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captainsimagines · 2 years

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dreaming in june || eleven

Summary: At the request of an old friend who now happens to be the new Captain America, you move to a place that only vaguely feels peaceful, to secretly protect his best friend. There you meet Bucky Barnes, your next door neighbor, who has also lived countless lives, seen a lot of things, and lost the one he loved. You have more in common than you thought.

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x (F) POC Enhanced Reader

Based on the Song(s): Heat Waves by Glass Animals ; Coney Island by Taylor Swift and The National

Series / AO3 Link / Playlist

(11/15)

Warnings: blood and gore; blood offerings; demons; cults/religious cults; scary vibes; alcoholism and alcohol abuse; emotional angst; canon-typical violence; enchanted creatures; mention of infertility (if you blink); character ‘death’; descriptions of physical deformities; strong language; blood play (slight); mentions of suicide; fantasy vibes

Word Count: 7,600+

Author’s Note: Lots of shit goes down. Tread lightly lmao. xxMoni

“You don’t get to leave me. Not you. This time I’m begging.”

Bucky’s pacing.

He’s giving himself a headache with how much he’s moving, but he is physically incapable of sitting down. Nothing has calmed him long enough to think rationally.

Sam, bless him, seems to be the only level-headed one.

Until Druig barged through the front door and demanded to know how the fuck three supers allowed for the kidnapping of his Princess.

“How fucking convenient of you!” Sam growls, pushing at Druig’s hard chest. The Eternal simply looks down at where Sam’s palms had connected. He doesn’t say anything. “The second time she needs you, relied on your intel, you weren’t fucking here!”

A muscle tics in Druig’s jaw.

“We tried to stop that demon,” Sam explains, his face a permanent scowl. “But she cut the webs and basically sacrificed herself.”

“A demon.” The way Druig repeats the word doesn’t reveal anything. He says it casually, as if testing the taste. “Explain the encounter. All of it. In vivid detail.”

“It wasn’t an encounter. It was an attack,” Peter spits.

But Bucky ignores the beef simmering, and spills it all. Every detail. Until his mouth has gone dry and his hands shake.

“And you say the demon referenced Greek mythology?”

“I am this close—” Sam says, pinching his fingers together for emphasis. “This close to fucking decking you.”

Druig casually intertwines his hands behind his back. “Why would you want to do that?”

Sam steps dangerously close. “You heard Buck correctly. From the beginning, you have been ominous and brief. So I’m asking you politely—one more time—to tell us everything you know about this cult, about the blood, and about demons.”

Druig scans Sam from his eyes to his feet. Chin held high, Druig makes a decision.

“Just recently, Makkari informed me about this cult. A cult that began in the 1500s by none other than Rodrigo Graciano, Spanish conquistador who murdered hundreds either with his weapons, disease, or his bare hands. The blood my Princess infused into him made him Immortal—true Immortal. A true Immortal cannot die unless their mind and body are separated entirely or reduced to ash. There is no way to survive decapitation, nor burning into miniscule particles. In popular Salem, he was accused of witchcraft by a fellow follower who did not want to be Made. He burned at the stake. His followers, obviously, did not let the traitor live.”

A history lesson, Bucky thinks. Great.

Druig continues. “There is a flaw. A glitch, if you would like to call it that. The Princess is a true Immortal. Anyone bred from her blood is true. Immortals created by second generation sources, third generation, fourth…” Druig grimaces, looking to the wall instead of their faces. “They do not possess the same healing abilities, the same aging, or the same mutation.”

Simple genetics then. The more a trait, a gene, a specific mutation is passed through a bloodline, the less and less potent it is if it is no longer dominant. You must carry the dominant, and since you have not created literal offspring of your own, you have not passed down the dominant gene through your blood. A natural birth, however—the dominant gene would pass.

Graciano had gotten the recessive.

“The Princess is an Immortal who was born. The cult fanatics are Immortals who were Made. The Princess naturally stopped aging. Her body chose a point, and stuck with it. The followers change whenever they want, whoever they want, like vampires.”

“So with her blood, they can create true Immortals? Without it, they’re…what? Low grade?”

Druig smirks. “Yes, Samuel.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Sam snaps.

Bucky pushes in between the two males who are sizing each other up. He pushes Druig slightly harder, however. “How are we getting her back? How are we stopping these fanatics from hurting her? How do we deal with a fucking demon?”

Druig rubs at his jaw. “You mentioned it called her Persephone? It must be a demon of the Greeks, then. Christian mythology doesn’t have such dramatic demons. Egyptians do, but not like this.”

Peter snorts, “Lucifer literally went against God because he thought he was too pretty.”

“Lucifer was kicked out of Heaven because he grew an individual consciousness.”

Bucky ignores the quips, shaking his head. He continues, “So, if we’re dealing with a demon from Greek mythology, are we dealing with Hades? Does he want her for himself?”

“Hades isn’t evil like that.”

Sam holds up a hand. “Back up. Explain.”

Druig rolls his eyes. “Hades is the ruler of the Underworld. He oversees, like a CEO. He doesn’t do the killing, or the raping, or the torture. Trust me, I’ve been there multiple times when he asked for a change in scenery.”

“Is this what we’re doing? Defending demons?”

“Hades isn’t a demon. He’s a God.”

Sam gives him a blank look, hand on his hip and foot slightly tapping.

Peter interjects, his voice timid but still marked with a playful undertone. “Should we call Thor?”

“He’s Norse.”

Sam whirls on Druig once again. “What fucking difference—”

“I do not know if his skills will function well with a demon from another realm.”

Bucky blankly stares, completely unimpressed. “I hit things. This one shoots webs. This one is a human. I have no idea what you do. We need a literal God.”

It’s true. What the actual fuck were they going to do when faced with that demon again? You, with the most powerful powers of the three of them, seemed helpless. Or maybe you were in shock.

If they are able to come up with a game plan, learn a little bit more about how to take down a demon, then maybe they stand a fighting chance.

If Bucky has to take a fucking ring up a mountain, then so fucking be it.

“Perhaps this is what the cult is expecting,” Druig says. “The demon itself might have studied Norse mythology before preparing to attack. It could be expecting this."

“That motherfucker didn’t look like it reads,” Sam drily says. He shivers from the memory of bloodless lips and void eyes.

Peter cringes. “We’re going in blind, then?”

“You all must be prepared for bloodshed.”

“Great, my favorite.”

Bucky’s got to give it to Peter. The kid is handling this better than he expected.

“I’m serious. The Princess opposed violence many times until it was absolutely necessary. I deem this necessary.”

“These are fanatics,” Sam says, waving a hand as if the fight would be no big deal.

“These are made Immortals who summoned a demon. A dangerous and illegal offense.”

“Illegal?” Bucky asks.

“It’s certainly not a practice that anyone should partake in.”

“Okay, wait. Hold up, hold up!” Peter blows out a breath. “I need a minute.”

“I understand this is a lot to take in—”

“You’ve literally just told us that demons exist. That Gods exist, not just Thor. That our friend is a true Immortal who might very well be what we humans like to call Mother Nature! And I’m starting to piece together that the reason she didn’t forget me is because she is not fully human and her consciousness extends to deeper levels. Does Thor remember me? Did we even ask?”

No. They didn’t.

Sam grumbles, “We’re summoning the God.”

“Better than a demon, I guess.” Druig shrugs.

“Anyone got his number? I—” Peter asks, shrugging like fuck-all.

“I can get in touch with him,” Bucky quietly mumbles. There’s shame etched into that statement—the only times he’s ever gotten in touch with the God was for liquid relief. A meager volume of that hungover desire swims in his stomach, in his mind, on his tongue. He’s breaking—the elastic at its final tug—and if he doesn’t find you by the end of the day, he’s going to drown himself.

“Great! While you do that—” Druig pushes the two folders he’s been holding this whole time into Sam’s chest. “File these for me. Call that lovely assistant of yours.”

Sam glowers at him. He opens the folders and scans. “What are these?”

“You think I haven’t been doing anything?” Druig insists, his face neutral. His words, however, come out wry. “The Princess wasn’t the only one who lost someone that day. We all lost our Prince.”

It’s all signed. Stamped. Official.

“You did all the groundwork. Thanks for flinging the Captain America title around. Really.”

Ari’s remains are to be returned to his only surviving descendants.

His wife.

You wake with a lump in your throat and clouds swimming behind your closed eyelids. You groan in discomfort, scrunching your face and wiggling your fingers. The air is cold and the surface you’re on pricks your thighs.

Oh, Hell. You’re in a t-shirt and panties.

Bucky’s t-shirt.

You go to snap your body upward, but the weight of your head is exhausting. Instead, you roll to your side.

One of your legs goes over, dangling from the cliffside. Your stomach swoops—your body goes into fight or flight mode.

You're at the literal cliffside. That fucking demon left you to tip over and take a massive plunge, all for his enjoyment.

You roll the opposite way, now more alert. The sun is out, but just barely. The clouds cover most of it. You can’t tell if it’s morning, afternoon, or mid-day.

Perhaps the several distorted faces staring back at you will have that answer.

You struggle to stand but push through the pain to do so. Lying down is too vulnerable—you can swing your magic better standing.

“Where am I?”

It takes a moment for you to realize that their faces aren’t their own at all. Their masks—masks of all colors and all expressions, extending from the top of the person’s forehead to their chin. You’d compare them to those drama mask expressions—the joyful and the anguished—but that would just ruin theatre as a whole for you.

“Mother Earth.”

You shake your head. “Not my name.”

“No,” the one up front confirms. A male. “Your name is not yours at all anymore, is it?”

He’s the tallest of the group, and with the creepiest mask. Gold, metal horns stick out from the forehead of the mask, completely contradicting the sickly green color of the rest of it. You can’t see his eyes or if his mouth is moving—you simply see the frozen anguished expression.

The trees rumble. Do not try to run! the small voice shouts. They have arrows pointed at you.

You roll your eyes. An arrow wouldn’t kill you. Still, you listen.

“So, this is it? You’re here to drain my blood or what?”

Several of them cock their heads to the left at the same time. A shudder travels up your spine.

There looks to be about thirty people staring back at you. Not one sign of the original demon.

“We must first prove you are the Mother.”

You frown. “Ew. Can’t I just say yes or no and get this over with?”

They don’t laugh. They don’t move. They don’t even seem to acknowledge your voice. Except for the one leering at you. Frozen and calm.

“The universe chose you to be one with the earth. And since me, humans, and all other living beings come from the earth, we come from you.”

You slowly nod. He continues, “For years, we have been trying to find you.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Your blood will heal us. You will lead us.”

“Honestly, it looks like you’re doing fine without me.” Your lip curls as you assess the robes they wear—heavy, thick black robes (or rather, cloaks) that sink to the floor in an extravagant puddle.

This shit is too movie-like. Yet, it’s not the craziest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s just the first time you’re seeing something like this.

Right? You shuffle through your memories at lightning speed.

Yeah, no cult encounters.

What time is it? The sky is a sickly, gray-blue and the sounds of the nearest village are faint. The trees don’t answer you.

Aggravated, the front man stalks toward you. Out of instinct, you step back.

He doesn’t like that.

He grabs your arms and holds you still, the mask boring its hollow eyes into your frightened ones. “We are your disciples. You will heal us.”

“Heal what?”

He hesitates, then abruptly pulls the long sleeves up his forearms.

Spikes grow from his skin. Nasty, dangerously sharp spikes. The flesh around them is bruised and bloody. His veins are a heinous red. It’s like he’s a living rose thorn.

You cup your parted mouth. “Oh my Gods.”

Others step forward and showcase their deformities.

Some have real horns. Others cannot speak. Bones are easily breakable. Claws, or feathers, or bothersome shadows. There’s even one member who is intangible. Your hand goes right through them.

The fact they're all undeniably human is what they share in common. The ones who lack deformities in the face look like any person you’d pass on the street.

And there are literal children. Children. Immortal children. Their age, bizarrely, in nothing but a number. They speak like the grown adults around them.

“Now you see.”

You look up at their leader, brows furrowing. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

He shakes his head rapidly, his mask still unnerving. “We know what to do. You simply need to offer up your blood.”

A startled laugh rattles your chest. “You literally sent a demon to retrieve me and you want me to help you?” You step away, trying your hardest to not look at the members with more severe disabilities. “Where is it anyway? You cannot let that thing wander through the mortal world without a leash.”

“I have been alive for two hundred years. I am the oldest. If you are worried that we follow Graciano’s ideology, you are mistaken,” the leader explains, ignoring your initial question.

Another laugh. “That would settle me if you people weren’t dressed like this or if you hadn’t sent a fucking demon to terrorize me.”

“Sending the demon was a precaution. We did not know how powerful you would be.”

Your mouth opens for another retort, but someone else from back of the group chimes in with, “I suggested we unleash a pixie messenger instead of the demon.”

“And this whole ordeal has demonstrated that you would not have willingly left with a pixie tour guide.”

“Damn right,” you mumble.

What the actual fuck is going on?

“Mother Earth,” the leader says. “Please help us.”

You piece it together bit by bit.

The cult is a literal cult with freaky attire, unsettling line delivery, and horrible manners. They unleashed a demon because they’re fucking idiots who couldn’t just ask you for help. Are they a cult like those that make the news? Violent, out for blood, and look up to a leader that will ultimately sacrifice them in the end? Or are they merely a group of people who found each other, donned creepy fucking masks for the hell of it, because of their shared life experience?

They are not original, Made Immortals. They are third generation, maybe fourth. You have no idea if they wanted to be Made or if they regret their decision. All you know is that they are horribly deformed and begging you to help them heal.

Which means they must be in awful pain and discomfort.

