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hunnysnoops · 11 months ago

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˗ˋ𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕋𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕙 𝕋𝕖𝕖𝕟𝕤ˊ˗

Chapter Eight: Smoke Breaks

Kyle Broflovski x fem reader

And it's more a question of when than a question of if, since that night you hopped out of my car, left behind your American Spirits and I keep a lighter in my pocket at all times 'cause never know when you'll need one.

Also available on Ao3 and Wattpad!

Premise: Summer is kicking off a little duller than you anticipated but there’s still time to turn it around.

Warnings: crude language and humour

MASTERLIST

You sit in the hard, plastic chair, your fingers cramped around the pen as you scrawl your answers onto the biology exam paper. The classroom is a hushed sea of students, the only sounds are the faint rustling of paper and the ticking of the clock. You glance to your right, where Kyle is hunched over his desk, scribbling furiously.

It had been easy enough thanks to the absurd amount of caffeine pills you had been taking the entire week to be sure you had studied enough. Now you were flying through the exam, barely even looking at the question before an answer popped into your head.

Your eyes flicker back to your paper and all the topics you've crammed for in the past week blur together. You can feel the pressure, the weight of this exam that will determine so much. Kyle shifts slightly in his seat, and you wonder if he's feeling the same as you though it was hard to tell with how he always had his eyebrows drawn together like every thought running through his head was a worry.

There was a certain feeling of dread that came with the last week of school, it was like the last day of summer camp when you had no idea when you would be seeing the people you had spent so much time with next. You didn't know what you would do with your summer, likely spend it going for runs in the afternoon, working for shitty tips until ten, and then staying up until your eyes sting and turn bloodshot.

You scribble down your final answer, a sense of both relief and anxiety washing over you. You look up, and there's Kyle, setting his pencil down at the exact same moment. It's uncanny how often this happens, how often the two of you mirror each other in these small but significant ways. It never failed to creep you out.

You and Kyle push your chairs back simultaneously, the screech of metal on linoleum synchronizing like the final chord of a symphony. You stand up, and so does he, both of you gathering your papers and heading to the front of the room.

Head craned to look at him as he walked parallel to you, you picked up your pace so you could be the first to turn in your exam. He didn't try to race you to the front, just quirked an eyebrow watching you rush your way up to Mr. Waterman's desk and slam the booklet of questions down, turning around to see if he was gaining on you. He was not.

"Wow, done already?" Mr. Waterman asks with a slight smile, keeping his voice down. Next to you, Kyle stands and turns his papers into the teacher, glancing at you. "You too Kyle? Nice work, guys."

"Thanks," You press your lips into a thin smile, waiting for the approval to leave.

Mr. Waterman glances at the clock above the door "You two are good to go unless you want to take another look over your exam."

"I'm okay," Kyle says, voice hardly above a whisper so as not to bother the other students.

"Okay well," Mr. Waterman clicks around on his computer for a moment before looking back at the both of you "All of your assignments are finished, tests written, so in case I don't see you again keep an eye out for your results and have a good summer," He smiles.

"You too," You give him a little wave as you leave the class, Kyle trailing not far behind you. When he slowly shut the door behind the both of you, you spoke up "I can't believe I finished first," You smiled up at Kyle. Wendy would've been the first to finish had she not left a week early for a trip and written her exams prior.

"You finished first?"

"Yeah?" You say "Why are you saying it like that?"

He shrugs "Pretty sure we finished at the same time."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yuh-huh."

"Kyle?" You ask, sweetening your tone.

"Yeah?"

"I finished first, let me have this."

He raises his hands in defence "Okay, you finished first, good job."

"Thanks!" You smile. You search for something else to say to fill the gap of silence "Erm, so I guess we're done with Biology."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Yup, guess so," You nod awkwardly, paraphrasing his words and wanting to maul yourself for it.

"Hey, what are you doing tonight?" Kyle asks, his tone is casual but with an edge of something else, something that makes your pulse quicken.

"Nothing much," You reply, trying to sound equally casual. "I work like every night after today so I think I'm just gonna relax. You?"

He smiles, and for a moment, you think he's going to say something more, something significant. "Cool, I have to work."

You try not to let your face drop despite the disappointment you were struck with. Part of you thought he would ask to hang out or go for a drive but you shouldn't have expected so much. "Oh, sick."

He nods "Uh, are you coming back for I days?" I days were for students who had missing or incomplete assignments, they would be forced to come in the following week to finish them off while the other students got to enjoy the start of their summer and only return for the final day where report cards were received.

"Nah, are you?"

"Nope."

You didn't really know how to talk to Kyle when there wasn't school involved or some high-pressure situation where lives were on the line. It always felt stiff without arguing "What answer did you get on question twenty-three? the one about decomposition."

"Uh," He runs a hand through his curls "I don't remember, sorry."

"No, it's fine, I already wrote it, so," You take a small breath in "Yeah."

"Do you think you did okay?" he asks, glancing at you with those hazel eyes that seem to cut right through you. You shrug, trying to muster a nonchalant tone.

"Probably. Some parts were tough, but it's over now, right?" Your voice sounds strange to your ears, higher pitched, a bit too enthusiastic. You cringe internally but hope he doesn't notice. "How about you?"

Kyle chuckles softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Honestly, I don't know. That last essay question really threw me off."

"Yeah, same here," you reply, laughing a little too loudly. You cringe internally, but Kyle doesn't seem to notice. He smiles but you don't seem to catch it, eyes focused on the ground and mind trying to decode why you were acting so humiliating.

Kyle nods, shoving his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunching slightly. The two of you walk in awkward silence for a moment, the sound of your footsteps merging with the distant chatter of other students. You steal a glance at him, noticing the way his hair falls into his eyes, and the curve of his lips as he looks down at the ground. "Hey, Kyle-

"Hey, Kyle!" Before you can even finish your sentence you're cut off by Leslie, she's digging around in her locker and smiling at the two of you, sticking one hand out to wave at Kyle.

He glances at you like he is waiting for approval "Go ahead, I gotta go this way anyways, I parked at the back," You lie through your teeth, you had parked in your usual spot in the front lot.

"Really?" He lets out a breath "See you on game night?"

"Okay, cool, well, see you whenever."

Before he can say anything else you begin to walk down the first hallway you see. It took you an extra seven minutes to walk through the labyrinth of corridors and then walk your way back to the front where your car was waiting for you. By the time you inside of it, you wanted to punch your window shield.

Heat rose to your cheeks, eyes wide "Fuck!" You shouted, slamming your head down into the car horn and leaving it there to let the awful sound ring out and draw attention to your embarrassment.

New Message- Red 🧌🔫

You: wyd

Red 🧌🔫: bed rotting

You: wanna hang out?

Red 🧌🔫: just got off work

Red 🧌🔫: so no

You: Boooooooo

Lately, you had been trying to ignore the feeling of loneliness that threatened to creep up over you. You spent the entire first week of summer by yourself and whoever offered up small talk at work. It wasn't as easy to pretend that you liked the solitude as you had imagined. While everyone else was filling up your social media feeds with pictures of them on vacation and out with friends, you had been coming home from your serving shifts covered in sweet chilli mayo, hair a mess from the misters your boss installed on the patio where you ran back and forth to attend to tables.

Now you were freshly showered and laying in bed, trying to figure out what you wanted to do with your night before the sunset. You didn't want to spend another night alone with your eyes turning bloodshot red from the blue light cast off your phone.

So far everyone you had reached out to had plans though you didn't stop digging through your contacts.

New Message: Nichole 💕

You: Wanna do something?

Nichole 💕: Right now?

You: Yeah

Nichole 💕: Srry bb, I can't

Nichole 💕: Tuesday?

You: Fo sho

You glance around, taking in the posters on your walls, the books stacked haphazardly on your desk with binders you no longer needed, the photos of friends and family. Your gaze lingers on a picture of you and Bebe from last summer, both of you grinning widely, arms slung around each other's shoulders. A pang of something hits you square in the chest, before you can even process what emotion you're feeling you snatch the photo off the wall and crumple it up, tossing it across the room.

With a sigh, you flop back onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling. The fan spins lazily above you, and you let your thoughts drift, trying to make sense of the jumble of emotions swirling inside you. You were convinced adults were lying when they said these were the best years of your life.

It's been a few days since that awkward walk from school with Kyle, and you haven't seen him since. You hadn't even texted him but kept checking to see if he had sent anything, the answer was no. Your chat hadn't been touched since the night of the lock-in. You replay your conversations in your head like you were performing an autopsy, wondering if you missed some hidden meaning, some unspoken truth. Whatever, it didn't matter, you just needed someone to hang out with so you could stop dissecting things that were already irreversible.

New Message- McWhoremick

You: Hey Kenny

McWhoremick: Who's this?

You: ?

McWhoremick: He's busy

Okay so, Red was tired, Nichole was preoccupied, Kenny was getting laid, and you were still alone. This didn't seem fair.

New Message- Annie!!!!!

You: Annnnnie

Annie!!!!!: Yesssssss?

You: Want to do something?

Annie!!!!!: I have to leave early tomorrow for a road trip :/

You: Aw man

You: Have fun

Annie!!!!!: Omg but when I see you again I need to tell you what happened with Ashley

Now it was getting a little sad. You always thought you were fine with being alone until you were actually alone, when the invites to sleepovers and parties stopped rolling in it was like you had been locked up in isolation. You wait, your phone clutched tightly in your hand. Minutes pass, each one feeling longer than the last. One by one, the replies trickle in or they simply don't come at all.

New Message- Heidi🦆

You: Hey

Heidi🦆: Hiiiii

You: Are you busy?

Heidi🦆: Yeah :(

You: Bummer

New Message- Dildo Faggins (Tolkien)

You: Hey

Dildo Faggins (Tolkien): Hey

You: What are you doing?

Dildo Faggins (Tolkien): On a date 🤠

You: Sweet

You: Have fun!!!

Dildo Faggins (Tolkien): Will do

New Message- Craig

You: hey

Craig: What

You: what are you doing?

Craig: With Tweak

"Shit," You mutter. The loneliness hits you all at once like liquor on an empty stomach. You put your phone down before you quickly grab it again, scrolling through social media, but it only makes you feel worse. Everyone seems to be having fun, their lives filled with parties, dates, and adventures.

You consider your options. You could stay in, watch a movie, maybe read a book. But the thought of spending the evening alone in your room feels unbearable. You need to get out, even if it's just for a little while. If you were so interesting and funny then why were you on your own?

After another ten messages are either left unanswered or rejected you start to consider your final option.

New Message- Uncle Richie

You: Wanna hang out?

Uncle Richie: ??????

Uncle Richie: dude it's seven pm on a saturday

Uncle Richie: you should be with your friends

You: So is that a yes or a no?

Uncle Richie: bruh

Uncle Richie: no

You: What

You: Why?

Uncle Richie: because I actually have plans kid

"Oh, fuck this," You throw your phone down onto your mattress, running your hands down your face. Uncle Richie had plans and you didn't. If Wendy was in town you would've asked her though she probably would've been doing something with Stan.

You can hear faint sounds from your brother's room across the hallway. You get up and head to his room, pushing the door open without knocking. Weston is sitting at his computer, hood pulled over his head and a sickening energy drink beside him, headphones on, engrossed in a video game. His fingers move rapidly over the keyboard one hand on the mouse.

He doesn't even acknowledge your presence until you plop down onto his navy blue bed. Weston turns around, doing a double take and with a groan moves one of the earcups away so he can hear you "Bruh, get out."

"I can't," you sigh "I'm too heavy."

"Yeah, I can tell." Weston looks back at his game, bringing his mic close to his mouth "Sorry, dude, my sister just came in," Someone on the other end says something and his face contorts in disgust "No, she's not hot," His nose wrinkles up "Gross, Ike, don't say that."

From your view of his unmade bed, you can look past the overpriced gaming chair he got for Christmas, you can see he's playing one of those cookie-cutter online shooter games. Your gaze glances to the hamster cage sitting on top of his dresser, a little grey and white Siberian hamster lazily burrowed inside. Slinking off the bed you walk over to the cage, hit with the smell of bedding and god knows what. Slowly, you open the latch and as gently as the summer breeze you place him in the palm of your hand and go to sit on the edge of your brother's bed.

"Hey," Weston catches you in his peripheral, pulling his mic away from his mouth "Are you holding Mr. Worldwide?"

"Yeah," You say, gingerly stroking the top of the little hamster who gives no indication of whether she enjoys it or not.

"Put her down," He shoots you a dirty look whilst trying to keep up with his team on the game.

"No, she likes me more than you."

"Ike, shut up," He exasperates, ignoring your comment completely. You can see him visibly tensing up as his character begins to sway and rock every time it's shot. Weston tries to shoot the opposing player but in turn, his screen slowly fades to red as his character drops to the ground "Fuck!" He slams his fist down onto the desktop. He swerves his head back to look at you "Don't you have people your own age to bother?"

"No," You say, honestly.

Weston sucks a sharp breath through his teeth "Maybe you should get on that and make some friends instead of harassing your brother."

"Maybe you should take a shower," you retort.

"I showered this morning," He pulls up the collar of his shirt to smell inside and wrinkles his nose at the smell.

"Doesn't smell like it," You stand from the bed and place the hamster next to your brother's keyboard. "Do you wanna go to the movies or something?"

"Jeez, are you really that lonely?" His mocking tone carries the slightest bit of sympathy, something you never thought he had.

"Pfft, no, get out of here, man." You wave him off.

"You're in my room!" He shouts, his face turning red as he does so. "God, I wish I had a normal sister."

"I wish I had a hygienic brother," You say as you shut the door behind you. Your own brother didn't even want to spend time with you and he wasn't even bountiful in company. Making your way down the stairs you head straight for the door.

"Jellybean, where are you going?" Your dad asks craning his neck to look at you from his spot on the couch.

"Just going to Red's for a bit," You lie. You were truthfully going for a drive to smoke but it seemed a little less sad when you smeared the truth.

"Finally, you're seeing the sun," he jokes, a smile breaking onto his face like he had struck comedy gold "Have fun, text me if you decide to stay over."

"Kay, love ya," You grab your keys from the little dish on the mantel, heading out the door.

"Love you, Jellybean," Your dad was quick to turn his attention back to Facebook where he did not fail to comment on every post he saw.

The warm air is beginning to fade into something cooler as you walk to your car. The familiar scent of the interior greets you as you slide into the driver's seat, and you take a moment to just sit there, letting the silence envelop you.

Starting the engine, you pull out of the driveway and onto the quiet streets. You don't have a particular destination in mind, just a need to drive and clear your head. The hum of the engine and the rhythm of the road beneath your tires are soothing, a welcome distraction from the turmoil in your mind.

After driving aimlessly for a while, you pull into an empty parking lot overlooking a small park. The area is quiet, the streetlights casting a soft glow over the deserted playground and picnic tables. You reach into the glove compartment and pull out a pack of cigarettes, a habit you've been trying to kick for the past week after the hunt for nicotine almost gave you rabies but tonight feels like an exception.

You light one, the flicker of the lighter briefly illuminating your face. The first drag is harsh but familiar, the smoke curling up towards the open window. You exhale slowly, watching the smoke dissipate into the night air.

As you sit there, smoking and staring out at the park, your thoughts drift back to Kyle. You wonder what he's doing right now if he's thinking about you too. The uncertainty of your feelings for him weighs heavily on your mind.

You take another drag, trying to push the thoughts away, but they keep coming back. The memory of that awkward conversation after the exam, the unspoken words, the lingering glances—it all feels so confusing and frustrating.

Once again you're almost overcome with the urge to to slam your head against the dashboard, thinking of the embarrassment you had brought yourself. Had he noticed you being so sheepish? Did he really care? Probably not and that thought is not one that soothes you.

It wasn't like you to trip over words or wait by your phone all week just hoping for a text from him. You had thought you were becoming friends or at the very least something similar.

You liked to think that maybe he had been waiting for you to text him and not the possibility that you really didn't cross his mind until you were in front of him. Do you really have the right to sulk when you weren't doing anything for what you wanted?

You finish your cigarette, stubbing it out on the outside of your car, right beneath your window. You had done more than enough wallowing and didn't want to wait around any longer for something you wanted.

The restlessness in you intensifies, and instead of heading back home, you find yourself driving towards Kyle's house. For a moment you think about driving past and letting this simmer away with you but instead, you pull up into the road in front of his house. For a moment, you just sit there, the cool night air drifting in through the open window to be sure the smell of tobacco has elevated. You reach for your phone and shoot him a quick text.

New Message- Kyle Broflovski

You: Wanna hang out?

Kyle Broflovski: Now?

You: Yeah

Kyle Broflovski: Sure

You: Cool bc I'm outside ur house

The blinds of Kyle's bedroom are pulled open and curtains pushed aside, you can see him staring down at your car to be sure you were really there. You give him a little smile and wave. His eyebrows are furrowed in confusion, curls pushed down with black headphones. He quickly yanks the blinds shut again and retreats from the window.

Moments later, he slips through the front door, pulling a hoodie over his t-shirt while awkwardly jogging over to you. "Hey," He says, ducking into the passenger seat.

"Hey," You almost nervously tap the steering wheel "So, what do you want to do?"

"You texted me?" He phrases it like he's unsure.

"Yeah but that was kinda an impulsive thing, I was just going to listen to every Weezer song for fifteen hours, I didn't actually have anything planned."

"So why did you ask to hang out?"

"Because I wanted to do something," You try to say it as casually as possible even though you were writhing inside "Why did you come out?"

He shrugs "I dunno, I just wanted to see you."

"Yeah, okay," You turn away from him, trying to ignore the heat rising to your face "Did you eat dinner yet?"

"No."

"Okay, sweet let's do that then," You pull away from your stationary spot and begin rolling back down the road. This was hard for you. You had felt stupid for even trying to be friends with him and making small awkward conversations because neither of you would admit to the fact that you just wanted to be around each other and do things that friends do. "Your parent's home?"

"Yeah," he cracks a small smile "My mom didn't believe me when I told her that you texted me."

You suck a sharp breath through your teeth "I wouldn't believe you either."

Kyle furrows his eyebrows, glancing around the car "What's that smell?"

"Sorry, I was smoking in here earlier." You feel somewhat embarrassed. Maybe you should've sprayed some perfume to drown it out.

"No, it smells good, like coconuts and kiwi," He adds.

"I'm not from new Zealand but I just washed my hair." Without realizing it, your face brightened just the slightest. Thank god your mom had bought the wrong conditioner and left you smelling like a tropical thunderstorm "So."

"Oh," He turns his head to look out the window "Well it's nice."

"Thanks." You try your best to bite back a smile though the attempt fails miserably.

You grip the steering wheel a little tighter than usual, feeling the slight hum of the car beneath you as you navigate the quiet streets. Beside you, Kyle adjusts the radio, settling on a soft rock station. His presence is both comforting and nerve-wracking, a mix that sends your heart racing in a way you hope he doesn't notice.

"Your cars clean," he says, his voice somewhat staggered behind the statement

"Yeah, no shit," you reply, trying not to take offence. "What, you surprised?"

"A little." It was the first time he had ever been in your car, the only time you had been in his was a painfully quiet thirty-minute drive when you broke down on the highway and his parents forced him to pick you up.

You focus on the road ahead, but out of the corner of your eye, you watch him. The way he leans back, relaxed, one hand resting casually on his knee. You wonder if he can hear your heartbeat, loud and insistent in your chest.

As you pull up to a red light, the car idles quietly. Kyle turns to you, and for a moment, your eyes meet. There's a softness there, something unspoken that makes your breath hitch.

"You're a good driver," he says, a teasing lilt in his tone. "I always thought you'd get into a collision per mile."

"Yeah? Maybe I should get you one of those passenger princess stickers," you reply with a smile, trying to mask the warmth spreading across your cheeks.

The sky overhead is dusky, the sun falls back slowly behind the mountains leaving a pink hue in its place. The traffic is light, and the streets are calm, giving you time to savour the journey. The streetlights cast a gentle glow on the road, illuminating your path as you turn onto the main avenue.

"What's this?" You wrinkle your nose at the music blasting through the stereo. You scroll through your playlist and find the perfect track. The heavy, fast-paced beats of a metal song blare through the car's speakers, the vocalist's intense screams filling the space.

Kyle's eyes widen in shock, his fingers instinctively reaching for the volume knob. "What the hell is this?" he exclaims, his voice almost drowned out by the music.

You swat away his hand and turn it up instead "It's metal, it's good."

"Good?" he shouts back, wincing as the vocalist hits a particularly aggressive note. "I can't believe you listen to this shit."

"It's the same stuff Stan listens to."

"Doesn't mean it's good," He says "I think I'm gonna blow out an eardrum."

"You're just feeling the music very deeply,"

"Yeah, well, the only feeling I'm getting is a headache," Kyle grumbles, leaning back in his seat and shaking his head. "How do you listen to this?"

Months ago his whining would've had you shoving him out of the moving vehicle but now you just thought it was funny "So sorry I can't accommodate your delicate sensibilities."

