pillow.

“You’re just saying that.” You say and yawn, closing your eyes briefly. You swore his bed was the equivalent to a cloud. Soft, plush, and always inviting. “I just want you to know that I’m as serious as you about this and that I’m not going to walk out this time. I’m here for the long run.”

“Hey, it does make me a little happier knowing it’ll be on your finger again. But I’m coming home, I’ll be okay.” A clock ticks away in the corner of the room, competing with Toms hushed words. You brushed a strand of hair away from his eyes.

“It’s just different that it’s your dad this time and not some drug lord or a stranger you’ve worked with once or twice.” You tell him, admitting the words that had been hard to admit to yourself. There was also the fact that Aiden was still alive and you feared his return, despite Toms reassurance that A. Aiden wouldn’t dare and B. He was already onto it.

“I know.” Tom states. “But I doubt my dad would try and seriously hurt me– I mean, he’s wicked but I’m his blood.” Tom stops, bringing your knuckles up to his lips and leaves scattered kisses. “Why are we talking about this now when there are other things we could do?” He smirks, beginning to slide down your body at snail's pace. It was teasing, tauntingly slow. “Let’s make the most of this.”

“C’mon,” You complain, staring down at the head of overgrown curls as they brush against your abdomen. Maybe you were a little needy, and maybe Tom was prepared to give you everything you needed.

“Mummy!”

He shoots up, getting tangled in the sheet and you try not to laugh, tugging it up to your chest with flushed cheeks and amused eyes. Tom wasn’t having it, breathing deeply thanks to the panic that had set in for those few seconds that he was trapped under the blankets while your daughter ran in on her toes, nightdress flowing freely as she ran in, a toy in hand.

“Fuck.” He mutters, cursing under his breath. Luckily Rosie– who now stood on the side of the bed hadn’t heard a thing. Neither of you heard her race down the hall and neither of you had heard the door open. “What’s up pumpkin?”

“Cuddles.” She cracks a cheesy, yet tired grin and puts her arms up, waiting for one of you to lift her.

Looks like your night just kept getting better.

The next morning, Tom struggled to get out of bed.

And it wasn’t because he was caught up in a web of sheets, head lodged between two pillows or because your arms were securely wrapped around his torso, Rosie's legs laying on top of him until he was trapped unless he wanted to wake you two up. No, it wasn’t really that, but the fact that he was swarmed with thoughts about not coming back, about not reliving last night and this morning because minutes after Rosie had come in and the two of you had a suitable amount of clothing on, she had lodged her way in between your bodies, more so on Toms chest and had drifted off into a deep sleep after half an hour of poking and prodding and toms cheeks and upper chest.

He struggled to get up because he wanted to take as long as he possibly could to savour every second he had left with the two of you because the outcome of today's events was unknown, and maybe he’d lied to you about his dad being the slightest bit sane to keep you calm, or maybe to keep himself calm. Tom knew one thing, and that was that he barely knew anything right now.

He’d hauled himself up ten minutes later then he should have, untucking the mess of sheets and retucking them around your body, pulling them up to Rosie's waist. He planted a kiss on her forehead before moving to you and she hadn’t stirred in the slightest but you… you pecked an eye open, blinking through the morning blurs and grabbed his hand right before he could disappear on you. Maybe it was because you were still in and out of sleep and it was making you more honest, maybe.

“Tom,” You had stirred, twisting around, swatting strands of hair away from your face. “We love you.”

You’d deal with any consequences later.

Tom didn’t know what to say so instead he strokes your cheek with one hand, leaning down kisses you softly. “I’ll see you later.”

“Right, so here’s the plan.” Tom sprawled the paper out on the table, a selection of dots and markers scattering the wood. Tom placed his pointer finger down harshly, assertively. “We wait for him, no one acts out of place, got it? He’s coming to us.”

Sam furrows his brows, glancing towards Jacob who stood near the back of the group of five. “How will we know when he gets there? I mean, he knows all of the secret entries and he may just rock up at the front doors.”

“I’ve spoken to Z and Jacob, they’ll be on the lookout but only them. Dom has eyes everywhere and they can’t see us acting suspiciously or they’ll pull the plug, Harry shouldn’t even be here, to begin with.” Tom snarled, he was still bitter.

Harry sent his brother a glance, knowing that the boy was still mad about him going behind his back even if in the end, it had a positive impact on the mob. Or at least they hoped that it would and god, for Harry's sake it better. Harry understood that if things were the other way around then he would’ve been mad too, but it didn’t help him feel any less bitter then what he currently felt. Emotions were running wild.

Z nods her head, hands on her hips as she listens more attentively then any of the boys in the room. “We can do this, It’s one of the easiest missions yet. You can trust Jacob and me, Tom.”

The female mobster wore her hair in a tight bun, loose strands falling around her face while the rest was gelled back. A skin-tight tee hugged her from the waist up and a pair of jeans accompanied her, rings and jewels worth thousands decorating her hands and neck. Zendaya– best known by the mob as Z was one of Toms go to people, but also one of the most secretive. She was his dirty little secret, but not in the way that you’re thinking.

Tom went to her when he needed the utmost secret business done, most undercover stuff that not even the brothers could find out about and she never peeped a word. She was sneaky and had a way of doing things that just worked. Something not even Tom understood, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to ask.

“I have no doubts when it comes to either of you.” Tom glanced between the two, speaking genuinely and they smirk in his direction. They were the only people besides Sam and you that he’d trust with his life– sometimes Harry– currently, Harry was on his shit list.

The twins rolled their eyes, one of them snorted and if Tom were looking then he would’ve known who. Then he hears Harry pipe up.

“What about us?”

The eldest brother squints his eyes, glaring at the two through a hooded gaze. “I have multiple doubts.”

“Hey–”

Rosie tapped you on the arm again, watching your stir. She waited until you peaked an eye open, struggling to look up at the four-year old through hooded lashes. She sat cross-legged, wild curls held back by a set of Minnie mouse ears and you smiled- though that wouldn’t last long. You looked at her and felt pride swell in your chest, smiling lightly at the girl that was beyond gorgeous– exceeded smart and radiated good– yet sarcastic energy.

Everything felt okay until you realised that the space beside you was empty and you vaguely remembered waking up to the rustling of sheets around half an hour ago. But that moment was hazy and you were too tired to remember what had happened. Toms' fingers had traced the line of your jaw, lips pressing a butterfly kiss to your forehead. His touch lingered.

“Morning.” You mutter, words muffled as the pillows cover your face. Rosie wasn’t happy with your words, throwing the blanket off of your body and you’re welcomed with a gust of cold air. How that girl sat up, nightgown barely covering her legs and arms, you didn’t know.

“I have my appointment today, it’s the fourteenth.” She tells you, picking with the plaster on her cast. The bruises and cuts that had littered her cheeks had forehead were fading, slowly becoming a less ugly shade of purple and blue. And the cuts were becoming scars– scars that you had to work very hard to make sure she didn’t pick.

“What– oh fuck.” You’re confused for a second before you realise what she means and sit up, blankets pooling on your lap.

“Yeah, fuck.” She replies smartly. Your features go from stressed too hard in less then a second, sending her a glare though you knew it was your fault for swearing in the first place, Rosie smiles innocently.

“Don’t repeat that.” You tell her.

Rosie nods though you knew it wouldn’t be the last of it. The small girl was too consumed with the thought of finally leaving the house for the first time since they’d arrived. She loved the house, there was always something to do but she was itching to get in the car and go for a drive, or go to the park or just get out anywhere where she wasn’t confined behind those large gates that surrounded the perimeter.

“What about my appointment?” She presses, swinging her arm up in the air. The word ‘Appointment’ was pronounced wrong, sounding more like ‘apparent’ then anything.

You groan, wrapping an arm around her waist and pull the little girl into your side. She lands with a gentle thud and turns to you. Rosie always radiated warmth, and right now was no different. “We need to reschedule. We can’t go out today, sweet, things are a little tough right now.”

“My arm hurts and we’re out of those things that go in my yoghurt.” She huffs, pouting only inches away from your face. She was talking about her painkillers and you had to ask why Tom– a man that was consistently injured didn’t own more.

“Roo-“

Somehow, she manages to stick her lip out even more and you knew then that you were screwed. “Mummy, hurts.”

You give in, slinging your arm off of her. “Okay, okay, we can go. But you need to get ready now, and grab your own breakfast.”

Rosie jumps up on two feet, jumping off of the bed with a grin. She was ecstatic, over the moon though you weren’t feeling the same. If anything you were riddled with nerves. “Coco Pops!”

The promise of a sugary breakfast nudged her from the bed. Something else was nudging at you, however, more so in the back of your mind, telling you that this was a bad idea and just this time you could have said no to her, to reschedule the appointment another day and go with Tom and not while he was getting ready for a dangerous mission.

An hour later and three unopened texts that sat on Tom's phone, his phone of which sat in his desk drawer, you found yourself walking through the doors of your old apartment that you hadn’t been in since he’d taken you back to his. Everything sat as you remembered from last time you’d been there, except the house was much colder. The curtains were still drawn closed, woollen blanket strewn across the couch, the same wrinkles remained and family photos were scattered across the table. The grossest part was most definitely the mouldy fruit that sat on the bench and you were nearly sure that the milk and cheese in the fridge looked the same– you were too fearful of the outcome to look.

A shiver ran down your spine, discomfort settling in the pit of your stomach and you dragged Rosie in with your hand in hers, keeping a rather tight grip, but not tight enough to hurt her. She recognised the scene straight away, eyes widening as they landed on the books that were left scattered across the coffee table and her still full cup of orange juice.

“Why are we here?” She asks, looking up at you. Though she wasn’t complaining, Rosie actually liked being home in the house she’d grown up in.

You dump your keys on the bench, clattering against the table. “We have to grab something, I left your doctors papers here and we need them for the appointment.

“Can I grab a few toys while I’m here?” She asks, trying to tug herself out of your grasp.

You let the girl's hand go and she looks towards her bedroom, of course, she still remembered where it was and everything. Straight down the hall, turn left at the second door. It was the one closest to the bathroom with stickers all over the front door that she’d put there herself.

You nod towards the hall, flicking through the numerous bills and such that were left in your box. “Go ahead, but we’ll only be a few minutes.”

Rosie was ecstatic to go back to her room, missing her bed with the colourful duvet and her array of toys and children's books. But if anything you were nervous about stepping back into yours and were going to do whatever you could to stay out. You knew that there’d be clothes scattered across the floor, pictures of your once family turned up and memories are hidden in the back of drawers and under the mattress.

The place was simply scary, the equivalent to a horror house but you couldn’t forget the good memories, like the couch where you’d fed Rosie time and time again or the hall where she’d learn to walk and the kitchen stool she deemed hers day after day. There was the wall that was covered in coloured pencil– despite you scolding her for doing it at least three times. It was all the little things that made it only bearable.

You sighed and placed the papers down again, but this time closer to your keys and wallet so you wouldn't forget them because the last thing you needed was forgotten and overdue bills to add to the stress. You didn’t even know how you’d pay them considering you didn’t have a job and savings were running low.

You were so overcome with fear as you stood there that you didn’t pick up the presence of another person until it was too late– until you’re gritting your teeth together as cool metal is pressed against the side of your head, planted with such force that you swore it’d bruise soon enough. It was shocking, enough for your heartbeat to accelerate in your chest and muscles to tense. Though whoever was behind you was trembling slightly, that much was obvious.

“Don’t scream, don’t reach for your phone and don’t try to fight back.”

Part 19!

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junionigiri · 6 years

Text

Peony Pink and Cherry Blossom Tea Ch 4: Even Though It Isn’t Real

Chapter Summary: The evening before and the morning after.

Relationship: Todoroki Shouto/Uraraka Ochako

Rating: T

Warnings/Notes: Also features Fukidashi and Todoroki Rei, aka Mommyroki~ I feel bad for Ochako in this one T_T

The car ride home is sullen and quiet. Kodai’s associate Fukidashi, a fellow with a speech balloon for a head, only speaks up briefly to ask them where they want to go.

As embarrassing is it to admit, Shouto has no idea where his secret fake girlfriend lives. He pauses for a full second to weigh his options.

He knows that to bring Ochako to his own home might be too forward. He really didn’t expect to have her spend the night at his place. Not that it’s… unwelcome. There’s more than enough room in his apartment, and he has medicines, water, a little bucket she can throw up in, anything else she might need to recover. There’s an extra futon in his room--Ochako can sleep in the nicer one, he decides--and if there’s any trouble, he can send an SOS to Yaoyorozu, who lives a couple of floors above.

Besides, to ask any of her friends where she lived at this point would be too suspicious. He isn’t prepared to answer any questions about what happened to the gala, either. In fact he quite dreads it.

In the end, he decides to give the address to his own apartment near the hospital.

“Okay,” Fukidashi says brightly, the ??? on his face turning into a (★´ω｀★)ゞ. Without further ado, the car starts moving forward. “It shouldn’t take us too long. Do you need to make any stops?”

Ochako is breathing quietly beside him. She’s stopped making gagging noises by this time, much to his relief. “No thank you. Just take us straight home.”

The kaomoji disappears, and is replaced by silent blinking ellipses that mind their own business.

The neon lights pass by the windows as they speed past progressively emptying streets. Within the quiet confines of the car, Shouto hears his phone vibrating incessantly from his jacket pocket. He knows that it’s probably Endeavor or his management lackeys. Just as likely that it could be Fuyumi or Natsu or even Iida, to whom he said nothing about his sudden departure.

No doubt a ruckus has happened at their table already. He hopes that Endeavor at least doesn’t literally burst into flame when he realizes that someone else has to give his stupid medal of honor to him.

He ignores the phone. It continues to vibrate, sending tremors to his side, making his jacket pocket visibly tremble.

It reminds him of something… someone potentially bothersome.

He feels his hand move slightly when Ochako stirs beside him and makes an odd sound. “... we home?” she slurs.

“Not yet,” he answers quietly. He touches her, strokes his left hand up to the part of her back exposed by the dress. She sighs in contentment.

There’s a moment of silence spent by her struggling to keep herself steady against the mild lurching of the car, and of Shouto watching her as if she’s a geyser about to explode.

“Shindo,” she slurs after an eerie silence, in a manner that’s neither a question nor a statement.

He stares at her. “Shindo,” he repeats just as vaguely.

She hums and keeps her eyes closed. She wouldn’t see the downright confused, practically interrogatory gaze in his eyes, and she wouldn’t know to answer the voiceless questions running through his mind, beginning with who is he and ending with why were you in his arms and why did he look at me like I stole you from him?

Still, he knows better than to be too invasive with his questioning while she’s unwell. (He can save that for later. If the morning isn’t too awkward. Maybe.) He isn’t ready to hear the answers at this point, either. So.

Carefully, he decides on a blank, “He isn’t here.” He moves his hand down her back again, with the slightest of struggles to keep the warmth underneath his palm from burning.

“Okay,” she sighs. She leans back, finally, regains some control on her labyrinths to turn her head and to look at him with dazed, half-lidded eyes. “It’s just Shouto… good.”

He nods, but… is it really good that it’s just Shouto, Ochako? The entire night, she’s been there for him, being a good and convincing companion, unquestioningly going where he goes. Facing Endeavor and the rest of his family, and the rest of Japan without so much as a complaint. Holding his hand when it threatens to freeze over, at least five times, when Endeavor’s flames got a little too much.

And for all his mental talk to watch out for her, to keep her from being hurt, he goes and does the opposite. He’s the one who placed the stupid patch and then promptly forgot about it. Ochako was right next to him when she drank all those wines, and he did nothing to stop it. And he wasn’t there when she almost dropped on the balcony--as much as he hates to admit it, things would have been worse if Shindo wasn’t there to catch her.

He doesn’t take his eyes off of her when her eyes flutter closed and her hand lazily seeks his. Four soft fingerpads land over the back of his hand and rest there.

“Thank you for saving me,” she mumbles quietly.