You’ve lived for hundreds of years. Your bones ache, your skin occasionally dries, and your heart slows from time to time. Yet, your physical appearance is that of someone who finds no need to hide.

Should you trust that they do not follow Graciano’s ideologies? Druig seems to think they still do.

You can’t help the overwhelming feeling that plagues your chest, though. Graciano’s blood runs through their veins. Their maker’s blood runs through their veins.

Your blood runs through their veins.

Children of Mother Earth. The title has you cringing.

“What would helping you entail?”

“Okay—” Thor runs a large hand down his face. “I think I’m all caught up now.”

Thor has his hair strung up in a bun. He wears a Guns N Roses t-shirt and regular jeans pants. The God is even wearing leather boots and a belt. Peter stares at him in pure wonder.

Sam rubs his temples, his face drooping from tiredness.

“Do you think you can help us?” Bucky asks.

“I can help you slaughter the cult. I do not know if my lightning will harm the demon.”

“Slaughter makes it sound so…”

“Evil," Sam stresses.

“Put down? Slay? Destroy?"

Peter clears his throat. “Wouldn’t the cult be hard to kill? You know…Considering they’re Immortals?”

Everyone takes a few moments to digest the words.

Bucky grunts, “Are we going to have to decapitate those fuckers?”

Druig snorts. “We don’t actually have to do much. I can control their minds and make them slice into their own throats. They’ll decapitate themselves.”

Sam shudders. “This is…Too fucking vivid. Too heinous. I don’t know if I can do that.”

“What do you expect to do then, Samuel?” Druig demands.

Sam glares at the Eternal. “I’m not letting Peter see that shit. It’s too fucking graphic for an eighteen year old kid.”

“I’ve literally seen the guts of aliens spilled on the floor, so,” Peter says, shrugging.

“Bear with me, kid.”

“Okay,” Bucky sighs. “We locate the group through Druig’s mind reading slash listening thing. Once we have their location, we search for Ace in the—”

Sam tilts his head. “Ace?”

“Yeah.”

It only takes a few seconds for Sam to piece it together. “Like, Acer?”

“Like Acer.”

“What does it symbolize?”

“Peace, because that’s what she’ll fucking need after being kidnapped by a fucking demon.”

“For sure.”

“Can we get back to the main situation?” Druig groans. He hovers near Thor mostly, probably because he’s the only other Immortal-like being in the room. Yet, Thor aims his facial expressions at Peter, who returns them excitedly.

“Right,” Bucky replies. “Thor—if the demon is present, you take care of that motherfucker. Peter, Sam, and I will be responsible for getting Ace out of there safely. Druig, you handle the cult.”

“With pleasure.”

If anyone would have asked Bucky what the hell he thought he would be doing today, this week, this month—it most certainly would have had nothing to do with demons and cults. He thought Hydra was bad with its government corruption, Nazis, and presidential assassinations. At least with Hydra, Bucky was dealing with real-life, flesh and bone human beings. Although, he would argue that Nazis aren’t people. They don’t deserve to be categorized in the human species at all.

Demons and cults, however…That makes his stomach churn and his blood run cold. He doesn’t know how to deal with those things. He’s the goddamn Winter Soldier—a ghost, a spy, a lethal weapon. No amount of bullets, spying, or grenades is going to stop a demon. Or maybe the demon is tangible…

No. Bucky would rather sit that shit out.

God, you must be so scared.

“Where do we put the bodies after we…” Peter inquires.

Thor raises his hand. “I can obliterate them.”

Sam gasps, “Hard no.”

“We have to put them somewhere.”

Bucky cringes as he says, “Ace mentioned that she could…lift roots. So the bodies could be hidden underneath—”

“This is such a fucked up conversation.”

“As if we hadn’t had worse shit happen to us,” Peter argues, rolling his eyes at Sam.

Sam sighs, bowing his head as he rests his hands on hips. Bucky watches him, and sees a little bit of Steve’s mannerisms.

It’s got him grinning, even if all his nerve endings are on edge.

They’ve wasted too much time just calling Thor to Earth. Precious time. You could be hurt, tortured, taken to the fucking Underworld.

Bucky hasn’t felt this way since T’Challa had told him Steve and Sam were coming to Wakanda back in 2018. That impromptu visit resulted in half the world dying.

Bucky reminds himself that you’re strong, stronger than him and damn well stronger than a lot of people he has met. If anyone could survive a demon, it would be you. He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand not knowing.

Not knowing will be the death of him.

He does not know why his luck was shit and he disappeared in 2018.

He does not know why Steve left him so suddenly. It’s not like Bruce destroyed that stupid time machine.

He does not know why you were cursed to live forever, having to watch everyone else around you grow old and wither away.

He does not know why people are evil. From his experience, people are simply born that way. Evil people tend to be evil to the core. A person's environment and experiences are factors, but if they’re willing to change—Are they truly evil?

“When do we suit up?” Thor asks.

“Right now,” Sam answers. He looks at Druig, who nods. “Miles and miles until you find their minds, man. Go for it.”

Druig breathes in slowly, and searches. His eyes glow a bright yellow.

“You each get a drop.”

You’re crazy. Absolutely fucking idiotic, to be honest.

But here’s the thing:

They’re already immortal. You found the proof in their heartbeats. They weren’t lying when they said they were only a few centuries old. That would mean that none of them were around when Graciano ruled or when he was executed.

Besides, healing them wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If they turn out to be evil once they’re healed, then you’ll kill them then. Plain and simple. But you cannot walk away from them when they’re suffering because of some fucker who utilized the “gift” you didn’t know you gave.

They’re already Immortal, you tell yourself. You’re not making them Immortal again.

“As you wish.”

It’s late in the evening and the sun is starting to set. Beautiful hues of blue and orange paint the cliffside and compliment the massive fire they have built and contained. They all stand in a circle, like the fucking cult they are, no matter how often you asked them to get into a single file line.

Like you’re giving out party favors.

Oh, Gods.

One of the nine women of the group gave you their robe so you’re not just parading around in your underwear. You tried not to stare at her moving flesh, almost like fish scales, when she handed it to you.

You glance at the fire, at the knife in your hand, at the human circle. Not even the Cold War felt so eerie.

“If I give you the drop, and nothing changes or something bad starts happening, I will not continue with the others,” you tell their leader. You’re grateful they all removed their masks for this. The man in front of you is in his mid-thirties, or mid-two hundreds really, and frozen in time. His black curls shine in the fire's light, as do his green eyes. He reminds you of every fictional character you've imagined when reading. Young, devastatingly attractive, but his eyes are old. Pained.

He nods. “We trust you.”

Quickly, because you’ll lose your nerve if not, you slice the palm of your left hand. Balking slightly, you look at him with the question you refused to ask earlier.

He nods again, understanding. He takes your mangled hand, looking directly into your eyes, and raises it to his mouth. His tongue peeks out, then lies flat as he swipes from the end of the cut to the top. Shivering, you watch as he laps at your blood like it’s the most desirable dessert.

It’s erotic, and quite unsettling. Drums pound in your ears, possibly the unsteady beat of your heart, as you watch his tongue poke out again. He laps it all up, even if it’s never-ending. Completely greedy.

“Had enough?” The stable delivery of your words elates you.

His eyes rise to meet yours. He wipes the side of his mouth, breathing heavily. “Yes. I apologize.”

“That was more than a drop.”

The confidence he had when he was licking you vanishes a little bit, a shy smile forming instead. “Don’t hold my fault against the others.”

You clear your throat, awkwardly. “Is it really that delicious?”

As quickly as it vanished, his confidence resurfaces. Cocky. “The richest flavor. It makes me want to get on my knees.”

You feel your face grow warm. Turning from him, you walk to the second recipient. Your palm is beginning to heal.

With your face flushed, you force yourself to look back at the leading cultist. “Is it working?”

He’s quiet for a moment, as if he’s trying to dig deep inside himself for the answer. He’s still breathing heavily.

“Take off your cloak,” you instruct. His brow lowers. “Take it off.”

He smirks, strips, and that’s when you see it. His thorns are shrinking, curling then snapping, his veins turning green, red, blue, purple. You watch his face and his arms. The pain flushing his features is unmistakable, but he’s enduring it. Every bit, every thorn submersion, every instance of blood poisoning.

He falls to the ground, a heaving mess. Someone unlinks their hands from the circle to crouch beside him. He clutches at their arms, their face, the ground.

When he falls silent, his body unnaturally still, you worry. All your original worries crowd in the forefront of your brain, screaming, scolding you. You move to fall beside him, but he revives. Breathing in deeply, everything falls into place.

The thorns are gone, replaced by beautiful golden skin and natural freckles. His veins run down their corresponding arms, alongside perfectly placed arteries and tendons and ligaments, shining green and purple.

It worked. It worked, it worked, it worked.

“You’re—”

“I’m me again.” His voice wobbles. “I’m me.”

“I do not know if it’ll last—”

“Mother Earth,” he says urgently. “You made me me again. If I die now, I will die myself. And I am grateful.”

Breathing in, you slice your palm again and hold it out for the next person. They too take more than a drop.

The last person, the Intangible, hesitates.

“I cannot do it. I cannot drink or eat. I am Midas without the touch.”

Fuck. You’ve healed each person besides him.

“How do the clothes on your back stay in place?”

He turns away, ashamed. “Maxwell believes it’s because I was gifted them. Something of my own, declared mine.”

You assume Maxwell is their leader.

“So I gift you my blood.”

“As easy as that?”

“We will see.” You slice your hand for the tenth time tonight, barely even wincing. “Tilt your head back.”

You raise your hand in the air, squeezing a fist, as the blood almost slips—

A scream erupts from the circle. You turn around and see a man with a knife in hand, slicing through his own throat. Whipping your arm out, tattooed vines stem from the tips of your fingers to your shoulder and neck. Nearby roots reach up and wrap around the man’s wrist, tugging him down and throwing the knife away. The man gurgles and tries to stop the bleeding himself before two women come to his aid.

Another scream, this one more brutal, and you witness the same thing. Except the woman is about to fling herself into the fire.

You bring the roots up, rumbling the ground and chipping rocks off from the cliffside. They wrap around her waist and hold her down.

“What’s going on?” you yell. You’re preventing two people from hurting themselves, and if others begin doing the same, you don’t know if you’ll stop them all soon enough.

“What—” You cut yourself off when you see a yellow glow emerge from the nearby woods. Dread and relief assault your senses simultaneously. Behind Druig, your friends appear. And they brought along Thor.

Fuck.

“Druig,” you call, resisting his pull. “Stop controlling them!”

The people you’re holding down begin snapping the branches keeping them safe, their own eyes bright yellow.

“Druig! Enough!”

Everyone behind him pauses. Like they’re the only ones who heard you.

“Druig! There are children here! Stop it! Stop!”

His head tilts, confused, but his rampage doesn’t stop. Another person begins screaming. You curl both hands, all your fingers, using all your might to call upon the Earth. The ground explodes the moment your eyes shine bright green, a roar sounds, and all heads snap to the woods your friends just emerged from.

Sam and Bucky tackle Peter to the ground when something leaps over them and sprints toward Druig. The ground shakes with its every step.

Bucky risks looking up. What he finds stuns him stupid.

A monstrous, twenty-foot thick tree roars, practically shattering the sound barrier. Its mouth—its fucking mouth—opens wide, spiked wooden teeth rattling as it roars again. It barrels across the short distance, picking Druig up with its arms, and slams him to the ground.

Half of your attention remains on Druig while the other half focuses on the task at hand. You bring your hand up, motioning to the speechless cultist in front of you. “Bend, and open wide.”

He obliges and you squeeze your fist hard. Drops of blood fall into his open mouth, remaining there, flowing through him. His wide eyes let you know he’s surprised too.

Once that’s done, you slowly turn back toward your magical creation pummeling Druig. Gritting your teeth, your eyes still glowing emerald, you curse. “Now, what the fuck did I say?”

Druig’s eyes are no longer yellow. In fact, he’s not controlling anyone’s mind anymore. He’s simply guarding his chest and head from the punches, eyes frightened.

You stalk toward him, hands still extended and tattoos still visible because of the crumbled sleeves. “When I say stop, you stop.”

Druig nods quickly, groaning.

“Tell me, Druig! Tell me you understand what I’m telling you!”

“Yes! Yes! I understand!”

You swipe your hand through the air, and the tree goes flying. Bucky hears it crash land somewhere back in the woods, but he’s too stunned to focus on that right now.

…What the fuck just happened?

“Am I not your Princess?” you ask Druig while he crawls from the hole. Your tone is death. “Should you not obey me?”

Druig stutters over a crumpled sound.

Before you can speak again, you’re knocked off your feet and thrown several feet away from him, back to the fire. Shocked, you look up to meet the hideous eyes of that same demon, blacker and more deadly. You quickly stand, powers ready.

“Oh,” you sigh. “It’s you.”

“My instructions were to capture you,” the demon explains, words somehow slick and sticky. “I was never given a time stamp.”

Maxwell, the lead cultist, curses loudly from behind. “It's lying! Its instructions were to bring you to us!”

“And yet, you did not instruct me to return to Hell after I succeeded.”

Maxwell meets your gaze, sorrow swimming in his irises.

“If you want me—”

Your words fizzle when a blast of lightning smashes against the demon’s skeletal body, throwing it away from you and to the ground. Its shadows dim, but it quickly recovers.

“A Norse God,” the demon licks. “What a treat.”

Thor has the good sense to look scared. Yet he challenges with, "War, demon! That is what you are starting!"

“I’ll leave you with this.” The demon vanishes, only to appear at your side. Bucky, Sam, and Peter are almost to your side when its shadows swallow you up. The demon floats over the cliffside, holding you by the back of the neck.