"Delicate?" he scoffs. "I'm just not into... whatever this is."

You pull into the diner's parking lot, the neon sign flickering invitingly in the growing darkness. The gravel crunches under the tires as you find a spot near the entrance. Turning off the engine, you both sit for a moment, the sudden quietness filling the car like a shared secret.

"Let's go, matchstick," you say, breaking the silence and unbuckling your seatbelt.

"So we're not done with that nickname?"

"Nope, not until every ginger hair sheds off your skin."

"Wow, super poetic," His voice is flat.

"Always," you grin, opening the door and stepping out into the cool evening air. The smell of fried food wafts from the diner, making your stomach growl in anticipation.

Kyle joins you at the front of the car, hands in his pockets, looking around. "Think they'll have a table for us?"

"Only one way to find out," you reply, heading toward the entrance. Kyle falls into step beside you, his shoulder brushing against yours.

As you push open the door, the familiar bell jingles, announcing your arrival. The interior of the diner is cozy, with red vinyl booths and checkered floors. A jukebox in the corner plays an old rock tune, adding to the nostalgic atmosphere. The warm light casts a golden glow over everything, making the place feel inviting and homey.

It was the same diner that you used to frequent with Bebe though you liked it when you didn't think about it much. You and Kyle stand by the host stand, waiting to be seated. It was somewhat busy like you had expected it to be on a Saturday night in the summer.

A waitress with a friendly smile approaches, she was on the older side and had probably been working at that diner for longer than you'd been alive. "Hi, honey, I haven't seen you in so long."

"Hi, Sylvia," You smile in return, hands awkwardly clutched together.

"No Bebe?" Sylvia frowns just the slightest.

"No Bebe," You repeat to solidify the statement.

"Aw, that's too bad," She reaches into the host stand to grab menus "So, it's just you and your boyfriend?"

"Not my boyfriend, but, yeah," You rush to correct yourself, quickly looking at Kyle for a reaction though he didn't seem to care.

"I just call it as I see it," Sylvia gestures for the two of you to follow her "Right this way," she says, leading you to a booth near the window. You slide in opposite each other, the red vinyl squeaking slightly.

As you settle in, Kyle picks up a menu, scanning it quickly. "What do you usually get?"

You shrug "I dunno, depends on the day," You crane your head over to look at his menu, pointing at one item "You should get that one, you're a classic burger kinda guy."

"I am a classic burger kinda guy," He absentmindedly mutters under his breath, eyes hyper-focused on the menu. After a quick glance at the menu, you set it down, mind already made up on what you want to order. Kyle glances up at you "Already?"

"Yup," You nod "I'm kinda a big deal around here so I know the menu by heart," You joke, arms crossed while you lean back in the cushioned booth.

"Yeah, I believe it," Kyle says, placing his menu down and shrugging off his hoodie, letting it crumple beside him.

"Wait," You sit up slightly "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Nothing?"

"You were supposed to be like 'Woah, I had no idea, I couldn't tell whatsoever,'" You deepen your voice to mimic his.

"I do not sound like that," His eyebrows raise slightly.

"You're right, your voice is way more irritating."

"Remind me why I'm having dinner with you."

"Probably because I'm so incredibly charismatic and charming that you couldn't possibly turn down my invitation."

"Nah, that doesn't sound right," He too leans back, matching your eye level.

You were prepared to shoot back with something equally snarky before your gaze shifted past Kyle and landed on a booth in the back of the restaurant. The smirk fell off your face completely watching Bebe laugh about something with Cylde sitting across from her doing the same "Oh my god, Kyle, look behind you."

"What?" He turns his head but you quickly reach forward and smack his arm.

"What are you doing? Don't look."

"Jesus," He mutters "Is it Bebe?"

"How did you know?"

"Because you're so insanely weird about her," He taps his fingers on the table.

"I'm not insanely weird about her, I'm averagely weird about her," You correct the statement as if it paints you in a better light.

"So are you going to keep staring at her or actually apologize?" He asks, trying to make eye contact though your gaze is locked on the blonde girl.

"I think I'll keep staring, thank you."

You were almost burning a hole into the side of Bebe's head for entirely too long. Nothing in the diner piqued your interest more than the upturn of her glossed lips when she laughed or how she pushed her curls away from her tanned face until you saw Kyle scrolling on his phone.

"What are you doing?" Your attention finally shifts back to him, settling back into your seat. "You're addicted to your TikTok."

"I'm checking my messages and I don't think it's the worst thing in the world when I'm sitting next to Joe Goldberg."

"And I'm sitting next to the drummer from the muppets," You sigh dramatically. Quickly you push yourself up and steal a glance at Kyle's phone screen, surely enough he's on TikTok, sifting through drafts of himself. He pulls his phone towards him and shoots you a glare "I knew it."

"You are so annoying."

"No shame in it man," You raise your hands in defence.

"You would lose your shit if I did that to you."

"I don't even have anything interesting on my phone for you to see," You shake your head "You should see the way kids frown when they ask if I have games on my phone."

"We ready to order?" Sylvia stands next to your booth, a notepad and sparkly pink gel pen in hand.

"Yes ma'am," You hand your menu over "Loaded nachos and a big chocolate milkshake please."

She nods, scribbling it down before looking up at Kyle "And for you?"

"Just the classic cheeseburger with the side salad, please."

"You don't want a Diet Coke or something?" You ask him.

"No, Diet Coke is worse for you than regular soda."

"What? No, it's not."

"Yeah, aspartame is more addictive than sugar."

"in that case, get a milkshake."

"I'm not really a chocolate guy," He dismisses.

"They have other flavours."

"Do you need another minute?" Sylvia chimes in, standing awkwardly between you two.

"No, it's fine," Kyle glances over the drink menu one last time "Uh, a strawberry milkshake, thank you."

"Alright," She gives the two of you a tight-lipped smile "I'll be right back."

"Woah, you actually caved," You smiled at him. "You should've got chocolate though."

He shakes his head, nose wrinking the slightest "It's way too sweet."

"And strawberry isn't?" This might've been the moment you realized that those familiar hateful spats between you and Kyle had boiled down to banter. You had wasted so many years throwing him nasty remarks when you could've been sitting in a diner together.

Kyle looks over at the drink menu "This better be the best damn milkshake I've ever had for eleven dollars." You didn't even try to fight back your laugh, instead dropping your head to rest in your hands on the table while your body shook with laughter "Why are you even laughing?"

"You sound like your dad," You could hardly get the words out with your fit of giggles.

He freezes, eyes going wide and heart dropping. Quickly he leans back in his chair trying to look more relaxed as he gazes out of the window, toward the street.

It took a moment of composure before you finally took a deep breath and sat yourself back up, trying to ease the pain in your ribs from laughing so hard. You look back at Kyle, his eyes narrowed slightly as if he's deep in thought while he looks out at the road. His jaw was clenched as he turned away from you. It was only seconds until you were giggling again.

Kyle looks up, caught off guard. "What?"

"What the fuck are you acting so mysterious for?" You ask, face split in a smile "Staring at a damn dental clinic."

"I'm not acting mysterious, I'm sitting here," He defends himself.

You look out the window in the same direction that he was to see a drunk man stumbling around on the street. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looked like he had been abandoned during a bachelor party. The man staggered, bumping into a lamppost and in doing so falling onto the pavement. He slaps it and shouts something like it was the sidewalk fault he fell over "Real man of mystery, watching a drunk guy fight concrete."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Alrighty," Sylvia places two large glasses down on the table "I've got your milkshakes and your food is coming up."

As the waitress walks away, you see Kyle studying his strawberry milkshake with an exaggerated seriousness. He takes a tentative sip, his expression turning from doubt to surprise, and then he purses his lips, clearly trying to suppress a reaction.

"Regretting your choice of flavour?" you tease, raising an eyebrow.

"Not at all," he says, wiping a stray bit of whipped cream from his lip. It was clear he was now trying to beat the allegation of behaving like his father "Just trying to figure out why anyone would choose chocolate when strawberry is an option."

"Clearly, someone has scrubbed off your tastebuds. Chocolate is the classic choice. Timeless, even." You take a sip, the cold sweetness a perfect contrast to the warm diner and the dry heat outside.

"Timelessly boring," Kyle counters "Strawberry is adventurous. It's for people who know how to live a little."

"Adventurous?" you laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the statement. "The most adventurous thing about you is that one time you tried siracha mayo on your sandwich."

"And I suffered for that decision."

"Yeah, I remember," you say, chuckling. "You drank about a gallon of milk to cool your mouth down."

"Hey, did you go to the hardware store for your dad yet?" He abruptly changes the subject. Kyle wasn't necessarily in the mood to rehash embarrassing stories.

"Nah, it's not that important," You wave him off "Don't do today what you can do tomorrow."

"That's an awful quote."

"But a quote nonetheless." Unintentionally, your eyes shift to look at Bebe. She could feel eyes on her and turned to meet your gaze, her smile dropping. You look back to Kyle and pretend the last twenty seconds didn't happen.

"Oh my god," He runs a hand down his face. There were some things that came out of your mouth that just left him baffled.

Minutes later Sylvia circles back, gently placing the dishes onto the table. The food may not have been the highest quality but you came mostly for the atmosphere. "Burger with a side salad and loaded nachos. Enjoy, let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you," you both say in unison and look at each other's terrified expressions.

Kyle picks up a forkful of leafy greens, inspecting it before popping it into his mouth. "So, what's the plan after this? You heading home to watch another episode of that trashy reality show you love?"

"Bold of you to call it trashy when you always hang back to watch it and what I do in my free time isn't your business."

"I have never once done that."

"You do it all the time."

"When?" He asks.

"Sorry, did you want me to write down the date, time, and place?" You snark, shoving a nacho into your mouth "Point is, you're a filthy liar and you love them."

"I don't love them, it's hard to ignore it when people spray paint themselves orange and inject so much Botox that they can't cry."

"But you find them entertaining?"

"Someone throwing plates at their friend's head is always gonna be entertaining, doesn't mean it's good," Kyle picks up his burger taking a large bite before chewing thoroughly and setting it back down onto its plate. "Those shows are going to rot your brain."

"Please do not talk about brain rot when you're a TikTok degenerate."

"Degenerate is a pretty big word for you."

"Are you seeing anyone?"

"What you do in your free time isn't my business but you want to know if I'm dating?"

"I meant like a therapist," You say casually.

"Why would I see a therapist?"

"Like, you might be the most annoying person I've ever met but I don't think you should hate yourself."

"I don't."

"Really?" Your tone is so sincere that it takes Kyle aback briefly. This time, it's Bebe whose staring at you, no longer laughing with Cylde, just scowling at you where you pretend you hadn't been creeping earlier.

"Yes."

"I think I would hate myself if I were you."

"Why?"

"Because your name is Kyle and you're a ginger so that's already not the biggest leg up in life."

"Dude, what," He sounds like he's in genuine disbelief.

"Forget it, it's hard watching you brood over your strawberry milkshake" You dismiss him, taking a long sip of your drink "So what did you do since school ended?"

"I've been hanging out with Stan and Kenny, working, went to Tolkien's."

"You cutting out Cartman or something?"

He thinks about it for a minute, letting the past week play out in his head "Yeah, I guess but it's a little hard to get rid of him. Thoughts?"

You nod "And prayers."

"No, not like- never mind," He takes another bite of his tiny side salad "What have you been up to?"

"Just work, really, I almost took Weston for dinner but he cancelled on me to go to his friend's house."

"You should've texted me, we could've done something," He says nonchalantly and you look up from your meal.

"Well, why didn't you text me?"

"Did you want me to?" His eyes dart back and forth beneath furrowed brows, searching for a clue that might make sense of the situation.

"Of course I wanted you to," Your mouth moves faster than your head and the words are quick to fall from your lips.

"Shit, I'm sorry," He says "I just figured you didn't want to talk to me after the raccoon thing, you were kinda weird on the last day of school."

The raccoon thing. You looked down at your hands, a few little cuts where the glass had broken skin "I'm such an asshole," You mutter looking up from your arm to Bebe who was standing up from her booth then to Kyle "I didn't even say thank you when you picked the glass out of my hand."

"It's fine," He's trying to calm you down before something else emerges "I don't care."

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Pick the glass from my skin."

"Because you were hurt and you're my friend," He says with ease, trying to get a read on you. Bebe and Cylde brush past you, Bebe actively makes an effort to ignore you while her boyfriend didn't know you were there to begin with.

"We're friends?" You ask, somewhat shocked by the answer. You had always had a hard time putting a label on who was your friend and who wasn't though you had wanted so badly for Kyle to finally say it.

"Yeah, man," He gestures around the table "We're eating dinner together by choice."

You watch as Bebe disappears through the door of the diner and abruptly slide out from the booth. Excusing yourself and rushing to the door to catch her. You didn't want to let another moment slip by, this was an opportunity to set things right and you wouldn't let it fall through the gaps of your fingers.

"Bebe, let's do this," You call after her, stumbling out of the door.

She quirks and eyebrows looking at Cylde before she looks at you "I'm not going to fight you."

"No, I'm not trying to fight, just, oh my god," You rub your temple trying to recompose yourself "Bebe, we got to have it out."

"Did you just quote Little Women?"

"Yes! Because I know you love that movie," As much as you fought against it the desperation was clear in your tone. "And I would watch it a million times just so I could be around you."

Something in her shifts, she crosses her arms, staring you down but makes no indication that she's going to retreat into the car.

"Okay," You nod, trying to put your thoughts into order "And you aren't a slut or a whore or a cunt or a bitch or whatever I said, I don't really remember but I know it was awful and I am just kept awake with the thought of something being the last thing I ever say to you."

Cylde stays silent, eyes flickering back and forth between the two of you, he has one hand hanging on the handle of an already-opened car door. Bebe still stays silent, waiting to hear your next string of apologies. It was difficult enough to humble yourself to do this but the stillness on her end wasn't making it any better.

"I'm not gonna lie, this is hard for me to say but my life without you fucking sucks," You exasperate "I see you in everything I do and I'm bored all of the time. I can't even talk shit with anyone because everyone became a saint all of a sudden and I'm still a dick but I don't really want to-

You're cut off by a man leaving the diner, carrying his takeout boxes. The man awkwardly skims past you, holding his car keys out "Just gotta get to my car," he says in a flat sing-song tone, pressing his lips into a thin line.

Cylde moves out of the way and the man slides into the driver's seat, closing the door with a loud thud. He inserts the key into the ignition, turning it with a hopeful twist. The engine groans in response, a series of sputters and clicks, but it refuses to catch. His brow furrows, and he tries again, turning the key with more insistence this time. The car responds with a grinding sound, followed by an ominous silence. The three of you all look at him, discomfort filling the stagnant air.

"Sorry, you can keep doing your thing, it does this sometimes," He sighs deeply, frustration etched on his face. His fingers drum impatiently on the steering wheel as he looks around, perhaps hoping for a miracle. He pumps the gas pedal a couple of times, as if coaxing the engine back to life, and then turns the key once more. The car protests with a stubborn cough but remains lifeless.

"Um, okay," You close your eyes for a second trying to regain where you were "Bebe, you're my best friend and I don't know what I would do if I never saw you again but I love you so much and I don't wanna be an awful person anymore. I'm so sorry that I'm always doing something shitty but I'm so over it. I just really miss you."

Bebe's stoic face break into a pout and her arms drop at her side as she walks toward you and wraps you in a hug " I really miss you too."

"Let's not fight again, okay?"

"Okay," she confirms "Like never, this was awful."

Leaning back in his seat, the man rubs his temples, trying to think. His eyes dart to the dashboard, checking for any warning lights that might give him a clue. There's a fleeting moment of hope as he fiddles with the battery connections and checks the fuel gauge. "Everything seems to be normal but my car won't start," The man calls out from his window, breaking the tender moment.

You lift your head from Bebe's shoulder, glaring at the man "Okay, fuck off."

"Yeah, seriously, fuck off," Bebe whips her head around and does the same. The air feels lighter all of a sudden, and despite the nervous knot in your stomach, you are happy to call Bebe your friend once again.

#south park #kyle broflovski #south park x reader #kyle south park #south park x y/n #kyle broflovski x reader #south park kyle #sp kyle #kyle broflovski fluff

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kremlin · 2 years ago

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could you explain for the "it makes the game go faster" idiots like myself what a GPU actually is? what's up with those multi thousand dollar "workstation" ones?

ya, ya. i will try and keep this one as approachable as possible

starting from raw reality. so, you have probably dealt with a graphics card before, right, stick in it, connects to motherboard, ass end sticks out of case & has display connectors, your vga/hdmi/displayport/whatever. clearly, it is providing pixel information to your monitor. before trying to figure out what's going on there, let's see what that entails. these are not really simple devices, the best way i can think to explain them would start with "why can't this be handled by a normal cpu"

a bog standard 1080p monitor has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, each comprised of 3 bytes (for red, blue, & green), which are updated 60 times a second:

~3 gigs a second is sort of a lot. on the higher end, with a 4k monitor updating 144 times a second:

17 gigs a second is definitely a lot. so this would be a good "first clue" there is some specialized hardware handling that throughput unrelated the cpu. the gpu. this would make sense, since your cpu is wholly unfit for dealing with this. if you've ever tried to play some computer game, with fancy 3D graphics, without any kind of video acceleration (e.g. without any kind of gpu [1]) you'd quickly see this, it'd run pretty slowly and bog down the rest of your system, the same way having a constantly-running program that is copying around 3-17GB/s in ram

it's worth remembering that displays operate isochronously -- they need to be fed pixel data at specific, very tight time timings. your monitor does not buffer pixel information, whatever goes down the wire is displayed immediately. not only do you have to transmit pixel data in realtime, you have to also send accompanying control data (e.g. data that bookends the pixel data, that says "oh this is the end of the frame", "this is the begining of the frame, etc", "i'm changing resolutions", etc) within very narrow timing tolerances otherwise the display won't work at all

3-17GB/s may not be a lot in the context of something like a bulk transfer, but it is a lot in an isochronous context, from the perspective of the cpu -- these transfers can't occur opportunistically when a core is idle, they have to occur now, and any core that is assigned to transmit pixel data has stop and drop whatever its doing immediately, switch contexts, and do the transfer. this sort of constant pre-empting would really hamstring the performance of everything else running, like your userspace programs, the kernel, etc.

so for a long list of reasons, there has to be some kind of special hardware doing this job. gpu.

instead of calculating every pixel value manually, the cpu just needs to give a high-level geometric overview of what it wants rendered, and does this with vertices. a vertex is very simple, it's just a point in 3D space, for example (5,2,3). just like a coordinate grid on paper with an extra dimension. with just a few vertices, you can have models like this:

where each dot at the intersection of lines in the above image, would be a vertex. gpus essentially handle huge number of vertices.

in the context of, like, a 3D video game, you have to render these vertex-based models conditionally. you're viewing it at some distance, at some angle, and the model is lit from some light source, and has perhaps some shadows cast across it, etc -- all of this requires a huge amount of vertex math that has to be calculated within the same timeframes as i described before -- and that is what a gpu is doing, taking a vertex-defined 3D environment, and running this large amount of computation in parallel. unlike your cpu which may only have, idk, 4-32 execution cores, your gpu has thousands -- they're nowhere near as featureful as your cpu cores, they can only do very specific simple math with vertices, but there's a ton of them, and they run alongside each other.

so that is what a gpu "does", in as few words as i can write

the things in the post you're referring to (V100/A100/H100 tensor "gpus") are called gpus because they are also periperal hardware that does a specific kind of math, massively, in parallel, they are just designed and fabricated by the same companies that make gpus so they're called gpus (annoyingly). they don't have any video output, and would probably be pretty bad at doing that kind of work. regular gpus excel at calculating vertices, tensor gpus operate on tensors, which are like matrixes, but with arbitrary numbers of dimensions. try not to think about it visually. they also use a weirder float. they're used for things like "artificial intelligence", training LLMs and whatever, but also for real things, like scientific weather/economy/particle models or simulations

they're very expensive because they cost the same, if not more, than what it cost to design & fabricate regular video gpus, but with a trillionth of the customer base. for every ten million rat gamers that will buy a gpu there is going to be one business buying one A100 or whatever.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ disclaimer | private policy | unsubscribe

#frequently questioned answers

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welcometololaland · 2 years ago

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WIP WORKING WEEK DAY 5: NOT NOW BUT SOON AKA. 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU AU (going to have to re-do this banner because i changed the fic name oops) The last day of WIP working week - thanks for supporting my little snippets! It's been a fun challenge! I'm doubling this up as my WIP Wednesday, so thank you to @catanisspicy @alrightbuckaroo @heartstringsduet @lemonlyman-dotcom @cha-melodius and @three-drink-amy for the tags!