She’s facing him when she nods off. A halo made of disheveled chocolate-brown hair and the passage of blurry neon lights surrounds a round face, the pink circles on them finally glowing a calm and rosy light, different from the distressed pallour from before.

I’m sorry , he thinks in an odd despondence. You deserve someone better than me.

They reach the condominium in twenty minutes. Fukidashi helps Shouto lift Ochako out of the car, and once she’s in a safe princess carry in his arms, the doctor turns to the speech bubble and thanks him with a sincere nod of the head.

“It’s fine, Todoroki-kun,” Fukidashi says, his face going (*´∀`*). “Yui-chan doesn’t ask for favors unless it’s super important. Besides, I was a fan of yours when you were younger, ya know? Made me wish I tried out for UA Heroics too.”

Shouto nods quietly. He usually thinks that people declaring to be his fans during his short stint as a pro are all bullshit, but this guy seems to be sincere enough.

The speech bubble goes 【・_・?】. “Are you sure you don’t need help going upstairs?”

“I got her. We’re good,” Shouto insists. “Please give Kodai our regards, Fukidashi.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. Take care.” With a (〃⌒▽⌒〃)ゝ , he turns and drives off into the night.

Ochako isn’t too heavy, but she isn’t light, either. When Shouto carries her through the lobby and up to the elevator, he takes note of the bulk of muscle underneath the curves of her arms, her back, her thighs that strain under the shimmery material of her gown. He reckons that they’re the product of hard work in the gym, and based on the thickened skin of her knuckles, probably martial arts too.

He wonders how strong she is. Shouto doesn’t train as hard as he has before, but he does work out. If they were to spar in earnest, would she win? Would she be able to make him submit? Would she use those fists and arms and thighs to punch him, kick him, throw him on the ground? Would she pin him to the ground with a victorious little glow on her pink cheeks, murmur an I win, Shouto-kun~ into his ear, and--

He feels both cheeks flare. He keeps his left ear from bursting into flame on time, before he triggers any fire alarms.

This ride is taking forever, he decides. Ochako continues to sleep in his arms.

This elevator continues to crawl up at a snail’s pace.

Once it opens, Shouto rushes to his unit at the end of the hall. He struggles with keys and the doorknob, not sure to be thankful or worried that she isn’t stirring at all as he does so.

Finally inside, he kicks off his shoes and ambles into his sparsely-decorated unit. He carefully places her on the tatami, carefully taking off the ridiculously high and sparkly heels off her tiny feet, and places as much of her body that fits under his suit jacket.

She sighs and snuggles gratefully underneath, curling up into a ball like a cat.

A small smile forms on his lips upon the sight.

Next, he busies himself in his bedroom--takes out both futons, rolls them out. First, side-by-side... but that might be too close, they aren’t newlyweds. He increases the distance between them, so they’re at opposing ends of his room. But that’s too far if Ochako ends up in a situation where he needs his help, so he puts them a little closer. And closer again, because it looks awkward and uneven.

Hm. This isn’t really working.

He decides to stop thinking too hard about it and continues to gather other things: a basin for throwing up, drinking water, an electrolyte drink, antiemetics and something for headaches if she needs it.

When he’s finally ready, he fluffs the pillows one last time before he heads out to gather Ochako.

She’s still mostly under his jacket, but her legs are messily sprawled underneath her. Her knees are bent so that her dress is bunched to the side. Both legs escape from the tense juncture of the thigh-high slit from one side.

He gets another peek of the astronaut decorating her thigh, and it stares back at him as if to say, hey, it’s been a while, Shouto-kun. ;)

His breath is thick when it escapes from his mouth. Get a hold of yourself, Shouto.

So he does, and bends over to carry the pink heap. He hears a worrisome tearing noise when he tries to move her. When he looks down, the cloth around her hips is noticeably less tense and more exposed. He wonders then if this is what one expects of a JPY 150,000 dress, or if Utsushimi has just been ripped off.

Well… should the need arises again, he supposes he can buy Ochako another dress. A better one.

Still, the dress is tight around her abdomen, and it can’t be comfortable breathing in it for too long. Plus she’s a little too exposed like this. And she seems to be shy when it comes to her body, at least around Shouto. Their memorable accidental meeting at Illusion Inks that one time proved that.

When he successfully lets her down on his futon, he supposes it’s prudent to try to wake her, even for a little bit, for this clothing issue. “Ochako,” he attempts gently, one cold hand against her impossibly soft cheek.

She mumbles something under her breath. Her eyes open to look up at him sleepily. “Hey.”

“I think we need to get you out of that dress,” he murmurs softly. “I’ll let you borrow my clothes. Can you stand?”

She sniffles. “No I can’t,” she whines pleadingly.

He blinks. Maybe… covering her exposed areas under a blanket will do for now. If she wakes up later, feeling a little better, then he can offer the change of clothes. He readies himself to stand, but Ochako starts mumbling again.

“Ya gotta help me outta my corset.” The Kansai accent she usually keeps under control slips. “‘S really tight, I ain’t breathin’ proper…”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. But he has a solution: Yaoyorozu. Now seems to be a good a time as any to phone his most trustworthy female friend for help. With any luck, she’s still awake and working on her reports. But when he reaches out to grab his phone, her hand reaches out hang on to his shirt.

“Now please… ain’t… breathe…”

He asks gently, “Can you wait a little bit? I can get Yaoyorozu to help you.”

She puffs her cheeks and shakes her head. Ochako’s half lidded stare begs.

Hm. Seems that I have to do this. Huh. Shouto pauses, and inhales as quietly as he can.

The best approach would be to use his ‘clinical eye.’ Exposed bodies mean nothing to Shouto. It’s practically an everyday occurrence. Just imagine that this is an emergency situation, and you need to undress a patient to treat her properly. No malice involved.

“... Okay.”

He carefully pulls her hand off him. A little complaining sound escapes from her when he turns to grab a shirt and a pair of shorts from his drawers. When he sits next to her again, she clings to him for support until she’s half-sitting, half-lying, fully-draped over his lap.

This will be difficult.

“S’ry Shouto,” she slurs. She really is trying her best, he guesses from the way her face is scrunched up with each movement. “Z… zipper… back...”

Shouto makes a sound of affirmation and finds the zipper. With her lying over his lap, he pulls it down, exposing smooth, suntanned skin, sprinkled with discrete freckles. There’s a single mole right at the center of the spine, right before the rest of her skin is hidden under the corset. Finding it feels like looking at a secret.

(He files its precise location away, for whatever future purpose it may serve.)

The dress is tighter than it seems, and when he pulls it downward so that she’s only in her undergarments, she exhales in relief. She mumbles corset next, and methodically he unhooks the stiff, bony garment, watching her flesh give with each merciful release.

“... hurry up n’ take it off…”

He might have taken a little longer to control the temperatures of his hands.

“Mhm, Shouto,” moans Ochako, as each hook steadily comes undone. “That’s good… feels better…”

Not just his hands at this point. The ‘clinical eye’ is failing spectacularly.

“ Urp, ” she says, one hand covering her mouth. “Almost threw up there…”

That helps, Ochako. Thanks. Shouto regains some level-headedness and continues his task. There must be like a hundred hooks on this thing…

When he’s finally done, he pulls the troublesome garment from under her and throws it wherever.

The true shape of her curves are now fully exposed to him. She’s mostly soft and round everywhere--enticing slopes, mounds of flesh where they ought to be. Shouto thinks that her body is objectively attractive in all ways, except perhaps for the stripe of pressure the corset made on the skin of her abdomen.

“That’s a lot better,” she sighs, rolling over from his lap to the futon. “Mochi futon~ goodnight~”

He chuckles when she burrows under the thick comforters like a mole. “You aren’t dressed yet.”

“‘S fine… naked sleeping is okay,” she says in a delirious haze.

It isn’t okay though, not with how chilly the nights are lately. Shouto pulls her off, ignoring her whines of protest. He doesn’t know how he manages it, but he eventually assists her into his old UA shirt and running shorts. The clothes fit ridiculously on her--one side of the shirt slips over her shoulder and the entire thing ends in the middle of her thighs, while his shorts look oddly both loose and tight over her curves.

Well, at least she’s fully clothed now. He lets her settle down while he works on pulling out all the pins from the elaborately disheveled bun at the back of her head. There must be half a hundred hidden in it--Utsushimi’s giving him a hard time again, he thinks in annoyance--hiding in hairspray-stiffened strands, prodding her scalp.

When he’s finally done, he takes a second to admire his handiwork. She’s snoring by this time, sighing gratefully when he runs his hand through her strands, rearranges them to a less tangled mess over his pillows. Her makeup stains the white pillowcase with lines of pink lipstick and dark mascara and glitter.

The moon glows from the window. Underneath its light, pink cheeks glow serenely.

She’s… really beautiful , Shouto concludes quite honestly to himself with another smile. He seems to be doing that a lot these days.

When he’s sure that her sleep is peaceful, he leaves to change and wash up. The sounds of his footfalls, the splash of water, the movement of fabric against him that echoes throughout his wide, normally empty home is surreal, when he comes back to see that someone else is here, warm and breathing and safe in his space. Who knew that that is a possibility in this world?

He isn’t able to sleep as quickly as she does. Not that nights are always easy for Shouto, but still. His chest feels too weird, too full. His mind runs with thoughts that are too brief and quick for him to process. He’s excited. Worried. Scared. Warm and cold.

When he’s finally able to, it’s when he turns in his futon to face her in his sleep.

Ochako doesn’t remember seeing things in her dream very much, but she’s walking in the dark. She isn’t sure if she’s floating in zero gravity, or if she’s moving in the gelatinous air of the dream world, but she moves slowly, grasping walls. The ground, if it’s there at all, feels like mochi. It’s very cold, and she’s looking for warmth.

At the end of it, she finds it. She doesn’t know what it is, but it’s so warm, and her heart feels peaceful next to it. So she clings onto it, like a lifeline. The ground beneath her is soft, then transforms into water, then air.

She sleeps peacefully.

--flashback, warm nights, almost left behind--

Soft and hazy, from a million miles away, a voice hums in her ear like the wings of a fly. She ignores it. The words drift in and out of consciousness, dragging her with her to a blinding light.

--lost you can look and you will find me--

They’re becoming bothersome at this point. She groans, mouth opening in complaint, eyes squinting from the blinding sunlight, hand crumpling warm fabric, cheeks pressing against a sturdy warm chest, quietly rising and falling--

Wait.

She wills her ears to work. There’s birds chirping outside. Single cars passing through the streets, but they’re distant, as if they’re way, way above them. The song is still playing nearby, but more importantly, there’s someone breathing quietly near her…

Beside her.

Under her hand.

What the f--

Her eyes flutter open in horror and plain confusion. It takes her a solid minute to make sure she isn’t asleep. And then another to figure what, exactly, is going on in this world. She probably needs another minute to piece the scenario together into a cohesive, sensible situation, but for now, her sleep-addled brain is able to process that:

She’s in a room that she hasn’t been in before.

She’s floating up the ceiling of the said room.

Todoroki Shouto is fast asleep next to her.

She’s… cuddling Todoroki Shouto in a strange room for one reason or another and she successfully floated them up the ceiling in her sleep.

And Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time is playing in the background.

Forget a minute. She needs a good hour to figure out what’s going on. A weird noise escapes from her throat, causing Shouto to stir.

It doesn’t take long before his eyes are completely open. Ochako freezes when his slightly hazy heterochromatic eyes fall on her, trapping her in place.

“Hey,” he murmurs, voice (dangerously) husky with sleep.

“Hey,” she weakly offers back. Because it’s early and weird and she doesn’t have a good working vocabulary yet.

Shouto looks down on the floor and quietly points out, “We’re… floating.”

“Yup,” she agrees in embarrassment.

He hums in mild interest.

“This… happens sometimes, when I fall asleep without my gloves on,” she tells him weakly. She supposes that it’s a good thing the windows are closed when they slept. Still, she feels her cheeks sting with embarrassed heat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her. His voice isn’t coming back from this really sexy early morning lowtone yet, and it isn’t helping Ochako’s mind reorganize. “Can you get us down?”

Oh. Right. “Um… The landing might be rough. We have to be careful--”

“Okay,” he says. He moves close to her and without warning, holds her in his arms and flips them so that he’s below her, and she’s pressed to the ceiling, just ready to die. “Go.”

She nods and shuts her eyes, pressing all ten fingertips together. Well, if this were a dream, the impact would wake her up, at least. “Release!”

Without further ado, they drop. Shouto lands with his back on a futon, and Ochako lands with him underneath her.

She hears the wind knocked out of their lungs in unison. They take a minute to regain their bearings. She feels the air from his mouth tickle the skin of her when he takes a deep breath.

“... that’s an interesting way to wake up,” he tells her, voice strangely amused.

She squeaks. Another second, and she realizes that she’s still cuddling him, and she scrambles to sit up with more weird non-word noises escaping her mouth.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answers her baby-like babbling. “I should have thought of that when I put you to bed last night. I’m sorry.”

“P-put me t-to--” she stammers, face getting hotter by the second.

He nods. “I have a lot of other things to apologize to you for,” he tells her quietly as he reaches for his phone. Ochako realizes that this is where the music is coming from when it stops with the press of a button. Shouto looks thoughtfully at the screen before continuing, “... but now, there’s a video call that I have to take.”

“Oh.”

He gives her a serious, apologetic look. “I’ll move to the living room to take this. Can you wait here? Promise, we’ll talk after.”

She gives a weak okay as he takes his phone and the Macbook from his desk, and moves to the living room. In the stunned quiet that he leaves her, she hears the sounds of a mouse clicking, a muted ringing noise, and then a voice through speakers: “Shouto! Good morning!”

“Hey, Mom,” comes Shouto’s quiet reply.

Ochako decides to cut off her eavesdropping there, and to instead busy herself with figuring out what the heck is going on here.

About last night: she sort of remembers drinking a lot and feeling sick afterward. She was with Shindo at one point, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what they talked about. Shouto was supposed to go up on stage, but she doesn’t remember watching him do it, like she promised. She remembers a balcony, the tiled floors, and being carried through hallways.

Was she really that drunk? She dreads to look at her phone then--who knows who recorded what, who knows who she might have called or texted or whatever, and how many people might be asking her questions that she isn’t prepared to answer.

She looks at herself in the mirror of Shouto’s closet. She blushes furiously when she realizes that she’s out of the tight clothing of last night, her clothes aren’t her clothes and her hair and face looks like she flew through a wind tunnel. Her face practically catches on fire when she realizes once second later that Shouto must have helped her out of those clothes and into these, and that these are his clothes and she’s surrounded in his essence and wow his shoulders are much broader than hers, she’s practically swimming in his shirt and it looks so nice--

She shakes her head. Now’s not the time for daydreamin’. Now is the time to straighten your head.

The Gala is over, after all. Shouto might not need a reason to keep you around anymore. Realistically, after this phone call, he’s going to say sorry for all the trouble he thinks he caused, and he’s going to talk with you about breaking up.

Which is good and strategic and sensible--last night proves that she isn’t a good girlfriend. Not even a good fake one. She can’t trouble Shouto or the other Todorokis like that again.

Man. It feels like a sucker punch to the gut though. She’s really good at making her insides feel like shit.

Hm. Still, there’s a real pressure building up in her insides. She clutches her lower abdomen and realizes that all the liquids she ingested last night are still there, and she needs to use the restroom really soon.

Ear through the doorway, she peeks at Shouto, speaking quietly to a beautiful white-haired woman who looks very much like Fuyumi through the computer screen. The conversation doesn’t look like it’ll be over soon, much to her bladder’s chagrin. She bites her lip and strategizes.

A door that looks like it could be the restroom is at the other end of the unit. She’d have to go behind Shouto, but if she does, his mom is definitely going to see her creeping behind like… like a creep.

She can do it though if she goes around Shouto. So ignoring her complaining bladder as quietly as she can, she tiptoes behind, and around, and--

“... you don’t know how proud I am of you, Shou-chan. Seeing you like this--hm?”