“When her heart beats again, I will come to collect my prize.”

When gravity pulls a body down, the stomach leaps up. You didn't think it would feel so traumatic.

You scream and claw at the air as you fall to the rocks below. Roots and branches swing over the ledge, but they’re not fast enough to catch you. Still, they persist.

Someone threw themselves over. This, you can see. Fog and mist blind you, but this you can see.

Webs stretch from his wrists, quicker than the trees, and snap against your abdomen like a sucker-punch.

But your head hits the rock, and you see nothing.

Peter falls on a nearby rock, but not with the same momentum as you. He scrambles on his hands and knees, hyperventilating.

“Oh my god,” he mutters. “Fuck, oh my fucking god.”

Peter doesn’t want to move you. He doesn’t want to make it worse.

“Oh my god,” he sputters, lips wet and eyes watering. “Oh my god!”

Bucky lands beside Peter with Sam’s hand in his. Sam’s wings re-enter their pack. Thor falls on the other side of you.

“Peter—” Sam tries, but is interrupted.

“I thought I—” Peter chokes. His hands hover over your chest. “I thought I caught her.”

Bucky’s not breathing at all. He tries to ignore the puddle of blood pooling beneath your head, tries to ignore the dead look in your eyes. Grief, upon grief, upon grief. Not even Hydra’s hands inflicted this much pain.

He drops to his knees just as Thor declares, “She’s Immortal. She’ll recover, she’s—”

Thor stops himself when Bucky tries to lift you up, and finds that the back of your head is practically caved in. Thor is right. You’ll survive this. You’ve inflicted worse on yourself—but does that make it any less gruesome, any less painful?

A million times no.

Bucky hiccups, holding you steady. His forehead rests on your sternum as he pleads, brokenly, “You don’t get to leave me. Not you. This time I’m begging.”

He begs the entire flight up the cliffside. The entire walk back to the house, avoiding the eyes of the cultists and Druig. Even when he and Sam place you in the bathtub and wash away all the blood they can.

You’re dead.

You’re actually dead, and Bucky can’t do anything but wait for you to come back to him.

It begins similarly as the last time. The same beautiful, blue cliffside and the same deafening silence. Yet, if you listen closely, you can hear the break of waves and whistle of the wind. But you don’t bother trying to define the elements—no—not when Ari is running to wear you’re standing.

You crash into each other in the same level of dramatics as before. There is no negative connotation to that word, however. You’ll be as dramatic as you want. You have five hundred years of dramatics to make up for.

“My love.”

God, his voice is like liquid caramel. So delightfully delicious. Memories bombard you: Ari, drunk and happy and dancing around the campfire on his birthday; Ari, brilliantly naked and stretching his morning muscles from deep sleep. The stories he would tell the children, how he would hold their hands when they learned how to swim—how you two tried to have children of your own.

“I’m dead,” you say, a gurgled laugh accidentally breaking through.

Ari stares at your face, scanning, then bursts into laughter. Your laugh mixes with his like chocolate and sugar.

“You will be back soon enough.”

Last time you “died”, resurrection occurred a few hours later. Of all the ways to die, this wasn’t the most pleasant.

“Did I do something bad?” you ask.

Ari shakes his head. “No, my love. They were telling the truth.”

Air tumbles from your shaking mouth. At least that’s one good thing that’s come from this. You just hope your friends heeded your instructions and didn’t leave a massacre behind.

“I love you,” you respond, seizing his cheeks in your hands.

Ari smiles, teeth and all. “That has always been one of your first declarations whenever you see me.”

“I feel a lot of things, Ari. But my love for you exceeds all else.”

He grabs each of your wrists, but doesn’t pull you away. “And yet, the love I declare for you exceeds even that.”

You chuckle, allowing him to take your wrists to kiss the insides. His lips like a movie soundtrack, his touch mimicking dialogue.

“When will I wake?”

Ari takes the opportunity to come in closer, his chest against yours. “Soon.”

“And when we defeat this demon, will I see you again?”

Ari’s breath hitches. “I do not fault you or anyone for keeping the living safe. I understand your fight. But, my love…” Ari’s eyes close, and he rests his forehead against yours. “I am so tired of wandering alone.”

Five hundred years worth of cracks in your heart. What’s one more?

“There are no other lost souls with you?”

His expression is answer enough.

“You have been alone all this time? For over a century?”

“Have you not been alone, too?” It doesn’t sound like a question.

You pat his broad chest, too shaken to do anything else. “I am going to put you to rest, Ari. I promise you. I promise with everything in me.”

He nods, your connected heads moving at the same time. “I will stay with you now, after, and beyond.”

“If you want to rest forever, I will not prevent you from doing so.”

An afterlife can mean two things: Either he chooses to wander for however long he wants, at peace, until he decides to lay his soul to rest or resurrect. Or, he chooses to wander forever, his soul never resting but still at peace. A ghost in the afterlife, essentially.

As much as it pains you to let him go, you have to.

Ari places a soft but fierce kiss to your lips. This is your peace.

“I do not know if this is the last time we will see each other,” Ari mumbles. Even his breath tastes like caramel. “But if it is…My peace will always be found with you. Three or five hundred years, my love—It was not enough. No amount of time would have been enough for me to wholly sink into your soul.”

“Nor me, yours.”

You pull away from him to memorize his face. But it’s a face you’ll never forget, no matter how hard you try.

“I love you,” Ari whispers.

“For five hundred years more. And however long after that.”

Bucky leaves your room when he can no longer stand the dryness of his throat. All his screaming has left him sore, as if the demon’s claws dragged ugly indents along the walls of his throat. He looks at you, anger and grief a dangerous combination, and exits.

You’re dead.

You died. He saw you die. Peter tried to catch you, and you fucking hit your head so hard, you died. He had to watch you die because throwing himself off the cliff wasn’t a decision on the table. But he was ready—ready to spring himself just far enough to grab you, turn, and break your fall.

Is this how Steve felt when he watched Bucky fall?

Bucky cringes. Why would he think about Steve at this time? Why would his brain conjure up the image of him, when it knows it’s starting to make him angry? It almost feels like he’s cheating on you. He didn’t think about Steve once when he was sleeping with you, but now that you fucking die? It makes his stomach turn upside down.

How did this love become tainted? How did loving Steve become such a burden? Steve makes him love New York, then he hates the city. His memory soothes Bucky’s soul, but his actions make him miserable.

Is it possible to love and hate someone at the same time?

Bucky throws the glass across the room. It shatters in a triumphant display of glistening water and the shards of his heart.

“Leave me alone,” Bucky whispers, haunted by the very fact he’s asking that of Steve.

Isn’t that what he did? the voice in the back of his head cruelly whispers.

“It wasn’t the Steve I knew.”

Steve during the war, during Bucky’s rescue from Hydra, before Thanos—that was Bucky’s Steve. What the hell happened in those five years? Steve only had Natasha. Sam and Bucky were both snatched from his soul, coincidence and shit luck. Did it break him? Did it make Steve yearn for a world where everything was familiar? Did it make him forget?

Maybe in a few days, weeks, months, Bucky will forgive Steve entirely. Grief is a strange thing, a long haul of paralytic agony, that has no cure.

Bucky thinks of you, and how you’re still grieving after five hundred years, and is scared. He doesn’t want to grieve for that long. He wants it to end now.

Now.

He thought he never would, but he has begun cursing Steve’s name. His whole existence. What was the point of sending something so angelic, so heroic, so gloriously noble and marvelous, into Bucky’s life? What was the point of having Bucky Barnes fall so hopelessly in love only to end up with a disastrous story? Shakespeare would laugh, or capitalize from his heartbreak. Bucky’s life is a Shakespearean tragedy—Steve is the tragic hero, Bucky the tragic villain.

What else? Those two characters always have the most dire, erotic, agonizing tension that straddles the romantic dynamic of a tragedy. Steve was the play’s hero. Bucky, the villain. They were each other’s heart-wrenching antonyms, yet so terribly similar in the way their souls spoke. Characters so unfortunate in their endings, and an exhausting constant in each other’s dreams.

Last time Bucky had a good dream about Steve Rogers was when the Wakandan summer faded into autumn in the tragic year of 2018.

He misses that summer. He misses dreaming in June.

Shakespeare’s characters always meet a dreadful end. One that is unsatisfying. Bucky can’t think of a description more fitting when he opens that fucking bottle in the haunted, Icelandic house. He tips his head back and hates himself for it.

“You don’t get to do that.”

Bucky shuts his eyes tightly.

“Go back to bed, Sam.”

“I know we all deal with shit our own ways. You drink, Shortcake wallows, Peter works until he can’t feel his bones. But I’m begging you right now…Do not drink that.”

Bucky can feel it eating away at his insides. He needs another taste, the sip of the liquor that’s been soothing his stomach for the past year and half, making his heart beat just a little quicker, making him forget for just a few hours. He wanted to drown in it when Steve left, when Sam started putting his life in danger, when you didn’t open your eyes as he tried shaking you awake. It’s itching like crazy, picking and pulling at the open slip of skin near his lips.

And yet, the thought of Sam begging has his hands shaking. “Okay,” Bucky says quietly, putting the bottle down on the table. “I won’t do it.”

“I lost him, too,” Sam mutters quickly.

“Sam—”

“I lost him, too! He was my friend, too!”

Bucky chokes on a choppy inhale. Of course Steve was Sam’s friend, too. Of course he was, Bucky knows this. But it’s the exclamation that rocks Bucky to his core and causes his chest to heave once, then twice, as he tries to respond. There are angry tears forming in Sam’s eyes, incessant.

“You’re not the only one he fucked over! He left me, too!”

Bucky raises his flesh hand in a sort of surrender, unable to keep it from trembling. He turns a little to the side so he doesn’t have to look directly at Sam. If anyone walked in right now, Peter probably, it would look like Bucky is shielding himself from an incoming blow. But Bucky seriously, honestly, is curling in on himself.

“I know you loved him,” Sam continues, breath hitching. “And I know I’ll never know exactly what you’re feeling. But he left me, too.” Sam smiles sadly, then shrugs, as if it’s all his body can do. “He left me, too.”

The moment is frozen. For seconds, maybe minutes. Bucky doesn’t walk down the path of the bottle and Sam doesn’t leave the room. He feels like a small child being scolded, but Bucky knows that’s not a fair comparison. He doesn’t even want to call this a guilt trip. He’s had an intervention coming any day now. He just didn’t expect it to be so startling and blue.

“I’m not gonna let you drink yourself to death. I don’t know how your body works, or how the serum works, but I’m not gonna let it happen. I’m not your counselor, fuck, I’m nobody’s fuckin’ counselor. I’m your friend.”

Bucky looks at the bottle, his fingers fidgeting at his sides. His ribs are incredibly sore, and each intake of air resembles a stab of fire.

He lifts his head, meeting Sam’s brown eyes. “I need help.”

Sam’s lips part and a small crack in his throat loosens. His entire face flushes with grief. “Yeah, Buck.”

Bucky shudders, his eyes watering. “I need help.”

“I’m gonna get you help, okay? We all will. I promise.” Sam closes the massive gap between them, holding Bucky’s shoulders in place. “I’m going to be there along the way, okay? I’m not leaving you.”

Bucky grips the fabric of Sam’s sweatshirt. “Don’t leave me.”

Sam shakes his head fast. “I’m not going to leave you. But you gotta promise you’re not going to leave me too, yeah? You’re not going to leave me, or Ace, or Peter. We need you just as much as you need us, Buck.”

“Why did he leave us?” Bucky breaks, sobbing into Sam’s chest. He feels as if the fog in his brain has just lifted, but it’s fighting to stay clear.

Sam holds him, staring over Bucky’s shoulder. “Million dollar question, Buck.”

Maybe Bucky isn’t the tragic villain of this play.

Maybe it was Steve all along.

TAGLIST: @cloudyfeel @howlermonkey69 @wintersgirl1917 @aquariusbarnes @fandoms-writings @shirukitsune @goldylions @real-jane @mannien @sentimental-for-maneskin @dezthegeek @avengershoney @ginger-swag-rapunzel @natbarnes1917 @cutechubbybunnyy @gabewerk

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x reader #reader x bucky barnes #dreaming in june series #dreaming in june #Bucky Barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x poc!reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x you #enhanced reader #captainsimagines #by Moni #chapter eleven #marvel fanfiction

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splattermouth · 1 year

Note

Actually, I've more questions: you mentioned that Volo and Val eventually got to collecting the plates— what exactly got the ball rolling with that? Was it related to the spooky plate, or was it something else?

And how did those two collecting the plates interfere with the overall mission of the kids that Arceus sent?

What exactly does Missingno do to a person that it possesses? Like, how does it affect the very essence of their being and then some? (This is kind of a self-indulgent question, you don't have to answer if you don't want to since I also have a Missingno oc and went into detail for that bc I love existentialism)

I think them trying to collect the plates was something they were always trying to do. (And by always, I mean once Val breaks down and admits to Volo he thinks Arceus sent him to Hisui. Volo might have already been plate hunting by this point, knowing they had Some ties to Arceus, but I don’t think he’d met Giratina just yet. Val falls months/maybe half a year before the rift opens up over Mount Coronet after all. Sorry the timeline for all these different events is still screwy and nebulous, I’m still piecing things together myself lol)

And I’m also not sure how much the kids interfere atm honestly! Rei and Akari, friends from another time, both take the role of the player character, but I don’t think Val would encounter them all that much to have a strong opinion on them. He thinks they’re normal sweet kids, not like they did anything wrong being sent here. Volo interacts with them the usual amount, nothing out of the ordinary.