TK stakes out in front of Carlos’ dorm building for almost two days straight, to no avail. At one point he does a stint of five, incredibly boring hours until his phone dies. People keep giving him weird looks, but he remains unperturbed until his stomach is rumbling so loudly it can’t be ignored and he has nothing better to do than watch two pigeons scuttle about on the concrete in what he assumes is a weird mating dance.

Vaguely, he wonders whether he’s doing a similar thing. Nothing he’s doing right now makes much sense, and yet he’s desperate to make it up to Carlos in a way he can’t quite rationalise. As he watches one pigeon persistently try to escape the attentions of the other, he can’t help but draw some parallels.

On Friday, TK is surprised to see Carlos in his Roman Political Thought seminar. Not in the least because he’s half convinced that Carlos hasn’t been outside of his room or eaten for two days.

“Where have you been?” TK asks, leaning over the two-person table Carlos has opted for. The blond guy in a Ralph Lauren polo shirt sitting next to him gives TK a weird look, which TK pointedly ignores.

“Why is that any of your business?” Carlos counters coolly.

“I’ve been trying to find you,” TK hisses, wishing he could stop time as the professor clears his throat pointedly.

Carlos arches an eyebrow in TK's direction. “You seemed too busy to talk last time,” he points out. “Didn’t feel like a priority.”

“It’s not like—”

“Please take your seats,” the professor interjects in a stern voice, and when TK turns around he’s met with a very stony expression. He tries to look appropriately apologetic as he shuffles off towards a nearby desk. The existing occupant – a girl with a dark braid – sighs pointedly as he sits down.

“Good morning to you too,” he mutters under his breath. She scowls at him and flips her braid over her shoulder.

The seminar proceeds as usual, albeit seeming to pass with agonising slowness, and one hour into the session the professor lets them take a five minute break. TK looks up to see if Carlos is interested in continuing their terse conversation, but he walks quickly from the room before TK can really get a handle on the situation. He half-rises out of his seat to follow, before the girl next to him groans.

“Dude,” she interjects, drawing his attention. “Take a hint. He’s not interested.”

TK grits his teeth and looks at her sharply. “He’s my friend,” he argues. “I just did something to piss him off.”

“Then let him cool down,” she says insistently. “It’s never a good idea to try and corner someone when they’re in that kind of mood. You’ll only make them more likely to lash out.”

There’s something in her voice – a blunt kind of honesty – that gives TK pause for thought. He sits back down in the chair and turns to her, watching as her fingers fly over the keyboard of her laptop.

“I’m TK,” he blurts out, unsure why he feels indebted to this stranger. He watches as her fingers pause for a moment, then fall onto the edge of the computer as she sighs.

“Nancy,” she replies wryly, giving him a once over. “I recognise you from my biology classes. Don’t ask me to be your partner in any group assignments, just because you know my name.”

I'll leave an open tag for anyone who would like to participate, and maybe add @goodways @ramblingdisaster73 @detective-giggles @rosedavid @jesuisici33 @orchidscript @ambiguouspenny @freneticfloetry @basilsunrise and @beautifulhigh assuming you haven't already done it :)

#Not Now But Soon #10 Things I Hate About You AU #tarlos #tarlos fic #911 lone star #911 lone star fic #WIP working week #WIP #work in progress

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phantomato · 1 year ago

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get to know me meme

thank you @yletylyf 💖

do you make your bed? Sometimes!

what's your favourite number? 8

what is your job? Professor of Computer Science

If you could go back to school would you? I kind of always am? I wouldn’t do homework I haven’t assigned myself, though.

can you parallel park? Yes. My dad taught me with empty garbage cans in a grade school parking lot.

a job you had that would surprise people? I spent a summer in high school making phone calls to hospitals. Eight weeks, thousands of phone calls. “Young people can’t make calls” - die.

do you think aliens are real? No.

can you drive a manual car? Kind of. It’s been years.

what's your guilty pleasure? I feel no guilt.

tattoos? No.

favourite colour? Black, blue, pink.

favourite type of music? Indie, synthpop.

do you like puzzles? Absolutely not.

any phobias? Heights!

favourite childhood sport? Horseback riding.

do you talk to yourself? Nope.

what movie(s) do you adore? The Art of Self-Defense, Lady Bird, The Third Man, After Hours, Double Down (Neil Breen)

coffee or tea? Tea! 🫖

first thing you wanted to be growing up? A professor! Or a paleontologist. Which are the same thing. I did it! (Well, not the dinosaurs part.)

tagging @half-infinite @moscca @jaggededges123 @ralphlanyon @mademoiselle-red @vestiges-of-light @aspengray @yorickofyore and everyone else who is interested!

#tag game

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peskellence · 1 year ago

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Pairing: RK900/Gavin Reed

Tags: Post Pacifist Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Masterlist

Read on AO3 here:

Summary: A lot has changed since the revolution. Crimes against androids are now punished in the same way as crimes against humans. A reluctant Gavin Reed and his new partner RK900 have been assigned to investigate a string of disturbing murders. Despite the shift in Detroit's social climate, Gavin still holds reservations about whether or not androids are truly alive. Will his developing feelings for 'Nines' be the thing to change this?

Warnings: Graphic Violence, Depression/Self Destructive Behaviour, Eventual Smut

Word Count: 4.7K

For the first time in his career, Nines was late for work. This wasn’t the most impressive feat, given his around 3-month employment, but it was still notably out of character for the typically steadfast android. As the blocky digits of the station clock informed him that it had just turned 11, Gavin started to wonder if his partner would show up at all.

He wasn’t stupid, aware that Nines would have seen his return to work form, knowing he'd be back today. Apparently, a disciplinary procedure was far more appealing than subjecting himself to his partner’s company. Gavin’s simmering annoyance was only exacerbated the more he dwelled on this, his leg twitching fractiously under his desk.

The android’s absence had apparently been noticed by an authority higher than himself—as Fowler charged over, nostrils flaring with exertion. "Reed, where the Hell is RK900?"

His arrival was met with a deep-set scowl as Gavin gestured vaguely to the empty seat parallel to his own. "Your guess is as good as mine. He’s been a no-show all morning."

The Captain studied the vacant workstation, dark eyes narrowed accusingly, "I swear to God if you've done something to him—"

“What could I have possibly done? I haven’t even been here."

“I asked him to send you over case updates. Have you at least been receiving those?”

Gavin bristled at the question. He had tried to reach out to Nines several times since ‘the incident’ but to no success. With each work update that had been sent to him, the flagrant disregard for the messages that preceded became a little more insulting.

He began scrolling aimlessly on his computer, hoping Fowler might leave him alone if he appeared suitably busy. "Yep."

"So you know Robert Finch is being brought in for questioning today?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you know it is important that you don’t fuck it up."

"You bet." Go away, you crusty asshole.

"Excellent, so you won’t mind that I’ll be overseeing the interrogation."

Gavin stopped, closing the document that he had been sightlessly sifting and looking dejectedly at his boss. "You know, it would be nice if you could trust me to do my job. Just once. For shits and giggles."

“I’ll start trusting you when you’ve earned it." Fowler decided to ease off a bit, clearly sensing the brooding animosity in his subordinate. "I know I've been tough lately, but you need to understand how serious this is. Things are only getting worse with the press; they’re saying the Reaper would’ve been caught by now if it wasn’t for shoddy police work."

"And I guess you agree with them?" the detective shot back, "That our work is shoddy?"

"The Chief is certainly starting to think it." There was a look of grim introspection as Fowler continued. "Do you have any idea how far up my ass he is? I gave you a week to dig up more evidence, plus leeway for your little vacation. Show some gratitude."

Leaning back in his chair, Gavin made the extent of his gratitude known with a low, dismissive grunt. He hardly found it fair that his absence be used as leverage against him, given that the older man had been the one to approve it in the first place.

"I’m serious. You better be right about Finch because if you screw up this time, it's out of my hands."

"What has Finch got to do with me? It’s the android's theory—his suspect—not mine." He started to wiggle a pen between his thumb and forefinger in a weak attempt to distract himself.

"You’re partners, Reed. It’s on both of you to take accountability."

You should be telling him this, Gavin inwardly complained. What does he know about accountability? Turning my neck into a dot-to-dot, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, then giving me the worst blue balls I've ever had in my goddamn—

The fidgeting increased until the pen was propelled from his hand, landing on the desk of a perplexed-looking officer.

Fowler failed to notice this, looking up at the station clock with a frown that seemed permanently etched onto his face. "He better show up soon. For both your sakes."

A few more torturous seconds passed. With every shift of the station's doors, Gavin looked up expectantly, only to be hit by another wave of disappointment. Seconds turned to minutes, and disappointment turned to frustration. With Fowler clear of earshot, he started to hiss angry obscenities under his breath, over and over like a demented mantra.

Standing up from the desk with a huff, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Concluding that Nines could answer for his tardiness while he was hauling him down to the station by scruff of his neck.

As Gavin turned, he immediately collided with a figure idling behind his chair. Chest-to-chest, his gaze focused in on a pair of large brown eyes. They watched him fervently as if pleading for his attention.

"Hello, Detective." The figure was trying to keep their voice level, but there was a distinct urgency in how they spoke. "I would very much appreciate it if we could have a discussion."

"Connor," Gavin replied, barely acknowledging anything he’d said. “This might be the first time I’m happy to see you. Your brother has gone awol; mind giving me his address so I can drag his ass over here myself?"

The android blinked wordlessly - as if taking a moment to process the strange request - before dismissively shaking his head. "He's probably running late; he’ll be here soon." The forced optimism seemed at odds with the tense expression on his face.

"There's 'running late', and there’s missing your shift by two fucking hours."

“I can understand your concerns…I have some of my own." Connor looked down at the desk, taking note of the vacant set of chairs. "It might be better if we sit down. There are a few things I’d like to talk about."

Making it clear that he had no intention of entertaining the request, Gavin stubbornly crossed his arms.

"...I’ll try to keep this short", Connor relented, exhaling with a weary sigh. "Nines has been acting strangely for the last couple of days: I’ve tried to reach out, but he has refused contact. I don’t suppose you’ve spoken with him?"

"If you haven’t been able to speak with him, what makes you think I have? I barely know the guy."

Connor’s eyebrows shot up incredulously, almost grazing his hairline, before returning to their usual position. "I understand that the two of you had a disagreement. I thought you might have resolved it by now."

"Oh yeah? And just how much do you know about this fucking disagreement?"

"Just that you had one," he said vaguely, although the flighty darting of his eyes made the statement seem less than convincing.

Gavin drew closer, encroaching on the android as he struggled to distance himself. "Seems like the two of you talk a lot about shit that doesn’t concern you."

"This isn’t really what I came here to talk about." Connor explained, shifting uncomfortably. "I’m sorry, I don’t want to pry too much into your personal life - but given the situation, I think it’s important that I disclose a few things'"

"What ‘things’?"

"Nines has only been deviant for a couple of months. The feelings are still very new to him…" It was obvious that he wanted to add to this, a flicker of red betraying the presence of withheld information.."Aside from myself and Hank, there isn’t really anyone he’s particularly close to."

"Okay, and?" Gavin waved his hand in an ushering motion. “What’s that got to do with me?"

There was a look of detachment as Connor stared quietly into space. His mouth opened and closed indecisively as the detective lost his remaining patience. Balling his fists into his hair, he fought the urge to lunge forward and flip the desk. "Look, you made it seem like this was urgent. Why don’t you stop messing around and get to the point?"

"Nines mustn't experience any undue emotional stress. I ask that you not push him too much."

The thinly disguised accusation was enough to tip Gavin over the edge. He’d had enough people asking him to accept culpability for his partner’s actions. With another surge forward, he forced Connor further into the retreating position - until his back was wedged against the table.

"I didn’t do shit to your brother." He exemplified the point with a harsh jab to the android’s chest. “He was the one who threw a tantrum and stormed out on me."

"I don’t know everything that happened, but I can assure you, Nines was very upset," Connor babbled. “It is possible he may have behaved irrationally."

"What right does he have to be upset? I'm the one who should be upset."

"I do not think he was aware that you were seeing someone."

Much of his bravado deflated at the unexpected statement. Gavin had been working feverishly to omit that particular detail from his memory. In accepting a connection between Alex’s message and Nines’ unceremonious exit, he opened up the conversation to far more uncomfortable implications.

"Look, everything was fine, okay? We talked, we cleared the air—" We made out a little, he silently omitted. Even if Connor knew, which he almost certainly did, Gavin decided he'd rather not confess to anything out loud. "then he stormed out. I didn’t do anything to set him off."

Just then, the doors to the station slammed open, and out of the corner of Gavin’s eye, he saw a familiar blur of black and white. Pulling away from Connor, who seemed infinitely grateful for the sudden retreat, he stormed towards his partner. Ready to release all of the pent-up fury he had been amassing over the past few days.

"Where the fuck were you?" His teeth gnashed, mouth contorted into a fierce snarl.

Nines rolled his eyes, side-stepping around the seething Detective and walking briskly to their shared workstation. Opening one of the drawers, he retrieved a densely packed folder—before removing the contents and laying them out neatly in front of him. "That is hardly relevant. I am here in time for the questioning."

Gavin spluttered, head craned so far forward that it looked about ready to detach from his neck. "Hardly relevant? No one has been able to reach you all morning. How the hell were we supposed to know if you’d even show up?"

Nines stilled, looking up from his papers to shoot his brother an accusatory glare. "I will answer to Captain Fowler concerning my tardiness." He said, voice heavy with ill-concealed displeasure. "I do not owe either of you an explanation."

Connor hesitated, appearing guilty—before he steadily approached his brother. He extended a hand in invitation as his skin retracted reflexively. "Maybe it's best if we step away for a moment."

Nines rejected the gesture, slapping the hand away harshly. There was a brief stalemate as they stared at each other until Connor solemnly backed down.

Sorting his papers into a neat pile, Nines picked them up and haughtily charged toward the interrogation rooms. "Are you coming or not, Detective Reed?"

As they entered the room, Fowler was standing at the two-way mirror, arms folded over his chest and fingers drumming on his forearm. "RK900. How nice of you to join us," he greeted, voice thick with sarcasm.

Nines allowed his stony resolve to soften briefly as he answered his superior with a polite nod, "I apologise for my tardiness, Captain."

Officer Miller, also stationed by the mirror, seemed oblivious to the hostile atmosphere festering within the room. He gave Gavin a small wave before flashing a smile. "We've got him all warmed up for you, guys. He's ready when—"

He didn't get to finish the sentence as Nines breezed past him, clipping his shoulder on the way. The officer's mouth clamped shut in shock, and after he'd had a chance to steady himself, he shot Gavin a puzzled look. As if pleading for an explanation.

Nines entered the interrogation room and closed the door firmly behind him. The message was clearly received, as his partner was left to wait in the entranceway with the other two men.

Amidst the tense silence, Chris addressed his colleague with gentle reproach. "Uhh, you alright there, Gavin?"

The man in question stood glaring through the mirror. Nostrils flaring with long, shaky breaths. "Peachy."

"You going in there with him, Reed?" Fowler gestured to the steel-inforced door. “Or have you already forgotten our little talk about accountability?"

"I'm sure he has things under control."

Gavin couldn't give less of a fuck if he was punished for any resultant cock ups. As he stared through the window, grappling with his tenuously contained rage, he prayed for the most disastrous questioning the department had ever seen.

Nines sat down at the long metal table, setting his papers to one side. His voice crackled through the hearing loop as he addressed the man opposite him. "Robert Finch, I am Officer RK900, Serial Number 313 248 317 - 87. Although it would seem you already know that, so let's not labour on introductions."

"The Hell is this?" Robert spat back, motioning to the sterile brick walls of the heavily monitored room. "No one else who was at the church seems to be getting the VIP treatment."

"Is that so?" Nines inquired, arching an eyebrow, "And what leads you to believe we haven't spoken to anyone else?"

The scrawny man sunk into himself dejected at his own slip-up. "...Nothing, was just assuming."

"You have assumed correctly." The android began to sift through the documents stacked on the side of the table. "I have no desire to speak with your associates, but I have some questions I wish to ask you."

Robert narrowed his eyes as he slowly leaned back in his chair. "About what? I haven't done anything illegal."

"You assaulted an officer, for starters."

The chair legs screeched at a sudden halt in movement."No, I didn't. What are you—oh." Upon realisation of what Nines was referring to, he shot the android a disdainful look. "Hardly counts, does it? You don't feel pain."

"You struck with the intent to cause damage. That is still a criminal offence."

“You can’t prove I was aiming at you. Maybe your head just got in the way." The man flashed him a wicked grin. "Remind me, what is the punishment for assaulting an android? It's not the same as a human, is it?"

"Let us not get caught up on semantics." Nines separated one of the papers from the pile, setting it face down. "As it happens, I do not wish to speak to you about what happened at the church. I am significantly more interested in discussing your whereabouts from the 13th to 14th of January."

There was a subtle twitch of Robert's lips as his eyes nervously canvassed the room. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell me, was Mr. Scott privy to your motives behind acquiring the Samsung S3?"

"I’ve never even met a Mr Scott—I think you've got the wrong guy here."

"You have already been positively identified," Nines bluffed, his expression devoid of any hint of deceit. "Attempting to deflect won't be of much use."

Robert cursed under his breath, choosing a point on the table to focus his attention. "Okay, so I bought a phone from him. That doesn't break any laws, does it?"

"Not in itself," Nines replied, "but it just so happens that this phone was used in connection to a criminal offence."

"Can’t have been the one I got. Mikey must have me confused with somebody else. He isn't the brightest bulb."

"I would advise you to stop lying; you aren’t very good at it." The officer's LED whirred as he stared intently at Robert. His eyes glazed over briefly before refocusing with newfound vigour. "You're married, aren't you, Mr Finch? I'm sure your wife would be interested to discover that you've been soliciting favours from android prostitutes."

"It wasn't me who called the whore!" Robert snapped, face turning red with mortification. "I didn't even have the phone by then—"

"So you don't deny that it was used to make the call?"

"Look, I bought it for a buddy. He was a little embarrassed about getting his dick wet, wanted to use a burner." The man gave Nines a quick glance over, face wrinkled with disgust. "I would be, too, if that's what I was into."

The officer hummed in distant acknowledgement. "Did you know he was murdered, Mr Finch?"

"Come again?"

"The android. Quite brutally, in fact." Turning to the paper he had sat to one side, Nines calmly flipped it over, sliding it over so Robert could see. "It would appear that your friend's interest was not entirely physical."

He was visibly startled, eyes bulging to extreme proportions at what he was looking at. As his trembling mouth fell open, he started to frantically form an excuse. "Look, I didn't know he was going to - I just thought he'd rough it up a bit."

"So you knew of his intentions to harm the victim?"

"Well, not really…he said he wanted to teach it a lesson."

"Meaning you were complicit." Nines raised his voice, subtly increasing the pressure. "If you choose to cooperate with us, Mr Finch, your case may be looked upon more favourably."

Realising that he'd been backed into a corner, Robert closed his eyes, breathing heavily. "What do you want to know?" he eventually said, throwing up his hands in defeat.

"CHQ SL C."

"Wha—" The man tilted his head, staring at Nines incredulously. "Why do you machines have to do that? Speak in riddles?"

"Your meeting point with Mr Scott. We were able to decipher the first section: CyberLife Headquarters. What does SL C mean?"

"Wow." There was a low whistle as his lips curled into a disparaging sneer. "You dragged me in here to help solve a brain teaser? All that computing power, and still dumb as a rock."

"An analysis of my intelligence was not requested. Answer the question."

"And if I don't?"

"You are in no position to bargain." Reaching back onto his pile of documents, Nines retrieved another page and began to calmly read out the contents. "We already have sufficient evidence to charge you on your most recent criminal activities. These include, but are not limited to:

Illegal assembly, causing an obstruction, insubordination, inciting violence, physical assault, resisting arrest—"

"All right, all right."

"This isn't even going into your previous criminal charges or affiliations with terror groups. If you refuse to comply, we will be forced to release this information to the appropriate parties—including your employer."

Robert appeared unswayed by the threat. He held up his head confidently and let out a dismissive scoff. "I had a background check when I was hired. They already know all the shit I've done."

"They are aware of your previous transgressions, but I imagine they will be displeased to hear that you are not as reformed as you seek to present”, Nines tutted with faux sympathy, lips tugged upwards in subtle amusement. “It is rather unfortunate, given the fact you have two young dependents."

The man's confidence quickly dissipated as he stilled, face pale. "You can't do that."

"I assure you, I can”, Nines leant forward, looming over the table menacingly, “and as I do not need to sleep, I won’t be losing any. So, Mr Finch, the choice is yours."

"…Storage Locker C."

"Repeat for the record, please."

"CyberLife Storage Locker C”, he said a little louder. “It isn’t at the main headquarters. It’s at the industrial estate across the street. That's where he told us to meet if anything went wrong."

"Who is 'he'?"

"I don't know. Nobody does. He just showed up on the forum one day, rambling about how he'd bring about the ‘Second Age of Man’." Robert made an air-quote gesture with his fingers. “At first, we all thought he was nuts, but then he started…showing us things. Stuff he'd done to androids. Saying if we worked together, we could make them all pay."