Shouto briefly looks at Ochako in surprise, before looking back to the screen. “Ah,” he says.

Ochako freezes in place when she hears an excited, “Shou-chan, you didn’t tell me--!!”

And it’s then that she notices the fuckin’ mirror behind Shouto’s head… reflecting her in all her disheveled, loosely-clothed glory.

Why Doctorokiiiii how many fuckin’ mirrors do you neeeeeed, she thinks in disdain.

“Yes,” Shouto says, not missing a beat. “Sorry I didn’t tell you, mom. She slept over last night. It was pretty late.”

She can’t see Mrs. Todoroki’s face, but she practically hears the beam on her face when she speaks again. “Oh, that’s fine, that’s fine, of course you need to take care of her--and you two are adults, so I certainly can’t stop you from sleepovers and those things--”

Oh god Mommyroki please stop, you’re the last person who should think of adult sleepovers--

“--oh, silly me. Shouto, don’t be rude, introduce us! I’ve been looking forward to this, Fuyumi’s been raving about her since last night!”

Ochako’s bladder is completely numb and frozen when she goes and crouches next to Shouto, with the best smile she can manage.

Mrs. Todoroki is so pretty. Ochako feels like looking at the embodiment of freshly fallen snow in an idyllic forest on a quiet winter morning. Her snow-white hair falls over her shoulders, and her onyx black eyes glint with warmth in time with the huge smile she gives her. “Good morning, Ochako-chan! It’s so good to finally meet you!”

Ochako feels like a scullery maid having a private audience with the Queen. “Good morning, Mrs. Todoroki. It’s good to meet you too!”

“Please, call me Rei,” she says quite giddily. “Oh, look at you two, you look so adorable together!”

“Thanks,” Shouto says. Ochako could have sworn that she sees him smile in the little outgoing image on the screen.

“So, Ochako, are you feeling any better now?” Rei asks, voice as warm as a fireplace. “Fuyumi and Natsu told me that you were feeling unwell last night. We were all worried about you.”

“Oh, I’m feeling a lot better now! Shouto… kun really helped me out last night, so… please, don’t worry about me!”

“That’s a relief! I’m sure that Shou-chan did his best for you. Still, you have to take care of yourself, dear. Promise me that. Okay?”

She nods and blushes a deep crimson at dear. Except for Endeavor, it seems like the Todorokis are surprisingly quick to adopt her into the family. Whether it’s because of her (fake) relation with Shouto, or whether it’s from the so-called roundface effect that the Kirishimas insist makes anyone want to adopt her as their personal round baby.

“Good,” Rei says, giving her another warm, unassuming smile. “So Ochako dear, I hope to see you this weekend in our estate--”

Wait, what?

Shouto clears his throat and tells her, “I haven’t talked to her about it, Mom.”

“Oh? Well now’s the time to talk about it, isn’t it?”

Ochako’s smile freezes as she turns to Shouto with a questioning tilt of the head.

He looks at her carefully. “... it’s just a small family gathering,” he tells Ochako quietly. “Sunday morning. Our house outside the city. If you have other plans...”

Another party? With all the Todorokis? Is it just the nice Todorokis, or…

“Enji… told me that he’s going to make it too,” Rei adds quietly.

Well… fuck that then. Ochako tries not to make a face.

“Are you going to be okay with that?” asks Shouto, with a worried crease on his forehead. “You’ve been doing so well, Mom…”

Well, even if it were just the nice Todorokis, she really couldn’t make it. It’s a Sunday off, one of the rare ones, and she promised Ma and Pa that she’s going to Mie-ken for a long overdue visit. She’d just have to politely tell them that she already has plans with her own family, and--

Rei nods. “My doctor thinks that it should be okay, as long as the rest of the family is there. Besides, it’s about time we indulged Fuyumi, don’t you think? To have the family together, with everyone important to us close by. She’s been wishing for this for a long time now…”

The woman tries to cough subtly, but it racks her entire body. Shouto leans forward, obviously worried. “Mom, you okay?”

“Y… yes,” she says, her voice breaking. “It’s just the weather, Shouto. You know how weak my constitution is. I’m surprised I haven’t keeled over and died yet,” she adds with a laugh.

“Mom… that’s not a good joke.”

She laughs again. “I’m sorry. It’s done in poor taste.” She turns to Ochako again, with a kind smile. “Never mind all that, Ochako dear. I really hope you’ll make it. We don’t have this gatherings too often, and I’d like to see you before they bring me back to the hospice for the rest of the year.”

… darrrnnn it Mommyroki, you’re making it impossible to say nooooo!!!!

She gives herself a swift uppercut to the face mentally as she replies, with a smile, “Oh, I’ll be there, Rei-san! I look forward to seeing you soon!”

Shouto’s head snaps to look at her, a careful and shocked look in his eyes. She looks up at him, probably with the same careful and shocked expression he has.

Rei cries out in glee. “That’s wonderful!!! I look forward to seeing you soon, too! Oh Shouto, this is wonderful~”

In an instant, the curious look is gone, and Shouto responds, “Yeah, it is Mom. We’ll see you soon.”

They exchange their goodbyes after, with Ochako bowing her head so much that she gets dizzy, and ends the call. Shouto pushes the laptop screen closed and again, looks at Ochako carefully.

“You… said yes,” he says quietly.

She nods.

“... you didn’t have to,�� he tells her, after another careful silence. “I wanted to talk to you about it properly after the phone call. You might have other things you need to do.”

“It’s fine, Shouto…” she says meekly. “I… didn’t want your mom to feel bad. I mean…” even though it isn’t real, “she looked really excited to see you with… someone.”

Shouto’s gaze doesn’t leave her. “Well, if you’re sure. But if you just feel pressured to do this…”

Well she is. But she isn’t going to let it show. Because it’s going to be hard for Shouto too. And she really doesn’t want him to face that alone. Who knows what’ll happen if he’s left to face that awful man alone again?

“We’ll be okay, Shouto.” She gives his hand a reassuring squeeze and gives him the best smile she can muster. “We’ll do better. No more weird patches or wines this time, though!”

He hesitates, but gives her a nice, warm, grateful smile. “Definitely. Thanks, Ochako.”

In the next moment, she remembers her straining bladder, and without another word runs into the toilet.

She’s just going to have to videocall her Pa later.

They leave the condominium. Shouto drives her to where she lives, which is a tiny apartment block two stations away from the hospital area. He drops her off there, with her still wearing his clothes, and offers to wait for her as she dresses up for work.

“You don’t have to,” she stammers. “We’re already late as it is--”

He shrugs. “Exactly.” When she complains again, he adds, “This feels like something I should do as a boyfriend. It’s okay.”

He says it so nonchalantly that it’s annoying. The pink-faced Ochako decides then that the best thing to do is to shower, brush her teeth and dress up in the speed of light to not keep him waiting any longer. Besides, his Camry’s already looking too odd in this part of the neighborhood.

When she’s done, they speed off and make it to Hosu Gen. She feels people stare at them as they alight the car and walk together to the employees entrance. Some of them whisper and look at them like they’re a scandal, not even bothering to hide their judgmental stares. Shouto doesn’t look bothered at all, but maybe he hasn’t noticed anything.

It annoys Ochako very much though. They’re both dressed appropriately, but why does it feel like a walk of shame?

They sign in, one after the other as per usual, simultaneously and instantaneously shifting from whatever-they-were-pretending-to-be, to what-they-really-are, which is a doctor and a nurse.

“Ochako.”

She snaps out out of a cloud of annoyance she doesn’t realize she’s slipped in. “Doc?”

He stares at her oddly. Maybe he noticed the sudden irritability in her aura. Or maybe he isn’t used to her using ‘Doc’ again. Still, they have to be professional. “Maybe we can eat together for lunch if we’re both free.”

She nods curtly. “Let’s see if we have time later, doc.”

More whispers buzz in her ears like flies around the corpse. At this point she’s sure that Shouto’s just expertly ignoring them. Must be nice to be so stoic. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

They go their separate ways, him to the residents’ call room, and her to the OR. Senseless words around her-- wow look at her, she’s so plain--what did she do to trick Doctoroki--I knew it was just photoshop from yesterday-- all of which go in one ear and out another. She dresses in her scrubs, places her hair in a cap and wears a mask. Her motions practiced and natural. Her hands neither too hot nor too cold, like they always are.

Yeah… she can do this. Despite the bothersome gossip growing behind them, she can remain professional. She can work like nothing happened.

Still, the bliss of ‘nothing happening’ doesn’t last very long. She has just assisted Drs. Shishida and Asui of General Surgery in doing a really extensive abdominal surgery and is in the process of carrying out all the orders with Mina when, predictably, the silence becomes too much to bear for the pinkette.

“Baby girl,” she calls out, looking up from her monitoring sheet, “you’ve been awfully quiet there.”

Ochako shakes her head and keeps her eyes on the chart. “No. Just hard to read Dr. Shishida’s handwriting. I think I need to clarify some of these with him.”

“Hmm, I get ya. He writes like a bear with a 500,000 yen fountain pen strapped to its paw.” Still, she feels Mina’s dark eyes on her, and she can feel the little pout she makes when she’s ignored, even if she isn’t looking. “That ain’t it though, babe. Come on, is there something wrong?”

Again, the brunette shakes her head and keeps her eyes down. She can feel it in her bones that Mina’s going to talk about the stuff that happened last night with Shouto--no, Doctoroki, while they’re at work, come on--some mean gossip she heard on the way to work, or something someone said on the Internet while everyone is livetweeting the gala. Ochako hasn’t opened any of her social media apps since last night, and she really isn’t ready to, and Mina better not force her into anything so help her--

“Ochako,” Mina repeats.

When Ochako looks up, the other nurse is staring right into her, stern and protective and present. The brunette startles at the sudden proximity, and when she moves to step back, Mina holds her, the acid underneath slightly stinging the skin of her arms.

“Has anyone been mean to you?”

Ochako, wide-eyed, shakes her head once more.

“You aren’t bullshitting me?” she repeats. “Because no matter what you say, if anyone talks shit about you, you know I’m kicking their basic bitch asses, right babe?”

“M-mina-chan! Calm down!”

“I’m just saying, okay? I got your back. And not just me. Kiri, Sero, and Ao-chan are here for you too.” The pink woman makes a short sound of frustration and flexes her arm. “God, some people here can be so fucking petty. The same people who gave me and Kiri shit ages ago are having a field day… if he didn’t hold me back this morning, I would have melted their asses off in the locker room--”

So she didn’t imagine all the judgmental stares and buzzing noises around her this morning. Damn. The beginnings of a stress headache starts tingling in her forehead as Mina continues her impassioned rant.

“And that stupid nursing supervisor--who does he think he is, huh? Hun, let me know if he gives you a hard time, okay? I’ll make sure he knows exactly how many rules you aren’t breaking.”

“The… nursing supervisor?” Ochako asks weakly. “He… hasn’t hinted at anything when I passed him by this morning…”

Mina huffs. “Well. Figures that shithead can’t say anything to your lil round face.”

“... yeah, I guess he wouldn’t.” Maybe he did say something behind her back. There were a lot of voices this morning, after all.

The pink woman sighs. Two pink hands reach over to hold round, pink cheeks, gives them a little squeeze. “Other than that, babe… don’t listen to them. You are my very cute, very lovely, very smart round baby… and I’m proud of you.”

Her hands are still stingy, but they’re really warm and smells like lemons. Some weight from Ochako’s heart lifts as she gives her friend a little smile. “Thanks, Mommy. I love you.

“Love ya too,” Mina says with a wink, and then chortling when she sees the chart. “Whoa, what the fuck, Dr. Shishida? Beastly handwriting, that.”

Ochako laughs, and gets back to deciphering the code.

The day ends up being very long, and very tiring. After the abdominal surgery, Tsuyu-chan comes back with an emergency appendectomy. Soon after, Honenuki and Dr. Deku of pediatric surgery come in with a child who needs emergency brain and abdomen surgery after getting in a quirk-related accident. The case was difficult, and they had to perform a code at one point. The child survived, but ends up being wheeled out to critical care, still on the brink of death.

After the procedures, Honenuki is sullen, and Deku is in tears. “W… we did all we could, didn’t we, Honenuki-kun? Uraraka-san?”

“Yeah,” the white-haired neurosurgeon offers, patting him on the back. “You did your best, Deku-kun.”

“That’s right. Everyone did,” Ochako says, but not as kindly or strongly as Honenuki has. Sensing the misery in her tone, Honenuki also starts patting her on the back. Deku tries his best, but the tears won’t stop falling.

Days in the hospital are rarely easy.

It’s so that she leaves the OR way past her shift is over, making it to the cafeteria, half-filled with staff who turn to her, turn away conspiratorially, and start buzzing again. She wanted to pretend that they are talking about other things like the weather or maybe the rise in vigilante activity, or maybe eating shit--anything else, really, but it’s hard when she hears snippets of their inane conversation:

I can’t believe it--look at her, she’s a mortal like the rest of us, who does she think she is? Todoroki and her? I’d rather he starts dating Yui, I’d feel better about myself if--

Her heart is so, so tired, still wrenched from the inside out from the case she’s just gone through, and here the cruel words come, just sniping her, testing her…

Wait. Oh, Doctoroki--

They were supposed to have lunch together, right? She fishes out her phone, ignores all the social media notifications and focuses on opening her LINE app.

Todoroki Shouto (1405H): Conducting a patient to Musutafu Children’s Hospital. Won’t make it to lunch. Todoroki Shouto (1406H): I’m on duty tonight so I can’t take you home. Still, send me a message once you’re on your way. Todoroki Shouto (1406H): Don’t skip meals. Take care.

He’s… surprisingly good at this boyfriend thing, Ochako thinks.

Me (1759H): Sry! just got out of the OR. We had a really tough case with Honenuki and Deku-kun. Me (1759H): gonna eat sth b4 goin home. Ill text u.

Todoroki Shouto (1800H): Okay. Eat well.

She covers her mouth when she feels her teeth start to show.

In the next moment though, perfectly timed to throw her off apparently, her phone buzzes again. It isn’t a new text from Shouto--the notification comes from an unknown number, and staring at the jumble of numbers somehow gives her an overwhelming feeling of apprehension.

She stares at it for a couple of seconds. She doesn’t know why she inhales deeply before she reads it, but when she does, her guts threaten to come out of her ass.

[Unknown Number] (1801H): Hey, Chako-chan ;) This is Shindo Yo. [Unknown Number] (1801H): U free rn?

#cafe/hospital AU #peony pink and cherry blossom tea #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #shouchako #todochako #todoroki shouto x uraraka ochako #manga fukidashi #todoroki rei #hospital life is hard y'all

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radioactivepeasant · 7 years

Text

Fic Prompts: Folklore Friday

Long ago there lived a humble woodcutter at the edge of a forest. "Humble" in this context merely meaning that his life goals were primarily to have a steady job, a house of his own, and access to a village doctor who didn't charge exorbitant fees. The local noblemen tended to misinterpret that as a lack of ambition, considering such things were already readily available to them. (Those same noblemen would later wonder why so many of the peasants simply upped stakes and moved into the lands controlled by the neighboring Farmer King, which had a considerably more stable economy courtesy of the exasperated Grand Vizier, but this story is not about those noblemen, or the Farmer King, or poor old Vizier Eggwich, and we are getting off-topic.)

One day, the woodcutter had gone into the heart of the forest -- which was really shaped more like a spleen, to be honest -- to cut down some old, dead trees that were liable to fall at any moment. He had been at it for a few hours already, and his hands were getting very sweaty. And, as happens when one's hands turn into a slippery mess of blisters and calluses, his grip on the axe handle weakened. He was pretty lucky not to have injured himself, really, but he would almost have preferred that to the axe flying head over haft into the deep creek a few feet away.