Because of that, I don’t think the confrontation with Volo at Spear Pillar happens either, at least not traditionally. Like I think Rei and Akari are the ones to close the rift and calm Dialga/Palkia, but I don’t think any Volo postgame happens with them. I think that’s a Val and Volo thing. You could interpret that as Missingno’s presence altering the current timeline and throwing the plot into whack, and that’s a fun thought, but idk. I think it’s more just Val ends up having to deal with Volo’s delusions instead of the kids. Like atm, I think Rei and Akari’s presence is mostly fuel for Volo’s gradually degrading morals.

AND AAH I’ve actually just recently talked about what Missingno IS and how it works in relation to The Horror That Came to Hisui here!

But long story short, Missingno are either scrapped ‘content’ or mutations/aberrations that occur through spacetime distortions and tears. Dialga and Palkia generally clean up these holes in reality pretty quick, but not always quick enough to prevent anomalies from settling in.

Missingno thrive in corrupted environments. The young and fresh, carefully crafted world Arceus is currently watching over is built so there is no room and no way for It's old, unfinished, generally broken creations such as Missingno to thrive. But Arceus is not a Perfect god, and It has not built a Perfect world, and with a suitable host, a Missingno can get a foot in the door. The longer it stays with a host, the more powerful it gets, and the harder it is to dispel. Like how the longer you hold onto and use glitches and glitch pokemon in game, the more at risk you are for the whole experience to fall apart.

Anyway, Missingno doesn’t necessarily Possess a person (even though i technically say that a lot it doesnt it doesnt im sorry i misled you im pedantic), it more steadily Fuses with a person. The Missingno’s personality and ideals become one with the host’s, and in most cases, an entirely new ‘being’ is made. In Val and Missingno’s case: Jacred. Jacred is gleeful and fun-loving and unwittingly cruel, but also very much still loves Volo like Val loved him. And in knowing Volo’s desire to understand the universe around him and his place in it, Jacred will routinely show Volo things he did not at all ever want to know about the world he inhabits. It’s fun. Jacred really did say ‘know the unknowable, boy’ <3

Physically, Missingno naturally warps and distorts the body in odd ways. Smiles and eyes can seem too big, limbs and necks appear stretched, skin sometimes seems prehensile? Skin that shifts and ripples and ‘moves’ on its own. A host's movements sometimes come with afterimages. Colors and lighting on the host can appear unnatural, too bright or too dull. Physical contact with the host brings slight, but still sharp static sensations. Sometimes portions of the body seem to ‘bleed’ and blur together. All of these distortions happen randomly, and all for split seconds at a time. Blink and you miss it occurrences. Making those nearby wonder if any of what they saw was even real. If Missingno is corrupting the host or simply ones own vision.

And again, the longer Missingno remains in it’s host, the more it fuses with them- the more frequent and extreme the distortions become, the more it’s able to affect the environment around it and the people and pokemon that inhabit it.

I distinctly remember reading a comment on some video about pokemon glitches, and it described how when a glitch pokemon did enough damage to its opponent, the sprite of said opponent would look like it’d just been ‘shattered’, and i think abt that a Lot in relation to Jacred tbh. I will not elaborate on what that could possibly mean for Jacred OR for Volo.

#snap snips #valvolo #the horror that came to hisui #TY AGAIN thinking hard abt jacred a lot all the time

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chaotic-tired-cat · 6 months

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trick or treat!!!

Happy Halloween, Anon!!!

The closest I have to a Halloween special is a series of snippets I kind of wandered into writing, but they seem pretty fitting! These are from World Walker: Aftershocks, which is really a bunch of scenes made to figure out where the characters are going to end up.

This involves no World Walker or canon bnha spoilers, and is very sparsely edited. DimensionTravel!Izuku hunts ghosts with this background character below the cut, inspired by Buzzfeed Unsolved, YUTS, and Game Changer. Interviewer OCs are named Ran, Myuki, Kaito, and Tatsuya. Cryptid's PR guy is named Dai.

Tw: ghosts and related topics.

Cryptid ducks under the doorway.

Ran visibly falters.

Cryptid's agency did all of the communication with them, supposedly because Cryptid himself is a workaholic who handles emergencies not just here, but also wherever else he disappears to. He also has a tendency to choose interviews near emergencies that unfold in a predictable future for him and a horrible surprise for everyone else, so apparently it's safer for everyone involved if he makes his own patrol schedule for the agency to work around. Dai from PR was lovely to talk to. They have no complaints.

But Dai from PR neglected to mention exactly what Cryptid is like in person. Cameras glitch out occasionally and secondhand accounts grow either poetic or lack detail, so they had no real warning about this. Tatsuya is abruptly aware that the fanart is perhaps more accurate than photos of this hero, which would be funny if he were able to breathe right now.

Cryptid looks horrifying.

Unseen wind stirs green hair. His dark costume highlights the fact that his shadow pulls an echo of stars up from the floorboards, and the sharp teeth of his smile that forces his mouth open slightly. When he looks at them, a galaxy rests in his eyes.

He steps forward. There is something distinctly unnatural in the way those joints move.

Ran audibly inhales through her teeth.

The next step is better, then the next. Cryptid's back straightens and his mouth closes into something more human. The stars and eerie presence are packaged away, folded up and tucked into the hero like a coat left at the door. It makes being affected by an unfelt wind and possessing odd-bright eyes feel like any other quirk.

"Hello," Cryptid says kindly, stopping a fair distance away, which is greatly appreciated. He tucks his hands behind his back, posture unthreatening. "Are you Ran?"

"Yeah," she gulps. "Um. Your agency said we should do an interactive interview with you?"

"Dai has been very accommodating," Cryptid agrees serenely. "And the void stops screaming at me when it thinks I'm busy."

"Oh?" Ran asks, voice pitched just a touch higher than normal, but she's too good an interviewer to let that leading statement go. "What do you mean?"

"There's a version of me trying to swallow the sky in another universe, and the void wants me to watch." Cryptid gestures, shoulders now hunched to communicate lack of threat. "But moving around will help convince it that I'm busy, so I really do appreciate you all changing so much of your schedule to make this work."

"It's no problem," Ran says. Ironclad control returns, one of the reasons she was chosen for this activity. "I have a list of pre-interview topics here. Anything else you want to talk about or avoid can be added to the paperwork, and we will be including your agency in the editing process whenever your quirk is discussed."

Tatsuya continues unpacking equipment as Cryptid irons out their details.

They have two guests on the game show today. Both heroes were on their list of candidates, but after hearing Cryptid's situation, an idea was pitched. Adding in Exorcism: the Ghost Hero to this was a stroke of genius. It'll make an amazing special.

Onemu Shinya waits by the car, discussing things with her own interview team of Miyuki and Kaito.

Six people, two of which are heroes. Three, gods help them, are thrill-seekers. Tatsuya was the only person in the office who saw bargaining power for what it was when the crew was short one member. They are paying him a lot to film and make snarky commentary behind the camera. Life is good.

Neither of the heroes know what the schedule holds.

Then again, they probably know it'll be odd. Burnt Honest Tea sits halfway between a game show and news organization due to hiring more actors and comedians than journalists. Everyone here has some kind of past in the entertainment district. The employee-owned business model is a wreck. They do comedy. Humor. A little gossip, when it's lighthearted and everyone involved is fine with it getting aired, but that’s a rare one. Celebrity guests are more likely to get dumped in a room full of puppies than interviewed from an armchair.

They figured out a while ago that since heroes have licenses for public quirk use, they could hire a bunch of weirdos to conduct interviews in the most extreme places possible. This is legally and logistically a nightmare. Crucially, it also sells really well because nobody else is willing to make a whole business around that model.

It takes a while for set-up to finish, and the heroes are brought to the front of the eerie brick building. It likely has been abandoned for longer than anyone here has been alive.

Probably.

Their two guests are odd enough that Tatsuya cant help but suspect otherwise. He suggested the question during one of the meetings and got shot down, though.

The two heroes wait patiently by the door as set up finishes.

Cameras and mics checked, lights on, introductions finished, and ground rules reiterated.

Filming starts.

“So what are we doing?” Exorcist asks, and Tatsuya winces preemptively. She has to suspect they’re going-

"Ghost hunting," Ran says.

Exorcism closes her eyes, and Cryptid nods thoughtfully before sticking his entire arm into a circle of blazing starlight. He pulls out a pair of gloves, and tugs off his own, revealing what looks like tattoos underneath.

Exorcism sighs, eyes still closed. "You can punch ghosts now, can't you?"

"I can punch ghosts," Cryptid agrees sagely as he puts on the new gloves, then holds up a cautious hand. "...Will it launch your soul out of your body if you touch these?"

Exorcism high-fives him.

"Guess not."

Tatsuya just knows today is going to be great.

"Hello," Cryptid says to the hallway, exactly as he greeted Ran earlier. It makes the underlying message clearer - don't be scared, I will not harm you, I know I am frightening and promise not to move too fast or speak too loudly. "I don't have any dominion over life and death, but we can speak if you'd like."

"You're very kind," Exorcism tells him with a pat to the back, then stomps past him into the hallway with Kaito and Miyuki on her heels. "Hey, ghosts! If you got a problem, now's the time to speak up!"

Unearthly screeching fills the building.

"Get their ass," Cryptid says, completely straight-faced. A door slams down the hall, and Kaito screams. Cryptid looks more alarmed at the scream than the haunted door.

"Hey, friend!" Exorcism yells in the same instant. "Ooh, you've got vibes. Where's that shirt from? It's cute."

"So," Cryptid says as he turns to Ran and Tatsuya, "shall we?"

"This was such a mistake," Tatsuya says. Ran shoots him a look that disagrees, and he zooms in on it just to be petty.

Exorcism considers the door, then turns to the empty space to her left with a raised eyebrow. She's gone a little translucent.

"Sure," she tells the patch of air. Then, "this is your local service announcement; big noise incoming."

"Go for it," Cryptid says distractedly as he pokes at a ratty, bug-infested curtain. It blocks off a corner of secrets Tatsuya has zero interest in. He is, unfortunately, the only person to feel this way. Ran gestures at him. It's a loving one. The kind that implies she will kill him in his sleep if he misses whatever bullshit their local Wikipedia-classified cryptid is about to pull.

It's fine. He's not in charge of filming Exorcism.

That hero is busy counting down her big noise out loud. It's very appreciated. Tatsuya has plenty of time to brace, so the abrupt crash of wooden planks is almost comfortable. He gives it a three-count before glancing back.

Exorcism tosses aside a piece of the door she just kicked in. She turns around to scan them all for injuries, with only a glance into the whole new room of horrors she just uncorked for their miserable little field trip. Then again, she's a hero known to get information from ghosts. This is her home turf.

Tatsuya flinches when Kaito lurches back from the broken doorway, face ashen.

Exorcism pauses.

She leans back, peering inside for a second assessment of whatever she unleashed.

"Hm," she says, fully awake for the very first time. Tatsuya's stomach flips upside-down.

"What's up?" Cryptid asks over from where he's placing a line of ginger candies under the most cursed piece of furniture to ever exist. Tatsuya isn't the faintest bit religious, superstitious, or even faintly curious about these kinds of things, but even he knows that broken chair has some seriously bad vibes. If they set an apple on it, that fruit would definitely rot in seconds. It is extremely unnerving. Ran hovers over Cryptid's shoulder as the hero happily arranges some kind of offering, torn between her own curiosity and nausea.

"This isn't mine to deal with," Exorcism says, brushing a hand over the wall. The shadows under her hand glitch out in real-time and is honestly the weirdest thing Tatsuya has seen in his life.

He holds his camera steady and exchanges a look with Kaito. Miyuki wanders over to serenely hold up what looks to be a Geiger counter. The little box ticks in a slow but uneven little pattern until she presses it to the wall.

The ticking turns slightly chime-like, then stops.

Tatsuya is fairly sure this isn't supposed to happen, but his science knowledge levels out at baking soda and vinegar. Miyuki, who has the kind of brain that saw her through engineering at Waseda until she decided it didn't spark joy, looks personally affronted.

"Ah," Cryptid says, hesitantly approaching. "Yeah, that'd be me. Thanks for catching it."

Tatsuya is very nervous about how Cryptid seems to be using Exorcism as a meat shield against the wall, until he notices that Cryptid isn't actually avoiding the wall at all.

Miyuki, with her massive brainpower, picks up on the source of his nerves as well. It's probably easier for her, since she seems to be the epicenter.

She looks at the dead silent box she is currently pressing into the wall.

The wall shivers hypnotically.

"Don't," Cryptid murmurs. It's unclear who he's talking to. "I did not make a deal with you to punch ghosts so you could-"

Exorcist swipes the box from Miyuki and tosses it to Cryptid, who yelps, fumbles, and catches it. The freshly returned ticking halts the second he has both hands on it. Instead, there's just one, constant, note.

Like a dial tone.

Cryptid stares at it in betrayal.

"Uh, so-" Ran clears her throat. "Are you doin' alright, buddy?"

"I am feeling very grateful for those NDAs," is all Cryptid says. "Um. Anyway. This is normal?"

He doesn't sound very sure.

"Kid," Exorcism sighs.

"It's completely expected," Cryptid hisses at her desperately.

"I'm drinking buddies with Eraser," Exorcism says, and Cryptid seems to deflate.

"Okay, so it might be normal but I honestly stopped trying to track what my quirk changes about me when I was so much shorter than this." Cryptid sighs, dial-tone box now clutched to his chest. It seems to be making the screaming note almost musical in an unearthly way. The realization of how that noise is shaping into an echo of a heartbeat raises hair on the back of Tatsuya's neck.

"That's messed up," Kaito tells him gently. "Aren't heroes supposed to be really good at using their quirks?"