"Surely you must have met him in person to exchange the phone."

Robert shook his head, "It was a silent drop-off. He told me to go there alone and leave it in a lockbox. I swear, I've never seen his face. I don't even know his name."

“How did you know where the instructions came from if the man refused to identify himself?"

"Look, it's easy to tell when it's him. He sends these weird codes—cyphers, anagrams, that kind of shit. It's amazing that moron Scott kept up with it for as long as he did."

"You mentioned a safe, were you given a code to unlock it?"

"Well, yeah, obviously." Robert monotoned, "How else would I get inside?"

"Tell me what it was."

"Seriously? I don't remember. It was a random set of numbers."

Nines slammed a hand on the hard metal surface, causing the suspect to jump. "I won't ask again."

"Okay, Jesus Christ—" The man shook a little as he reached for his pocket before groaning as his search returned empty. "It was written on my phone, which I'm pretty sure one of your buddies confiscated."

Nines glanced at the two-way mirror, making unknowing eye contact with his partner. Gavin shifted in place, seething in annoyance at just how well things were progressing.

Reading the prompt, Chris reached into a nearby desk and pulled out a battered smartphone. He then switched on the mic that connected to the two-way intercom, speaking into it clearly. "I've got it."

"Excellent", he clipped, returning his attention to Robert. "Where did you write it down?"

"I don't know", the man complained, grumbling under his breath. "In the notes app somewhere."

Gavin looked over Chris' shoulder as he scrolled down the app's contents. He sifted through various shopping lists and other innocuous information until he found a peculiarly labelled file.

"I think I got it." His brow knitted in concentration as he read out a string of numbers: "22 42 15 11 44."

Nines' LED cycled yellow as he committed the sequence to memory. He then stood from the table, gathering his documents as he did so. "We will be ceasing your phone until further notice, and my colleague will be escorting you to a holding cell."

"Are you serious?" Robert slapped his hands on the table, also preparing to stand until a sharp glare from Nines dissuaded him. "I told you everything I know. You said if I cooperated, you'd let me go."

"I said that your case may be considered more favourably", the android corrected. "Whether or not you were aware of the consequences, your actions have made you an accomplice to a very serious crime. We have no choice but to detain you. I suggest you contact a lawyer.

As Nines briskly re-entered the room, Chris stood to the wayside, gaping at him with awe. "Wow, RK900. I wasn’t even the one being interrogated, and I was still scared of you." He then cringed at the words, seemingly realising that the compliment could be construed as a little backhanded.

Fortunately for him, the misguided remark appeared to fall on deaf ears as Nines pivoted on his heel and turned his attention directly to Fowler. "Captain, I wish to investigate this 'Storage Locker C' as an urgent priority. I would also like to request that forensics accompany me."

Fowler’s once sceptical expression had morphed into a look of mild satisfaction. By the standards of the perpetually surly man, he was practically grinning ear-to-ear. "Yeah, it's…done. Just send over the paperwork."

"I will return to my post to submit the required forms. I will also upload all audio-visual data from the last twenty minutes."

As Nines left to return to his workstation, Gavin followed his movements closely, refusing to be brushed aside. He fought to match his partner’s pace, making it significantly harder to be ignored as he all but breathed down his neck.

"So what, am I fucking invisible?" He snapped, voice heavy with pent-up emotion. “This is bullshit, Nines, just look at me."

Nines ignored the plea, as he seemed to deliberately misinterpret the motivation behind the outburst. "It is a tremendous breakthrough in our case. I would have thought you'd be pleased."

"Not the case, you fucking asshole, the way you're acting. It's obvious that something is bothering you, so why not talk about it?"

"There is nothing to talk about." As Gavin attempted to march to his side, Nines picked up the pace, fervently avoiding his eye-line.

"Nothing, seriously?"

"I have not misspoken."

"So, what, you sticking your tongue down my throat? That doesn't warrant a conversation?"

This was enough to bring the android to a halt, permitting Gavin a glimpse at his face. There was no hint of the stoic composure that he had been trying so stridently to maintain. His startled eyes bulged wide as they snapped over to his partner.

"Would you please keep your voice down?" The request came as a low hiss as if Nines was desperate to preserve some privacy in their heated exchange.

"I don't get why you ran away. You seemed to be enjoying yourself." While Gavin attempted to play off the statement with salacious confidence, the mask of assurance quickly slipped. "If you changed your mind, or you wanted to stop, you could have just said. Instead of ghosting me like a fucking coward."

"You appear to be labouring under the pretence that my entire life revolves around you." There was a biting edge to Nines' tone as he glared viciously at his partner. "I'm afraid I must deflate your ego. We had reached a potential breakthrough in the investigation, and we both couldn't afford to be absent."

"And you couldn't spare the 30 fucking seconds it would have taken to message me this?"

"I have been busy, Detective. With you at home, I have had to pick up a significant additional workload."

"Don't get salty. You were the one who ran to Fowler saying I needed time off." Gavin clenched his jaw, his anger intermingled with lingering feelings of hurt and betrayal. "I'm starting to think you were trying to get rid of me."

A vague hint of guilt flashed across his partner's face, vanishing as soon as appeared, "That statement is entirely unfounded."

"Did you think if you made me look bad enough, they'd give you another partner?" He watched as Nines' resolve continued to falter, sneering in begrudging victory. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Control yourself. You are behaving like a child."

"Oh? So you throw a fucking tantrum because you don't want to be friends anymore, and I'm the one who's being childish?"

"You have made it abundantly clear that we were never friends", Nines seethed. He appeared to be nearing his emotional limit; face tinged a near-luminous blue and jaw clenched uncomfortably. "What happened the other day was regrettable, and I'd rather not discuss it further. I think it best if we put it behind us."

"So all that stuff about you learning to own your mistakes, was that bullshit?"

"Gavin, please."

"Was it all bullshit, Nines? Did any of it mean anything to you?"

The android stared at the floor, fists clenched. Resentment dripped from every syllable of his deeply scathing words: "I think you can attest to how little it meant."

"So it's my fault. Of-fucking-course", Gavin cackled, shaking his head in disbelief. "I guess you aren't a machine, after all. I don't know many toasters capable of being such a cruel, vindictive asshole."

"This conversation is over." Nines deadpanned, feigning a return to composure despite the frenzied light show on his forehead, "I think it best if we set aside our differences and focus on catching our culprit. With any luck, he will soon be apprehended, and we can wash our hands of this ill-fated partnership."

The words hit Gavin like a punch to the gut, shattering what little remained of his pride. He leaned towards Nines, chest extended in a show of fierce hostility. "Sounds fucking perfect to me."

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mechanicalengassignmenthelp · 1 year ago

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Mastering Finite Element Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide for Do Your Abaqus Assignment

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) stands as a cornerstone in the realm of structural and mechanical engineering, enabling engineers to simulate and understand the behavior of complex structures under various conditions. Abaqus, a powerful FEA software, empowers users to conduct intricate simulations, but mastering its capabilities requires a thoughtful approach. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the intricacies of using Abaqus to simulate a dynamic loading scenario on a complex mechanical structure. For those seeking assistance with their Abaqus assignments, this guide serves as a valuable resource to navigate through the challenges.

Understanding the Task:

Imagine a scenario where a mechanical structure, comprising interconnected components with diverse material properties and geometric configurations, undergoes dynamic loading. The task to do your Abaqus assignment at hand is to simulate and analyze this complex system using Abaqus. The goal is to provide accurate results while considering computational efficiency, convergence, and the significance of selecting appropriate element types and integration schemes.

Section 1: Modeling Approach

1.1 Geometry and CAD Import

To kick off the simulation process, importing the CAD geometry accurately into Abaqus is crucial. This step ensures that the virtual model faithfully represents the physical system.

1.2 Meshing Strategy

Developing a meshing strategy involves finding the right balance between accuracy and computational efficiency. Areas of high stress or deformation may require mesh refinement, and selecting appropriate element types for each component is key to achieving reliable results.

1.3 Material Assignments

Accurate material assignments are paramount. Understanding the behavior of materials under dynamic loading conditions is essential for realistic simulations. Abaqus allows users to define material properties with precision, enhancing the fidelity of the analysis.

1.4 Boundary Conditions

Applying realistic boundary conditions is crucial to replicate the physical constraints of the structure accurately. This step ensures that the simulation mirrors the actual behavior of the system under the specified loading conditions.

Section 2: Simulation Challenges and Strategies

2.1 Convergence Issues

Convergence issues can arise during the simulation, affecting the accuracy and reliability of results. Monitoring the simulation for convergence problems and adjusting criteria and time increments are essential steps. Sub-stepping techniques can be employed to enhance stability.

2.2 Contact and Interaction

In a complex structure, components may interact and come into contact. Defining contact pairs, choosing appropriate contact algorithms, and validating contact behavior are crucial for a realistic simulation.

2.3 Solver Settings

Optimizing solver settings is vital for computational efficiency. Parallel processing and solution controls can be utilized to manage convergence and enhance the efficiency of the simulation process.

Section 3: Element Types and Integration Schemes

3.1 Element Selection

Choosing the right element types is fundamental for accurate representation. Tetrahedral, hexahedral, and shell elements, when strategically employed, contribute to a comprehensive simulation that captures the nuances of the structure's deformation.

3.2 Integration Schemes

The selection of integration schemes is a delicate balance between accuracy and computational cost. High-order integration schemes may offer more precise results but could increase computation time. Careful consideration is required to find the optimal trade-off.

Conclusion: Navigating the Abaqus Landscape

In the world of finite element analysis, mastering Abaqus is a journey that demands attention to detail and a strategic approach. Simulating a dynamic loading scenario on a complex mechanical structure involves a series of critical decisions, from modeling and meshing to addressing convergence issues and selecting the right element types.

For those seeking assistance with their Abaqus assignments, understanding the nuances of the software and the finite element analysis process is crucial. This guide serves as a roadmap to navigate through the challenges posed by complex simulations, ensuring that the virtual representation aligns with the physical reality.

In the words of simulation experts, tackling an Abaqus assignment involves not just running the software but orchestrating a symphony of decisions that shape the accuracy and reliability of the results. As the virtual world converges with the physical, the mastery of Abaqus becomes an art and science, providing engineers with the insights needed to design and optimize structures in the real world.

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sufferingwellspent · 3 months ago

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Chili Fingers

I believe one of the jobs that has the widest gap between what you think they do, and what they actually do is a Library worker.

Prior to working in a library, my expectation was pretty mild. Shelving and sorting books, hushed and dusty rooms, helping people with their computer searches and story times. Once I started actually working in a library, that idea was flipped on its head immediately. The idea of librarians relaxing at the circulation desk, spending their days in quiet while they read countless books and shush noisemakers is a falsehood. Quiet was a dream rarely achieved, and when it was you were suspicious of why. The sweetest children’s story time can run parallel to a staff member being screamed at because a fax didn’t go through. A basic computer class in progress while staff interrupt a couple having sex in the stacks. Grumpy elderly customers that show up every day with the same complaint that will leave you cookies during the holidays but will act put out by it. Bomb threats and cooking classes, book clubs and drug overdoses. The library is a true intersection of a community.

I have fond memories of childhood trips to my hometown library. My grandma’s house was a block away and it seemed like every trip to grandma’s had us going to the library. The library was on the corner of the street, a low block wall running around it with lush plants filling the space between the wall and the facade. Sweet smelling frangipani flowers drooping over the wall and loose blooms laying along the sidewalk under them. A treat to pick one up and bury your nose into the center of the flower, the soft white petals tickling your cheeks as you inhaled deeply. A few steps up and you were walking inside the library, the musty smell hitting you immediately as the cold air inside wrapped around you shielding you from the heat outside. Head right down the hallway into the Children’s library and the adventure began. Wandering the aisles and pulling out books, running them to the bay windows and curling up on the cushions like a cat to bask in the sun and to flip through the books. I don’t think I’d call myself a vicarious reader, I don’t think I had a particular love of reading at this point in my life but there was something steady that the library offered me. Consistent and stable, what it had was never withheld.

My first assignment working at the library was in a branch I was familiar with. Throughout my teens, this was the closest library to my house and where I would visit to get books when they weren’t available in my school library. It’s also where I went when I was tasked with reading a Hemingway book and after multiple attempts I decided to try Books on CD. I wouldn’t say it made it any easier but I was able to finish it. When I visited that branch for my interview, I came in wearing a suit blazer and checked in at the circulation desk. The staff member who helped me looked at the blazer, smiled and asked if I was there for an interview. “Good luck” she sing-songed. She knew what I didn’t yet, that blazers are worn by folks who aren’t working the front line at a public library.

I went into the interview nervous but chatted away as if this wasn’t my escape from dog training purgatory. Midway through the interview it stopped being question and answer and somehow turned into a storytelling session. Tales from my dog delivery days and the exploits that went along with them. In recalling one of the worst customers I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with I said ‘What the Fuck!’. Anxiety wound up tight inside me and I rushed on, hoping I could shove so many words into that room that the single Fuck could be forgotten. I left the library after the interview knowing I had ruined this opportunity. I can’t imagine what the other interviewees were like, because I was still offered the job.

The blazer lasted 1 work day. As each week passed my clothes became more comfortable to accommodate the hours of standing, kneeling, lifting and bending that was a work day. Could I do a high kick in these khakis? No? Then I needed different pants.

After about 2 years working at the branch I interviewed for another position at the main location. My co-workers advised me against it, downtown was even crazier than the branches! I’d be eaten alive! I applied anyway and got the job, almost against all reason. No longer was I cruising back roads to a relatively quiet neighborhood library, now I was navigating downtown streets. The customer base was more transitory than at the branch, where you frequently saw families come in for story times and as the children grew, you were able to watch their interests evolve. At the main location, folks came in because they needed something we had. My job wasn’t to assist them like I did at a branch where you form a relationship with them. Instead, you give them the information they are after and send them on their way. It was much more transactional and more often than not you would never see that person again. Another interesting thing, was how silo’d each department was. At a branch if the toilet overflowed, it was up to you to figure it out. At the main library, you had a whole department dedicated to facility maintenance. I no longer had to figure out programs to host, there was a department that took over that job for me.

My first day I was at the check in counter by the front doors helping a family of 3, a mother and her two young children, check in a bag full of books. I chatted with them with the empty head of a customer service worker, as I focused on checking the items in correctly when my eyes flittered past the mom’s shoulder towards the elevators. Emerging from the women’s restroom was a fully naked woman, waving her arms about and talking to herself. I paused, then cast my eyes across the lobby to the other staff to see what the next move was. The longer my eyes followed the lady, the more the Mom noticed and she turned to look over her shoulder. Her head whipped back to me, her eyes wide neither of us verbally acknowledging what was happening. The naked woman was now nearly in the middle of the lobby, arms in the air as she ranted. As the kids started to notice the raised voice I threw my own arms into the air “All your books are checked in, which means, it must be time to check out more, right?!” They cheered and I started to walk along the counter waving them to follow me, staying animated enough that I hoped they wouldn’t look away. As they rounded the corner following me towards the children’s wing I told them we had just gotten the new Wimpy kid books and if they hurried to the children’s librarian she might still have one to give them. They took off down the corridor, oblivious to the situation in the lobby and the mom turned to look back before looking at me. “Does this happen often?” She asked and I shrugged, wondering the same thing myself as the naked lady wandered out the front doors and into the street.

Years later, in yet another position but still at the main branch I was helping people check into our creative studio spaces. The pre-requisite for utilizing the space was attending a short orientation that informed you of the rules for this area of the library. For example, you had to be working on a creative project and you could not eat food of any kind in the space however, snack items could be eaten in the rest of the library. The job was fun but could be monotonous, repeating the same information to everyone entering the facility who wanted to look around. We had a lot of repeat customers who would come in multiple times a week to work, or to book out one of the studio spaces for their projects

One day, a new customer came in. I gave the spiel, directed them to the Orientation and then once it was completed let her in. She had short dark hair, spiky like an anime character in the front. She wore a dark polo shirt and slacks with bisexual boots. She barely talked and frowned most of the time. She checked in and went to the window, kneeling in front of a short table and began laying out items she pulled from her backpack. After almost an hour I was able to figure out she was taking flat lay photos. She was only there a little longer and left without a word.

She returned each day, arranging different items on the table and then taking overhead photos of them. On the 4th day she came in, she immediately started the routine but about 10 minutes in I noticed it looked like she was eating something. I walked over, verifying what I had seen and interrupting as politely as I could to another grown adult as I reminded her she could not eat inside the center. She glared at me and stuffed the small bag of chips back inside a paper bag without a word. I walked away, completing a walk around the whole area and checking in with everybody before returning to the desk. As I did I noticed her right outside the doors sitting on the floor with that paper bag. Feeling like an ass, I got up and walked over to her, letting her know she couldn’t sit on the floor in the library but that there were chairs available a little further down. Another glare and she tucked her legs under her into a squat. I nodded and walked back to my desk and just as I was about to sit down saw that from the paper bag she had pulled out a bowl of chili that she was eating with a spoon.

Regretting every life choice that led me to this moment I walked back over, apologizing as I said she could only eat snack items in the library. She glared and lifted the bowl of chili a bit, my interpretation being ‘this is a snack’. I sighed and clarified that it had to be something small like a bag of chips or piece of fruit not something you’d need utensils to eat. I was simply trying to illustrate the difference between a snack and meal as far as the rules of the library were concerned, but this was a step too far for her. Without breaking eye contact with me, the glare still in full effect, she put the spoon back in the bag then stuck her hand in the bowl of chili. One of my eyebrows lifted as I watched her stick her hand in the chili bowl, she scooped a palm full then brought it to her mouth and ate it, the chili juice on her cheeks and dripping from the corner of her mouth to her chin as she dropped her hand in for another scoop.

“Well, alright then.” I said and turned to walk back to the desk. Because what do you really say to that? She finished her bowl of chili, did not wash her hands, came back into the center to collect her items and left, never to be seen again. All that remained was the faint handprint stain in chili juice on the table to remember her by.

#the past #Storytime #Public Library

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erikabsworld · 1 year ago

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aghostinmyownmachine · 8 months ago

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okay, finally coming back to this, and y e a h. I totally understand the general fandom's bent toward making androids more human as opposed to less, if only to make writing their POV easier, but the longer I've been in the fandom, the harder I've resisted this bent. the androids are androids, no matter how much they might look or act human.

dbh tech is… simultaneously inconsistent and vague at best, to my exceptional frustration, but we can reasonably assume that dbh computers in general are extremely powerful, with androids running at several exaFLOPS. right now, in the real world, the fastest supercomputer, Frontier, is only running 1.2 exaFLOPS, and it fills a whole room. a single android can do at least a couple times that, inside their human-size and -shaped body. and that's without factoring in actual legit data centers and farms. dbh computers are. absolutely. wild.