The woodcutter was a decent swimmer, but you don't go cannonballing into strange bodies of water in a forest without making sure they aren't inhabited first. That's just common courtesy. And the last thing you'd want to do in a situation like that is crash feet-first onto some irritable kelpie's head or something. So the woodcutter stared at the place where his primary means of supporting himself had vanished, and sighed.

"Well," he said, "That's unfortunate."

"Say there," said a gurgly, froggy sort of a voice, "Why so glum, chum?"

I expect you already know this, but strangers calling you "chum" or "old sport" in the spleen heart of the forest are as likely to be Good Neighbors as anything else. The nymphs and dryads and the like tend to be a bit behind the times with their slang, but don't tell them that.

Sure enough, a very green and dripping wet person was now sitting on the bank, trying very hard to look innocent and endearing. And if you find a spindly figure with the complexion of a frog and a mouth full of very sharp teeth to be endearing, then she was doing a splendid job. She tossed her weedy hair over one shoulder, dislodging several very alarmed tadpoles, and blinked at the woodcutter.

“Well?” she asked, “What’s the sockdollager? You look like you’ve lost a game of cards with a snail. And he didn’t even have to cheat, which is just sad.”

“I’m...not really sure I understood that simile,” said the woodcutter, “But as it happens, I did just lose an axe. I would ask if it was alright for me to swim down and look for it, but frankly, seeing you, now I’m more worried that I might have clobbered someone with it.”

The water nymph shrugged and said that was just a hazard of living near populated areas. Someone regularly got stepped on by a deer or had goblins chucking rocks at their heads. You learned to live with it, or so she said.

“Yeah that’s fair, might not want to venture down just now, old sport,” she said easily, “But I’ll tell you what: how abouts I go look for it, and if I find it you can have it back without me telling anyone it might have clobbered. Just as long as you tell me the right one.”

Now, you or I would of course instantly suspect that this was A Trap. And frankly, the woodcutter knew it was A Trap too. He just didn’t have much other choice. The job market for peasants in the area wasn’t very good, after all. So he simply said that would be very kind of her and sat down on a rock as if to wait. Off splashed the nymph, who was gone for several minutes. Just as the woodcutter was beginning to wonder whether he ought to climb one of the trees in case she came back with a big, hungry kelpie or something of that nature, she returned.

“Hey hey, chum,” she gurgled, “Got your axe!” And she dropped a solid gold axe on the bank at his feet.

“A gold axe?” the wooductter squawked, “In this economy?!” Impracticality aside, the woodcutter could not fathom how the nymph had gotten this wrong. He gestured wordlessly to his tattered tunic, then waved at the offending instrument.

“So it’s not yours then?” the nymph asked pointedly, narrowing her eyes. (Which really just had the effect of bringing them down to about human-size eyes for the sake of intimidation, which is actually not at all healthy for freshwater nymphs and her doctor would probably scold her for it later, but that’s neither here nor there)

“It’s definitely not mine!” the woodcutter replied. Then, realizing he hadn’t described his axe at all, shrugged. “But that’s on me, I suppose, for not telling you what it looked like. It’s brown and a little rusty.”

A little annoyed at the failure of her standard “trick-the-greedy-human-and-eat-them” ploy, the nymph decided to try again. Gold was obviously too much of an exaggeration, and she had gotten a little too ambitious, clearly. The second time she came back, she was holding a rather nasty-looking thing that might have been an axe at one point. It was tarnished to the point of nearly being unrecognizable, and there was a great deal of pond scum along the handle.

“How about this one?” she asked.

Somewhat wary of the pond scum, the woodcutter poked at the axe with a stick -- one could never be too careful -- until he was reasonably satisfied that the blackened material along the blade was tarnish and not mud.

“Is this silver?” he asked incredulously.

“Was your axe silver?”

“No ma’am, not in the slightest!” The woodcutter edged away from the axe, and wondered if perhaps some enterprising werewolf-hunting individual wasn’t missing their primary means of defense by now. That was the only reason he could think of for anyone having an axe made of silver, after all, unless someone just really liked seeing their own reflection while chopping things to smithereens.

The nymph was getting frustrated wither her lack of success, and was pondering just giving up and going back to the creek bed to sulk. But these things always come in threes, you know, so she decided she’d try one last time to trick the woodcutter. This time she returned in only a few seconds with a rusty brown axe that she all but threw at the man.

“Here you go, egg,” she said, perhaps a little too laconically, “This time for sure!”

The woodcutter started to reach for the axe, recognizing that it was as rusty as he remembered, then stopped. The nymph looked altogether too pleased with herself and he was getting a Bad Feeling about those very sharp teeth. Sharp teeth bared in a smile does not always mean Hello, I am very pleased to see you today, how’s the family? Sometimes, sharp teeth bared in a smile mean, Haha, stupid human, I am almost certainly plotting your demise and I did not tell you the rules of this game on purpose. Or sometimes it just means You bother me, please go away, but this was not one of those kinds of smiles.

So naturally, the woodcutter took a closer look at the axe. The rust was almost right, and it was chipped and pitted a bit along the blade like his too, but there the similarities ended.. The metal peeking out from under the rusty bits was a little too bright. “What’s this one made of?” he asked.

“Your axe, shouldn’t you know?” the nymph sniffed, a watery sort of snort that conveyed both contempt and nasal congestion.

“Well,” the woodcutter mused, recognizing that he was on metaphorically thin ice, “My axe is rusty, has a wooden handle, and is made of iron. If this one is all of those things, it might be mine. But great heavens above, how many axes have you even got down there?!”

The nymph answered that he’d be surprised. She waited hopefully for a minute, watching to see if he’d take the steel axe she’d brought. Of course, she didn’t think he was actually foolish enough to not know his own axe when he saw it. She was just hoping he’d give her a wrong answer so she’d have an excuse to drag him into the creek. The River Mothers did tend to frown on just snatching people willy-nilly. That kind of thing got the wrong kind of attention these days. You had to have a reason if you were going to grab a human, and arbitrarily punishing some randomly perceived vice was just enough of an excuse to satisfy general inquiries.

But of course, the woodcutter knew his own axe, and even though the steel tool looked like a little bit of an upgrade from his own model, he wasn’t gullible enough to think it was being offered for free. So he kept well away from the edge of the bank -- which was, of course, just as much to keep out of reach of the increasingly irritated nymph -- and as politely as he could manage while being tired, frustrated, and very very suspicious, told the watery creature that this was not his axe either. At this point he was considering just trying to find some reasonably sharp rocks and some twine and a good stout stick to fashion a new axe. It had to be safer than this, and more affordable than refinancing his cottage to buy a new axe.

“Oh applesauce!” the nymph growled, and splashed back down into the creek with very poor grace. Three times asked and three times answered, that’s the rule. He’d told the truth three different times and she really didn’t have an excuse to eat him now. Of course, she didn’t have to bring back his actual axe, not if she didn’t want to, but tadpoles are tattle-tales, and sooner or later word would get to one of the River Mothers about this. It was probably better to just send the human on his way in the long run.

The woodcutter stood in the mud with that bewildering sensation of having escaped something by the skin of your teeth and wondered if the nymph would even be able to grab the axe, what with it being iron and all. Sure enough, when she exploded out of the water again, she was gripping the wooden handle between thumb and finger, grimacing horribly.

“Ewwww take it take it take it!” she shook the axe in his direction. “Take ‘em all and get out of here, would you, chum?” She was in a bad enough mood as it was, having failed to trick a human into being greedy and grabbing for the most valuable axes. Carrying around stinging iron, as you might imagine, did not do anything to improve her attitude. Neither did the welts it raised on her hands.

The nymph retreated to the water, submerging everything but the top of her head so that she could glare intimidatingly at the woodcutter, who just stared back.

“Okay, thanks for the axes,” he shrugged.

The money he got for the silver and gold axes in the village proved enough to pay off his mortgage and possibly a few of the noblemen’s taxes, but at that point the woodcutter had decided he was probably better off joining his previous neighbors and moving into the territory of the Farmer King. Apparently the Good Neighbors of that kingdom were more concerned with protecting humans’ businesses and homes from disaster in exchange for some annual fees than tricking them into strange games that probably ended in death. He decided he’d take his chances with them.

#let's be honest this isn't a fic prompt it's a whole short story #folklore friday #water nymph #she's kind of terrible i love her #fic prompts #writing prompts #fairytales #this is part of my NaNoWriMo collection #original stories #original work #totally did not mean to make a state farm reference at the end but i'm delighted it happened

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fanfickittycat · 7 years

Text

The Price

TITLE: The Price CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: Chapter 2 AUTHOR: fanfickittycat CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Roman Godfrey x OC GENRE: Romance, Smut FIC SUMMARY: Ginger makes a deal with popular bad boy Roman, if he helps her up the social ladder by pretending to be her boyfriend then she’ll be his dog in return RATING: M AUTHORS NOTES/WARNINGS: In which Ginger and Roman don’t get along

The rest of the week was as miserable as the weather outside, and the days dragged on to the sound of the rain hammering against the windows outside. I was constantly cold because of Roman’s ridiculous rule to always wear skirts, and infuriated when his only advice was to ‘get better skirts’. I sat dejected in French, one of the only lessons I liked, mumbling the vocabulary as I watched the clock move at a snail’s pace. Roman had ruined me with his stupid dog routine, and now I was paying the price by feeling my heart jolt every time I heard the slightest sound, thinking it was my phone beeping with another request from Roman. I tried my best to perk up. I had gotten an A on my French paper, and earlier in the day Ashley had asked for my phone number which had been probably the most eventful thing to ever happen to me. Of course, knowing how annoyed Roman got when I got excited, I had to tone down my happiness but I could still see him watching me in the corner of his eye, judging me silently.

“Don’t you want to jump up and down knowing you got her number?” He teased.

“No” I said “I’m perfectly able to control my feelings.” He didn’t seem convinced.

“Look, it’s Ashely!”

“Where?!” I turned to see nobody there and turned back to a very amused Roman “ha ha, very funny” I said flatly.

“You’re such a dumb dog” he said, rolling his eyes playfully “I’ll see you after class, don’t cream yourself if you see anyone who looks remotely like Ashley.”

I could have slapped him there and then, but knowing how sick he was he’d probably love that. Instead I filed into French with my other classmates and contemplated breaking up with Roman. I couldn’t understand what he got out of being so mean to me. Besides the name calling which consisted of dog, dumb dog, bad dog, and on one occasion mutt, there was the constant fetching. If it wasn’t coffee he wanted it was cigarettes, and I lived in fear of a joke he had made about making me fetch him drugs.

“Drug dog” he had dubbed me “or what about coke dog?” I rejected both.

“I’d rather fetch sticks” I said, and it was one of the worst things that had left my lips because he purposely drove us to Hemlock Woods to do just that. I felt stupid running back and forth to return sticks to him, feeling disgusted at the feeling of wet wood on my fingers.

“You’ve ruined my shoes” I said, looking down at mud that caked them.

“Dogs love getting dirty” he said and then threw another stick so far that it took me a whole fifteen minutes to find it.

He wasn’t too happy about it either “you could’ve just picked up any stick, you dumb dog.”

The words echoed in my head, sinking down into the pit of my stomach as I thought about having to sit in a forgotten corner and give him half of my sandwich for lunch. I packed up my things slowly, sluggishly moving towards the door only to flinch when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned immediately, not feeling up to facing Roman again.

“Oh” I blinked “hey Theo” it felt foreign to speak to a guy who wasn’t Roman.

“You dropped this” he passed me a pen, one that I had loaned Roman only to have him make me beg for it back. He had made me get on my knees and pout and whine to have my black biro back. He seemed adamant to humiliate me, and had taken great pleasure in seeing me repeat ‘please, please, please Roman’ over and over again like a broken record player.

“Only because you beg so prettily for me, dog” he had said, gifting my own pen back to me again.

“You’re fucked up” I said, and as a result he made me spin around three times in the middle of the corridor and bark loudly for him whenever he said. He asked thirteen times, once for every letter that dared leave my lips. Needless to say it earned me a lot of attention from my peers, and not much of it good.

“Thanks.”

“Can I ask you something? Are you really dating that dick Godfrey?” Theo asked plainly and I was caught between agreeing and defending my so called boyfriend. Theo tucked his hands into the pockets of his blue and red hoodie, a souvenir he had bagged when he visited his brother up at Penn State.

“He’s… different I know, but deep down he’s actually quite, er…” I tried to think of the right word that might cast Roman in a more favourable light. Sweet was too sugary, and nice was too bland.

“caring” I settled with though it didn’t really fit “in his own way” I made sure to add quickly. I couldn’t think of an instance where Roman had ever cared for me, but on rare occasions I saw him speaking to his sister and he seemed to be a whole new person. Softer and kinder than usual. Theo didn’t look convinced and when we rounded the corner and I saw Roman sitting on the bannister, back against the wall, Theo looked even less certain of my claims.

“Hey, you packing cheese or ham today?” Roman asked, completely ignoring Theo who was still hovering nearby.

“Ham.”

“I guess it’ll do.” I would have normally fought him on this but I was tired and just let it go, following behind him obediently. I looked back to wave Theo goodbye but he was frowning as though he were lost in thought, and this distraction made me barrel face first into Roman’s back which was surprisingly firm for someone who detested gym.

“Watch where you’re going, clumsy dog” he chided while I frowned. I didn’t say anything but I could feel the words on my tongue, ready to rip into him like wolf’s teeth. I kept my mouth shut however, not up to another fight. It seemed like all Roman and I did was argue, and then he’d make me do something humiliating and I’d have no choice but to grin and bear it. I was starting to tire of this routine. Even when I hung out with Ashley, I had to pretend that having Roman next to me, with his arm around me was perfectly normal. Last time I had spoken to Ashley she had suggested a double date and before I could agree Roman (who’s hand rested lightly on my waist) pinched me quickly, effectively shutting me up.

“I’m sure Ginger would love that but I actually had something planned that night” Roman lied smoothly, so much so that I honestly thought that he might have done something special. Instead I spent the evening inside listening to ‘Time after time’ and wishing that I was in a regular relationship where the guy wouldn’t treat me like a dog, and would just cheat on me or something.

Roman and I sat in silence, eating half a ham sandwich each while we watched the rain. I didn’t mind Roman when he was quiet, it was easy to sit comfortably with him in those moments. His eyes weren’t narrowed in annoyance, or harsh with judgement, instead he’d look content. Usually at these times I’d be content too, but the silence only made my stomach churn, and I put down my sandwich after only a couple of bites. I couldn’t finish it, the constant questions made me feel nauseated. It had gotten so bad that later that night I’d try praying for the first time. I quickly learned that praying was less satisfying than it was made out to be and went to sleep feeling unfulfilled.

“Roman, is what we’re doing right?”

He quirked an eyebrow “define right.”

“Like, does it make sense to be in a relationship for popularity? I mean, I just feel like we’re not getting anywhere.”

Roman frowned, licking butter off of his fingers “you have Ashley’s number, what else do you want? For her to French braid your hair and talk to you about her period?” he scoffed at the thought.

“Girls don’t sit around and talk about their periods” I said, which was false but I didn’t want to give Roman the satisfaction and besides, the way he had said it made it sound juvenile. As though we were still thirteen.

“I don’t care what girls talk about” he muttered “you’re the one who came up with this stupid plan.”

For a moment I didn’t know what to say “I know but-“

“But what?” Roman spat “don’t act like you’re suddenly too good for this” he leaned in so that his nose was almost touching mine “don’t pretend like you’re nothing but a desperate attention whore.” I bit the inside of my cheeks to stop the tears that filled my eyes from spilling down my face, and instead dropped my gaze to look at the crumbs that littered my clothes. He walked away after that, and I sat hugging my knees that were tucked under my chin trying to not make a sound. I failed. Thick tears wet my cheeks, and I blotted them clumsily with the back of my hand.

When I stood up my legs felt unstable like a new born deer, and I kept my head down as I calmly rushed to find the nearest bathroom to fix my face. I ended up shoving past people, and at one point, completely colliding in with someone so that all my eyes could see the crimson and navy of their clothes.