Cryptid snorts. "That is a very long discussion nobody here except maybe Exorcism would enjoy having. Let's just say my quirk is the ability to skydive through an Old God, but testing limits weakens the barrier between my existence and its control?"

Exorcism pats him on the shoulder, and something like understanding seems to pass between them.

Something breaks in the room behind Tatsuya.

Every single member of their unfortunate little filming party is in this room, along with both their heroes.

"Let's go meet the neighbors," Exorcism decides, and leader her two adrenaline junkies away. It leaves Tatsuya in this room with his local cryptid and bad influence. Ran, despite getting them all into this mess of an interview, jumps slightly when Exorcism yells, "hey, friend!" loud enough to be heard through the wall.

Cryptid seems more interested in the fact that his cursed little offering has disappeared from the chair. Ran huddles after him.

"You are so weird," Tatsuya tells the hero gently.

"Yeah, well." Cryptid shrugs and pats Ran's white knuckles, which are currently clenched in his costume jacket. "Unknowable things aren't bad. Humans fear them, because a problem without definition is a problem that can't be controlled."

The way he says it separates them into two groups - humans, and whatever he is - which inspires the same curiosity Tatsuya feels when looking down from a cliff or skyscraper window. He can appreciate the danger mere inches away. He also wants to toss a paper plane at it.

"That's not how any of this works," Exorcism says through a yawn as she steps back through the broken-down door. The onmyouji pauses, noticing Ran breathing through her adrenaline. "Sorry, are you okay? Yes? Okay, just let us know."

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Cryptid murmurs as he pats the interviewer's shoulder. "We can go-"

"No," Ran interrupts in a wheeze. "I am having the time of my life. Let's keep rolling."

"Adrenaline junkie," Kaito says from the doorway, despite being sheet-white and grinning like a lunatic.

Cryptid and Exorcism exchange a look.

"You'll tell us the moment any of you want out," Cryptid says to the four of them. It's not a request so much as an order. "We're not going any further until I know everyone is completely fine with this."

A chorus or agreement rises, and Exorcism yawns.

"You were saying something," Ran says, once again showing that she's the only one here actually trained to host anything. "About how Cryptid is wrong about the nature of unknown things?"

Exorcism pauses, visibly trying to recall. "I was. Yeah. Basically, we fear what we don't understand for a very good reason."

"Doesn't mean you can't make a home out of it," Cryptid says.

"Are you not human?" Tatsuya asks, because it feels like they skipped over that little comment implying he isn't.

"In the way you're asking? Yeah. I was born human, I register to call-response quirk users, and I am capable of passing DNA tests in the right circumstances. In the way that matters-" Cryptid shrugs. "No. I'm a loophole."

Delightful.

That explains nothing.

"Could you explain what a loophole means in this context?" Ran asks. Miyuki smiles at her in a way that says, I could kiss you for keeping us on topic right now.

Blood runs down the wall.

"Huh," Cryptid says, completely unbothered by the many people now clinging to him. "That is one way to decorate. A bit too much red for me, personally, but it would look great in a children's hospital."

"Oh my God," Kaito garbles.

Exorcism muffles a yawn and pats him on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Kaito creaks. Cryptid takes their elbows and leads them to a very dusty chair, where he starts talking them through a breathing exercise. It works, and Tatsuya keeps his camera on the very haunted painting everyone seems to be ignoring.

"It's good that we brought heroes," Miyuki says serenely.

Cryptid pauses as he tries to figure out what to say to that, which gives Exorcism time to be distracted by the blood dripping down a wall from inside the picture frame. Tatsuya turns his camera just in time to catch her place both hands on the wet red wood, lean in, and lick that nasty, dust-clumped, haunted blood. She makes a face at what he guesses is the flavor, then walks right out the door.

Her team follows, hopefully to ask her what in the world she was just thinking. Ran watches them leave from the door. This is great until it leaves him with Cryptid and a bleeding painting.

"Oh, that's funny," Cryptid says under his breath. He claws open a section of thin air through the painting. Tatsuya's camera glitches at the bright-dark void, but Cryptid casually leans out to inspect something on the other side. Plastic crinkles. He tugs something out, stuffs it in his pocket, and pats something that sounds like fabric.

The air to his left starts bleeding.

Just.

The air.

Dripping red.

It falls to the ground since there's nothing for the liquid to cling to, leaving Tatsuya very freaked out by the spontaneous puddle of red on the floor.

"UH," Tatsuya says, then has to shove at Ran before she can poke it.

Cryptid laughs a little, in a quiet way that's oddly reassuring. Nobody laughs like that when they're panicked. "We're very safe. That one wasn't a ghost."

This is not helpful news. Well, it is helpful in that it's good content, but Tatsuya is beginning to wonder if he's really being paid enough to witness this.

"So, what are you doing?" Ran asks. Cryptid clicks his tongue at whatever he's seeing, then moves a bit to the side so Ran can sidle up next to him and also lean out. She turns a little green but bravely stays put.

"Spring cleaning," Cryptid says. "It's really rude to litter in the void, but sometimes this happens anyway. So I'll just-"

He moves as if wiping something outside the portal, and the patch of spontaneous blood dumps a full bucket onto this already haunted floor.

Ran reaches back blindly, and Tatsuya reluctantly takes her place. Cryptid, blessedly, does not notice Ran trying to get Tatsuya and his camera to the portal. He shuts it the second she's out. Tatsuya can't help but feel a little relieved at being spared the burden of witnessing whatever Ran saw.

He likes not knowing, sometimes.

Ran fixes this by turning to him with very wide eyes and saying, "there was, I Kid you not, a wall of fabric, and so many stars. He found blood on the fabric and shoved it in, and it was like it wanted? To go?"

"Do you need to sit down?" Cryptid asks her gently.

"I saw the void, and it had so much shit in it," Ran tells Tatsuya and his camera. Cryptid very gently takes one of the hands she's gesturing with and pats it to catch her attention.

"It is very big," Cryptid agrees serenely. Ran frantically points at the painting, which has stopped dripping.

"Big," she repeats. "Big is small compared to whatever that was."

Tatsuya nervously shifts.

"It is also an ecosystem," Cryptid continues, slow and calm. "What you saw is no different than a forest, or the ocean. It is a perfectly natural part of the way things work, just a part you weren't aware of."

"There was nothing natural about that," Ran hisses.

"Pigeons make milk," Cryptid says, which- what? The unexpected announcement has Ran startling right out of her existential crisis. "There are species of jellyfish so rare they've only been caught on camera once. There's a river in England that looks like a brook from the top, but is so narrow and deep that putting a foot in would suck you right down. Many strange things exist in the world that you have not discovered yet. This does not make them wrong, or bad. It does also not invalidate your experience with them if anyone chooses to believe what you have experienced does not exist. Okay?"

Ran stares at him.

Cryptid meets her eyes steadily. "You are right about what you saw, no matter what people may try to tell you. And you are not alone in your knowledge of it. Everything is working as it should."

Ran keeps staring at him, until Cryptid slowly opens one arm in an offer. He lets the interviewer choose how close she gets, then stands there with an arm draped over Ran's shoulders like it's the most natural thing in the world.

A spider skitters across the ceiling.

"We are going to stand here and breathe for a little bit," Cryptid says easily. He glances at Tatsuya. "How are you holding up?"

"You've seen someone go mad from this," Tatsuya realizes. His mouth puts it into words before he can stop the conclusion from lying dead as a ghost in the stifling air between them.

"Not yet," Cryptid says. He glances at Ran, then up at the dust and cobwebs.

Not yet.

There is subtext in those two words.

Tatsuya finds his heart speeding up.

The reason these interviews are safe and worth doing is that they are conducted with trained rescue specialists. The danger is chosen specifically to be something these heroes can handle in their sleep.

The danger is not supposed to come from the hero-

"Can you smell that?" Cryptid asks, cutting through Tatsuya's gasping panic.

What-

He inhales, finds he's breathing too quickly, and forces his lungs to cooperate. Two deep breaths later, he glares at Cryptid.

"Any iron?" The hero asks. "Deep breaths, long and slow. There you go, just like that. Can you smell iron?"

"You bastard," Tatsuya wheezes.

"I'm very manipulative, yes," Cryptid says serenely.

"No iron," Ran creaks.

"Fake blood," Cryptid says. He shrugs the shoulder Ran hasn't claimed at Tatsuya's disbelief and adds, "someone pranked your show. Not with whatever Onemu is doing - the void loves her too much to interfere in that. But it did allow someone to set up that painting specifically to fuck with me."

What.

"Why did I agree to this?" Tatsuya asks under his breath.

"Because you had a formative experience at thirteen where you realized surrounding yourself with extroverts and people who thrive in odd situations brings you more happiness than any desk job," Cryptid explains. Tatsuya fumbles with his very expensive equipment. "Also, I suspect you're being paid a fair amount, but really it's the same as Kaito. Y'all really should compare wages."

"We're keeping you," Ran decides from where she's pressing her hands into her face.

Cryptid grins at the ceiling, which Ran misses entirely. His smile is too wide, too sharp, and stars bleed from his shadow. "Good luck. I am not made to be contained."

Mundane cheer takes its place by the time Ran shakes her head and steps away.

Tatsuya was holding the camera, though.

Izuku waits on the building roof.

"When did you figure out it was me?"

Not needing to turn around to identify the speaker, Izuku just heaves a sigh. The empty bag of fake blood crinkles from his belt pouch. "Nobody else would."

Cloud makes a disgruntled noise.

"And that last thud upstairs was very good, but when you swear into the Null about hitting your elbow on a brick wall, I can hear it."

Cloud frowns.

"I thought you hated ghosts?" Izuku asks, and gets a strange look for the question. As if Cloud hasn't put string ghost traps on top of several versions of the cafe.

"There was nothing supernatural about that place. Guess they were ghosting you."

"Then who was Exorcism talking with?"

"She wasn't talking to-" Cloud loses about two shades of color and backs up a bit. "Right. Cool. I'm gonna- uh. Go cleanse myself in a temple or something-"

"Did you not know?!"

"No," Cloud hisses back, hair bristling slightly like a cat. "I don't mess with ghosts. They get hungry and-" he breaks off, gesturing. "I don't know shit about exorcism, but that is very much not something I want to mess with!"

"I've seen you pickpocket an HPSC president," Izuku says, mildly offended and not sure why.

#anon #trick or treat ask game #world walker #world walker: aftershocks #fic snippet #its long but i don't mind posting the whole thing #oc names are ripped from friends and a name generator

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secretfnaffan · 2 years

Text

An Unsolvable Case (Glamrock Freddy x fm!Reader) Chapter Six

Summary: You’re a detective of the city, who was tasked to investigate the brand new Pizzaplex where children went missing and employees were fired due to mysterious reasons. What happens when you get yourself locked inside the place with the animatronics who try to hunt you down?

Word count: 1229

Warnings: none for now

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

“Gregory, I have good news: it looks like you can access the Fazbear online pizza delivery system through that console!” Freddy said as he hurried down the hallway with you. It seemed like none of the other robots were interested in you whether you were around Freddy or not.

“What? How is that supposed to help?” Gregory asked incredulously. You decided not to ask questions after all the ridiculous plans this bear came up with, however, they worked up until now.

“Chica loves pizza!” Freddy answered before he spotted Monty at the end. Grabbing your hand, Freddy slowed down cautiously. He kept shielding you slightly as he walked. It made you feel secure. You haven’t experienced this kind of act ever since your dad died. None of the guys treated you like a woman just because, unless they were hoping for something. It made you feel worthless after a while, resulting in you turning away from others and focusing solely on your work.

Monty approached the two of you, his large frame intimidating, hands balled into fists, eyes scanning the area.

“What are you doing Freddy? Weren’t you notified by Vanessa to look for that kid?” he asked, pulling his glasses lower on his snout. Then his eyes traveled over to you, making you feel uneasy. Monty leaned down to your eye level, too close to your liking, your hand instantly squeezing Freddy’s. “And who might you be?”

“(Name)... I just arrived.” you said shortly, trying to go into too much detail.

“Hm… well, (Name), when you get tired of my friend here, you’re welcome to join me in the golf course.” Monty winked before walking past Freddy. Furrowing your eyebrows, you tightened your hold on Freddy’s paw. Like he felt it, the large animatronic bear leaned down and slid his large hand across your back.

“I’m here, don’t be afraid, (Name).” he rumbled. Somehow, that did reassure you.

“I found the loading dock… but nothing is here.” Gregory announced. “There are some big garage doors, but I don’t see a way to get out.”

“Do you see a set of controls?”

Looking up at Freddy, you were unsure if you should let Gregory do everything on his own. He was still just a kid after all and he could get caught by the others. The end results were something you didn’t want to actually happen.

“I think so… There’s a funny locked box with a badge on it.”

“Those are the loading dock controls.” Freddy suddenly stopped in front of you, making you walk right into his back. “Something’s not right, someone must’ve changed the permissions. You’re going to need a much higher security level to get out that way. Come back to me right away.”

Suddenly, Freddy started glitching in front of you, his head jerking right and left, hands shaking at his sides. Stepping back from him, you tried to look him over, to find if there was something wrong on the outside but come up with nothing. He then turned to you, eyes apologetic.

“(N-N-Name)... so-something is-is wrong with-with me-ee.” he spoke.

“Let’s get you into Parts and Service. That’s where you guys get your daily check-ups right?” you asked.

“O-o-okay-kay.” he nodded, trying to stop his head from shaking. Walking through the main hall, where the food court was, you passed the S.T.A.F.F. bots several times until you reached the stage. The large holograms were spectacular, the detail and the visual was beautiful. You had no idea how the company could afford such things when they were barely able to fix the main stars of the show properly.