I do wonder how much of the androids' "human" quirks are merely a result of programmers and devs going "you know what would be funny/cool…" and then implementing said funny/cool. maybe Connor doesn't actually need to flip a coin around to calibrate his hands/arms/balance/synthetic vestibular system/choose your terminology and flavor, maybe it's just… a human thing. humans built androids, humans pack bond with anything if given half a chance, humans like to be clever and sneaky and have fun. even a soulless monolith like CyberLife can't suck the humanity out of all of their employees, especially if they're in the business of making the world's most lifelike androids, so I wouldn't be surprised if these quirks were unnecessary on a practical level but exist because. well. humans.

op alludes to Connor's ability to parallel process, which. okay little rant but. such a pet peeve of mine: fic writers who have the androids "miss" what people say because they were busy thinking about something else. literally even the earliest, least powerful androids absolutely would have had the ability to give equal priority to "thinking" about something else while also processing audio and video and whatever other i/o they have to deal with. again: dbh androids are wildly powerful from a computing standpoint. they aren't prone to the same human fallacies like distraction and one-track minds.

except. except. how much do androids' social integration modules make them act certain ways that they don't actually experience internally? there's a moment somewhere in Markus's storyline—can't remember where off the top of my head, sorry!—where someone asks him a question, and he has a moment of distraction before responding. I personally have been leaning harder and harder toward the idea that these moments are as a result of programmers trying to bridge the uncanny valley by giving androids these less-than-perfect quirks and moments. trying to make them appear as human as possible.

honestly, the game doesn't give us enough of a cross-section of undeviated androids doing tasks assigned to them while interacting with humans to truly get a solid feel for how they actually come across emotionally. (Connor doesn't count, he's a freak [affectionate].) and undeviated Markus and Kara are still warm with moments of humanity, even though they're definitely stiffer than before they deviate, which. duh. contrast, ect.

another thought I had while reading op's post: are androids aware of every single function they perform, down to a binary level? are they given that amount of access to their own code? if they are, would CyberLife put blocks in place preventing them from verbally spilling proprietary information to prevent theft? and if they aren't given that degree of access, where does it stop?

one of the things that's always confused me about dbh is the fact that androids apparently have trackers. the first time I played "Zlatko," I thought he was just lying to Kara about the trackers' existence to lure her into being reset (because he was obviously bad news from the get-go). this suspicion doubled for me because there's zero other mentions of android trackers in the game. realistically, CyberLife absolutely would have trackers in all of their androids, you can't tell me they aren't sucking up data at a frankly horrifying rate, but because it's a subject that never gets touched upon again, it left me on shaky footing at best re: whether that's actually true or not. and, like. Kara didn't seem to have a clue what Zlatko was talking about, which… means she was... what? unaware that androids have trackers? if they do at all? I don't know, it's just so bizarre to me, such an afterthought sort of information inclusion. the writing in this game makes me just a little bit crazy sometimes :|

shifting focus drastically here but riffing off that last concept in op's post, I love the idea of Connor being indifferent at best toward inhabiting a body. during the events of the game, he literally is immortal, with only Amanda's/CyberLife's warnings to prioritize the body's existence to temper him. he's android, but he's more than android. one can safely assume that androids don't need to be tethered to CyberLife's servers or networks to function, since deviants still clearly possess all of their mental faculties (and, indeed, seem to gain more once they deviate), so they must store all that information locally, which. again. future tech ahoy, because I can't even comprehend how their storage systems work, physically. unbelievably fast, on unbelievably small devices, is how. beyond that, I'm mystified. (quantum computing, maybe. possibly. probably, even.)

and like. like like. how much of what androids do, in a tic and "humanity" sense, is just their integration programs automatically running? how much control over it do they actually have? how much control over their entire systems do they have? the game presents a lot of material, a lot of it contradictory, but some of it is just. Connor sprawling and tripping through a window because the mocap team had Bryan sitting on the floor to meet Sumo, so the stunt guy had to go through the window in a way that sensibly ended with him on the floor in that position. it doesn't make SENSE from an in-story-world perspective because we see how gracefully Connor moves the rest of the time (and how effortlessly Markus does essentially the same thing), unless you start rationalizing it somehow (silly prototype nonsense???)

anyway, I could waffle on for literally thousands more words (and I have before, sorry wamblings ilu <3), but I'll censor myself for the moment, even though I really want to dig into the RK800 specifically. (or, alternately, do yourself a favor and go read Connor by systemic_dreams. it'll do exactly the same thing, and in narrative form to boot.)

also, op, if you ever want to share that calibrations fic, I would eat that up <3

Since I just saw a pretty cool post with Connor's idle animation, it's time to talk about the nature of these little calibrations he does all the time, because they fascinate me.

I know there's this idea in the fandom that all androids need to recalibrate from time to time, and that they especially need to do this after stress or exertion. If you have ever read any fic with an android from this game that involves sex, you know what kind of stress it usually is.

Personally, I'm not a fan of "humanizing" the machines. I think androids are fun because they are inhuman and their objective reality is completely different from ours. The fact that they are constantly aware of every single process in their bodies is fascinating, isn't it? Since they can understand humans and speak fluently, they have to run several language modules all the time. Plus security modules to prevent hacking. Plus visual recognition, plus all the specialized software for their primary functions.

What I mean is that even your standard domestic android like Kara is an immensely complex machine, running thousands of processes simultaneously just to fold Todd's laundry or talk to him about dinner. Why would she need to recalibrate? To take some of the load off her systems? To do a basic check-in of her body? All my parts are still connected and functioning normally? Something like that?

Meanwhile, Connor is much, much more complex than someone like Kara or even Marcus. All those analysis modules he runs all the time, all those database connections he constantly maintains. On top of that, he has to be faster and more agile than any existing android, and he has to do combat, reconstruction, and pre-construction. His "brain" has to be so fucking fast.

And that's what fascinates me. I think Connor's consciousness and how fast he thinks actually affects how he's connected to his body. His coin, all of his complex recalibration movements are necessary because all of his immense processing power is contained in such a small body. He literally has to slow himself down to just move properly. How cool is that?

I have this idea that Connor is actually much bigger than his body, and his consciousness is only partially uploaded to each of his chassises, and the only time we see him "whole" is during his conversations with Amanda. This may explain why his calibrations are so elaborate. He needs to do more to connect with his physical body. (I actually drafted a whole fic that explores this idea)

#detroit become human #dbh meta #connor #markus #kara

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tracybirds · 2 years ago

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Where Parallel Lines Meet (1/?)

oh boy, I’m exceptionally nervous to begin posting this one. It’s a longer fic and so I’m trying to do it all right and proper. I’m going to try update at least once a fortnight because that sounds manageable. I’d not been excited about any of my stories before I began this one and I’m really excited and hope that you enjoy the adventure :) Many thanks to @gumnut-logic for reading it over :D

Title is adapted from a line in Sarah Howes’ poem ‘Relativity’ (scroll to the bottom of the article)

A fight between John and Alan is followed by an interstellar storm with unexpected consequences.

---

“I just don’t understand how this could have happened,” growled John, a furious hand swiping through the backlog of missing assignments. “He has time to work on school every day.”

“Every day, John?” asked Scott. His brows knitted together over his piercing blue eyes, the troubled expression deepening as he reflected on recent weeks. “Look at his call-outs, we’ve been relying on him more and more ever since the Chaos Crew appeared. We’ve needed him, and he’s barely getting any more recovery than the rest of us.”

He was right. Scott was right and now that he’d pointed it out, John couldn’t understand how he’d missed it.

He closed the file, ignoring Scott’s pestering, digging down into the code to discover why his computer programs had failed him so thoroughly.

“Look at this,” he said, his voice deathly quiet. “He hacked the alert system so that it showed him working the right number of hours.”

Scott inhaled sharply, twisting his head as though he could peer over John’s shoulder from three hundred miles away. It would have been comical if it weren’t for the blood that was pounding in John’s ears.

He forwarded the data.

Scott whistled.

“Look here, he was in Argentina then, and here I know he was asleep, that was after that back-to-back in the Mediterranean, Virgil said he conked out on the way home and gave him a 48-hour stand-down.”

Scott looked up and met his eyes.

“How’d we miss this?”

John clenched his jaw, trying to ignore the tendrils of fury that were wrapped around his heart. He didn’t need Scott to point out that monitoring call-outs was his job, didn’t need him to remind him that this was in fact his fault.

“This isn’t your fault,” said Scott, instantly reading the sour expression on his brother’s face.

“More mine than yours,” said John with a scowl. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

The muttered question was meant to be rhetorical, but Scott couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips.

“Really, John? If you were still sixteen and some rock star older brother said he needed your help to be a superhero, are you telling me you wouldn’t drop everything to ditch school in a heartbeat?”

“You’ve never been much of a rock star,” John sniped at him.

“You’d have dropped out faster than it takes Thunderbird One to go supersonic and you know it,” said Scott with a smirk. “You’d have done anything I asked you to do.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You gave up NASA for me, Johnny.”

“I gave up NASA for Thunderbird Five.”

“And I suppose working with us was just a perk,” said Scott, rolling his eyes good-humouredly. His expression grew serious. “You sure you can handle Alan? I can wrangle him for you if you need the support.”

John sighed, mind flitting back to the report that had finally caught the issue.

“It should be fine,” he said with no small amount of reluctance. “Alan knows how important high school is, he’s been working towards an early-track finish for two years now.”

Scott shot him a quick smile.

“Good, because he’s just arrived for breakfast. See you soon, Johnny.”

“Bye,” said John tonelessly, already reading through the list again.

It didn’t matter what Scott said, he blamed himself. Alan’s lessons were his domain and, in the constant chaos of deliberate sabotage and criminal destruction that they’d been trailing for the past several months, he’d let them slip to the bottom of his pile of concerns. All that had mattered was managing the near constant barrage of rescues and the stream of operations that meant he had hardly known who was coming and who was going down on the island below.

He wasn’t certain he’d even managed to speak to his brothers outside of rescues in the last fortnight, his days morphing together in a continuous flow of work and sleep and work and work.

“Alan,” he called, bypassing the message notification in favour of direct contact.

His brother startled, knocking an unknown object across the table.

“John!” he said, eyes widening before he relaxed into a smile. “How’s space?”

His usual response stuck in his throat, the words turning to chalk on his tongue.

“Do you have a minute?” he said instead, the flat tone brokering no discussion. “We need to talk.”

Alan frowned, his eyes flitting to someone – Scott – who stood off-view.

“Sure,” he said, dredging his agreement up from unwilling depths. “Now, or…? Only I was gonna meet up with Brandon online for a thing.”

“Now,” said John firmly.

There was no point delaying the inevitable. He sent the assignment log.

A sharp ping echoed in the holo, and John watched grimly as Alan looked down and stared at the file that now sat in his hands.

“This is… oh.”

John saw more than heard the words that Alan caught in his chest, the shaky inhale barely enough to make the air shudder. He watched as his youngest brother shook himself, eyes sharpening with anxiety as he glanced up. Full-blown panic erupted across his face, and John had to work to school his own expression of empathy at the sudden, forcible reminder of his undergraduate days when he had vastly underestimated the time requirements of his own assignments.

But even that had been careless foolishness rather than carefully considered and deliberate dishonesty.

John felt like a fool today as well.

“I can explain!”

“You don’t need to explain,” snapped John. “I know how this happened. You ignored the limits we put in place; you failed to uphold the one condition we gave you when you started as an operative in International Rescue; you hacked our safety systems because you thought you knew better than me.”

“Just listen–”

“You don’t get to talk right now, Alan,” he roared, and the line fell silent.

He breathed heavily, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Did you deliberately change the learning program so that it reflected a false record of your work ethic.”

“Yes, but–”

“And did you,” said John loudly, ignoring Alan’s protestations, “do this specifically so that I wouldn’t know that you’d been skipping your lessons.”

“I guess technically, but–”

“And is that list correct in saying that you have failed to hand it complete work for the last thirty-eight assignments.”

“I was just trying to help!”

“Well, you didn’t,” John snapped, eyes flashing. “When will you get it through your head that we’re responsible for you. That your schooling is the most important thing in your life, over and above your responsibilities to International Rescue.”

Alan scoffed, mumbling as he turned away from John.

“Want to try that again?” John asked, venom coating his tongue.

“I said ‘that’s easy for you to say’,” shouted Alan, his hands curled in fists. “What do you know, you don’t even come down anymore. You don’t care about my lessons; you don’t help me with them. I can’t ask you when you’re monitoring, I can’t ask when you’re asleep – what did you want me to do? International Rescue is the only thing you even care about anymore, so why shouldn’t I?”

“There’s no shortcuts for this,” snarled John, trying to forget the way his father’s words echoed in his head after they’d traitorously left his mouth. “You can’t cut corners when it comes to your education, it’ll only hurt us all in the long run. It’ll only hurt you.”

“You don’t know anything,” yelled Alan.

John wrenched open his mouth in furious response, then paused as Alan’s image wavered, shot through with sudden flecks of light.

He held up a hand and silenced Alan’s indignant tirade, ignoring the soundless outraged squawk and furious typing that ensued. His attention was captured by the insistent malfunction that blazed brightly across the image. He checked his equipment meticulously for hardware faults and a quick glance through the error logs indicated no reason for the sudden failure.

The answer came in a flash when he blinked and the light streaked across his vision behind his eyelids.

The silence shattered as Alan shattered his mute command, the indignity of being cut off too great to bear.

“I wasn’t finished.”

“Be quiet, Alan,” John ordered, no longer entertaining thoughts of past arguments. “EOS, check Cherenkov radiation levels, correlate against solar activity.”

“Cherenkov radiation levels at 508%, limited correlation with solar activity which peaked with an intensity of 1.048 four days ago compared to expected levels.”

“Compute likely origin of unknown radiation.”

“No change in the Earth’s magnetosphere; it is continuing to deflect the majority of solar and Jovian activity. Likely origin is interstellar.”

“Check other background radiation counts.”

“Cosmic rays increasing in intensity and the ICNO is reporting a spike in neutrino activity. Beta and gamma counts ticking upwards. Recommend immediate shelter. Radiation storm incoming with 98% probability of impact within fifteen minutes.”

John swore. EOS wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

“This conversation is not over,” he snapped in Alan’s direction.

He hardly glimpsed his brother’s stricken expression as he killed the holoprojector and swung himself towards the radiation refuge at the heart of his ‘bird.

“Are you backed up, EOS?”

His voice echoed around him as the space station slowed to a halt. Gentle vibrations stilled, the background hum of his home fading into nothingness.

“I am.”

EOS sounded more disembodied than ever, with no way to jump to the internal circuitry kept separate and reserved only for the temporary lead-lined shelter. John blinked as a dim red glow activated, revealing the small metal room. There was no bed, only a series of Velcro straps to hold him down should the storm outlast his ability to stay awake. A selection of old school paperbacks was locked in a cabinet, and John propelled himself towards them, running a gloved hand over the latch.

He continued circling the room, taking a moment to check on the dehydrated food supplies and emergency oxygen tanks, before turning to face the door, lights still flashing behind his eyes.

“Sensors are functional,” he said softly. “I’ll see you soon.”

EOS said nothing, her array hovering at the threshold.

“John? Will you be okay?”

He tried not to think about the game of chance he was playing, living in a home where any second a stray cosmic ray might collide with his DNA and reshape it forever.

“Always am. Commence Protocol XR-4.”

“Communication blackout confirmed,” she said. “Gravity ring disengaged. Oxygen supplies have been mixed with inert gas tanks. All systems shut down in safe mode.”

The list went on, with none of EOS’s usual dynamics. John felt a twinge of pride at her efficiency and then of fear as it drove home the very real danger of the storm that was only minutes away, that had indeed already begun.

“Thank you, EOS,” he said quietly. “See you on the other side.”

“Goodbye John.”

The door swung shut, leaving him blinking in the subdued glow. He suddenly missed the gravity of Earth, feeling the need to sink into a chair, sink down into his very bones and collapse under the weight of the lingering fight with his brother.

“Stupid,” he whispered, unsure if he meant Alan or himself.

There was no sense in dissecting the situation but John couldn’t help playing the scene over and over; stuck in a tiny room with starlight shimmering behind his eyes like a prism hung in a window. The lead might protect him from the radiation, but heavy metal atoms were nothing to the tiny slips of neutrino matter, the only indication of the silent, raging storm.

He wished he could have said something different, that he’d been able to make Alan see reason. That he’d been empathetic instead of angry, understanding instead of terrified.

He wondered if there was anything else he wasn’t seeing, if he had a blind spot for each brother.

Thus the long hours passed, John flitting between worries that plagued his restless mind. He couldn’t sleep, wasn’t truly awake, and he couldn’t forget the universal barrage outside that had travelled for longer than he’d been alive.

He never let his helmet leave his hand. He never let his last conversation leave his mind.

Just another worry.

In time, the light show began to die down and he turned his attention to the radiation sensors that would dictate his final escape.

“Come on,” he whispered to himself. “Just another three sieverts.”

The slow drop in radiation took hours to tick down to an acceptable level, but the final shift in numbers happened in milliseconds.

At once, the lights brightened and John somersaulted to the door, staggering as it flung him outwards with little effort. He wasted no time, racing to the central control dome and running through restart with a fresh fervour alight under his skin, unable to wait to bring Thunderbird Five back to life. He resurrected gravity, he woke EOS from her last save point, he revived the giant monitoring screen showcasing a world who needed them. With comms back up and running, John couldn’t help but cast an eye over what they’d missed.

“John?”

“Virgil,” he greeted, hardly pausing to look up at his brother.

He heard a soft chuckle.

“So the radiation didn’t kill you then?” said Virgil drily.

“We’ll find out in sixty years.”

“Get down here. Five can wait.”

John shot him a poisonous look and Virgil held up his hands in surrender.

“These are your protocols, not mine. Check the levels, this is the worst radiation storm to hit Thunderbird Five ever. Brains heard from Moffie, the particle physicists are all over this. And the auroras are incredible, they’re being seen worldwide. Besides, you need a full genetic work-up and, if you’re good, I’ll even let you look at the observatory data.”

“It was all recorded?”

“Arrived about a second after communication with Tracy Island was re-established.”

John grinned, backlog momentarily forgotten and already envisioning the years of research others would develop from the day’s data when it went public.

But it wasn’t enough to survive the apprehension that gnawed at his gut.

“How’s Alan?”

Virgil grimaced.

“Catching up on schoolwork. Scott ripped him a new one about lying to you and how we needed to be able to trust him once you fell offline. And he was freaked by the storm – you cutting him off so quickly scared him, I think.”

“I shouldn’t have lost it.”

Virgil shrugged.

“Maybe not. But trust me, it’s forgotten; he’s just happy you didn’t die up there.”

John sighed, glancing down at the planet that lazily spun beneath his feet. It shone a brilliant blue under the light of the sun and he knew that somewhere below the swirling clouds his brother was waiting for him. They all were.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m heading down.”

As the elevator slipped into the atmosphere, John felt a bone-crushing weariness settle upon him. The day had been long, much longer than his usual fare, and the hours of tension and worries about Alan were quickly dragging him down faster than gravity could account for.

He waved everyone away when he hit landfall, allowing Virgil to half-steer and half-carry him to his room, where he crawled under the bed covers and fell asleep even has Virgil was running his tests.

He didn’t hear Scott slip in, didn’t hear the low, hushed voices at the foot of his bed. The small figure that crept into his room and lay down on the rug next to his bed long after the rest of the house noise died away remained unknown to him.

No sound penetrated the fog of dreamless sleep.

[Part 2]

#john tracy #alan tracy #scott tracy #thunderbirds are go #sometimes i fic #gonna add this one to ao3 now and not think abut the archiving I'm behind on lol....

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99liners · 4 years ago

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the sniper and her spotter — a. daiki;

pairings: aomine daiki x female reader

genre: so!much!angst, smidge of fluff, angsty messy smut, slow burn.

words: 7.182 (i write too much plot, i am sorry)

warnings: blood and gore (they are yakuza, what do you expect), daiki is a rude asshole, more like a manchild who makes sly jokes to stroke his own ego, they kill some people (unnamed characters), daiki smokes occasionally, sexual tension, angsty sex (hey you can’t back out now, y’all handed me a yakuza!daiki), pussy eating, virgin reader, slow unprotected seggs (bls observe safe sexual practices), missionary position, orgasms (m / f), morning seggs, cowgirl position, ambiguous relationship status.

request: Anonymous asked : Is the askbox open? If yes, may I get mafia!Aomine fall in love with a girl (who's good with gun and martial art) they always bickering every time they met (not to mention the sexual tension have build, because she's hot as hell). One day, their boss make this duo as team to get revenge on someone who've killed Kuroko's(their best friend) father? A little smut if that's okay? Thankss

taglist: @seijoharlot | @carinacassiopeiae |

a/n: i just knew that the reader has to be a sniper because she is the calm person and aomine is the hotheaded egoistic asshole lol. the rest of the plot, i winged it as i wrote.

four years ago:

you were standing by the bookshelf of the sub-group leader akashi, who had summoned you for a briefing on your third assignment with his group. you took out a book from the self, a directory on various kinds of poisons when the door opened shortly to let in the main muscle man of the group; aomine daiki. it was drizzling since morning and your eyes flicked from the navy-haired guy to the pattering sound of the rain outside. you let a sigh, you absolutely hate rainy days.

your father is head of one of the main three clans of the sumiyoshi-kai yakuza family and you had just turned of age which meant that it was time for you to join a sub-group, nepotism does not really work in the yakuza families. akashi’s group was the only one who needed a hitman, so naturally you had no choice but to join their group. it was not like you wanted to join some other group, you had no such preferences. akashi had showed you around the first day to introduce you to the group starting with kise ryota who dealt with mostly the drug related operations, midorima shintaro and kuroko tetsuya the computer experts, i.e., the eyes and ears of the group, kagami taiga handled the day-to-day business and murasakibara atsushi along with aomine daiki were the muscles of the group whereas akashi seijuro was the leader and brains of the group. you filled in the group with the final position of a hitman.

you can fight too, you are trained in two forms of martial arts; taekwondo and krav maga but your specialty comes out when you are aiming at a person through the scope of your sniper from 800 yards away. your skill is like an art, one gentle press of your index finger is enough to take away a life. it is difficult to be a sniper and not have a bit of a God complex.

akashi looked up from the bunch of papers in his hand when daiki walked in, “we got the lead on the shibuya druglord. take y/n and finish the job.”

“why do i need to take a kid with me for an important assignment?” daiki retorted, his figure slacking near his hips, his hands tightly jammed inside his trouser pockets.

“because it’s an important assignment and i don’t want drama this time and i certainly don’t want media up my ass.”

you chuckled as you slid the book back in its place. daiki’s jaw tightened on the offhanded insult in front of a literal junior.

“she will only hold me back.”

you rolled your eyes, “i don’t really need him to come with me, i can get the job done alone,” you turned to akashi finally and stood parallel to daiki.

“i know you can but we need someone on the ground just in case.”