“Sorry” I said hurriedly, not bothering to check who it was. I entered swiftly, locking myself in a cubicle to have a private two-minute cry to the sound of water, and hand driers, and gossip. I dabbed at my eyes, pulling out a compact mirror to assess the damage. My eyes were red, and my face had gone from being plain brown to being blotchy, as though I were a hue that only a kindergartener could come up with. I felt like a mess and desperately wanted to stay isolated in the cubicle until school ended but impatient toe tapping meant I couldn’t, and instead I took several large breaths and pushed Roman and his cutting remarks to the back of mind.

#updates #the price #fanfickittycat #chapter 2 #fanfic #fanfiction #Roman Godfrey #roman godfrey x oc #roman godfrey fanfic #hemlock grove #hemlock grove fanfiction #hemlock grove fanfic #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard fanfiction #bill skarsgard fanfic #bill skarsgård

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it-was-so-human · 7 years

Note

“I’m not drunk enough yet” for Jonsa. :D

Ahh awesome–thanks so much! Here’s a messy little Washington, D.C.-Jonsa fic for you, ~1,000 words.

Maybe it’s in his blood. Maybe being a predatory piece of shit was a terrible legacy he could not escape from.

It was easy for people to forget that the brooding quiet Jon Snow was the son of the former-Senator Rhaegar Targaryen. (But Jon couldn’t forget that ugly inheritance. And he wouldn’t repeat it.)

He should have stayed away from this town, shouldn’t have been so drawn to the call to public service. God, he was an idiot. Washington DC was a hellhole and it was going to destroy him.

He should have just done what his half-brother Aegon did and lived comfortably far away on the west coast where fewer knew the sordid tale.

(But he does secretly think he might be making a small difference, has to stay and at least try.)

But it wasn’t his father who inspired him to this work, it was his mother. A mother who he never met, but who he always felt drawn to.

He was told she was ambitious and lovely. And had been taken advantage of in he worst ways who claimed to have loved her.

His mother had been idealistic, bright-eyed, and at 18 thoroughly won over by a Senator. A married Senator who left her pregnant and alone.

Lyanna’s death during childbirth was a scandal that rocked through DC. It may have ended Senator Targaryen’s illustrious career and presidential aspirations, but it ended her life.

And it didn’t matter that Sansa Stark at 23 was only a couple years younger than him, that if they met at a bar it would be completely–almost absurdly—appropriate.

God, the last 6 months had been torture.

Even though he was basically just a glorified personal assistant to Senator Mormont, he was still her superior.

It didn’t matter that as a Stark she had more political connections than he could imagine in his wildest dreams. (Her father, before he died, had been the president’s chief-of-fucking-staff.)

Still, it didn’t matter. She was an intern, and he did not... dally with interns. It was completely inappropriate and creepy and Jon Snow would be a better man than that.

(And Sansa deserved better. She deserved the best.)

It didn’t matter that she was very pretty with big shining blue eyes and auburn hair that swung behind her and that she was so bright and that she made him feel happy even with her light teasing.

Or that she was whip smart and so incredibly witty it was annoying. (Just yesterday she said something ridiculously funny about the tax reform bill, and he just grunted in response. Literally grunted.)

He even liked her pretty pink blouses and tweed skirts and the stupid matcha green tea lattes she drank instead of coffee.

He didn’t even hate her when she tried—with no success—to get him to cut down on coffee.

And she was so fucking compassionate and caring. The other week when a frazzled constituent came to the office close to tears, everyone was too busy to help. But it was Sansa who sat with her for over two hours waiting—wrapped her arm around the woman and listened and listened and helped her look into possible solutions. Sansa stayed late to finish her other work, not at all bitter, just cheerfully singing something that sounded lovely softly under her breath.

Even at happy hours after work, she was a beaming ray of sunshine in a room of brooding jaded staffers.(God almost everyone in this town was a borderline functioning—some better than others–alcoholic.)

And she’s walking towards him as he’s alone after Sam left and god, she was so pretty.

And she’s standing closer to him than she ever has before. Leaning against the bar counter, smiling at him.

Her smile was so fucking bright that it made her eyes hurt.

“What a pleasant surprise to find you brooding here, Jon.”

“What do you want, Sansa?” he sighs.

“Now don’t be too obvious” she whispers conspiratorially. “But my ex is over there. The blonde dude making faces at the wine selection?”

Super blond and prissy looking–speaking authoritatively to the group around him but keeping his eye on Sansa.

Ugh, her ex was perfectly tailored with hair immaculately coifed. Was that her type? He looks down at his now rumpled shirt, messily rolled sleeves, and loosened sales-rack tie.

God, he never had a chance. If they met randomly in a bar, she probably wouldn’t even look at Jon.

He raises his eyebrows in question.

“I know, he’s the absolute worst. And he’s super conservative. Such an error in judgment right there,” she shudders. “Okay, so just pretend you’re super engaged. Super into me.”

“Huh?”

“That we’re like together. You know, just play cute.”

That’s not appropriate. Not in the slightest.

What is she trying to do to him? Is she trying to break him? He’s not strong enough for this.

“I’m not drunk enough yet,” he snaps.

She raises her brows, a slight frown.

“Would it be that hard to imagine, Jon Snow? That you actually like me?”

Is that what she thinks? He shouldn’t dissuade her of that notion. It was far safer that she never learn how much he did in fact like her.

Instead he shakes his head vehemently.

“No, it would be too easy. Way too easy.”

He might be drunker than he thought. He needs to backtrack, but his mind is working at a snail’s pace.

But she gives him another one of her bright smiles—and he may have just melted a little.

“You know what, Jon Snow? Next week is my last at the Senator’s office.”

Wait, what?

“Oh?” He’s surprised at how much his chest ached.

“My brother Robb is running for state legislator. It’s where our dad started his political career,” she says with a soft fond smile. “Anyways, he needs a communications manager and who better than me?’

Oh, so she’s leaving the District. It’s better that way, honestly. She wouldn’t be an intern and he wouldn’t be a threat. (But he was going to miss her.)

Why was his throat so dry?

“With you on the team, I can’t imagine him not winning,” he finally manages to choke out.

“That’s the plan. But you know what?”

She’s leaning in very close now and he swallows very audibly.

“You do know my hometown is in Maryland, right? Just 30 minutes away on the Red Line.”

Wait, what is she telling him? Why is she telling him what she’s telling him?

His brain is, his brain is scrambling trying to figure this out.

“Do they… do they have good green tea lattes there?”

“In fact I know just the place. You just have to come and visit me,” she smiles and he somehow manages to smile back.

#jonsa #actually jonsa #jon and sansa #my jonsa fanfiction #guys #this is messy but you know like there's some potential there if you squint #guys this is a thing that exists and that has to count for something in this world you know?#Just one prompt left now! :D #I'll edit you later #you need it bud

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theonceoverthinker · 7 years

Text

One Call Away, But Realms Apart (Regal Believer)

Summary: Regina’s been none too happy ever since she was awoken from her personal curse, but as she hears her cursed son talk about his dying daughter, it’s enough to nearly tip Regina over the edge of despair. Deleted scene from 7X10 when Regina calls Henry to check in on him just before she and Zelena go back to HH. Not really angsty per se, but hopefully pretty feelsy.

A/N: This was really freakin’ fun to work on, and got me out of my writer’s rut! Hope you all enjoy it too!

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Zelena had told Regina to wait until after dinner to call Henry. She argued, quite validly, that Henry’s flight would take a few hours and he’d need time with Jacinda and Lucy.

Because of that, Regina waited, and the two of them had dinner together in Zelena’s apartment. Their meal, had it not been overshadowed by the weight of their situation, might have been much sweeter than it had been allowed to be. Zelena had insisted on eating pizza, moaning about her desire for a reunion with carbs and grease, and that couple with further details about her sister’s cursed lifestyle were enough to make Regina produce at least a couple of genuine smiles. They spent the time while finishing off the pie talking about their time under the curse. Regina almost got covered in tomato sauce when she told her sister that Hook had become an Eagle Scout of a detective who was now gallivanting around town with Rumpelstiltskin.

However, as nice as it was to reconnect with Zelena after all this time, the hours passed as slowly as a snail’s trip up a windy hill. Regina had made a habit of looking at her watch whenever there was any kind of silence between them, and sometimes, even if there wasn’t one. She was sure that Zelena had picked up on what she was doing, but she didn’t say anything. If Regina had the heart for it, she would’ve laughed. Time had ingrained her sister with sentiment and empathy the likes of which she would have scoffed at when they first met.

Following dinner, Zelena asked to take a look at Regina’s car, wanting to know how much space she’d have for her things before she started packing. Regina obliged, and a few minutes later, they were outside her building. Zelena had a quick look around the car, nodded, and then turned to Regina.

“I’m going to go ready my stuff,” she said. “Have a feeling I’m going to be gone for quite a while.” Zelena then pat Regina on her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “Go talk to Henry.”

Regina, despite her longing to do just that, stayed put and bit her lip in hesitation.

“Do you think enough time has passed?” She asked.

Zelena nodded. “I do. And in the highly unlikely chance I’m wrong,” she added, grinning, “he’ll let you know. Now go and call him. I’ve a lot to pack.” With that, Zelena headed back into her apartment. Regina, deciding not to wait another moment longer, plugged in Henry’s name into her smartphone and clicked the call button.

One ring passed, then two, then three. Regina’s heart started to sink, dreading the familiar sound of her son’s voicemail, when suddenly, he picked up.

“Henry?” Regina said, her voice a touch hitched despite her best efforts.

“Hey, Roni.” It was odd to Regina just how odd her cursed name had sounded to her ears after a only a few hours of answering to her real name. She made a mental note to have Zelena practice saying her cursed name in the car until it was natural. For now though, Regina brushed aside her awkwardness and went straight to the point.

“How’s Lucy?”

“She the same,” Henry answered, so quietly that Regina almost didn’t hear him. Regina had asked that question knowing how Henry would likely respond, but nothing could prepare her for how miserable the words sounded as they came out his mouth. Regina felt her heart plumett down her chest in a way it hadn’t in so long.

“Henry, I,” Regina started, but stopped just as quickly. She chided herself for nearly telling him that she understood what he was going through. She knew that that choice of words would at best come off as an empty platitude and at worst result in icy words getting thrown back in her direction, for how could she explain that less than twenty years ago, she was in a similar situation?

Regina sighed, and worked out another phrasing of her sentiments.

“Henry, I’m so sorry,” she rectified, her voice low.

“Jacinda and I haven’t left the room in hours. Right now, she’s passed out on a chair by Lucy’s bed. She’s exhausted. Probably has been up for a whole day by now.”

There was a pause, as if both of them were trying to figure out what next to say.

“I read to her,” Henry eventually continued. “Jacinda thought it would be a good idea.” Regina smiled. It was such a Henry thing to do to read to someone in distress, even if Jacinda had ultimately motivated him to do it. She could even picture it. Henry always had the perfect reading voice.

“That-that’s good. Did she respond to it at all?” For a moment, Regina had something that she had sorely lacked from the moment she had awoken from this most recent curse: hope.

“No,” Henry sighed. Over the line, Regina could hear Henry’s breath quicken up. Every inhale and exhale was audible and rapid, only grower moreso as the seconds passed. Regina leaned against the outer wall of her sister’s apartment building. She once again knew that the answer to the question she was about to ask would only lead to pain, and right now, with Henry’s knowledge of their true relationship gone and without any way of giving him the comfort she knew he desperately needed, Regina felt herself needing some semblance of support.

“Henry, are you okay?”

“Roni, I tried bringing her back, just like in my book.” Regina stifled a sob as she heard a crack in his voice, one that only grew as he spoke. “You remember the part where Emma broke the curse, right? I kissed her on the forehead, just like in that scene. But it didn’t work. I-I don’t know why I tried it, but as I leaned in - I don’t know - I just thought it would wake her up! I actually believed that I was her father, and I could stop all of this. I don’t even know what to think! Am I going insane?” At this point, Regina was biting her tongue, a last resort to stay the tears that were pouring down her face like a ruptured pipe so that they wouldn’t become outright sobs. On the other end of the line, while she couldn’t see them, she swore Henry was shedding tears of his own.

Regina took a deep and shaky breath, knowing she’d need to speak.

“Henry,” she said, as soberly as she could. “You’re not crazy, do you hear me?” She could hear Henry chuckle, not bitterly, but sadly.

“I’m starting to think I just might be,” Henry countered.

“Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re not.” Regina attributed her emphasis on that point to come down to a few things, not the least of which being guilt for cardinal sin of claiming the opposite all those years ago. “You care about this girl and you had hope, and there is nothing wrong with that.” Her voice was loud and firm now, far more than Regina probably should have allowed it to be. “So you took a chance.”

“And a fat lotta good it did,” Henry commented.

“It’s a start,” Regina encouraged, her voice now firm and unshaken. “Henry, I promise you: Lucy’s going to be okay, and the two of you are going to be happy. Now, Kelly and I are heading back to the city tonight, and we’ll be at the hospital the first thing tomorrow, but until that happens, I’m going to need you to promise me two things.”

“Two?” Henry scoffed.

“Yes, two,” Regina insisted. “First, you’re to take care of yourself. Get some coffee and food in your system. You’ll be no good to anyone if you can barely fight off your stomach. Don’t forget: I know how you are with those donuts you bring in and the pretzels I leave out at the bar.”

“Okay,” Henry answered, clearly convinced. “What’s the second promise?”

Regina took another deep breath. This promise she confessed that she hadn’t thought out fully, but concluded that it was harmless enough. It was mostly for her peace of mind, because as it stood, her son’s state scared her just a bit.

“You’re to stay with Jacinda. Henry, she needs you now, and Lucy does too. So however sorry for yourself you’re feeling, you’re going to have to hold out just a little longer.”

Another chuckle could be heard through the speaker of Regina’s phone.

“You don’t even need to ask me to do that, Roni.”

Despite everything that would happen and everything that was sure to come, Regina smiled.

“You’re a good man, Henry Mills, and I’m so proud of you.” She knew what she had said may have come off a touch too motherly, and might even hold the risk of confusing Henry, but of all the things that she really wanted to say, this was the closest to the motivating words of a friend that she could come up with.

Thankfully, nothing that she said had seemed off putting in the slightest.

“Thanks, Roni. I’m glad I have you around. I’m pretty sure I’d actually go insane if I didn’t. Well, you and Kelly have a long drive, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Henry.” Honestly, had she not had the pressing need to drive through hours of traffic and darkness with her eccentric sister, she would have gladly stayed on with him all night if he wanted to. That said, she knew what they both needed to do, and an evening on the phone, no matter how comforting it would be to just talk to him and make him feel better as best as she cold, would do more harm than good for their purposes. So, with a heavy heart, Regina pressed the red button on her phone’s touch screen, and brought their phone call to an end.

Regina despite every bit of somberness she wanted to sulk in, refused to let herself succumb to the darkness. Just as she’d said to Henry, she’d find a way to for he and Lucy to get their happy ending, no matter the cost.

As Regina approached her sister, ready to talk once more of strategies and information, she gritted her teeth with determination.

It was show time.

#ouat #regal believer #regina #henry mils #ouat spoilers #roni #zelena #my fanfiction

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ooachilliaoo · 8 years

Text

So...

I’ll probably be gone for a while. Taking a small sojourn to the Andromeda galaxy and knowing myself and my inspiration when I come back it’ll be with a LOT of MEA fic. For a while.

But never fear Dragon Age people I won’t be abandoning DA. I’ve been working on 120K-ish word fic for about two years and honestly there’s so much effort gone into it that I can’t leave it.

In the meantime please enjoy this one-shot.

About Blackwall... I Mean, Rainier

“We can explore our options back at Skyhold. You don’t have to decide anything right now.”