The management was probably a group of idiots if they thought that without proper maintenance, this place would be able to function. More and more reports came from the security guards and the complaints from the customers were more and more upset each time. Pushing the button, Freddy and you rode the elevator under the stage. You walked down a corridor until you spotted a recharge station, then another area over the glass walls.

Freddy went ahead to show you the maintenance cylinder. He looked battered and dirty so you decided to maybe try and give him a bath of some kind. Though, you knew you should be careful with it, no need to short circuit him with water.

“There on the-”

“There you are!” hurried over the security guard with her flashlight in hand. Her scowl sat deep on her face. You were lucky to slip behind a shelf before she could spot you, but that left Freddy on his own.

“I finally found you at last. What do you think you’re doing?! Hiding a kid?!” the security guard asked angrily. “I found him earlier and left him in the Lost and Found.”

“That is great news! He can return to his family!” Freddy’s acting was… mediocre at best. You could almost see him sweat as he was restrained by Moondrop. Your eyebrows furrowed. Why did Moondrop not attack the security guard? She was completely human, like you. But then… he didn’t attack you either earlier. You watched helplessly as they separated Freddy’s head from his torso, you had no idea why.

“He can’t. Turns out, there is no record of him.” she replied, crossing her arms.

“How unfortunate. If you re-attach my head I will go look for him.”

“His name is Gregory. Do you know why I know that? His Fazwatch keeps repeating it. In your voice…” she continued on like Freddy said nothing.

“Vanessa, all the Fazwatches sound like me, it’s the default voice option.”

“If you’re part of this, you’re scrap. Monty will run the shows, until Parts and Service can slap your casing on a new Endo. Hang out here for a while, I gotta find that kid.”

“Vanessa! Do not leave me like this!” Freddy cried out angrily after her, but Vanessa was nowhere to be seen as she slid through a door and disappeared. Grabbing your gun, you walked out from behind the shelf and went over to Freddy. “(Name)! Can you please help me out here? I could use some help.”

“Oh, Freddy… I’m sorry that they’re so rude.” you sighed. “Now tell me how to put your head back on your neck.”

Listening to the instructions, you did as he and the strange maintenance voice said. Pushing the right buttons and pulling the right levers was quite easy. Freddy got out of the cylinder quickly and leaned down to your level, pulling you in his arms in a hug.

“What’s up big guy?” you chuckled. “Don’t you want a nice wash and waxing? You look a little worn.”

“Thank you.” he breathed silently, as silently as possible. “No one’s been nice to me… since… Bo- my friend left…”

“You mean Bonnie?” you asked, patting his hand. “Let me get into this computer here, I might find more evidence and… I am sure they all have your A.I.-s and many more in store. It wouldn’t be a stupid thing for them to keep things like these in any case.”

“You… you want to find Bonnie’s A.I.?! Could that be possible?!” His voice sounded so hopeful, filled with emotions which left you doubt the fact they were just machines.

“We’ll see, big guy.” you smiled back at him.

To be continued…

#glamrock freddy x reader #fnaf glamrock freddy #fnaf gregory #fnaf moondrop #fnaf sb #fnaf: security breach #fnaf:sb #glamrock freddy #security breach #glamrock chica #freddy fazbear #glamrock animatronics #fivenightsatfreddysfanart #fnaf freddy #fnaf glamrock #fnaf x reader

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sleepingdeath-light · 3 years

Note

reading the crossover headcanons for TOH was amazing!

i wanted to request a crossover with TOH and Steven Universe if possible! (also with Hunter x Reader) You can decide between reader being half-gem, like Steven, or fully gem! If you can't or don't want to, that's okay! Aand I really love your headcanons! You make them long and detailed! It's truly amazing.

Crossover Headcanons | SU x TOH [Hunter x Gem//Hybrid!Reader]

thank you for requesting, anon

These are written with a gender neutral reader in mind and have a general chronology from the reader’s last moments in little homeworld until they end up with Hunter, so apologies if this gets long!

Note : this is the first time I’ve written for the SU canon, so I’m not as experienced with that universe. Also my portrayal of these characters is still pretty rocky, so I may rework this in the future.

The first few months you spent in Little Homeworld had felt almost like a dream come to life; freedom to be yourself and explore a world full of organic life without the restrictions placed on you by the diamonds? It was fantastic! However, that feeling of unrestricted feeling soon started to grow stale as you realise that the growth of the small colony had already started to stagnate—and that not all humans were welcoming of intergalactic immigrants like your kind.

So to ease your mind you opted to take the warp to the next star system over—craving that same sense of excitement that you had during the gem war

Simply standing on the warp again was enough to get your blood pumping with a reignited vigour for exploration

A feeling so palpable that you failed to notice the array of spindly cracks that spanned the surface of the device, and the way that a sickly dull light pulsated beneath your feet (the sight accompanied by a warning hum far too low for you to notice)

Though you couldn’t ignore the way the warp didn’t immediately go off like usual, nor could you neglect the searing pain that spread through your veins and constricted your throat; leaving you in so much pain that you couldn’t even move or scream before your vision was engulfed in a glitching, sickeningly bright light

It must have been several hours later when you woke up, based on how high the sun was in the sky… was the sky that red before?

Your head was pounding and although your vision was blurry, yet you couldn’t ignore how different your surroundings were from the earth you were used to

The sky was a faint red and the ground beneath your feet was dusted with deep maroon grass—it was soft and warm under your fingertips but with how much organic matter there was you knew that this wasn’t a colony

Hell, you didn’t even arrive on a warp on this end, so either you had been transported to somewhere else because a malfunction (unusual, but likely) or someone had taken you from the receiving warp and dropped you off in the middle of a clearing (far less likely)

Suddenly struck with worry, you sat up and moved your clothes to get a good look at your gem, letting out a relieved sigh when you saw it undamaged (clearly you’d landed where you woke up as most organics would have tried to remove it from your body before dumping you)

Realising that you were mostly safe you slowly rose to your feet and decided to explore your new environment, hand hovering near your gem in case you needed to defend yourself from whatever creatures had made their home here—trying to make yourself appear as small, quiet and unnoticeable as possible as you went

However, your efforts seemed to be in vein as you were quickly greeted by an excitable and loud human girl who practically screamed her welcome to you

You were torn between fleeing and fighting her when she offered her hand and introduced herself as “Luz the human”, her demeanour quite closely mirroring what you’d heard about Steven when he was younger from his mothers—it was almost endearing how much she tried to hold in her joy at seeing another “human”. You almost didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth as she walked you back to her home.

You were accosted at the door by an organic tube with an owl’s face that quickly and gleefully introduced itself as Hooty—the creepy, but rather friendly, house demon

Luz made an effort to hastily brush him off and hurry you both inside where you met with the other two inhabitants of the home as well as Luz’s “awesome girlfriend”, Amity.

Eda, an older witch with grey hair that hardly suited her age, greeted you with muted suspicion, not even taking her eyes off of you as she addressed the human at your side—seemingly unsure of your motives but trusting herself to be stronger than you (if her grip on her staff was anything to go by)

King, however, was much more brazen and blatant in his distrust of you, stomping over and pointing an accusing claw up at you as he threatened you in every way he could muster (even if all that got him was a halfhearted coo from you that left the creature more frustrated and downtrodden than before)

The guest, Amity, meanwhile, looked over at you with disinterest before she caught a glimpse of your (colour) gem peeking out from your clothing—immediately pointing it out and questioning you about it, much to your chagrin

This inevitably led to a very long and semi-complicated conversation discussing the intricacies of your species and how, no, you’re technically not a human

No you weren’t trying to deceive Luz, either, you just felt too awkward to correct her

But when all was said and done (and you were all out of steam after a several hour session of intense questioning and frustration at miscommunications) they seemed much more relaxed around you—even willing to let you stay with them, at Luz’s request, so long as you pulled your weight around the house and helped to keep them safe

And, really, how hard could that be? You fought in an intergalactic war so taking out a few organics should be a piece of cake (as Steven would say)

After spending a few weeks in this strange new world you had come to realise one specific thing; it wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, the exact opposite.

If you had to bubble one more guard you were going to scream

What had they done to make this Emperor hate them so much?

It felt as though half of your time was spent bubbling, blocking or disabling people that had made their way to the Owl House—and the rest was spent painstakingly explaining your abilities and species to Amity, Lilith and Luz

Granted, that wasn’t the most stressful part of your stay

That was hands down the stresses that came with visits from Luz’s friends from Hexside: the endlessly kind and protective Willow and the ever-curious and annoyingly quick witted Gus

That being said, you did appreciate their enthusiasm to learn about and accommodate you—even if the look Willow gave you when you spoke about the empire’s treatment of organic life did leave you rather shaken

So what little free time you had was spent learning about the local culture and sharing your experiences with them

Training with Amity and Eda

Helping Willow with her plants in whatever way you can based on your gem

Creating gem clones to help Gus perfect his illusions even further

Teaching Lilith and Luz about your abilities as well as those of your fellow gems, even helping the latter learn to write using gem glyphs

It was heartwarming to see others so passionate about your home, even if their insistence on pushing you to your limits could be rather frustrating (especially early in the mornings when your patience ran thin)

However, the longer you spent there the more members of the Emperor’s Coven (amongst others) you ended up coming across. One particularly memorable instance occurred when you were escorting a fretting Amity through Bonesborough with the twins (who’s presence you had grown rather fond of as their visits became more frequent).

Ed had dragged Em back to the library a good few minutes ago, leaving you and Amity to your own decides as you weaved in and out of the foot traffic—only to stop completely when the youngest Blight suddenly froze before grabbing your hand and darting off to an adjacent alleyway

As you went to protest, she promptly clamped one hand over your mouth and gestured rather violently for you to stay quiet before nodding towards a figure just a bit away from you

From the golden mask and white cloak you knew they were a member of the Emperor’s Coven—but you’d seen them before, on the posters littered around the city, each exploring passersby to join their coven

Golden Guard

That was a definite threat

So you passed the girl a spare cloak and did what you could to mask your own appearance before carefully making your way back home, shopping be damned—one hand over your gem just in case he happened to notice you

Though thankfully he didn’t

Not that it stopped you from filing him away as someone to be wary of anyway; he was the emperor’s right hand man, after all, so there was no such thing as being “too cautious”

And for a while that’s exactly what it was, not that you saw much of him that is, but from what you’d been told about Luz and Amity’s run ins with him you were glad to have never seen him face-to-face. If you had, you were almost certain he wouldn’t come out unscathed—teenage protege or not.

So with all that in mind, the last that you were expecting to see on a relatively peaceful Saturday evening was the unmasked Golden Guard practically unconscious and leaning on Luz and Eda for support as they burst through the door

Completely ignoring Hooty as usual as they carefully laid him down on the seat beside you (after you’d hurriedly gotten up, that is)

He looked to be in an awful state, with his visible skin bloodied, bruised and scarred whilst his usually pristine uniform was tattered and caked in dirt and what seemed to be even more of his blood

Seeming to notice your distress, Eda briefly addressed you and her sister before sending you all off to gather supplies (or heal if your gem allowed it)

“The kid’s been through a lot, but he’s with us now. Trust me, I wouldn’t have carried him all this way if I had any doubts about it.”

And that was that

It took Hunter (as he introduced himself) over a week to even be able to get out of bed and walk around unassisted—and whilst he actively avoided speaking about what had happened to him, you had a feeling that Belos was somehow involved

Though things were still rather tense for a month or so after he arrived, no matter how hard Luz tried to integrate him (and no matter how polite and welcoming Willow and Gus tried to be)

And you didn’t even want to recall the shouting match that occurred when Amity saw him in the living room with Luz….

It seemed as though he was just more content to shut himself away with L’il Rascal and only interact with Luz and Eda; the former to learn from her and the latter because she wouldn’t let him get away with anything but

That wasn’t even mentioning the palpable tension between him and Lilith (she would only say that it was from their time in the coven—and Luz suspected he’d annoyed her a bit too much—but nothing else would come of it)

But the others were worried about him, so you were sent in as a neutral party to talk with him about… things. You weren’t really told what and you didn’t have the time to ask.

Initially he was incredibly closed off and would only address you briefly, barely even acknowledging your presence as he gave his full attention to the scattered papers on his desk, each depicting a different spell and each ever so slightly off

So, as gently as you could you took the quill from him and drew a simple glyph on a spare scalp of paper, carefully leading him through the motions before leaning back and activating the spell (and smiling at his much more openly interested expression)

That then sparked a deep conversation about different types of magic—specifically wild magic and glyphs—as you shared what you knew about the topic with one another, every so often breaking off into laughter or patient silence as he’d run across the room to show you his notes or books he’d found

Naturally this would lead to him asking you about where you came from and you discussing your origins with him

Homeworld

The Diamond Authority

The gem war

Colonies

Soldiers

Shattering

The Crystal Gems

Everything

He was incredibly easy to talk to as he listened with a genuine intensity to what you said, nodding along and even asking well thought out questions about your world where appropriate

Depending on how close you were, he may even ask to see your gem and ask about its purpose

If you let him touch it, he’d be so very gentle, almost treating you as though you were made of glass—maybe even sketching it down and noting down your abilities and weaknesses in his personal notebook and apologising if it was weird

This mutual interest in magic and your shared experiences of either having to conform to a specific role your whole life [full gem reader] or feeling out of place and weaker because of your shortcomings [half gem reader] would be the basis of your friendship turned relationship. The transition between the two would be so incredibly seamless and slow that you wouldn’t even notice it happening—one moment you two were best friends sparring and the next you were hiding your blushing face in his neck as he hugs you and apologises for hitting you a bit too hard with his magic.