“can’t murasakibara come with me?” you knew better than to make it work with someone who is unwilling to work with you. daiki has always rubbed off the wrong way against you.

“he is gone with kagami. you get each other only, now before the druglord finishes his lunch appointment and goes back into hiding in his bunker, get to work.”

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

you were too busy loading your duffle bag in the trunk of the car when daiki came out and got in the driver’s seat, slamming shut the door behind him. it broke you out of your trance and caused you to flinch when the car vibrated from the slam.

daiki noticed how your small figure shook and chuckled loudly, “scaredy cat.”

“asshole,” you mumbled slamming down the trunk too after you were finished and got inside the passenger seat, “what’s your problem mister?”

daiki chose not to reply and ignited the car. annoyed at his callousness you leaned over and pulled out the car keys from the ignition.

“what the fuck is your problem?” daiki turned to you glaring, “did you not hear akashi? we are on the clock.”

“i don’t care, i can’t work with someone who does not have my back.”

“oh get off your high horse princess, i don’t have to be nice to you to have your back,” daiki snatched the keys back from you and started driving, “pull one more stunt and i will throw out of the moving car.”

“you have never even worked with me before, hell you don’t even know. what the fuck are you so rude for?”

daiki only scoffed in reply and you have never wanted to kill someone more but kept quiet for the rest of the ride.

the car came to a stop ten blocks away in a gas station, daiki parked the car close to the exit and stepped out. you fixed the hem of your jeans which hid your hand pistol strapped to your ankle, before stepping out of the car too. not paying a glance to daiki you walked to the other end of the car to retrieve your duffle bag. you opened the trunk and leaned down to get the bag when daiki appeared and picked out the bag before you could.

“what now?” you groaned at him and stepped aside from the car when daiki pushed down the trunk while you were still leaning in.

whenever daiki show you walking with your sniper stashed inside your precious little duffle bag, he always assumed that the bag would be light but in reality it weighed at least 8-9 kgs, considering it contains your sniper, day optical scope and a fully loaded magazine. he won’t admit it but in his eyes, respect for you increased by like point five percent.

“what? just being the chivalrous boyfriend,” daiki smirked as he started walking in the direction of a nearby motel.

“you are not my boyfriend!” you almost screeched as you followed behind him, the very vile thought made you want to puke.

“baby, now that’s hurtful,” daiki feigned a frown wrapping an arm around your waist, “we are just a sweet couple, new to the town, headed to a motel to rest before hitting the road again.”

you hit his chest annoyed, “i will shoot myself before i ever become your girlfriend.”

daiki snorted a laugh, “you won’t have to, i will gladly shoot myself before that happens.”

you kept hitting him, either in the chest or his pecs but his secure hold against your waist never let loose. he was not hurting you nor was he trying anything risque but you just disliked the fact that he was the one who was touching you. to a third person walking on the streets it looked like a couple bickering amongst each other and being endearing.

the neighborhood was a mix between normal citizens and yakuza, the restaurant was not some hotel marriott either, more like a suburban eatery where the druglord was meeting another yakuza to discuss some business.

daiki came to stop in front of the motel, nine blocks from the restaurant.

“go ahead baby, you can go and change, i will get us something to eat till then.”

“ass,” you mumbled snatching the duffle bag from him but before you could away, daiki pulled you back against his chest.

“give a kiss before you go!” he whined in a sappy tone, putting up a show in front of the elderly couple running the small store adjacent to the motel who were staring at you two. anyone would mistake them for a sweet elderly couple but both daiki and you know better to see that they are some yakuza clan’s informants.

to be honest, daiki was behaving like that more to annoy you than allay suspicions.

you stared at him in shock and tried to get away but he kept his cheek extended to you. you felt the gaze of the elderly couple too, daiki was not letting you walk away without the kiss.

“i am so shooting you today,” you spoke through gritted teeth.

“of course baby, shoot me with all your love,” daiki grinned leaning down to your height.

you took a few deep breaths before placing a chaste kiss on his cheek.

“good girl,” daiki smiled, immediately releasing you.

you rushed inside the motel entrance at the speed of flash, at that moment your sniper weighed less than air for you as you ran up the shabby old stairs of the motel to get to the roof.

daiki laughed to himself before heading towards the restaurant.

after calming yourself from the rush of adrenaline, you started setting up the sniper at the edge of the roof, facing the direction of the restaurant. taking out the tripod stand from the duffel bag, you set it up before mounting the sniper on it, your march x day optical scope was already affixed on the barrel. you sat down on your knees, your slender fingers rotated the knob on top of the scope to change the focus of the lens before you leaned down to look in the eye of the sniper again. making sure it was on the window of the restaurant, you put on the intercom kuroko had handed you.

“i am in position.”

“so fast? did you run up?” daiki chuckled, he was about two blocks away from the restaurant.

“shut up,” you replied, watching the restaurant from the eye of the sniper, “the druglord is here. hurry up.”

daiki was going to reply with some stupid joke but on hearing that, he kept quiet and jogged the rest of the way.

you pulled out your hand pistol, loaded it and kept it in front of you for backup.

“fuck i hate the rain,” you mumbled in the intercom when the rain which had stopped for a while restarted.

daiki entered the restaurant patting his clothes off the water droplets, “what are you waiting for? take the shot. he is literally sitting by the window.”

“keep quiet for a minute, the rain changes everything.” you replied pulling away from the eye of the sniper to move your tripod, “the sniper fires at 0.5 minute of arc which is approximately 0.5 inch center to center of the two holes furthest apart, so 5-round group at 100 yards will theoretically fire a 12.5 inch group at 2,500 yards so 0.5 × 2,500/100 = 12.5, but it’s raining which will affect the bullet as it travels downrange to the target bu-”

“what the fuck are you on about?” daiki asked you confused.

you had not realized that you were making the calculations out loud but ignored daiki and continued with making the necessary changes.

daiki kept standing near the counter to place an order for a coffee when he noticed that the drug lord shook hands with his businessmen and stood up.

“shit,” daiki sighed and walked to their table where a waiter was collecting the bill, “hey, shinzou right?” daiki read the name off the name tag of the waiter and kept his hand on his shoulder, his other hand holding the gun in his jacket pocket, his finger on the trigger as he positioned the gun to face the druglord.

after making sure your 5-round group is centered perfectly on the target at 100 yards, you looked into the eye of the sniper and realized you had taken too much time and the druglord was leaving. daiki’s back was directly in front of your field of vision through the window, the druglord standing in front of him taking cash out from his pocket to pay the waiter. you knew daiki could easily kill the target but it was a crowded place, everyone probably already had seen daiki, there was no escape after he would take the shot.

“aomine move,” you kept your finger on the trigger, the scope focused on daiki’s back.

daiki did not reply and kept trying to talk to the waiter, to make it seem that the waiter was his school friend, all the while pointing the nuzzle of his own gun higher up to take a shot at the target’s chest for a clean death.

“aomine i have the shot, fucking move or i am shooting you.”

the next thing daiki heard was the intercom disconnecting, he knew what was coming and instinctively moved about a mere few inches to the side. approximately ten seconds later, the druglord had a bullet right inside his heart, the blood spluttering out all over the floor as he succumbed to his death. chaos ensued in the restaurant as people started running.

daiki just stared at the corpse for a few moments because that could have easily been him before breaking out of his reverie and evacuating the place at once.

after taking the shot, you packed up your sniper back into the duffle bag, strapped the hand pistol to your ankle again and headed downstairs. you took off your jacket, untucked your tank top and let your hair loose from the pony tail because the elderly informant couple clearly heard daiki that you went to the motel to change. you already had to kiss daiki of all the people in this world to not invite suspicions, might as well take all the precautions.

after reaching the ground floor, you casually walked out of the motel and headed back to the car.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

you were leaning back on the hood of the car in the gas station when daiki finally made it back and threw the car keys at you. catching them, you wordlessly went to the trunk and packed your sniper before coming to the front and boarding the car.

“are you seriously going to light that in a gas station?” you asked when you noticed the cigarette held tightly between his lips.

daiki snatched the keys from you and ignited the car to drive out of the gas station. once the car was back on the main road, he reached inside his jacket pocket and brought out his lighter.

you heard the metallic flick of the lighter, “someone’s bitchy,” commenting, you looked out the window.

daiki lit his cigarette and after taking a puff, he turned to you clearly pissed, “maybe you forgot but you almost fucking shot me.”

“and yet, here you are, still breathing,” you sighed, shaking your head.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

two years ago:

it already had been two years since that day and daiki will not let you live it down. he will twist the story to make it seem like you missed the shot and accidentally injured him and whatnot. you don’t think that there is any variation of that story that has not reached back to your ears, nothing could possibly surprise you anymore.

boy were you wrong.

it was kuroko’s father’s 50th birthday, another important clan head and the whole clan was celebrating including you. you were not part of their clan but since you have been working with him since the past two years, inviting you was a no-brainer.

you were sitting by the bar, having a shirley temple* when a random girl came and sat by you, by the looks of it, you concluded she was a hooker. she kept looking back at someone so you followed her gaze till your eyes fell on daiki who noticed you as well and raised his beer bottle to which you gave him a curt nod in return and went back to your drink. the girl beside you noticed that wordless exchange and interrupted your state of solitude.

[*it is a non alcoholic drink cause reader is technically 20 in this scene]

“oh my god, do you know aomine?!” the girl started, her voice going like an octave higher with each word.

you let out a sigh before turning to her with a small smile, “yeah i do, i work with him.”

“ooooh! you must be that sniper who went with him to kill the shibuya druglord. you are his ex, right?”

“i am his what?” you turned towards her, your back now facing the bar. the poker smile never leaving your lips.

“yeah, he said you were his girlfriend at the time and you were so scared about him that you could not take the shot and were shaking on the rooftop alone so aomine had to take the shot himself.”

“oh? i was incapable of taking the shot?!” you almost raised your voice at that and turned your face to daiki this time who was talking to murasakibara.

“yeah and then he said because of his scary look, no one really stopped him when he walked away. like a total boss,” the girl gushed.

your mouth almost fell open at that. seriously? his fragile ego cannot handle the fact that you took the shot instead of him, which you did just so he could walk away easily unharmed but guess you should just have left him to die, or better yet, actually shot him when you had the chance.

while the scenarios played on your mind of you pulling the trigger on daiki, daiki himself appeared in front of you. you almost dropped your drink when your eyes fell on him.

“dude, stop scaring me,” you gulped down your drink and kept the glass back on the bar countertop.

daiki shrugged, “thought you might need someone to bail you out,” he leaned in awfully close to you and whispered into your ear, “she is one chatty cathy.”

you realized he was talking about the girl sitting beside you. keeping a hand on his chest, you pushed him away, “i am fine.”

“come, we will dance,” discarding what you said, daiki got a hold of your hand and easily dragged you to the dance floor where kuroko’s dad was dancing with his mom in the middle of the crowd and some other couples of the clan were dancing around them.

“i am not dancing with you, remember i am a scaredy cat who just starts shaking because i am so worried about you!” you feigned a pout, sarcasm dripping from your words.

daiki let a laugh, his hand that was holding your arm pulled it towards his body and placed your palm on his shoulder.

“well it’s true. i did take the shot,” daiki offered his signature shit-eating grin, his hands smoothly wrapping themselves around your waist.

you had not realized it either but you had stepped closer to his warm body, your hands on his shoulder, “anything else i should know about so i can play along too next time?”

daiki looked up as if he was thinking, “mhm, let’s see... oh we are broken up but you still want me back and won’t leave me alone.”

this was ridiculously self-centered, even for daiki so you could not help but let a laugh at that. daiki joined you.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

over the past two years, other than him making up newer and newer variations of the actual incident, you two have gone from biting at each other’s mere presence to sharing glances at each other. neither of you have ever tried anything but you did not miss the way daiki’s eyes lingered at you. every mission you guys had together, duo or as a group, he would always have your back. sometimes he would even volunteer to be your spotter and guard you while you were busy taking the shot some seven - eight hundred yards away. he is still arrogant, rude and his usual self but there is also a smidge of respect behind his rude words.

on the other hand, daiki has not missed how you look at him, either. in a room full of people, he will always find your eyes at him. if you were just another person, he would have been elated at that, feeding into his inflated ego and maybe even add you to his list of one night stands but you are not just another person.

you are the daughter of one of the top three clan heads’ and daiki would be spitting on his mother’s grave if he fell for you. his dad was one of the top yakuza in kabukicho, his mom was just some civilian he met on a mission. daiki was born out of wedlock which was highly looked down upon among the yakuza. he was labelled a bastard from the day he took his first breath in.

but that was far from the end of his sufferings, when daiki was in his early teen years, his mom was murdered by another yakuza group to get back at his father but at the news of his girlfriend’s death, daiki’s father outright laughed at how she never really meant anything to him so her death contributes to nothing. daiki was a mere fourteen year old boy at the time, he knew his father was lying but the yakuza pride meant more to his dad than his mom’s life. after his mom’s death, no one really cared about him, he was thrown into the underground of the yakuza where he fought his way back to the top. he knows how to fight because if he had not learnt to, he would be dead by now. which is highly in contrast from your life where you were trained from your childhood by an instructor.

when his dad died, the aomine family had no other heir but daiki and boy was that ironic. he had laughed through the entire funeral service. daiki never took help of his ‘aomine’ title and joined akashi’s group which had the least connections with the clan. when kuroko joined their group, he had a hard time to accept him as their own but he came around and he is going through a similar process with you. he is only afraid that he might just fall in love with you.

you came to know about his life one night when kagami gulped down a drink too much and narrated the whole thing to you. after that, you stopped seeing daiki as the self-entitled asshole, you even found yourself understanding his brash attitude towards you.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

the song had turned to a very slow tune, from the jazzy beat to a slow beat, daiki and your movements slow down too. you were the first to lean in, daiki followed but all you could think was that you might hurt him just like his dad might have hurt his mom. the gap between you two was only getting smaller, you were almost breathing in his air, it smelled like the beer he was chugging down earlier, the cigarettes he smoke before arriving at the party but you did not find it repulsive, not even a bit. your hands had slid down from his shoulders to the bulge of his biceps, your fingers caressing the fabric of his full sleeve shirt, the sleeves were folded up to his elbow.

at the moment daiki did not care that he might have fallen for you, he leaned in to kiss you, your lips almost touching but instead of kissing him you leaned into his chest and rested your head against his beating heart. daiki stopped swaying for a second at your actions but respected it and resumed his gentle movements, closing his eyes as he rest his chin on your forehead.

you quietly kept listening to his heartbeat, your face was towards the window side and the lights from the street kept blinding your vision. you closed your eyes to enjoy the moment while it lasted.

the moment did not last till the end of the song as your entire environment went into absolute chaos. there was sound of the window cracking, one moment later, kuroko’s dad was lying into his own blood of blood; dead.

your eyes snapped open when you recognized the familiar sound of a sniper shot. if you had not closed your eyes to enjoy a fleeting moment, you might have seen the reflection from the scope of the sniper, or maybe even the person, or something but you saw nothing. just a woman, splattered over with her husband’s blood, kuroko at his mother’s side trying to get her away to safety, his own composure breaking.

daiki felt the same way as he watched his friend lose his entire world in the matter of a few moments. he stepped away from you, avoided your gaze at all costs and joined kuroko to help the family get to somewhere safe.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

present day:

it has been two years of relentless search for the group responsible for kuroko’s father’s death. you had the bullet retrieved from the body and after recognizing the sniper rifle from which it was fired, midorima and you worked day in and out to procure the list of every person who owned the sniper in this entire country. obviously, normal people do not buy sniper rifles, some people do buy guns for their safety but no civilian buys a sniper rifle, it is illegal to buy one unless you are a military personnel. it took a lot of work, time and patience to gather the list which consisted of every single person who might have bought that particular model of sniper rifle illegally. it took another eight months to go through each name on that list, crossing them off one by one after checking the name out thoroughly to find out any link to kuroko’s family. the group even went on countless number of missions to investigate the names, obviously that only ever added to their existing daily tasks.

finally the day came when a name towards the end of the list showed a very distant but still a connection to kuroko’s family. the name was obviously an alias and was directly linked with the druglord that you had killed four years ago, on your first mission with daiki.

daiki. you wonder how long has it been since you two saw each other. your guilt has made sure that you never shared a room together after that incident, let alone look each other in the eye. even for the missions, you mostly worked with midorima and murasakibara while he was adamant on working alone and at most, would only allow kuroko to join him. he can never say no to kuroko, he really adores the light blue haired boy.

on discovering the link, akashi summoned you, “it’s your mess, take your partner and fix it.”

you know very well what he meant when he said partner but you could not bring yourself to nod, you have no idea how you are going to even talk to daiki, let alone be in a room with him. your eyes flicked to kuroko who was also present in the room, the way he looked at you with so much expectations that you along with daiki could somehow bring him some piece of mind by getting revenge.

“i will not let you down,” you offered kuroko a smile before heading out.

you informed daiki about the new information and he wordlessly packed his guns and stood up from where he was sitting.

the next thing you know, you found yourself in the passenger seat beside him. daiki was busy driving, his hands gripping the steering wheel. he moved his left hand to change the gears when his finger touched your thigh. you were looking out the window and immediately turned to him thinking he wanted to say something to you.

“sorry,” daiki spoke out briskly and the atmosphere turned quiet again.

you kept staring at him, wanting to say something so you could hear his voice again, maybe a little longer this time but you could not bring yourself to say anything and decided against it.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

“looks like akashi only got one room for us,” daiki spoke after getting the room key at the reception of the motel in kyoto.

“i am fine with it,” you dismissed the thought of being alone with him and headed up to the room with the key.

daiki stayed back in the reception area as you went ahead to the room and set up your tripod on the window of the motel, pointed in the direction of the address of the person who had bought the sniper rifle. the motel was, of course, located way too far from where you could take a clean shot but it was close enough for you to spy on them through your scope.

when daiki came to the room, he saw you sitting on a chair behind the sniper rifle, your gaze focused on the sniper eye.

“i talked to the guy in reception, he will have the dinner sent to the room shortly.”

you turned to him and nodded before going back to surveillance.

“you can take a break now, we have found the guy, by tomorrow he will be dead.”

you turned back to him again before getting up, letting your body slack a bit, “your right. that was a long ride, i really need a shower.”

“go ahead,” daiki shrugged letting you space.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

yes it’s cliché that you forgot to bring your clothes in the shower but you did forget to bring them and kept standing by the door of the washroom debating between going out in your towel or asking daiki to hand your clothes but the former would mean you would be literally going out in front of him naked whereas the latter would mean that daiki would have to go through your luggage which contains your undergarments in addition to your clothes, naturally.

you are not scared that he would jump you, far from it because you feel extremely safe with him. you are scared that you would only end up complicating matters more than they already are.

while you kept debating what to do, you heard the bell of the motel room going off. it must be the food daiki had ordered, means he will go to the door to receive it and while he will pay the guy, you can just rush out and grab your clothes and rush back. yes, that can actually work.

when you heard the door opening and daiki thanking the guy, you immediately rushed out but no longer had you touched your luggage, than daiki came back with the food. your hand kept holding the towel to your chest tightly.

ironically, daiki was shirtless too.

daiki had already paid for the food down in the reception. he came to the room and after you went to shower he picked up the sealed water bottle to take a sip but while opening it, he put too much pressure on the body of the bottle so when the cap came off, the water spilled all over him. daiki took off his shirt and let it on the chair to dry. he had meant to put on a fresh shirt but akashi called him and he got busy updating the leader. and then we all know what transpired.

daiki kept the food containers on the coffee table, his eyes never leaving your frozen body. his eyes noted that you were staring at his heavily tattooed chest, particularly on his upper chest.

“it’s my mom’s name,” daiki answered the question which you stopped yourself from asking at least three times.

“such a pretty name,” you let your own limbs relax a bit.

“yeah, she was pretty,” daiki nodded.

you nodded, “i-uh, i know what happened, kagami told me.”