Cullen seemed to have more to say, but he didn’t continue talking. She merely nodded in reply, glancing down at the report on Thom Rainier she still held in her fingers. The one signed by Leliana. She frowned.

“Why were you the one to bring this to me?” she asked, indicating the report. “Is Leliana all right?”

He half smiled at her, warm and soft even as his eyes skittered away from hers in embarrassment.

“I ah… thought you might need some comfort,” he replied. “It cannot be easy being betrayed by a friend.”

His light brown eyes shyly met her own, concern etched on his features. So caring, so sweet. Had they been alone she would probably have launched herself into his arms but, conscious of the guards’ presence just beside her, she settled for reaching out and squeezing his arm.

“Thank you,” she said, hoping he could read the sincerity in her eyes.

He smiled at her once again, peeling her hand from his bicep and raising it to his lips. “You’re welcome my lady.” He bestowed a single light kiss on her knuckles before releasing her hand with some reluctance. “Would you care for some lunch before we depart? Leliana informs me the café outside is a particular favourite of hers.”

“Sounds lovely.” She folded the report and tucked it into her coat before linking her arm with his and steering them from the prison.

The bright sunlight outside served to cheer her mood at little after the gloominess of the prison, and by the time they reached the café she was feeling somewhat better.

The maître d' greeted them in a thick Orlesian accent as they approached. “Ah, Inquisitor! Such an honour to welcome you to our humble café.”

“Thank you,” she replied politely. “Can you accommodate two for lunch?”

“Preferably somewhere under the shade?” Cullen grumbled good-naturedly beside her.

She resisted the urge to laugh as the maître d' showed them to a table in the corner but she couldn’t stop herself from shooting him an amused look.

“You know,” she remarked casually once the maître d’ had departed. “You probably don’t need the heavy, fur-lined, overly Ferelden-esque coat in sunny Val-Royeaux.”

“And walk the street unprotected? No thanks.” His tone was still gruff but a smile twitched the corner of his mouth.

She raised an eyebrow. “Afraid of hidden daggers?”

He shrugged, and then shuddered melodramatically. “Orlesian noblewomen. As far as they’re concerned, the more layers the better.”

She laughed, remembering his (adorable) discomfort in Halamshiral and the ladies whom she hadn’t been able to blame in the slightest. After all, she had been just as guilty as they before she’d known that he returned her interest.

“But aren’t you unbearably hot?”

“I am comfortable enough,” he reassured her. “I’d be better if there were something vaguely resembling food on this menu. Es… Escar… Got… Escargot?” He stumbled over the pronunciation of the unfamiliar word. “What’s that?”

“Snails,” she replied, lips twitching at the frankly horrified expression that appeared on his face. “They’re nice!”

“I will pass, thank you. I’d much rather have an ordinary beef stew… But it looks as though I’m out of luck.”

“Just a little.” She scanned the list of fancy entrées and salads. “Perhaps we should just have some coffee and pastries and eat properly back at Skyhold?”

He shot her a grateful look over his menu and nodded his agreement. She chuckled and called the waiter over to give him their order.

When he departed, Cullen’s face darkened and he leant forwards, bracing his arms against the table. “So, Blackwall isn’t Blackwall it seems.”

She wanted to ignore him, relaxing back into her own chair to enjoy the feeling of the sun on her face. It felt like it had been so long since she’d had a moment just to rest, to be herself and not the Inquisitor. For a moment, laughing with Cullen, she’d quite forgotten the reason for their sojourn to Val Royeaux.

But she couldn’t deny the situation forever.

“So it seems,” she replied, vaguely casting her gaze about the café. Anywhere but his face. The weight of his eyes on her was practically palpable, and finally she had no choice but to turn her head to meet them.

“How do you feel about it?”

She shrugged, aiming for nonchalance but falling far short.

“Right now I don’t know what to think. I thought he was an honourable man. A hero. But he lied to me. Betrayed me.” She paused, idly picking up the salt shaker and twisting it in her hands. “Then he owned up to it. Sacrificed everything to save an innocent man. Does that make him an honourable man who made a mistake? Or a dishonourable one who did one thing right? I don’t know.” She was rambling, she knew, and shot him an apologetic smile, replacing the shaker in its stand. “What I do know, is that I want it to be us who judge him in the end.”

He nodded. “We’ve earned that much.”

She studied him for a moment. He was being extraordinarily vague and, despite his questions, had yet to voice his own opinion on the matter.

“What would you do?” She asked him again, hoping to learn something of his thoughts.

“I… I would prefer not to say.”

She frowned. It was unusual of him not to share his thoughts with her, and it made her afraid that he was hiding something. Did he just want to execute the man and be done with it?

“No! Maker no. Not like that,” he clarified, reading her expression correctly, it seemed. “I’ve been in the same position as Blackw… Rainier’s men. I would not have my own experiences and prejudices affect your decision in this matter.”

Realisation suddenly dawned on her. “You’re talking about Meredith.”

A pained expression immediately fell across his features, but he didn’t shy away from the topic.

“Meredith hid things from me. Told me only what she wished me to know, specifically, the things that would encourage my hatred. She knew that I respected and trusted the chain of command. Perhaps too much. She was not above using that against me.”

His gaze moved off into the distance for a moment, as if lost in memory, and she wanted to reach out for him. Then he blinked, shaking himself out of his trance.

“As I said. I’m not proud of the man I was back then, and though I cannot lay the blame entirely at Meredith’s feet, she did not aid matters.”

He shot her a sad half smile and she couldn’t resist any longer. Impulsively she stretched across the table, linking her fingers with his own and squeezing them gently. His smile grew a little warmer as he squeezed her fingers in return before they were forced to release their hold on each other by the waiter’s return.

“Your pastries,” he said, placing the silver cake stand on their table with exaggerated care.

She thanked him, barely waiting for him to leave before she grabbed one of the delicious little cakes. Cullen laughed, no doubt at her enthusiasm.

“Let’s forget about Blackwa... Rainier for the moment, shall we? Nothing more needs to be said or decided till we return to Skyhold.”

Her face lit up with a grateful smile. “Till Skyhold.”

#blog psa #fanfic'#dragon age inquisition #cullen rutherford #commander Rutherford #evelyn trevelyan #cullen Rutherford / female Trevelyan #Cullen Rutherford/Female Inquisitor

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sinsiriuslyemo · 8 years

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Let’s once again ease up with the tension here...a little smut to begin your Saturday, and where did Nevada go? Look out on @missjennifercole’s blog for episode 6!!

Translations

EPISODE 5

“I need you inside me now,” Leila pleaded, “that was amazing but,” she nuzzled her nose against his. “I want you.”

“Not that I don’t want to,” he answered as he kissed along her collarbone. “I just want you to be sure.” He kissed her chin and looked down at her. “If you’re not sure, it’s okay,” he added.

“I'm very sure,” she smiled at him. “Very sure.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to lose your virginity?” he asked, rolling onto his back and reaching into his nightstand drawer for a condom. Coming back to look down at her, he waited for her to answer.

“I'm not,” she said with a smile.

“I mean don’t you want your first time to be with someone special?” he asked softly. “Someone you love.”

She looked at him with a slight frown. “Are you gonna make me stop now?”

“I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to, I promise,” he said. “I just think you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into. Sex comes with a lot of other things, emotions...I just don’t want to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“You're not,” she whispered softly and took his cock in her hand again, stroking it. “Please,” she whimpered, “I want to feel you inside of me.”

He groaned as he felt his cock grow harder in her delicate hand and nodded his head, ripping the condom wrapper open with his teeth and pulling out the rubber. Rolling it on, he perched himself above her.

“Hold onto me,” he whispered, kissing over her face. “Just try relax, and breathe. Ready?” he asked, stroking over her cheeks.

She nodded and gasped when she felt the head of his cock push gently against her opening. Her nails dug into his back and she let out a tiny mewl when his crown finally popped inside her. His fingers dug slightly into her skin, pushing just a bit more until he was a quarter of the way in, giving her a few minutes to adjust. She relaxed after a while, and he gently slid into her further, halfway before stopping again.

“T-try to relax...as much as you can,” he said in a strained voice, forehead pressed against hers as he watched her face once again morph from discomfort from being stretched to capacity to a relaxed state. Sliding the rest of the way in, he groaned loudly when their hips met and his back tensed with the effort of keeping still. Her muscles were gripping him tighter than anyone he could remember, it almost reminded him of his first time, when he was newly experiencing the sensation. “Fuck,” he hissed, closing his eyes to try and maintain control.

He stayed perfectly still except for his head as he kissed over her face and stroked her hair.

“Are you okay?” he whispered against her cheek.

“Hurts…” she whispered back, eyes looking up at him, pleading him to ease the discomfort, “Kiss me,” she pleaded. He nodded, dipping his head and kissing her lips softly and deeply.

“I’m not in any rush,” he whispered with a disarming smile, kissing her again, forearms framing her head. “Just breathe,” he added, moving his kisses down to her neck and sucking gently on her pulse point as one hand trailed down her side. She moaned, relaxing a bit, after a few minutes of kissing she finally nodded to him to start moving, eagerly watching him as she licked her lips and blushed.

He slowly pulled out until just the tip of him remained inside before gently pushing back in, paying close attention to her expression. Kissing her again, his hand reached between them until her was able to draw gentle circles on her clit. He pulled out again just as slowly as the first time, and moved forward again, jaw clenched. Her grip on him was beyond incredible and he wanted to be moving faster, but he fought the urge and kept his movements at a snail’s pace, still watching her for any signs of discomfort.

“How’s that?” he asked in a gentle whisper. “Does it still hurt?”

“A little, but it feels… good,” she whispered as she leaned up and kissed him. He kissed her back, letting his tongue move into her mouth.

“Let me know if you want to stop, it’s okay,” he whispered against her mouth, earning a nod from her. “Promise?” he asked, looking down at her, and she nodded again. “Okay...wrap your legs around my waist.” She did and he sunk in deeper inside her, groaning loudly and rolling his hips in soft, shallow thrusts.

She moaned loudly, kissing him as she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him over and over again. “Oh my God, you feel so good…” she moaned.

“You feel amazing,” he replied, smiling down at her a little bit and experimentally moved just the slightest bit faster, but still keeping the intensity as gentle as possible. Kissing her passionately, he moved his fingers more deliberately on her sensitive bundle of nerves, moaning against her.

She gasped, nearly screaming as she felt his fingers on her. She kissed him moaning and whimpering as she felt close to her orgasm.

“Rafael,” she moaned and kissed him desperately.

He moved his lips against hers as he felt her relax even more around him, and arched his hips to stroke over her gspot. He wasn’t close enough to have an orgasm himself, but he didn’t care, all he wanted was to make her first time as comfortable as possible. Kissing her again, he moved a little faster against her, her grip on him making him shudder a little.

All it took was one, two, three thrusts and she was gone, moaning and clenching tight around him, she tugged him down, kissing him hard as she whimpered against his lips. He moaned when he felt her muscles contracting around him and stroked her through the orgasm as he kissed her back. When she started to come down, he slowed to a stop and kissed her eyelids, then her nose, and her lips again.

He stayed inside her a moment longer before he gently pulled out and rolled onto his back, cock still hard against his belly. He peeled the condom off and went to his bathroom to dispose of it before coming back to lay down beside her.

“So? Did I do alright?” he asked, really wanting to know. Even his first time, Yelina wasn’t a virgin as well, he’d never been someone’s first.

She nodded as she leaned in and kissed him, tugging him closer, “Let me take care of that for you,” she whispered and started to kiss down his chest.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he assured her with a soft smile. “It’s alright.”

“I want to,” she whispered, kissing down his body and taking his cock into her mouth.

“I made you some soup,” Amber sat down in bed beside Omar, handing him a mug of soup and stroking her fingers through his hair.

“Thanks,” he whispered with a frown. He stared down at the mug for a minute before he brought it up to his lips and drank from it. “It’s good,” he mused softly, still not looking up at her. “You should eat something, too.”

“I'll heat up something later,” she said softly, crawling into bed with him and kissing his shoulder. “You should get a little sleep,” she whispered. “Do you want an ambien? Xanax? Anything in the benzo family?”

“No, I’m alright--” His phone rang and he reached into his pocket, seeing Nevada’s name on the screen. He furrowed his brows and answered. “Si Jefe?”

“Oye bro, I’m outside. Come down,” Nevada said softly.

“Be there in a second,” he hung up and turned to Amber who was frowning.

“You're leaving?” she whispered softly.

“Nevada’s downstairs, I’m just gonna go see what he wants,” he said softly.

She knew he probably wouldn't be back tonight, so she leaned over and gave him a soft kiss. “I love you,” she mumbled softly.

“I love you too,” he replied, smiling a little. “I’ll be right back,” he added, putting on his shoes and a jacket before he left the apartment. He took the stairs down to the first floor and walked out onto the sidewalk where Nevada was standing with just as devastated an expression as he was sporting.

“Oye, I called OJ, he’s on his way over. Figured we could all use a…” Nevada held up the brown paper bag in his arm with three forties in it.

Omar smiled a bit and nodded, “Yeah, I could definitely be down for that,” he waited with Nevada until OJ arrived, giving his brother a hug.

“Vamos,” Nevada said after he also gave OJ a hug. He walked towards his rooftop, his two brothers right behind him. It seemed that his favorite rooftop, though once his fortress of solitude, was becoming a getaway for him to share with his family. First Eddie, now OJ and Omar. It was then that he realized that when he’d lost both his biological mother and father, he’d gained better ones in Oscar and Gladys, and he’d lost two sisters, and gained two brothers.

“Oye bro, where we going?” OJ asked as Nevada pressed the button for the top floor.

“You’ll see,” Nevada answered softly.

The men followed Nevada up to the rooftop looking around.

“Coño, Jefe’s gonna take us out.” Nevada chuckled at OJ’s words, shaking his head and setting the brown bag on the ground. He took out two of the large, forty ounce beer bottles and held them out to the men before he took the third out, opening it and clinking bottles with his brothers. They all took long gulps from their respective beers and stood in silence for a moment, lookout at the city.

“He was a better man than all of us combined,” Omar whispered.

“Papi was the right-hand man for a reason, he was the best,” OJ said softly. “He died...knowing how much he loved us and how much we loved him.”

“He was the only father I ever had,” Nevada added softly after a moment. “He always made me feel like I had a real family,” he added, taking another swig of his beer to keep the tears from falling again.

OJ put a hand on Nevada’s shoulder, squeezing gently in an effort to comfort him. Nevada really always had been like a little brother, even before he moved in with them.

“How’s mami?” OJ asked softly after a few more moments of comfortable silence.

“She ate, showered...she was in bed when I left,” Nevada answered. “Still about as well as you would think,” he added. “I don’t want her to have to worry about making arrangements.”

Omar nodded, “we can take care of the arrangements,” he half smiled. “We can take care of Mami too. I just… I can't believe he's…” he felt the hot tears run down his cheeks as he broke down into sobs, chest aching at the loss of one of the most important people in his life.

Nevada pulled the taller man closer to his side, wincing a little bit as the movement stretched the muscles over his cracked rib.

“We don’t gotta talk about that right now,” OJ offered. Looking out towards the sea of tiny lights that made up New York City, he put his arm around Nevada briefly. “How do you know about this place, hermano?” he asked him.

“Used to come up here as a kid,” Nevada answered. “Best view in the city.”

“That’s for sure,” OJ replied.

Omar didn't speak, just watching the city lights. “Who did this?”

Nevada frowned, then scowled. “Had to be that puta loca, Melody,” he growled. “I’m gonna fucking rip that pendeja from rank pussy to sternum.”

Omar didn't answer, his father was death because Nevada fucked around. He felt rage boil but only for a moment. When he thought about his father, he calmed. Oscar believed in Nevada, he believed that Nevada made mistakes but he was a good man and Omar had always believed that as well. Oscar wouldn't be mad. Oscar would have done what Omar now had to do instead. Omar patted Nevada on the shoulder.

“No one could have known that puta would go this far, jefe.”