Your relationship would be sweet and slow and genuine

Hunter is new to receiving any kind of affection, so you’d probably have to teach him a thing or two—but he’d learn quite quickly so don’t worry

He’d spend hours studying your culture and language just to write you notes or offer you affirmations in ways unique to your culture, even calling you “my (Y/n)” after a while

Likewise, the first time you called him “my Hunter” he was left red in the face for the rest of the day (he loved it, though, so don’t stop)

But the moment someone makes a teasing remark about how soft he’s gotten (usually one of the Blight siblings or his own younger sister figure, Luz), Hunter will partially revert to being cold in public (whilst still being affectionate and openly touch starved in private)

In short, your relationship with him would be built on a foundation of mutual trust, affection and understanding that sprouted from friendship and honest conversations about your passions and pasts

#reader insert #sleepingdeath hub #hcs #headcanons #steven universe #su #toh x su #the owl house #the owl house x reader #the owl house golden guard #the owl house hunter #toh #toh x reader #toh golden guard #toh hunter #hunter x reader #golden guard x reader

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yanderemechanicaldilfs · 3 years

Text

Welcome Aboard, Super Psycho. Pt. 4

Rodimus awoke from recharge to the sound of pounding ringing in his receptors. He groaned and threw his legs over his birth, tilting his head down to notice Executioners body still on the floor.

"Y/n..." He softly whispered, still quite dizzy from his awkaning. "I... Still... " Rodimus' body tilted to the right, softly creaking as metal was vent and pulled in his body. "Y/n..." He whispered again. His mind wandered off into his thoughts, trying to pull out who he had known that was named 'y/n'.

Executioner groaned as she rolled onto her back, showing she was out of recharge. She coughed and wheezed before sitting up, groaning in agony as her legs ached in pain.

She slowly looked up to Rodimus and a small happy icon appeared on her visor, showing she was happy.

'◡̈'

Rodimus laughed to himself, seeing the stupid happy face reflecting off of her visor. She carefully pulled herself onto his recharge bed and rested on it, letting her legs dangle from it.

Rodimus watched her with gentle optics and layed beside her, looking into her visor.

"I've missed you so much" he whispered.

"Me too... Roadie"

He softly chuckled and narrowed his optics. "You know I hate that nickname"

"But I love it" the femme responded.

Rodimus softly whispered under his breath, lifting his hand up to cradle her helm.

"Rodimus. Why did we part?"

"I don't know, but I'm glad we're together again"

"Dumbass and smartass, together forever?" Executioner asked, sitting up, a small questioned mark reflecting from her visor. '?'

Rodimus frowned then immediately smiled. "Dumbass and Smartass together forever"

"Good. Love you dumbass" she said, patting his knee before getting up and rushing out of the room.

Rodimus softly smiled and parted his dermas, he immediately frowned and widened his optics, realizing what she was saying to him.

"Wait, your the dumbass!"

"Sorry Dumbass!" The femme exclaimed, running down the hallway.

---

Red

The femme slowly strolled down the hallway, looking at every last thing she could examine. Her body stiffened when she heard the sudden sound of alarms blaring and red surrounding her.

Red

Redredredredredredredred

So much red, too much red.

---

Rodimus panicked as he searched for the feminine fried as he followed Ultra Magnus to the control room of the ship.

The red lights stung Rodmus' optics, the colors name say on his tongue in agony, something about the very color rang something in the back of his helm, the very color seemed to upset him.

Ultra Magnus noticed but ignored the fact, seeing there was more important matters to attend too.

---

A purple and black femme was unconscious on the floor beside a orange mech with glasses, he set her head on his lap in his office. He used a comunication link to let Rodimus know his friend was out cold due to a panic attack, this set Rodimus through a spiral of mixed emotions after hearing what had happened, but mostly who.

The therapist carefully set the femmes head on the floor and got up to get a pillow to cradle her head so he could lock the doors. Panic arose in him as the sound of screams and cries began ringing through the halls, this noise caused the femme to stir in her unwanted recharge, the sound of the screams awakening her.

She shot up in panic, venting heavily as she looked around, Althoughthe panic was gone she was stuck in a state of panic and shock. The therapist quickly approached the femme but stopped when she snapped her head at him, a familiar threatening look of the need to kill ripped through him as she dug her optics into his body.

The visor that covered her face glitched with the word 'run' and 'get help'. The therapist walked back in fear of the femmes threatening stature as she stood up, venting heavily and quietly panicking.

When a sudden heavy thud sounded outside the femme jumped snapped her helm over to the door. Silence ensued before multiple heavy stomps came hurtling down to the thud was.

Without any warning the metallic door busted down and a big blue hulking figure stood before both cybertronians, a wild grin holding his dermas in place.

The femme softly vented and took a step back, the wild grin grew what was thought was to impossibily bigger, but it continued to grow, inch by inch as he mover closer to the femme. Her heavy venting became harsh and wild as the mech came closer.

"Afraid? How cute, I love it when you're scared. Be careful, you might pass out like the last time we met" he chuckled harshly, moving slower to savor the moment.

Each movement and reaction she had to him made him growl and yearn for her, the fear that radiated off of her was addictive and flavorful.

Every inch closer it became harder and harder for the femme to vent and continue her movement. The times when he made her watch him torture and rip apart her crew members webbed it's way back to her memory's, intertwining with her sanity. Her movements violently shook as she remembered each and every detail, her poor crews suffering all for him to get a reaction out of her.

"You're remembering, aren't you?" The large mech licked his lips hungrily as he ate up every bit of emotion she showed. "Bullseye, how he cried out in anguish for you, promising he'd save you. Killshot, his squirming, he muffled his screams just for you, doing as little as he could to hurt you. Reaper, oh Reaper, he tried to mask the pain from you, but he just couldn't"

Executioner stood completely still in front of the larg mech as he taunted her, taking in every last word he said.

"How about our sparklings, hm? Do you miss them? I surely do"

Executioner grimaced as he spoke of the sparklings, the way said the sparklings were not only hers, but his sent a disgusting taste to run into her intake.

"They are my sparklings, not yours, never will be"

Rung could easily see the tension between them. The feeling of possessiveness rolled off of Overlords back like fat drip of sweat.

Rung peeked over to the door and saw Fortress Maximus bursting into the room and harshly punching Overlord in the back, causing him to tumble forward.

Executioner found herself to be stuck under Overlords weight when he stumbled and collapsed, he carefully picked himself up, keeping himself over executioner with out his arms, looking into her visor with desperation.

She was so close, but he was so far away from finally completing one of his life missions. Kill Megatron and get y/n. Her name, her true name. Her real name.

Her purred to himself as he thought about her very name, the one that haunted him, the memories he shared with Chromedome before his escape. Her name will forever haunt Chromedome like it did him. The repitition of her name echoed in his head and helped him push back Chromedome from learning to many things.

Overlord looked surprised when Fort Max's fists were then face to face with him and Rodimus was carrying her out the room. It was the same exact thing Megatron did, he carried her away from him, making sure it was his last time of seeing her for a long time.

The over sized mech cried out in anguish seeing he couldn't do too much in his weakened state, the sight of his femme, his very possession being carried away again haunted his very mind and spark.

By the time Overlord had been knocked unconscious he felt like giving up, knowing he was too weak to do anything to get what was his back, but a part of his wanted to continue, get back up, regain his strength and win back his little toy.

#Rung #Overlord #Fortress Maximus #various yandere mtmte x reader #yandere x reader #yandere mtmte x reader #mtmte rodimus #mtmte x reader

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frombeyondtheblackhole · 3 years

Text

Hermit DSMP Swap AU: Part 9

Foolish flinched. Qackity’s shouting stopped abruptly. It was warmer (Las Nevadas was surprisingly cold). Foolish slowly opened his eyes. An open grave stood at his feet. His heart jumped into his throat and he stumbled backwards, falling on his back. He stared dumbfounded as a bee flew out from the grave and landed on his knee for a moment before flying away. Quackity was nowhere to be seen.

His breathing slowed and he looked around. He was in a graveyard next to a church. Was he dead? Was this limbo? What had happened? He wasn’t supposed to die… but he had died before. But if he had died just now he still should have had his third life, he should have respawned… maybe he had. Maybe he was still alive… That made more sense. No, wait, he still had all of his stuff, if he had died his inventory should have been empty… Foolish held his head in his hands and stared at the ground.

“You ok there, friend?”

Foolish’s head snapped up. A man with neon green hair stood on the other side of the stone wall surrounding the graveyard. Foolish quickly picked himself up and brushed himself off. “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine… um- this may seem like an odd question, but, am I dead?”

The man laughed, “I don’t know, are you? I mean, I assume you're not dead, cause I’m not dead, unless you’re un-dead, if you know what I mean.”

Foolish let out a deep breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “Alright, I’m alive, i'm not dead,” He muttered, staring at the sky.

“You sure you’re fine?” The man asked again, putting air quotes around the ‘fine’. “Cause, you don’t seem fine…”

Foolish shook his head “No, really, don’t worry about me, I was just a bit disoriented, that’s all.”

The man pursed his lips and raised a brow “You asked me if you were dead… not if you had died. Which means you knew there was a chance you might get stuck in a respawn glitch. Have you been messing with server magic?”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.” Foolish scowled and crossed his arms looking down at the man. He wasn’t in his twenty-three foot form but even in this form he stood almost a foot taller than the other man.

The man shook his head “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just dangerous. I mean, I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I condemned people for messing with server magic.”

Foolish didn’t look impressed. “It’s only dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I mean, I guess.” The man said rubbing the back of his neck as he contemplated Foolish’s words “But no one is stupid enough to mess around long enough to get the practice...” He trailed off as he looked up to see Foolish looking at him with an incredulous look, “Oh.”

Foolish finally relented and his expression softened, “Maybe you're right, I mean, my name is Foolish after all,”

The man chuckled, “Maybe we're both a bit crazy. I’m Joe, Joe Hills. Nice to meet you,” He said, climbing over the low stone wall and reaching out his hand. Foolish smiled and shook it. Joe had a firm grip.

“So you said you have experience with server magic, what can you do?” Foolish asked as the two of them walked out of the graveyard and over to the church. This church was much nicer than church prime. As a builder Foolish could appreciate the detail put into the architecture.

Joe shrugged as he sat down on the steps and leaned back on his elbows looking up at the sky, “I can see better in the dark If I want to. Honestly, I don’t really mess with it much anymore.”

“Why not?” Foolish asked, leaning against the wall.

Joe shrugged but Foolish noticed his grip tighten into a ball. “It wasn’t worth it. A friend of mine got hurt and almost didn’t respawn. Actually, she should be around here somewhere, I wonder where she went?”

---

Cleo stood on a concrete road getting yelled at by an angry man with a scar through his left eye and a blue beanie.

“Who the fuck are you? What the fuck did you do to Foolish? Where is Foolish.”

“Aaa, Foolish is a Zombie!” another man wearing glasses and green suspenders yelled.

Cleo staggered backwards and summoned a sword from her inventory, “Who am I, what about who are you?”

“You better tell me, right fucking now, what the hell you did to Foolish or I’ll-”

“You’ll do what? Don’t try me, I’ll put this sword through your skull I will,” Cleo bluffed.

The man with the scar summoned an axe. “Charlie, go get Purpled, tell him we have an intruder in Las Nevadas.”

The man in green, presumably Charlie, looked at him perplexed “But, Quackity from Las Nevadas, why are we attacking Zombie Foolish?”

“Damn it Charlie, Just get Purpl-”

Cleo didn’t let him finish. A yell ripped from her lungs as she charged him, sword swinging. Quackity startled and blocked with the shaft of his axe. He shoved her off and she staggered back. Cleo dug her heels in swinging the sword like a club. There was a burst of pain, or more like cold (Pain felt different ever since the undeath) as his axe cut into her shoulder. But he was bleeding too. His axe returned to his inventory as he clutched his arm and staggered back. Cleo gripped her sword tighter, breathing hard, her eyes locked on him.

She felt the impact and another burst of cold as an arrow hit her in the chest. Her head snapped up, there was a kid in purple firing arrows from a crossbow as he ran towards them. He was wearing full netheriet.

Cleo turned and ran.

“Stop her, she fucking did something to Foolish!” Quackity shouted. She didn’t stop running as arrows landed about her feet. Down the road through a tunnel and past a stone fortress. Cleo scrambled off the road, over a hill. She could hear them still behind her. Dodging through the hills she was able to shake them by looping back around behind them as they continued on.

Once they were gone she slowed down. She touched a hand to her shoulder. It was throbbing with a dull ache and it felt cold, a deep cold like ice in her veins. She looked down. The arrow was still in her chest. She needed to do something about that.

She was back at the fortress. Cleo slid down the hill, climbing behind the wall and slumped against the stone. She gritted her teeth and pulled the arrow from her chest with a grunt, dropping it in the grass. A golden apple appeared in her hand and she took a bite, the juice tingling in her mouth as the regen and absorption began to take effect.

The throbbing eased a little and the wounds began to close. She looked up and froze. An enderman stared back at her with mismatched eyes. No wait, not an enderman, at least not quite. Half of his face was white.

“Hey Tubbo, I think I found out what Quackity was shouting about.” The half-enderman kid called over his shoulder.

Cleo staggered to her feet, her sword out. “I won't hesitate to-”

The half-enderman backed up and raised his empty hands “Oh no, we're not with Quackity,” He explained.

Cleo scowled but lowered her sword. “Well isn’t that lovely, someone who doesn’t want to stab me.”

He looked alarmed, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that- I mean, I definitely don’t want to do that.” Now that she got a better look at him he looked kind of young, he was tall but in the lanky teenager kind of way. He looked to be 18 or 19, maybe 17. His suit probably made him look older.