“he got too drunk?” daiki’s serious gaze broke into a smile.

you let out a breathing chuckle, nodding, “yeah, he kept on rambling,” your expressions changed when you looked into his eyes after two long years, “i am sorry for your loss.”

daiki maintained the eye contact and took steps towards you, the first two steps timid, the next couple ones were more hurried as he grabbed your gentle cheeks in the warmth of his rough beaten up hands. the next breath that you took, you exhaled it in his mouth as his lips engulfed yours in a passionate kiss.

you craned your neck upwards to allow him better access into your mouth, he did not have to ask twice for permission to slide his tongue into the hot cavern of your mouth. your hands struggled between holding the towel to your body and touching him, you just really wanted to touch him.

daiki felt your constraint actions and slid down his hands, wrapping them around your balled up ones and slowly helped to un-fist your hands. the towel wrapped around your figure fell down and pooled near your feet. daiki pulled back from the kiss, his eyes not leaving yours for a second as he brought your hands around your neck, his shoulders leaning down so you can clasp your hands around his neck. he wrapped his arms around your waist and tapped at your legs, gesturing you to wrap his legs around his torso so he could pick you up.

you followed his actions blindly and wrapped your legs around his torso, allowing daiki to hold you up. he flicked off all the lights in the room and walked to the bed.

setting you down in the middle of the bed, he got on top of you, situating himself between your legs. you raised your upper body to meet catch his lips back into a deep kiss. your teeth almost clashed against each other from just how eager you both were. he held your jaw, his tongue making its way back into your mouth. the soft wet muscle played with yours, the exchange of saliva and breathless exhales - a given. his forehead rested against yours, his nose resting against yours like a missing puzzle piece while his tongue sucked on yours like there was no tomorrow, like you will leave him the moment he stops, like he won’t see you ever again.

his hand holding your jaw slid down to your collarbones and through the valley of your breasts, the nail grazing against your skin raised every hair on your body. his hand cupped your right breast and squeezed gently causing you to let out a gasp into his mouth, your own hands squeezing his arms.

you pulled away for air, your head resting back on the pillow letting your neck muscles to relax after straining up to keep kissing him.

daiki kissed your neck, his tongue darting out to lick at your skin, he left an invisible trail of saliva down to your breasts. he looked up for a second and noticed that your hooded eyes were trained at him, he held your gaze as his mouth opened and closed against your nipple.

“hm,” you exhaled at that feeling, his wet tongue flicking against your nipple, swirling around the hard nub. his mouth closed tightly against your breast, his lips sucking on it. his free hand doing the same to your left breast with his fingers. his fingers twisted the nub, almost in sync with his mouth. a moan tore out of your neck, your hands at the back of neck, leaving soothing touches.

he pulled back only to continue the same ministrations alternately. you did not know it was possible to get wet from just having your breasts sucked but it certainly was an erogenous feeling that had you rubbing your legs together.

daiki’s hand travelled down to finger you, his skin coming in contact against your bare clit let him know that you were starting to get wet. he pulled away from your breasts and looked at you, “can i?”

you nodded in reply, not missing a beat.

daiki kissed your naval, your hips and travelled down one kiss after another. the further down he went, the more ticklish you felt and you realized it was from the sensitivity.

you held your breath when his face hovered near the pointy nub of your sex. daiki brought his fingers near your entrance only to massage his index finger against your folds. your lubricative juices soon emerged out, glistening on his finger which he used as lubrication before teasing the finger against your entrance.

his finger easily slid in the initial tract before it reached the closed off tight virgin walls. daiki leaned his head down and licked on your outer folds.

you let a whimper at the sudden assault on all your senses, your legs trying to close up but daiki used his free hand to hold them apart. his finger at your entrance kept opening up the tract with every trust, his tongue flicking against your sensitive clit only aiding his finger further in. a few more thrusts and daiki’s finger disappeared inside your folds, rubbing against your walls. your hands got a hold on his hair again and twisted it into fists, tugging at it when he added another finger to the mix. he let his lips wrap against your folds and sucked while his fingers bent at the upper joints and tapped against your upper walls, in sync with his thrusts.

the room was eclipsed with a musky atmosphere, the smell of sex evident in the air, other than the sound of your rugged breathing, it was masked with silence.

“fuck fuck fuck,” you moaned out loud breaking the poetic silence, your fingers tugging at his hair harder when you felt your legs shaking followed by an unexpected orgasm.

your chest heaved down, trying to catch all air while daiki licked at every last drop of your cum. it made you gasp every now and then when his touch overstimulated your bundle of nerves.

finishing up, daiki came up to you, his back stretching, letting his hard on dangle between your legs.

“you sure?” he asked you when he felt your hands wrapping around his length.

you nodded again, not missing a beat, “i want all of you.”

daiki kissed your forehead, his hand removing yours from his length. he pumped his dick against your entrance, every time the tip of his dick touched your folds, you squirmed.

“look at me,” daiki used his free hand to touch your cheek, holding your gaze when you felt that initial intrusion. you did not expect it to hurt as bad as it did. tears pooled up in your eyes causing you to look away.

“no, keep looking at me,” daiki held your cheek, forcing you to keep your eyes at him.

you started exhaling through your mouth, trying pace your breaths.

“i know, i know,” daiki kissed the tears that skipped past your lower eyelids.

his hips coaxed further in, making its way into your innermost walls. his hips angled up and thrust once breaking your hymen effectively.

you let a wince and felt your stomach relaxing, your diaphragm going back to its original place from where you kept it squeezed up in your chest. the hymen break was painful but as he entered the rest of the way, it felt easier. daiki stopped all motions at once when he filled you up.

you kept staring at him, your slightly shaky hands caressed his cheeks when a bead of sweat from his forehead fell on your forehead. you chuckled, using the back of your hand to wipe away the sweat from his forehead. he laughed with you but made sure to not move too much, he was really trying hard to hold back.

“you can move,” you informed him, bringing his face down to your level.

daiki pecked your lips, his upper body caging your upper body in, while his lower body retracted his length only to thrust back in again. his chest connected to yours, he used his dominant hand to get a hold of the headboard, using it as leverage to thrust in deeper.

“ah fuck,” daiki mumbled when your tight walls kept clamping against his invading length.

the feeling of discomfort near your lower pelvis was gone when his thrusts fell into a rhythm, his length getting familiarized with your inner walls, rewriting the same path again and again with each thrust.

it did not take him long to reach his climax, he really wanted to go gentle on you for your first time so even at the near peak of his climax, he made sure to not raise his pace too higher. he did not want to scar you, he did not want to fuck you, he only wanted to make love to you.

reaching his climax, he pulled out at once, his hand pumping his length, giving it the final thrusts till he came undone on your stomach.

both of you froze into your respective positions, trying to catch your breaths. you noticed a tissue box on the nightstand and stretched your hand to grab at it but even the slightest movement caused a wince to escape your lips.

daiki was sitting on his knees, his head held low when he heard you and reached over to bring the tissue box closer.

“let me,” he spoke up pulling out a couple of tissues as he laid down beside you, his head coming to level with yours, his hand lazily cleaning against your stomach while his face gently nuzzled into yours.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

the next day, you woke up around six in the morning. the birds were chirping outside, the sunlight peaking in through small sections of the white blinds. the room was untouched as you guys left it, both your luggage still packed, the food containers sealed and untouched on the coffee table.

your head was resting on daiki’s chest when you heard a grumble echo inside his ribs and daiki’s hand lying by the side of your waist, wrapping around it.

“morning.”

you looked up at him, a smile creeping onto your lips, “morning.”

daiki leaned down and left a kiss on your nose causing you to scrunch up your nose.

you sat up and got on top of him, letting your butt rest against his pelvis. you his hands on either side of him, yours fingers intertwined as you played with them.

“we have a mission to accomplish,” daiki reminded you.

you nodded, “i know. i just need to know something.”

daiki brought your hand to his face to leave a kiss against your knuckles, “mhm?”

“will you be my spotter today?” you asked.

daiki sat up at that, getting a hold of his semi-hard length from around your waist, his other hand moving your body accordingly to help you sit on his length. your breath hitched audibly, it hurt less than last night but that feeling of becoming full was unmistakable. also, you can swear his length got bigger or something because it felt like the tip was reaching all the way up to your cervix. he really was extremely gentle with you last night.

daiki pushed your hair from your face and held your face gently like he was going to sculpt art.

“always,” he mumbled against your lips, his forehead connected to yours, his lips brushing against yours as his hips started thrusting up into your tight walls.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

post script: daiki is like two years older than reader. reader is 22 when they have sex while daiki is 24.

feedback is deeply appreciated.✨

masterlist | KnB masterlist | rules | ask box

- jaimie

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ladylynse · 4 years ago

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Dimensional Displacement [FFN | AO3]: Danny has a love-hate relationship with the Fenton Booo-merang. This time, it didn’t do him any favours. This time, it knocked him through a portal—and from what he can glean from the Water Tribe siblings he meets, odds are, there’s a reason for that.

-|-

For @geronimo-alonzi as a thank you for donating to my ko-fi. (Yes, they won my fic giveaway, but I finished this one first.) Loosely based on this three sentence fic.

-|-

Danny had been clobbered in the head by the Fenton Booo-merang more often than he’d like to admit, let alone count, but this was the first time it had knocked him through a portal.

That wouldn’t have been a particularly bad thing if the portal hadn’t immediately closed behind him.

One minute, he’d been minding his own business in the Ghost Zone, coming back from a visit with Frostbite that Jazz must have forgotten about if she’d sent the Booo-merang after him. (Sam was stuck with her parents at some fancy dinner party thing somewhere and Tucker was working on designing a computer game for his comp sci assignment, a class neither Sam nor Danny was in, so it had to have been Jazz.)

The next minute, Danny was…. He didn’t even know where he was. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He’d caught the Booo-merang before either he or it had hit the ground, but once he’d righted himself to look around, there was no familiar skyline or something equally useful to him. There were only trees and rocks and dirt roads as far as the eye could see, even from a considerable distance up in the air.

Well.

That wasn’t quite fair. He could see a silver river cutting through the trees in a path roughly parallel to the road, but in terms of helpful things, he was coming up empty.

He didn’t even know which direction he’d need to fly to get to a city. It was too light out to see any distant glow of city lights against the scattered clouds, and all he could smell when he breathed in was fresh air and pine needles and something else—moss? The general mix that was pretty much mulch on the forest floor?—that was decidedly natural, not the signs of human activity he’d been hoping for. Sure, following the road or even the river would get him somewhere sooner or later, but what was he supposed to do, pick a random direction or go eenie meenie minie moe?

Danny did another loop above the trees, looking for some sign of anything, and came up with nothing.

“Come on!” Danny yelled at the patch of blue sky where the portal had closed. He spun in a circle, the Booo-merang clutched tightly in his fist, but it didn’t pull in any direction, and he didn’t catch so much as a glimmer of the familiar green of the Ghost Zone. “Just open up again already!” It was as effective as he’d expected it to be, which was not at all, but screaming out his frustrations made him feel a bit better. “Now! Please?”

Unsurprisingly, the portal didn’t listen.

Out of appealing options, Danny threw the Booo-merang. Logically, he knew it wasn’t the Infi-Map. Logically, he knew that the universe did not often do what was convenient for him, even if he sometimes got incredibly lucky in a fight. Logically, he knew that the chances of the Booo-merang deciding to reprogram itself to find portals just because it had done it this one time (likely coincidentally) were slim to none.

Illogically, he didn’t expect the stupid thing to circle around and hit him in the back of the head again.

Danny cursed and landed to retrieve the fallen Booo-mang from the roadway, muttering under his breath about how much he’d like to just dismantle the thing and hide the pieces. He wouldn’t, of course. It worked too well to risk Sam, Tucker, and Jazz losing the ability to find him if they really needed to. It had been dicey enough the few times his parents had decided to try to ‘fix’ it, only for disaster (Vlad) to strike in the meantime.

That didn’t mean Danny couldn’t fantasize about bashing it against a rock, though. There were plenty of those around.

“That’s a weird looking boomerang,” someone said from behind him, and Danny nearly jumped into the air right there.

He didn’t, mostly because he was getting used to Sam and Tucker trying to surprise him, but it was a near thing.

He wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. His ghost sense was reliable, Dash made more noise walking around than even Jack Fenton, and, well, most of the people who hunted him couldn’t be subtle if they tried, especially since a good chunk of them liked hearing their own voice. He’d only ever really had to worry about Jazz, and self-preservation in the face of tickle attacks had given him the ability to be extra sensitive to her presence whenever she was in a certain mood.

The two who’d caught him by surprise now must have come from the trees on the other side of the road, and he hoped that meant they hadn’t seen him do anything particularly ghostly. Granted, neither of them was screaming, so he should be safe. They didn’t look terrified, either. Wary, maybe, but not scared.

Danny guessed that they were both somewhere around his age. Siblings, by the looks of them, but probably not twins even if they’d both decided to leave the house wearing oddly styled blue clothes today, at least compared to the usual jeans and T-shirt combo Danny was used to seeing. Unless he wasn’t anywhere near the States anymore? Or unless he’d been flung through to a different time. But the boy had spoken English, and it hadn’t sounded funny to Danny’s ears, no lilt of a foreign accent or strange phrasing that he associated with Shakespeare or something.

The girl was his height, the boy a bit taller, and they were both staring at him.

They probably thought he was the one who was dressed strangely.

The boy pointed. “Your boomerang,” he repeated. “It looks weird.”

The girl elbowed him in the gut—none too gently, judging by his immediate wheeze—and hissed, “Sokka!”

Yeah, those two were definitely siblings. And even if the girl wasn’t older, she definitely had the annoying (and annoyed) sister tone down pat. Danny had heard (and been on the receiving end of) the same from similar exchanges with Jazz more than once.

“Sokka’s going to apologize, right, Sokka?”

The boy frowned and then threw up his hands. “Right. I apologize for saying your boomerang looks weird. It looks interesting.”

The girl stepped on his foot, and he yelped. “What was that for?”

“You know what that was for!”

“It’s fine,” Danny said. He still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Maybe the portal had dumped him out in the middle of some historical re-enactment thing. Granted, there should really be more people around if that were the case—or at least hidden cameras. He was better at spotting them now. Vlad and his creepy spy tendencies aside, Danny had gotten good at noticing (and avoiding) cameras so he didn’t let his secret get caught on tape. (There were a surprising number of places in Amity Park not under video surveillance, or at least not under real video surveillance even if they had fake cameras out; he could practically transform in the middle of the street sometimes.)

Still, nothing about this felt staged. It didn’t even feel like one of his enemy’s tricks, some giant setup that was meant to trap him or whatever. That’s not to say Danny was wholly convinced this meeting, whatever it was, was merely chance—he didn’t particularly trust Clockwork not to arrange things as he saw fit without warning anyone—but it didn’t feel overly contrived, either. There was just….

Something felt off, and he couldn’t explain what it was.

“It’s fine,” Danny repeated, since the two were looking at him dubiously, but the familiar phrase felt strange on his tongue, almost like—

Wait.

“Okay, this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are we?”

The boy, Sokka, blinked. “Did you hit your head or something? We’re in the Earth Kingdom. Or, wait, do you mean where in the Earth Kingdom? Look, if you need new supplies, there’s not much in the last few villages, but we’re about a day from—”

The girl elbowed him again, and he fell silent. Danny could see the growing suspicion on her face for what it was, could see suspicion settling on the boy’s face as well, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d asked the wrong question or because he’d asked something at all. He’d been paying attention this time, watching Sokka’s lips, and Danny didn’t have to be a good lip reader to know that he hadn’t been saying the words Danny had heard.

Well.

More accurately, he hadn’t been saying them in English.

And Danny, in answering, had somehow not been speaking English.

That was not, as far as Danny was aware, something Clockwork could do to him.

He didn’t know a ghost who had power over language, though, unless the Ghostwriter had something else up his sleeve and this mess was it. Nocturne would be able to pull anything in a dream, but Danny couldn’t see why he’d bother including something that would be an obvious tell like this, so it shouldn’t be him even if he had decided to come back. More likely, it was someone he hadn’t fought before, someone who had targeted him, seen an opportunity when the Booo-merang had hit him and seized upon it to throw him…here.

Wherever here was.

The Earth Kingdom, apparently.

“Um.” The girl still looked like she expected him to start fighting, and her stance…. Danny didn’t recognize it, but he did know that she looked ready to move at any moment. Her brother had taken her cue and, while Danny hadn’t been paying attention, pulled out a boomerang of his own. That couldn’t be good. “Look. I know how this sounds.” How he sounded, more like. If he had some accent he couldn’t hear because he wasn’t speaking their language properly, whatever it was, this had to be a setup after all.

Someone had sent him here to be dealt with. By this world, this dimension or construct or whatever it was, if not necessarily by these two people.

Granted, Danny wasn’t sure why someone would go to the trouble of letting him understand and be understood in the first place if that were the case, since he could get in just as much trouble without speaking the native language.

Surely he wasn’t actually supposed to help someone here, right? This wasn’t even his world. Or the Ghost Zone. Whatever was going on here was most definitely not his business.

Except now he was in the middle of it, so if there was something going on, it would be beneficial to find out what it was sooner rather than later.

This wasn’t some Jumanji kind of thing where he’d been tossed into a game and had to do whatever it was to get out again, was it? It didn’t feel like the time he’d gone into Doomed, but that had been intentional, and this….

Okay, no, he didn’t have enough information to speculate, which meant he needed to get some information out of these two in order to get somewhere. “I just…. I was kidnapped and dumped here for some reason, and I’m trying to find my way home.” That was close enough to the truth that it shouldn’t raise any red flags. Hopefully. “My name is Danny.” Introducing himself as Phantom, even in ghost mode, wasn’t something he wanted to do when he had no idea how these people felt about ghosts. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d ever see him as Fenton. He just needed to stick to the ground and pretend to be a normal human being, which he could most definitely do—at least when the sun was bright enough that his slight glow was basically nonexistent. He doubted it would be terribly noticeable even under the cover of trees.

“Danny,” the girl repeated, not relaxing her stance. “That’s an unusual name.”

Sokka just cocked his head at Danny. “Why would anyone kidnap you?”

It was spoken like it was an innocent, thoughtless question, something that could be brushed away with a laugh, but Danny could read an underlying tension in each of their faces. Sokka was waiting on his answer, and so was his sister. Danny’s response might very well determine what happened next.

Consequently, Danny didn’t miss the fact that Sokka didn’t offer up any potential explanations that he could jump on.

Another lie wasn’t going to do him any favours, not when he knew so little. “I don’t know.” He could guess, but he didn’t know. From the looks of it, though, these two wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Chances were good they wouldn’t be particularly satisfied with his suspicions, either, which was that someone wanted him out of the way for whatever they were planning—or maybe that someone had decided they wanted to have a little fun with him at his expense, if world domination wasn’t on the table. “My parents are inventors. Maybe that’s why?”

“That doesn’t explain why whoever took you would leave you here,” Sokka pointed out, and Danny wished these two weren’t so smart. “If you were taken because you were valuable, you wouldn’t have been left behind unguarded.”

“So maybe they kidnapped the wrong person and realized that I wasn’t who they wanted?”

Sokka exchanged glances with his sister before murmuring, “We can ask Toph. I mean, it’s possible they found us, but if he is really a Fire Nation plant picked solely for his eye colour, they’d have at least dyed his hair and given him some normal clothes.”

Danny decided not to ask who the heck picked people for something based on eye colour and not skill or merit or experience or something normal like that. Aside from derailing the conversation from anything potentially useful, Danny was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t realized he’d been overheard, and it wouldn’t be in Danny’s best interests to let them know how good his hearing was.

Still, he took the opportunity to tuck away the Booo-merang before they could ask any questions about it that he wasn’t up to answering. Maybe it would make him seem like less of a threat if they didn’t think he was ready to use it as a weapon—not that he knew how to use a boomerang as a weapon, but he was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t pulled his out to see which of them could throw it farther or throw it properly—and maybe then they’d trust him enough to answer his questions. Hopefully. He was perfectly willing to meet this Toph if it meant figuring out where he was and how to get home, especially since it would be easy enough for him to cut and run later.

The movement was enough to draw the attention of the siblings, though, and both pairs of eyebrows rose. Had they not expected him to make what he hoped would be taken as a gesture of trust or were they wondering how the heck he’d gotten it into his pocket? Maybe they thought he was trying to hide it, which wouldn’t help matters at all. Then again, if they thought that he thought it had been a subtle move, then maybe—

No.

He had to stop doing this. He didn’t know enough about these two to try to guess their thoughts, let alone what actions they might take against him.

Danny shifted on his feet, glad they hadn’t jumped to attacking and that they weren’t even asking questions about the Booo-merang, since practically anything about it would be difficult to answer. At least they hadn’t seen him flying. Even for people familiar with ghosts, unknown ones tended to be cause for concern until their threat level was assessed, and Danny didn’t want to invite trouble and immediately find out what this world had that messed with ghosts. Sure, he wanted to know what could hurt him here, but finding out while it wasn’t actively being used against him was infinitely preferable.

“Where did you say you were from?” the girl asked after a beat, even though they all knew he’d never said anything about that.

“Nowhere you would know,” he hedged, which was true enough.

“We travel a lot,” the girl said, and her brother snorted.

“What Katara means is, try us. If we can help you get back to your family, what do you have to lose?” Sokka offered Danny a grin, and his stance had visibly relaxed, even if he hadn’t put his boomerang away. It might be just for show, especially since he still had a weapon out, but at least the girl hadn’t drawn any knives or something like that. “Look, from one guy to another, you don’t need to make up some crazy story if you’re a runaway or something like that. We’re basically runaways.”

“We’re running towards something, not away from it.”

“We were almost runaways.” To Danny, Sokka added, “Gran caught us, but she let us go.”