“It’s my fault,” Nevada whispered, eyes cast downward. “It’s my fault he’s gone,” he said again.

“Don’t play that game, bro,” OJ said, shaking his head. “Nobody told la tipa to lose her shit.”

“Papi would have told you that you're full of shit, and we both know that and that you're not to blame,” Omar said seriously. “You wanna honor him? Then don't blame yourself for shit you couldn't control, she would have focused in on you either way man. The puta was just waiting to go fatal attraction on your ass.”

“Oye pero, being on the St. Nich side all these years, I miss everything, bro,” OJ mused. “But I saw the crazy eyes on that madre de pinga in the alleyway.”

“I’ll get Chibby and Sawyer on finding her in the morning,” Nevada said with resolve. “Soon as they do, she’s fucking dead.”

OJ looked over at his youngest brother. “We always said no women and children,” he said softly. “We making an exception this time, Jefe?”

“Fuck. Yes.” He took a sip from his beer, using the arm on the side that held the cracked rib, and winced a little. “Dama cracked one of my ribs,” he added absently.

Omar couldn't help but laugh. “Your pregnant wife crack your rib? Coño what did you do?”

“I was itching to pick a fight with someone. She didn’t want me to go, so she said she’d fight me,” he answered, chuckling a little. “I don’t think she meant to hit me there, pero bueno...pretty sure she might’ve been going for a liver shot.”

“Poor Dama,” Omar mused. “Amber told me about Dama only ever getting into one fight and she cried after hitting the girl and called her brother in tears.”

“Oye, pero como que ‘poor Dama?’ Carajo, I’m the one with cracked rib,” Nevada replied in a soft chuckle.

“Cono, bro, you were always such a whiny pendejo. Remember the first time he got shot?” OJ asked Omar. “‘Aye, I got shot, you guys have to be nice to me.’” OJ used his almost perfected Nevada voice and Trujillo playfully glared at him, smirk on his face.

“Fuck you, bro,” he replied, laughing along with the two men.

“Oye, no matter what happens, you're my brothers,” Omar said seriously. Nevada smiled softly at him, nodding his head in agreement.

“No shit, dickhead,” OJ replied, and both Nevada and Omar smirked at him. OJ never was very good with expressing emotions, though he had them just as much as anyone. He just always tried to make light of even the most somber of situations. “You remember that trip we took in the summer of ‘89? Papi getting lost on the way to Maine and mami sitting in the front seat, ‘Oye baboso, pull over and ask for directions, carajo!’”

“He used to get so pissed when someone would tell him to get directions,” Nevada added in a laugh.

“Or give him directions,” OJ replied.

The three men laughed together, toasting to the memory of the greatest man they ever knew.

“There's never gonna be another one like him” Omar said seriously.

OJ nodded in agreement as they sat down together. “Never. He was OG, one of a kind.”

Omar looked over to Nevada and half grinned. “You got fucking twins coming, man,” he said softly. “That's nuts. Amber tried to bring a goddamn baby home from overseas, that's how bad she wants just one kid. You're gonna have four.” Omar couldn't help but laugh at the way things worked out.

“Cono, don’t remind me,” Nevada replied, chuckling. “It’s cool though, you know? Never really thought I’d get married, let alone have kids.” He looked at Omar. “You want another kid?” he asked.

“With Amber? I dunno. She wants to rush things, we've only been together three years.”

OJ snorted a laugh, “Como que ‘only three years’ pendejo? If she's stayed with your stupid ass three years and settled for you not proposing yet, she's either crazy or she’s in it for the long haul. No woman stays past two years without a proposal, it's practically a fuckin’ rule...that's what Melissa and her friends say,” he shrugged.

“Carajo, now you’re in sewing circles too?” Nevada teased.

“I’ll fucking punch you in your cracked rib, bro,” OJ answered in a very big brother tone, earning another laugh from Nevada.

“Oye, pero that’s cool. Si tu quieres otro con ella, I say go for it, man,” Nevada said, looking back at Omar. “You could always just get reckless with birth control, that’s what we did. I got strongs ass swimmers, though, dejame decirte. Oye, la verdad, Dama’s been pregnant three times now,” he added, wagging a hand in front of his chest.

Omar frowned a bit, biting his lip, “She can't…” he mumbled.

“She can't what?” OJ said, “Coño did you break your dick or something? Send her over to Nevada, he's just got to look in her direction and apparently woman get pregnant,” OJ chuckled.

“Amber can't have kids,” Omar said after a long moment. Nevada looked from Omar back to OJ, shaking his head.

“Pendejo mierda--”

“Oye, I didn’t know, bro--” OJ exclaimed.

“Exactly you didn’t know, so why would you even saying anything, dumbass--”

“Cono, pero-- Okay, okay, ya, por favor,” OJ said, holding a hand up before he looked up at Omar. “What about uh…”

“Adoption?” Nevada offered, and OJ gently tapped his shoulder before pointing to Omar.

“Eso mismo,” he said.

“I suggested it,” he said with a long sigh. “She thinks I'm gonna leave cause she can't give me a kid...pero I don’t even know if I want another kid. I mean, yeah in a perfect world, I’d like to pero...” he shook his head. “I know she's happy for Dama, but I think it kills her a little inside every time Dama suggests she get pregnant…” Omar looked at Nevada.

“La esposa mia, bro, tan chismosa,” Nevada said to OJ, shaking his head.

“You can't tell your wife, Amber doesn't want her to know. I just…I wanted to propose soon,” he said honestly. “But now this?” He sighed. “Papi even talked to me about how to pick a ring. I'm just worried she'll turn me down because of some bullshit like I should have a woman that can give me kids or that's more stable or has a less dangerous job,” he rolled his eyes. “Loca.”

“You’re not stable,” OJ teased.

“You don’t exactly sell paper either, bro,” Nevada added. “Oye, pero really, lo siento. I had no idea, I just figured she wasn’t the type to want kids. But, she won’t turn you down, hermano,” he said, gently shaking his head. He turned his eyes to look at OJ. “I mean shit, si tu vas a coger un ring, take the time to pick it out, make sure it’s the right size, todo esa mierda...and then plan out how you’re gonna ask, what am I gonna say…? Sabes, you go through all those steps, you would think by then we would be sure it’s what we wanted. Pero las mujeres son tan--”

“Ay Dios mio,” OJ groaned knowingly. “He’s right, bro. You’re gonna get resistance even if it’s been written in the fuckin Bible that you’re meant to be together,” he added.

“It’s always something,” Nevada added, looking at Omar again. “She’ll say yes. I know I talk a lot of shit, and some of its even harsh, but I like her for you, bro. Ella es buena gente.”

“I love her,” Omar said softly. “More than I've ever loved anyone. This woman is the worst cook on the planet and I ate three bowls of her soup today.”

OJ made a face before he said, “Oye, ella tiene que aprender a cocinar.”

“Get her in a room with mami for a day, she’ll turn into a regular Betty Crocker, bro,” Nevada mused.

“No, pero if you wanna ask her, then ask her, bro,” OJ said, shrugging his shoulders.

Omar nodded, “I will, once we get through this,” he said softly. He looked over at Nevada, “Oye, do me a favor? Get Dama to tone it down with the ‘hurry up and get pregnant’ remarks. Tell her I don't like them.” He looked at Nevada seriously. “I gotta look out for my girl.”

“Por supuesto, no te preocupes que yo voy a hablar con ella about laying off the baby talk. I won’t tell her about Amber though, te lo judo,” Nevada answered, patting his brother on the shoulder. They sat in silence for a few moments before Nevada looked over at OJ.

“You should move back to our side,” he said. “Back on Amsterdam.”

“The kids got a lot friends over on St. Nich,” OJ answered with a shrug. “Pero, we’re talking about it.”

“Mami wanted us to start having Sunday dinner, papi agreed with her,” Nevada said after a moment. “We should…” he added.

Omar nodded, “Let's do it,” he smiled a bit as they toasted Oscar one more time.

#nevada ramirez #rafael barba #trouble in the heights #law and order svu #cuba v dr

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demidon117 · 8 years

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Suicide Squad Review

***Author’s Note: So, this is a review I wrote about Suicide Squad in a week long fury binge. IT IS LONG AND IT IS NEGATIVE. If you liked Suicide Squad, great! Don’t let me keep you from enjoying the things you like, these are just my angry, personal feelings about a movie. This is a seven-page review; like I said it’s long; if you read the whole thing, and agreed with it, give me some notes! Maybe follow? If this gets attention then I’ll post more film reviews here. Thanks for reading!*** Suicide Squad. Where do I begin?

Well, first, this movie leaves me with such an irrational fury, I needed at least an hour of ranting and raving before I could sit down to write this. The lack of understanding of the original characters is astounding, its attempts at trying to be an all-out action movie and superhero team up are laughable, and its manipulation of emotions to try and get a response out of the viewer is sickening. This movie doesn’t only fail as a superhero team-up movie, it also fails as an action movie, which is inexcusable since we have movies that have already done this correctly. But, enough being angry, let’s get into the reasons why this movie fails so spectacularly.   Amanda Waller wants to create an off-the-book, black-ops squad of the worst of the worst to do tasks that no one else wants to do. So, she hires Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Diablo, Captain Boomerang, Katana, Enchantress, and a team of Navy SEALs, all the while the Joker tries to save Harley and Enchantress’s brother saves her. Do you see the problem here? There are way too many characters in this stupid movie. It’s obvious what this movie wanted to be, it wanted to be the Anti-Guardians of the Galaxy. It wanted to be dark and gritty and prove that DC could produce the same kind of movies Marvel could and give us a big superhero team-up. Except, that Marvel devoted several movies establishing characters before throwing them all together in a big blockbuster, and Marvel also knows how to devote time to showing these characters as relatable people. Suicide Squad tries to establish even more characters than the Avengers or Guardians did and do it all in two hours. But, hey, what about X-Men? They had a lot of characters and that movie was good. Yes, it was, but that movie already had the team established and didn’t give us background on every character in the movie. It focused on Rogue, Wolverine, and Magneto and that was it, and it was enough. This movie tries to develop every. Single. Character. And it doesn’t work in the slightest and it’s manipulative and disgusting. Half of the characters don’t even need to be in the movie. We don’t need Enchantress’s brother, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, or the Joker. Hell, I’m not even sure we needed Rick Flag and his group of Navy SEALs. The movie is so saturated with terrible characters trying to take the spotlight that it’s maddening. The only characters that were really interesting and had any depth at all were Katana, Diablo, Harley, and Deadshot. Those four could carry a movie and it probably would’ve been fine. But, I’ll get to that soon enough.

  The next problem is the villain they’ve got to fight. The character, Enchantress is is inhabiting the body of a scientist who’s in love with Navy SEAL Rick Flag, the leader of the Suicide Squad and basically the bodyguard/parole officer of Enchantress. Enchantress is some old god witch who was trapped in a doll, along with her brother Incubus. She escapes from Flag and frees her brother and the two of them try to take over/destroy the world for reasons. Do you see how complicated that is? In a movie where they’ve got Harley and the Joker trying to love it up, Deadshot trying to take care of his daughter, and a dozen other plot lines that don’t matter. The villain is too complicated for a movie like this, and she’s too powerful. The Suicide Squad isn’t a group of superheroes. There are only two Meta-Humans in the team, the rest are just highly skilled people. They’re a strike force, not a superhero team. Enchantress is a powerful goddess type character and her brother is equally powerful, if not more. This is not the job for a bunch of side villains. Especially when they go out of their way to show the Flash and Batman in the movie. A villain of these stakes needs to be saved for the Justice League movie. I mean, it’s such a powerful villain, ANOTHER city has been completely destroyed and abandoned, the aftermath yet again saved for another movie. When will these stupid movies address the destruction without destroying a city? All this death and destruction is becoming meaningless, and I hate to say it, but boring as well.

So, it fails as a superhero movie, what about an action movie? No. In fact, that part is even worse. The movie takes two hours, and it’s split up into two halves, the first half establishes the characters and the second has them fighting. If you don’t know, this is a terrible idea. Firstly, the first half of the movie moves at a mind-numbing pace. I could take in what they were saying just fine, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t care about any of these characters because it didn’t give me time to care. It just kept going and going without giving you time to breathe. It introduces the main characters fine, I suppose, but then it tries to establish the dozen necessary plot lines. Let me tell you something, Fast Five had a lot of characters, and it had to establish a lot, but it didn’t do it in the span of just an hour. Sure, some of the characters were returning from previous movies, but people can sit down and watch Fast Five and enjoy it without seeing the previous four movies. Then, there’s Hardcore Henry, another great action movie, that keeps the plot moving at a comfortable pace and it would stop to have serious character moments and have a deep scene or two. “But you can’t compare those movies!” Some may cry, “Those aren’t genre movies!”

That doesn’t matter. Suicide Squad desperately wants to wow you as an action movie without caring at all to make it coherent or exciting. The second half of the movie moves at a snail’s pace compared to the first half. It kept dragging on in muddled blackness. The fights were boring because there was too much going on. Yeah, that’s right, there was too much fighting in the fight scenes, so much in fact, that it sucked all of the fun out of the air. There were too many people fighting, I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be impressive or not. Am I supposed to focus on Harley? Katana? Croc? Deadshot? Because lord knows it sure as hell ain’t Captain Boomerang. He throws, like, two boomerangs in the entire movie. Two. And his damn name is Captain Boomerang. Not to mention, most of the fight scenes in this movie are just people walking around shooting guns. It’s boring to just watch people walk around shooting guns. It could be impressive if it just happened once or twice, but it happens every time there’s a fight scene. The SEALs in this movie are so efficient that they could’ve carried the movie, it’s like they wanted to be Battlefield LA. So the movie, at the big climactic battle scene takes an hour to play through and it’s boring as sin. There are hardly any super powers in this movie about a comic book, y’know, the thing these characters are known for? “But, what about the end? There are super powers then.”

Oh yeah, that. Spoilers here, so skip to the next paragraph to miss it. Though, I’m not sure why you’d want to. Anyway, at the end of the movie, the characters end up fighting Incubus, Enchantress’s brother. Anyway, they’re getting the snot kicked out of them, and the whole movie, Diablo is building up to something, saying he’s holding back, and thus far, he’s been impressive, so what could he be holding back? Well, the fact that he turns into a giant flaming Aztec skeleton, and I’ll be perfectly honest, it was amazing. He shows up speaking Spanish in a demonic voice and just throwing fire at the Incubus and punches him and it’s awesome. And then he runs out of juice and his pinned to the ground by, well that’s okay, they’ll save him right? No. They don’t. Despite the fact that he’s weakened the thing and that Katana already showed that she could cut off hands and that they obviously had enough time to save him because they took the time to debate it, they use a high powered explosive to kill Diablo and Incubus. But, they kept Captain Boomerang, because “Hey! Wacky Australian antics!” So, one of the two characters I cared about died, thus ruining any chance I had to watch the second movie.

Anyway, the superpowers are kind of cool and the effects are impressive, but it’s hardly seen in the actual fights and it’s just disappointing. Like, I get it, you want to show how dark, edgy, and serious these characters are because they use lethal force, but seriously, it’s so boring to watch because it’s just shooting guns. Katana who could’ve been the most fun to watch, and would’ve been incredibly popular among those sword wielding weebs, is hardly seen because Will Smith and Margot Robbie are the most famous people in this movie. And the movie knows that because they get the most lines, the most screen time, and the most development and it sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with most critics in that they were fantastic. Will Smith brings a depth to Deadshot most people didn’t know, even though his backstory and motivations are stock and generic, and Margot Robbie does a great job as Harley, I honestly can think of anything she does wrong, it’s all the fault of David Ayer for ruining the character. Like, who wears underwear to a war-zone? I’d even accept a stupid skirt. And I wouldn’t say there were bad performances, per se, just bad characters, so it made the performances hard to care about. Well, one exception, Jared Leto as the Joker is one of the worst things I’ve seen in the history of the universe.

I usually like Leto, I think he’s a pretty good actor. He was good in Mr. Nobody and Requiem for a Dream. He did a good job of being a douche bag in Fight Club, though, I’m beginning to think that wasn’t all acting…

Anyway, his portrayal of the character was just all wrong. His laugh, his mannerisms, his antics while the movie was being filmed, it’s just… Stupid. It’s easily the worst Joker performance I’ve ever seen. Especially when we’re coming off the heels of Heath Ledger’s legendary performance and Mark Hamill’s iconic voice and laugh. There’s so much inspiration on how to do the character right, and the fact that this movie got it so wrong, it makes me feel ill. And I’m all for taking the character into your own, but this portrayal is just so wrong. Leto just doesn’t have the necessary charm or intimidation to ground such a character. Worst of all, he’s not funny. Say what you will about The Joker, but he was funny. He’d crack jokes, he’d play pranks, yeah he’d kill you, but he’d still try to have fun. This Joker tries to be more realistic as a gang leader, kind of how Heath Ledger made his Joker more realistic as an avatar of chaos. Leto is able to make the Joker erratic for sure, but it’s so stupid. There’s never any reason as to why people follow him. Ledger promised people a revolution, Hamill ruled them through fear, Jack Nicholson was already a gang leader when he became The Joker. Leto? Well, he’s erratic. All we see is that he knows how to use guns, like every other character in this movie. So, why is he in charge? There’s never a moment where we see why he’s in charge, only that people follow him for some reason. Finally, my biggest problem with this entire movie, the worst thing that happens, the thing that makes me so damn angry about it, is how it plays up the romance of Harley Quinn and The Joker.   Let me be clear, in case you don’t understand, the Joker is the evilest creature ever put to paper. He is not sympathetic, he is not caring, and he is not someone to be put into a relationship with someone like Harley Quinn. Their relationship is not loving and romantic, it is abusive. From her conception, Harley was meant to show just how heartless the Joker can be. He would hit her, berate her, and use her as a human shield, but she followed him because she had Stockholm Syndrome. She was tricked into thinking she was in love with him. And the Joker knew that. So he’d drag her along and play along with her delusions, so long as it benefited him. The current run of the Batman comics shows the Joker being so monstrous to Harley it’s honestly hard to read. The Joker and Harley are not a loving couple. So, whenever this movie shows The Joker caring for Harley in any way, it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s because of this stupid movie that people started romanticizing the two again. This part of the movie is so big and important to the story that I can say this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The Joker does not love Harley, he just can’t and just won’t.   Finally, there’s a bunch of superficial garbage that I hate about this movie. The music is so irritating. It feels like they wanted to do what Quinten Tarantino does with having a soundtrack of recognizable songs that flow with the story. Except they don’t flow with the story in the least bit and are way too recognizable. It really feels like they had a list of popular songs and just slapped them in during the late stages of editing. Listen, music is shockingly important to movies, watch a movie on mute and you’ll realize how important backing tracks can be, even during quiet scenes. You can have popular songs in your movie and have them work, Tarantino does it, dozens of other action movies do it, but they do it sparingly. This movie feels like an iTunes playlist was shoved in. It’s so irritating and it pulls me out of the film each and every time a new song comes on, and it sucks because the original score is honestly pretty good. That’s one of the few things I’ll give to DC movies, the original score is usually pretty good. I can’t hum any of the melodies, but I remember a scene where Diablo shoots fire for the first time in the city, and the thing that struck me the most, was the music, it was loud and dramatic and perfectly encompassed the shock, horror, and amazement we needed to feel at that moment. It’s just such a shame they had to drown out all of it with annoyingly recognizable music.   Then there’s the editing. IT’S SO DAMN DARK. No, not the story and subject matter, the actual brightness in the movie was too dark, so any of the fighting scenes in the movie were practically impossible to see. I don’t know if it was the Amazon Video version, but I had to adjust the gamma on my screen to watch the film. I’ve never had to do that before. Then, during the scenes where they were introducing the characters, they had these neon graffiti effects show up and had caricatures of the characters. It was actually kind of cool, if not trendy, which is actually bad, so I guess this compliment doesn’t work, but whatever. It would’ve been nice if that color was peppered throughout the rest of the movie because the rest was so muddled in blackness that I couldn’t tell if this was a horror movie or a superhero action romp.

I remember right before this movie was released, they actually had to go back and reshoot some scenes to make it funnier. And I thought, “Great, it’d be nice to laugh unironically,” But, guess what, it wasn’t funny. It was obvious they added scenes of Captain Boomerang and his gross fetish with a pink unicorn because it was shown twice and completely forgotten about. This stupid unicorn was important enough to bring into a war-zone, but as soon as he dropped it, it was forgotten. Then, when they showed people getting evacuated (which was an obvious attempt at trying to show us “Hey! We learned from Man of Steel!”) there was a girl walking around with her friends in party dresses and said something like “This is the worst birthday ever.”

Why? Why would you add that? It wasn’t funny, thousands of people are dying/dead, and you’re going to take time out of your two-hour movie to shove in a line like that? No. That’s not okay. It’s not funny, it’s not amusing, it’s insulting and completely ruins the immersion. I was never more aware I was watching a stupid movie than right there and then.

NOT TO MENTION, the first half of the movie just feels like extended trailers all smashed into each other. There’s undeniable whiplash when they enter the city. Actually, they had two different editing studios work on this film. Like, DC just didn’t know what to do, so they had two different studios work on it, and instead of thoughtfully using the edits to make a good, coherent plot, they literally smashed the two different versions of the film together to make some disgusting half-trailer-half-cinematic monstrosity. Honestly, this would probably explain the piss poor pacing of the first half.

So, I’ve been ripping at this movie, being angry and ranting, but not giving any real ways to try and fix this movie. And yes. There are ways to make this movie work. And yes, there are ways to make it work. Keep in mind, this is all coming from my own story choices. Were I in charge of the movie, this is how I’d write it.    The first thing to change is the villain. The Suicide Squad is a hit squad, meant to do secret operations you don’t want people to ever hear about, or to take down a target that only super-villains could take down. This Enchantress character, as I’ve said, is too powerful for these characters to take down. So, instead of them fighting Enchantress, have them go after the Joker. I’m not kidding. This would set up a lot of moment of conflict for Harley and would give Margot Robbie something to reach for other than edgy scene girl. The flashbacks into her and the Joker’s past would have more meaning and show how manipulative he is into tricking her into loving him. This would also set up a good relationship between Harley and Deadshot. They had undeniable chemistry together, as I expected of Will Smith and Margot Robbie. I’ll admit it, I wanted Deadshot and Harley together. Sue me.  The next thing would be to cut out most of the characters in the Suicide Squad. All you need are Deadshot, Harley, Katana, and Diablo. Why? Well, for one, these are the only characters in this stupid movie that have any decent backstories, and for two, they all have incredible potential to make good characters. Send those four after the Joker and it’d add up to something pretty tense. Hell, you could even keep Batman in the movie like the animated feature they made. Then, you stop using that horrible soundtrack. The original score was good enough, don’t keep throwing in pop songs. It’s not fun and it’s distracting as hell. Then you use ONE studio to do the editing, and I’d say that’d add up to a pretty enjoyable film.

I just can’t believe DC ruined another movie like this. If I were them, I’d immediately drop the rest of the plans they had for future movies because there’s no way they can salvage this universe after Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad. This movie was just poor decision after poor decision, and instead of making a movie that’s so bad it’s good, like The Room or xXx, this film is just bad enough to be infuriating.

#movie #review #critic #suicide squad #dc comics

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diamondsareapearlsbestfriend · 8 years

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Sans/Toriel 30 Day OTP Challenge!

hellooo people!! so since I’m apparently incapable of writing anything but Soriel these days, I decided to give @otp-imagines-cult ‘s 30 Day OTP Challenge a shot lmao ^^; will also be posting to AO3, updates hopefully every couple of days and I might make a masterpost or something when there’s more. in the meantime here’s day one! TY for reading <3

day one: meeting

Over the years, Toriel has become quite familiar with all the little squeaks, creaks and sounds of the Ruins.

It is perhaps an inevitable consequence of living here in isolation for so long – there may have been a time when the slightest noise would have made her jump, but now she has learned to recognise the soft scrabble of a mouse skittering over a floorboard, or the rustle of the leaves scattered among the old pillars. Some days, Toriel finds herself listening eagerly for that sound, so she has an excuse to sweep the leaves back into neat little piles the following morning. Not because she expects anyone will be around to see them, but because she likes to think that, if there were, they might appreciate the sight. Besides, there is little else for her to do to pass the time.

The distinctive sounds of another person – monster or human – are something Toriel would surely recognise instantly, after many years without another soul passing through. Yet, still, she often awakes suddenly in the night, convinced she hears the footsteps of something – someone – wandering the Ruins, and sometimes even a voice, a child, crying, calling out for help...Toriel rushes from her bed, her palms already alight with magic to light the way, to guide whatever poor lost soul might be out there to safety – but every time, she finds only darkness. Toriel returns to her house as alone as she left it, wondering if she can be sure that anything she hears is real any more. Wondering if, perhaps, her old mind is slowly weathering away, just like the fallen pillars of the Ruins which once stood proud and strong, until one day there will be nothing left of either of them.

But it is not in the night when she next passes through, and Toriel is as certain as she has ever been of anything that the noise coming from behind the old forest door is very real, and unusual. Her ears prick up instantly as she creeps closer to the source; a low murmur, barely audible at first, but unmistakably the voice of someone, another person on the other side of the door. Toriel feels her heartbeat quickening just from the thought – but before she can lean in closer, press her ear to the door to decipher what, if anything, the person is saying, two loud, distinct raps on the door make her jump back.

"Knock knock," a voice says.

Before she can properly consider her response, Toriel automatically blurts out: "Who is there?"

There is a brief silence, and then: "Dishes."

"Dishes who?"

"Dishes a very bad joke."

As it hits, Toriel starts to laugh, and soon finds she cannot stop – great, braying howls of laughter that shake her whole body until she is doubled over, clutching her belly with tears running down her cheeks. It has been so long, she realises, since she really, truly laughed – since she has had anyone around to make her laugh like this. The person on the other side must think she is insane, she thinks - but it feels so good that Toriel cannot bring herself to care, and then she hears them laughing too, a softer but somehow reassuring rumble through the door.

They knock again, and again, and somehow each punchline is funnier than the last, Toriel barely managing to catch her breath in between. She shares some of her own old favourites, jokes that Asgore would visibly struggle to muster up a smile at, while Asriel would whine, "Moooom, stop, you're so embarrassing", even if he would be smiling too. Now, though, Toriel feels a peculiar sense of accomplishment when she makes him – for she recognises the voice as male, low and almost monotone, but with a genuine warmth that Toriel feels even though she cannot see him, that leaves her in no doubt that he is enjoying himself – laugh too, deep chuckles that somehow only make her laugh even more, long after the joke should have grown old. She feels positively giddy, like a girl again instead of the old woman she is, until finally they can think of no more.

"So this is new," he says, after their last peals of laughter have rang out through the empty hallway. "I don't usually get much of an audience around here."

"No, I expect not." Toriel clasps her hands together, fidgeting with her paws. "I am sorry if I startled you."

"No, don't be sorry – you're the best audience I've had since, well, pretty much ever," he says with a chuckle. "Just wasn't expecting the door to start talking back, you know? But don't get me wrong – it's great to meet someone who gets it."

Toriel isn't entirely sure what "it" is that she gets, but she smiles, her cheeks flushing unexpectedly at the compliment. "Well, I should say the same to you. I pass through here every day to check, but I have not come across anybody else in...quite some time."

"Heh – you could say there still is no 'body' here." Toriel frowns, unsure what he seems amused by this time, until he adds: "Wait, uh, scratch that one. It doesn't really work if you can't see me."

"I see – or rather, I suppose, I do not see," she answers with a giggle. "Then, if I may ask, what brings you to this place?" He must only have come by recently, for she would surely have heard him before otherwise.

"I got sent here a couple weeks ago. My post moves around, but the boss wanted me here for some reason. I'm supposed to be watching out for humans."

"For humans?" The news sends a nervous flutter through Toriel's stomach, but she is careful to keep her voice light. "My goodness. That sounds like a big responsibility, is it not?"

"Guess so." He does not sound too concerned, but he must mistake her silence for fear of some kind, because he adds: "Hey, but don't worry about it. My brother's in training for the Royal Guard and it's like, his dream to catch a human. No way one's getting past any time soon on his watch." After a moment, he continues: "Actually, he's probably wondering where I am right about now. I'm not usually the type to work late. Or at all."

Even if this is not the reassurance he imagines it to be, Toriel is touched by the gesture, that this stranger would even think about her safety, and she nods gratefully before remembering he cannot see her.

"Thank you. I am glad to hear it – ah, I hope I have not kept you too long! Please do go home to your brother, if you wish – I am sure he needs your company and comedic skills more than I do, after all."

"I'd agree with you, but he doesn't seem to find me nearly as humerus as you do." Toriel can hear the smile in his voice, though, and it warms her heart even through the twinge of something like envy. What a wonderful thing it was, to have family to come home to; someone to love and care for unconditionally, and they for you. Something one should never, ever take for granted. "But yeah, he's pretty cool. I'll tell you about him next time."

Toriel blinks. "Next time...?"

"Sure. If you want?" For the first time, she detects a note of uncertainty in his otherwise pleasantly laid-back drawl. "I'll be here tomorrow, anyway. Might even have some fresh material by then – but, hey, if you have mysterious-door-lady stuff to do, that's cool too."

Toriel grins, wide and foolish and now a little grateful that he cannot see her overeager response – it has truly been so long since she has conversed, connected with another person like this, she had hardly dared to hope they might have the opportunity to do this again. "Oh no, I should certainly find the time! I would love to hear all about your brother – in fact," she barely manages to suppress her giggles, "I would a-door it."

He laughs, a sound which is becoming one of her favourites in all the Ruins. "Good one. Lady, you're a real knockout." Toriel's glee escapes in the form of an undignified snort as she leans back against the door, hugging her knees to her chest like a child. "Oh, right, guess I should introduce myself. I'm –"

"No," Toriel interrupts hurriedly, laughter disappearing as abruptly as she can get the word out – if he tells her his name, then he will surely expect to know hers, and all that comes with it. Toriel cannot bear the weight of history and expectation, presumptions and questions that she has hidden from for so long, not yet, and especially not now, after she has glimpsed the possibility of something so wonderful, something she thought she might never have again – a friend.

There is a silence, and she clears her throat, hoping she has not startled him. "I mean, um...no names, please, for now? I just think it is a little more...exciting this way."

"Okay. Sure thing." If he thinks her request strange, she cannot tell by his voice. "No names, got it. In that case, I guess I'm...nobody."

Toriel smiles, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Perhaps, one day, she will truly be able to express her gratitude. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr Nobody. From one nobody to another – and now, I suppose I must be on my way back to...nowhere."

"Nowhere, huh? I hear that's beautiful this time of year."

"Oh, just wonderful," Toriel agrees, playing along despite the familiar pang of loneliness at the thought of her empty house. "You must come and visit sometime."

"Love to, but I, uh...can't seem to find it on my map."

"I think you will know when you are here," she tells him with a wry smile. "Well, good night."

"See ya."

Toriel lingers at the door a little while longer, until she hears him walk away, footsteps crunching through fresh snow. She wonders idly if he is cold. Perhaps, next time, she will offer him a blanket, or even a slice of warm pie if she can slide it under the door.

The thought keeps her smiling all the way home, and as she prepares her usual snail pie for one, and even as she turns her head away from the now permanently closed door when she finally retires to bed.

That night, for the first time in a long time, Toriel sleeps soundly, undisturbed by the nightly murmurings and stirrings of the Ruins past and present.

Because, for the first time in an even longer time, she has a reason to look forward to tomorrow.

#30 day otp challenge #soriel #fanfiction #undertale fanfiction #my fic

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