Katara rolled her eyes, and Danny looked between the two of them as Sokka continued talking. It was obvious that they’d changed tack for some reason, no doubt trying to get him to trust them, but the blatant switch made him uneasy. Did they not realize how obvious that was or was this just their usual dynamic?

“I’m from Amity,” Danny eventually interrupted. He knew from the way that they were looking at him that neither of them had forgotten he had yet to answer the question. He’d already told them they wouldn’t know the place, so technically he could’ve said Amity Park, but for all he knew, these two had been sent to get information out of him, and the less he told a potential enemy, the better.

Come to think of it, maybe he shouldn’t have told them his real name, and maybe he should’ve just made up a village name rather than dropping heavy hints about his hometown.

“Which is near—?”

Danny ignored Sokka’s prompt. He didn’t even have a good enough idea of the geography of this place to make that up, especially when there was a chance they knew the area, runaways or no. “Do you know where I could get some water? I haven’t found any since I woke up.” That wasn’t true, but they wouldn’t know that unless they were getting some more intel about him from someone unseen.

The siblings looked at each other again, and then Katara faced him and said, “We’re headed to the river. Come with us. You can get your water, and we can share our catch if we get anything.”

“Wait, I didn’t agree to share my meat!” Sokka exclaimed. Katara’s only answer was a dirty look, but it was enough to have Sokka subsiding into grumbles.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Danny said, which also strictly wasn’t true, but he knew he didn’t need to eat much.

“You might be hungry by the time we’re finished,” Katara said over Sokka’s griping.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out how weird it would be if he made up some excuse not to go with them. What were the chances that this was a trap when he’d brought up the river—or at least water—before they had? It wasn’t that he thought they’d be able to take him out if it came to that, even if Jazz had more experience fighting normally than he did, since he typically relied a lot on his powers when he could.

These two might be better fighters than him—there were almost certainly better hunters, given how silently they could walk—but he’d always have something like intangibility in his back pocket if it came to it, and they wouldn’t. Still, when it came down to it, he wasn’t used to fighting humans. What if he didn’t pull his punches enough and seriously hurt one of them?

“You can tell us about Amity,” Katara added. “We’ve never been there.”

Danny really hoped that was true and that there wasn’t a place in this world called Amity that they knew well. Still, when they started walking, spreading out so he was always in sight and they never had their backs to him, even when they hit the trees on the other side of the road, he kept pace with them. “It’s pretty much like you’d expect.” Except for the ghosts. At least his ghost sense hadn’t gone off here. Yet. “This is probably the farthest I’ve ever travelled from home.” He couldn’t get much farther away than a completely different dimension that (probably) wasn’t as connected to his world as it was to the Ghost Zone, anyway—unless he counted when he’d time travelled, but he wasn’t about to bring that up.

Katara opened her mouth to ask another question, maybe to press him for details, so Danny cut her off. “What about you two?”

They looked at each other again. How many times were they going to do that? Hadn’t they already decided how far to trust him? Danny knew it wasn’t very far, but they’d clearly decided he wasn’t going to straight up attack them at this precise moment, so even if they didn’t tell him the whole truth—

Sokka gestured at their clothes. “We’re Water Tribe.”

He said it like it was obvious, like Danny should’ve known already, but of course it explained absolutely nothing.

“Southern Water Tribe,” Katara added unhelpfully, despite Sokka’s frown. “We wanted to see the world, and now we are.”

As cover stories went, it was better than Danny’s. Barely. “Right,” he said, wondering again why he’d been dumped in the path of these two. “It’s a nice world to see.”

Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say, because they were both looking at him like they’d expected him to say anything but that. “What?”

“There’s a war on, you’re supposedly kidnapped and dropped off somewhere in occupied territory without any of the proper paperwork, and the best you can come up with is it’s a nice world to see?” Sokka turned his incredulous look from Danny to Katara. “He cannot be Fire Nation. This kid is more sheltered than Toph was supposed to be.”

Danny, who had stumbled at the word war, kept walking and hoped they hadn’t noticed. If they had, maybe they’d think he’d tripped over a tree root or fallen branch or hole or something. They weren’t following a trail, so that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, right?

“It’s all right,” Katara said as she reached out to touch his arm, and, okay, from that gentle tone, which was a complete change from anything earlier, it must mean she had noticed, knew he hadn’t tripped over anything in the terrain, and—from how she was looking at him now—thought it wasn’t surprise that had tripped Danny up, either. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to be a little naïve until you have a chance to leave home for the first time, but unless you’re got a camp around here, you’re not prepared at all.”

Sokka finally put his boomerang away and smirked at Danny. “We at least left home with supplies.”

“Did you have to run without any warning?” Katara asked, giving her brother a pointed look.

“Oh, uh, kinda.” Danny winced, knowing that had to sound like a lie. “I…I didn’t really plan on leaving when I did. This just…happened.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow, but Katara said, “You don’t have to worry. We’re the last people who would turn you in to the Fire Nation.”

Right. So the Fire Nation were the bad guys, at least according to the Water Tribe and, if he was putting things together correctly, the Earth Kingdom, where they were. Meaning the Fire Nation had invaded the Earth Kingdom if this was occupied territory. Danny thought about asking why these two had come into occupied territory themselves and then decided he didn’t want to risk getting into a discussion that would show off how little he knew. If they had decided he was a runaway who knew practically nothing about the world, well, that worked in his favour.

“Thanks.” Danny wasn’t sure what else to say. “Why are you helping me, though? Won’t that put you in danger?” That had to be a fair question in this situation.

“We can’t help everyone,” Katara said quietly, “but we can help some people, even if it’s just a tiny bit. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

Danny really didn’t know what to say to that, because she certainly wouldn’t understand if he said he knew the feeling, so he smiled weakly in thanks and let the conversation drop.

They were still watching him, but they were more subtle about it now, and it didn’t look like they were watching him more closely than they were watching everything else.

Being downgraded from a threat was a win, though. Danny hoped he didn’t do anything to mess it up.

“There’s no shame in being a refugee,” Sokka said after a moment. “Being from a richer family might’ve bought you an isolated childhood, but it wouldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“We won’t try to hold you for ransom if you tell us where you’re really from,” added Katara.

Danny glanced at her. “I said I was from Amity.”

“I could say I have a platypus bear as a pet,” Sokka interjected. “That doesn’t make it true.”

“We know what it’s like, thinking you understand the way things are and then realizing how little you know,” Katara said quietly. “It can be overwhelming.”

“And it would explain why you’re in your nightclothes,” Sokka said. He’d come in range of Katara’s fist, but he danced out of the way as she swung in his direction. He hadn’t even needed to look at her to know it was coming. “You didn’t know enough to keep your valuables hidden and got robbed your first night on your own, didn’t you?”

“I—” Danny knew it was an excuse for his ignorance being handed to him on a silver platter, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up with a lie like that when he knew so little. “These aren’t my pajamas,” he said instead. Let them believe what they wanted to believe; that would make his life easier. Even if it blew up in his face somehow, he could truthfully say he’d never said they were right.

They might be suspicious that he hadn’t outright denied it, but then again, he’d already told them something a lot closer to the truth.

“Uh huh.” Sokka glanced at Katara again, and she gave a slight shake her head that Danny didn’t understand.

“Let’s get you some food and water first,” Katara said. “Then we can see about finding you other supplies.”

Danny decided not to point out that they’d already told him it was slim pickings for supplies around here. Not that he had the money to pay for anything, but Sokka had already guessed that. Besides, they thought he was running around in his pjs.

Judging by the sour look on Sokka’s face, he’d evidently translated his sister’s words to mean that she wanted to give him some of their supplies, something Sokka clearly wasn’t sure he approved of.

Katara must have had similar thoughts on Sokka’s expression, since she murmured, “It’s this or bring him with us, and you know what’s safer.”

Katara might not have minded that Danny could overhear her last words, but Sokka closed the distance between them, pulling his sister farther away from Danny before hissing, “It’s not the only option, and you know it. We can’t afford to give away any of our supplies, and just because Toph can make sure he’s not coming in with the intention of stabbing us in the back, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t blab to anyone once he figures out who we’re travelling with. You know as well as I do that that wouldn’t take very long.”

“He’s just kid.”

“Technically, like Aang keeps reminding us, we’re just kids. Who very much cannot afford to so much as drop him off in the next village. Show him the river and teach him how to catch and cook his meals? Fine. Picking him up as a stray when he’s not bringing anything to the table? Not fine.”

“He’s lost.”

“So? He’s not hurt. He’s already in a better position than some refugees. He’ll survive until he can walk to the nearest settlement. Then he can try to get help from people who can actually give it.”

Katara bit her lip and slowed to a stop. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

Danny very much wanted to know the answer to that—what had Katara figured out?—but he tried not to react so they didn’t know he’d been listening in. He deliberately turned away and stared around the trees instead, a mix of deciduous and evergreen. He couldn’t pick out any specific types of trees—nothing distinctive like oak leaves that he could see—and, as far as he could tell, the woods were utterly devoid of critters. He had no idea if that was because this world wasn’t real or if it was simply because all the animals in the region had had warning of their coming and hidden accordingly.

Danny knew his disinterest wouldn’t be very convincing, but if he was lucky, they’d think he’d given up on trying to eavesdrop.

“There’s something…off about him. Not necessarily something wrong, but something different. I can’t…. When he asked about water, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hiding any on him or nearby in case it was a trap, and— He didn’t feel the same as you or me. I can’t explain it. Toph might have a better idea than I do. Or…or Aang.” The last word was a barely audible whisper.

“You think this might be a spirit thing?” Sokka’s response was closer to a suppressed shriek than anything else, and Danny winced.

“I think he might be spirit touched,” Katara answered, and Sokka’s sharp inhalation was painfully audible. “I wasn’t good enough back then to notice anything about Yue, but—”

“Fine.” Sokka’s voice had gone flat. “I don’t want to shun someone and accidentally anger the spirits. I’ll teach him to fish. You go back and interrupt advanced earthbending practice and pick a meeting place, but make sure everyone’s packed in case this doesn’t go the way you think it’ll go.”

“I know to be careful.”

“We all know to be careful. Some of us just need more reminding than others.”

Katara didn’t say anything else, but she must have nodded or done something similar because Danny heard Sokka stalk back over to him. “Katara’s going back to talk to the rest of our group about what we might be able to spare,” he said as Danny turned back to face him, “and I’ll show you how to fish in the meantime. If you don’t catch anything, I’ll give you one of mine.”

Danny wasn’t about to admit that he’d overheard their entire conversation, so he smiled and said, “That sounds great, thanks.” It didn’t stop the uneasiness from settling in his gut, though. Sure, now he knew these people believed in ghosts, and Sokka’s response made it clear he didn’t want to get on their bad side, but Danny had no idea what being spirit touched meant. He didn’t know if that was seen as a good thing or a bad thing.

More to the point, if it was a bad thing, he didn’t know if these people had something suitable with which to attack spirit touched people, since if they did, chances were good that it would work on him.

He was not lucky enough to get a free pass here.

Still, the odds were good that he’d be able to escape if they did attack since he’d know to be on watch for something, and he wasn’t about to turn down an offer of food. He had no idea when a portal would open and he’d be able to go home. Until then, the best he could do was survive.

He’d survived this much, and his life had hardly been a walk in the park since the accident, let alone before. He wasn’t about to let some ghost fling him into an unknown world and succeed in taking him down. He needed to get out of this to kick their butt and prove to them that they couldn’t get rid of him that easily.

Assuming this wasn’t all a series of genuine coincidences and not the result of the careful manipulation of events.

Danny didn’t want to think about that, though.

He had a much better chance of getting home if there was someone he could beat, and he was going to get home.

Somehow.

(see more fics)

#danny phantom #atla #avatar the last airbender #danny fenton #sokka #katara #crossover #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #atla fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #crossover snippet #geronimo-alonzi

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honeytae · 4 years ago

Note

if you’re open for regular requests i’d love to request lil scenarios of the boys learning english alongside their english-speaking s/o! this is totally self-indulgent i’m doing the TEFL program and i’m going to south korea next year to teach :)

first of all, that’s amazing omg!! congratulations my love, i hope you have the best time over there and please don’t be shy in sharing your stories with us!!! i tried to stick to the boys actually learning english with their s/o but i strayed from that with a few members just bc i ran out of ideas lol but i hope you still enjoy!

fair warning....i’ve never ~seriously~ tried to learn korean, so i’m not entirely certain of the parallels between korean and english. i just hope these are wholesome enough to override that lmao

namjoon:

“You know,” Namjoon looked up from his phone, “I understand expanding your vocabulary, but why are there so many weird slang words?”

“Kids these days?” You shrugged, the man chuckling in response before flipping his phone around to show you what had puzzled him.

“If something slaps, that’s...good?” He wondered, watching as you suppressed a smile at the tweet he was showing you.

You could tell by the profile picture that the user was an ARMY, one of the many fan profiles on the platform, and the tweet was written completely in English.

Although there was a ‘Translate to Korean’ option readily available with just a tap of his thumb, you knew Namjoon never missed an opportunity to challenge himself to be able to fully comprehend what a native English speaker was trying to say.

You nearly snorted at the tweet’s content, smiling as you read it out loud.

“The Dis-ease bridge just saved my life. Seriously, this song slaps.”

Glancing at Namjoon, he raised his eyebrows, eagerly waiting for you to translate and explain what that could equate to in Korean.

“It’s definitely a good thing, Joon. They love it.”

At your interpretation, Namjoon grinned, nodding to himself as he pulled his phone back in front of his face to scroll through more reaction tweets to the new album release.

seokjin:

“What the hell is that?”

You picked your head up from your sketchbook when you heard Seokjin whine from beside you, eyebrows knitting together at his distressed tone. Taking a glance over at his laptop screen, you found his mouse bouncing from letter to letter on one of his weekly english lessons.

“What is that, like 15 letters? How do you even use that in a sentence?” He went on, obviously flustered by the word on the screen.

Pulchritudinous.

You placed your hand over his to stop his panicked counting of the letters, causing him to look over at you with a sigh as he frowned.

You nearly giggled at his reaction, but the genuine fear in his eyes made you stifle it as you soothingly held his hands in yours.

“It’s just an over complicated way of saying beautiful. I don’t know why they’re teaching you that, nobody ever uses it.” You assured him, his eyes going down in size a bit at your words before he nodded.

Watching as a smirk tilted his lips, you raised your brows at the sudden expression.

“What?”

“Well like, I could say I’m...that?” He said, eyebrows raised cockily as he gestured to the long word stretched across the screen.

“Well it’s actually not used like,” you paused, giving in with a shrug as you grinned back at him.

“Sure, love.”

yoongi:

“Why did I skip English class all the time?” Yoongi sighed, pinching his bottom lip between his fingers as he plucked at the skin in frustration.

“Because you were trying to be a rebel.” You answered without looking up from your phone, the man obviously not liking your answer as he reached over to where you were laying beside him to pinch at your hip.

Yelping, you scooted across the mattress to get away from his hand, whining his name with a scoff before looking over at his notepad.

“What are you doing, anyway?” You asked, leaning on your palm as you scanned the rows of scribbled English letters written on the page.

“I’m trying to get better at writing.” He admitted shyly, a small grin on his face to match the fond one on your own.

“Aw,” you pouted, Yoongi raising his eyebrows at your tone, “but I like your chicken scratch.”

“You’re such a brat.” He chuckled, adjusting the velcro on his brace with a grunt.

Since Yoongi’s shoulder surgery took away obvious straining activities like dancing and performing, he’d turned to studying English from the comfort of your bed during his recovery as one of the only safe activities he could partake in for a while.

It was now one of his favorite past times, learning new words and phrases he could potentially use in the future. It worked for you both because it took his mind off the pain and kept him motivated, and since you could speak both his and your language, you could help him out whenever he got stuck on something.

Usually he did lessons verbally on his phone, but it seemed today he had taken the old fashioned route.

“Your handwriting really isn’t bad, Yoongs.” You observed, the carefully placed tails at the end of each ‘a’ making you smile out of fondness for the man.

“My man has the prettiest handwriting.” You cooed, pushing a strand of his stark black hair out of his eyes as he blushed down at his notebook.

“Stop that.”

hoseok:

“Hey, babe?” Hoseok called for you, listening to your footsteps growing closer before you popped your head into the kitchen doorway.

“Yeah?”

“I’m having a little trouble.” He gestured to his open laptop on the counter, you recognizing it as an assignment from his English course.

“What happened?”

“Pronouns. Pronouns happened.” He pouted, his disdain for the new chapter quite obvious as he stared down his computer screen.

“What about them?” You asked, stepping closer to the man sitting at the kitchen island and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I need to make ten sentences using proper pronouns and I feel like I’m doing it all wrong.” He explained, causing you to hum as you looked over his sentences.

“These look great, Hobi.” You smiled as you glanced over the first three he’d written, flawlessly executed on the document.

“Can you help me with the next one?” He wondered, you nodding your head as you took a seat on the stool next to his.

“What do you want the next one to say?” You asked, watching as he glanced off to the side in thought, slightly squinting his eyes at the tile floor beneath the sink.

“My house is next to,” He spoke in English, pausing as he searched his brain for what pronoun to put next.

“Theys?” He answered as more of a question, then shaking his head as he switched back to Korean, “wait, no.” He sighed, placing his chin in his hand in thought before glancing over to you.

“I know it’s wrong, I just don’t know what the right answer is instead.” He explained, you shooting him a loving smile as you pushed the dark raven hair off his forehead and pressed a kiss to the newly revealed skin.

“I’ll help you, Sunshine. No worries.”

jimin:

Flopping onto the bed, you let your tired body fall on top of Jimin’s hoodie clad chest, his arm encircling your body as he mumbled a soft greeting to you.

“Hm, what are you learning about today?” You nuzzled into his chest, peering at his phone propped up on his thigh.

“Animals. Birds, mostly.” He answered, briefly turning from the screen to press a kiss to your head before focusing back on the row of English words matched with pictures of popular birds glowing from the device.

The first was a robin, the next a blue jay, and then a dove.

You listened as the virtual instructor prompted Jimin to repeat after her, spelling out the letters before stating the whole word. You smiled as your boyfriend followed instruction, pronouncing the words the best he could after the microphone chimed for him to do so.

“D-o-v-e. Dove.”

“Dove.” He repeated, smiling to himself as the app announced he got the point with a little heart.

“That’s cute.” He went back to his native language, you humming in confusion as you lifted your head up off his chest to look at him.

“The heart?” You asked, reaching up to twist a stray strand of hair out of his eye as he shook his head.

“Dove.” He said again, making you tilt your head, not knowing what he meant.

“It sounds like ‘love.’” He connected the two English words, you smiling fondly at him in response before scooting up the bed to kiss the tip of his button nose.

“You’re so cute.”

taehyung:

Three knocks at the door announced someone’s arrival to your bedroom, causing your head to lift from the novel you’d been so immersed in. Taehyung was home, but you’d wanted to give him space because you knew he needed to work on lyrics for his mixtape in order to submit them on time.

“Hey,” he poked his head in with a small smile, “can you help me with something?” He asked sheepishly, stepping further into the room when you nodded.

“Of course. What is it?” You set your book down, marking your place before closing it to pay full attention to your boyfriend.

“Well, I’m trying to write this verse in English and,” he trailed off with a shrug, “you know.” He finished, you nodding in response with a gesture for him to come sit next to you.

He eagerly walked over to you with his notebook in hand, lowering himself to the mattress before rolling his way over to where you were leaning against the headboard.

Honestly, Taehyung’s English wasn’t bad at all. He was insecure about it, but you’d never really understood what the reason for that feeling was. His vocabulary was more than decent, his comprehension was good, and his pronunciation was great for having such a thick accent.

But there were many times where Taehyung came to you for guidance, as you were a native English speaker yourself.

And so, as he rested his head on your shoulder confiding in you about everything he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it, you patiently took him through what would work and rhyme best, smiling as he hummed the melody to himself to see if the phrases would work in his creation.

jungkook:

“Baby, can you read it to me again before we go on? Just one more time.”

You glanced over at your boyfriend in his makeup chair, several employees bustling around the man as they attempted to get him ready to go on stage while they had him seated.

With his arm extended backward to where you stood behind his leather chair, he offered his phone to you while shooting you a grin through the reflection in the mirror.

Taking the device from his hand, you opened it to the notes app where he’d written what he wanted to say in his statement on stage in just a few minutes.

You were in London tonight, which meant that all of the boys had been rehearsing their English so that they could communicate easier with their audience.

Jungkook, ever the over-achiever, was determined to do the toughest English tongue twister he could possibly find. Not only that, but in a British accent for his British ARMY’s.

“Betty bought a bit of better butter to make her bitter butter better.” You read from the phone, barely able to read the sentence yourself before you glanced up at Jungkook through the mirror again.

You watched your boyfriend nod as his brain took in the words you’d just said, taking a deep inhale before he began speaking the phrase back to you.

You gawked as the man effortlessly repeated after you, a few of the makeup artists stopping as well as Jungkook raised his eyebrows back at you.

“Was that okay?”

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