“Oh hey, so what was Big Q so mad about?” Another kid said as he came around the building. He stopped short when he saw Cleo. “Oh…” He was much shorter than the ender-kid. Two horns curled up out of his brown hair and almost every inch of exposed skin was covered in burn scars. Cleo let her sword return to her inventory.

“Big man, why is there a funny looking zombie in our base?” the goat kid said

Cleo bristled, “I’m still a person, thank you.��

The goat kid looked back at Cleo “Ooooh- oops.”

“Now look what you’ve done, you’ve gone and insulted her.”

“I didn’t meeean to, how was I supposed to know?” The goat kid wined.

The two bickered like a married couple. Cleo coughed “Um- would either of you two be able to explain what is going on,”

“Haven’t got a fucking clue,” The goat kid chirped, a little to cheerfully.

Cleo pursed her lips, “Well, could you at least tell me where I am?”

“Um… The road between Las Nevadas and Spawn. Or do you mean here-here. This is our cookie shop.” The ender-kid explained.

Cleo blinked.

“I think she means the server big man,” The goat kid said, “This is the Dream SMP.”

Cleo blinked again. So not Hermitcraft. Shit.

---

The goat kid introduced himself as Tubbo and the ender-kid as Ranboo. Cleo explained what had happened, which made Tubbo laugh. It turned out that the cookie outpost and Las Nevadas were in conflict and Tubbo liked the idea of doing something that would, in his words “Piss off Big Q.”

Cleo tried to return to Hermitcraft but was met with an error message. Tubbo and Ranboo offered to let her stay in Snowchester till she figured things out. They had no idea how she got there but they didn’t seem too concerned about it.

Snowchester was surprisingly far away from what the kids were calling a cookie shop. To Cleo it looked suspiciously like a military outpost but who was she to judge?

Snowchester was a quaint little walled in town, overlooked by a massive mansion worthy of any Hermitcraft base. There was a tower, docs, and a little wheat field mixed in with little log and stone houses. The air was crisp and cold, light snow fell around them landing on her hair and bare arms. Untouched snow coated the steps to most of the houses and closely shuttered windows looked back at her. The ocean lapped against the shore and the sound of a boat bumping against the pier carried up through the town. A single seagull landed on a stone wall. It looked at Cleo and cawed.

Ranboo and Tubbo lead Cleo around a strangely industrial building on a hill in the middle of the town with “Danger, keep out” signs on the doors.

“So what’s in there,” Cleo asked, nodding towards the industrial building.

Ranboo raised his brows and looked at Tubbo. Tubbo pursed his lips “Oh nothing much, that’s just where we do equipment testing. You’re not allowed in there,” he added. There was finality to his tone. Cleo wondered what he was hiding and if it was worth snooping around to find out, but there was a dark conviction in the way that the kid with too many scars said it. The way the ender-kid hovered at his side anxiously watching everything. Maybe she should be careful not to make more enemies.

They lead her to a little house behind the industrial building. “This used to be Foolish’s but he moved out so you can stay here for now,” Tubbo explained opening the door and letting them inside.

“Foolish… the guy who Quackity thinks I kidnaped? You’re giving me his house?” Cleo scoffed looking around. A square table and chairs stood off to one side, a counter with a furnace and cabinets lined the back wall and a cactus in a pot sat by the front door.

“Well, it’s not really his house anymore, he hasn’t lived here for months,” Tubbo shrugged.

Cleo sighed, “So long as he won’t mind. Goodness this whole situation is a mess.”

Ranboo gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Welp,” Tubbo clapped his hands. “We’ll let you get settled in. Just don’t go snooping around in people’s homes, we are pretty private people here.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Cleo said absently, still looking around the room.

Tubbo and Ranboo left, closing the door behind them.

There was a silence and then Cleo jumped at the sound of someone drinking milk. She spun around summoning her sword, freezing as the invisibility melted away to reveal Etho standing in the corner.

“Finally, I thought they were never going to leave,” Etho muttered.

“Etho! What are you doing here?” Cleo bristled.

Etho looked sheepishly off to the side as he rubbed the back of his head. “We’ll, I might have been following you. If you mean here on this server, we don’t really know. Oh yeah, TFC’s here too. We’ve been stuck on this server for about two weeks now. Least, I’ve been, TFC showed up about a week ago.”

“So wait, You're telling me you have been stuck on this server for two weeks?”

Etho nodded “Yup. Come on let's get out of here before they come back. We can talk at my secret base.”

Cleo pulled away “Wait, wait. Why? Why were you sneaking around? Why are we avoiding those kids? I would like a good reason before I turn down their hospitality.”

“This server isn’t what it seems to be. It’s seriously glitched out. Haven’t you noticed how many scars everyone has here, how many hybrids there are.”

Now that Cleo thought about it, even the ender-kid, Ranboo, had scars that looked like tears running down his face. Scars only happened when there was a glitch during respawn so they were pretty rare, the fact that three of the five people she had seen so far had obvious scars was concerning, especially with how bad the scars on that Tubbo kid were. On top of that, Quackity looked like he might be some kind of bird hybrid, with small golden wings, while Tubbo was a goat and Cleo had no idea what Ranboo really was. Hybrids were the result of pretty strong server glitches, and from what Etho was saying those guys weren’t the only ones.

“So the server is glitchy, that doesn't make them bad people,”

“There are places on this server that have been blown up all the way down to bedrock. Those kids who seemed so nice, they have nukes in that building right outside. There is a prison that everyone here is terrified of, seemingly for good reason. The Warden that guards it almost killed me while chasing me and TFC away, and said something about hunting us down and killing us till we were completely dead.”

Cleo blanched “Completely dead… like, they have a way of reliably preventing respawning here.” She remembered what it felt like being stuck in the void unable to respawn. For Joe it had only been a couple of minutes, for her it had felt like hours.

“I don’t know,” Etho shrugged. “I just think it would be best if we all kept a low profile till we can find a way out of here.”

“I… I trust you, Etho. But I don’t want to leave without letting those kids know that I won’t be staying here. They seem like nice kids, I’d rather not just disappear on them.”

Etho hesitated, then nodded “Alright, Just be careful, and take this,” He said handing her two invis pots. “You can find me in the sewers under their shopping district, there is a community center in the middle of a lake, the entrance to the tunnels is underneath it.”

Cleo took the potions and smiled reassuringly, “Don’t worry, I got this. I’ll be fiiine.”

“Ok,” Etho nodded and pulled his facemask down. He drank an invis potion before leaving the building.

Cleo sighed. Perma-death hum, would that even work on her? Seeing as she already kinda died before. She didn’t want to have to find out.

#hermitcraft dsmp swap au #dsmp #dream smp #hermitcraft #dsmp au #dream smp au #hermitcraft au #hc x dsmp au #foolish gamers #joe hills #zombie cleo #quackity #tubbo #ranboo #charlie slimecicle #purpled #etho #tfc #warden sam

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kireijae · 3 years

Text

fearless — n.jm x reader

summary: you start a new job at your favourite local bookstore in seoul, however no one cared to inform you of the very pretty delivery guy who comes once a week.

genre: twist (ig?) on a bookstore!au, nonidol!au, fluff, angst, some crack too

warnings: swearing, detailed descriptions of food and eating, edited but not very well, i cried while writing it (if i forgot any or you want me to add specific ones, send an ask or message me!)

words: 6k

a.n: i worked so hard on this oh my goodness it was like giving birth dkfjdsfnsd. but really i love this one a lot so i hope you all enjoy it because i did my best to do the story i had in my head justice. also! let me know what you thought of it!

m.list

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

The streets were quiet as you walked to the bookstore. Your bag was heavy in your hand and the sun danced around you, creating a blinding sort of glow on the pavement beneath your feet. You passed modern coffee shops and tall skyscrapers alike, buildings becoming more and more modern the longer you walked. All right angles, smooth surfaces and tinted windows glinting in the morning sun. It was only your second day on the job, but the route was already familiar to you, after having visited the bookstore quite often over the few years you’d been living in the city.

The tingling sounds of the old bell above the door fell around you like snowflakes as you stepped inside. It was quite literally like stepping into another realm. The floor was paved with stone tiles, little shoots of green peaking up between them here and there. The glass walls were lined with creepers and bookshelves alike and the glass roof allowed for the rays of sunlight to poke through the trees’ branches above.

Your eyes were pulled to Jisoo after her voice called to you from behind the cash register. “Good morning!” she said, eyes bright and her voice chipper.

She gave you a short list of things to do before opening the store while she did some admin in the back room. You rearranged bookshelves, tidied the seating area in the centre of the room, fluffing up the old embroidered cushions and wiping the coffee stain off the old wooden table. Once you heard the old clock near the counter sing its tune to signal the hour, you walked over to the door to flip the sign that hung there.

The day went by slowly, with barely any customers walking through the doors. You were half asleep at the register when you heard the bell at the door ring and you sat up from your crunched up position on the old stool. You blinked a few times in an attempt to wake yourself up completely, but your eyes widened when they focused on the person at the door.

You nearly thought it was a scene out of a drama. He walked in, and you swore you saw a curl of wind rush past him and fuss with his hair. Everything around him went out of focus — all your attention honed in on him. He had a white t-shirt on with a loose, light blue button up draped over his shoulders. His hair had to have been dyed, with the depth of the black that coated the strands, but it was still glimmering nonetheless.

You were paying attention to everything he did as he walked towards you, so luckily for you, you caught his words even through your haze.

“Hey, are you new here?” you finally noticed that he held a big cardboard box in his arms, fingers curled around the front, with the bottom of it resting on his forearms.

You opened your mouth to answer, but before any sort of sound could pour out, Jisoo came out from the back room. You were grateful for the interruption, seeing as you weren’t sure you could function correctly just then.

“This is only her second day, Jaemin,” she said, throwing him a knowing glance from the corner of her eye and taking the box from him, “don’t scare her off.”

“Now how would I ever scare someone off?” he leaned on the end of the counter, eyes following Jisoo’s form into the back room again.

The arm that wasn’t leaning on the dark wooden counter was hanging limply from his shoulder, his whole body conveying defeat from the forward curve of his spine to the slack of his jaw.

“You nearly knocked over an entire shelf of books on your first delivery here,” yelled Jisoo, still from the back room.

“I was nervous!” he straightened his posture, his hand now flat in front of you and his arm outstretched, “Anyways I better get going.”

He looked at you as he said it and you noticed the way the glint in his eyes seemed to dance and swirl around until he completely focused on you.

“I’m Y/n, by the way,” you forced an arm out along with your words.

He took your hand gently and squeezed it, “I’m Jaemin. I don’t think I’ve ever shaken someone’s hand before. At least not someone my age.”

His tone seemed sincere, not teasing or judgemental — purely observational. He threw you a smile before walking out the door again. His light blue shirt billowing behind him when he opened the door.

“Don’t mind him,” Jisoo said, walking out into the store again with a pile of books in her hands, “he’s insanely annoying, but honestly it’s either him or the old guy who smells like mould. That smell hangs around even after he’s gone.”

Jaemin came back a few days later, no box in his arms this time and a black hoodie on his frame. He usually came once every week with a box in hand and his bright smile stretched out on his face. Some days he was there and gone within the blink of an eye and other days he hovered around the store, gabbering about anything and everything. Sometimes he came into the shop empty handed: no box full of books to deliver. Jisoo seemed surprised the first time it happened, pulling a face akin to one a girl looking at her brother who just barged into her room unannounced would wear. She said nothing of it, however, so neither did you.

One night at 9pm when you were left alone to close the store, he came rushing down the road in his company van and stumbled out onto the concrete. His hair was already messed up before the wind hit it, most likely from his running his hands through it as he so often did.

‘How does it still look so soft?’

“Please tell me I’m not too late?” he said when he was close enough to not have to yell over the wind.

“Hm?” you widened your eyes and leaned your head forward, trying to get yourself to pay attention to his words instead of the glow of his skin under the streetlights.

“If I have to take another delivery back because I missed it Mr. Yoo might kill me,” he said, his eyes held a plea in them.

“Oh,” you turned back, fiddling for the key in your bag, “Sure let me just open up again.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said, setting the box down on the counter after refusing to let you carry it into the store.

“I opened a door Jaemin,” you said, scoffing at him from the door, “it’s nothing. Plus, it’s worth it if it means your boss won’t kill you— What are you doing?”

“I’m helping,” he was faced away from you, hands working at (aggressively) opening the package.

You huffed and set your bag down next to you before walking over to him. You peered over his shoulder, catching a whiff of his cologne. It smelled fresh but sweet. He’d already taken half the books out and piled them on the counter and one or two had fallen down onto the lower half that formed the desk at which you’d fallen asleep at least five times that week.

“You actually just look like you’re making a mess, Jaem,” you pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth and looked up at him through your eyelashes.

He tried his best not to let the shy smile slither onto his face, “Then tell me where to put them.”

He turned around, obviously underestimating your proximity. You were only about five centimeters away from him — at most. He could count your eyelashes if he wanted to, and goodness knows he was tempted to. Anything to be able to look at you for a little longer.

Your heart beat sporadically in your chest, his energy making your system go haywire. You reached behind him to grab one of the books and pulled it towards your chest.

“You don’t have to help. I can do it myself,” you couldn’t find it in yourself to move, you hoped it looked like you were standing your ground and not like you were stuck in your place from the shock of being so close to him.

“I want to,” you swore his eyes glitched — or yours did — because you saw him steal a glance at your lips.

You turned around swiftly before you could think about it anymore, “Alright, it’s organised by genre but these are all just restocks so you can take a few of these to the back.”

It took less time than you thought to pack everything away and enter the stock on the system, nearly half the time it usually took you by yourself. Jaemin was a lot more helpful than you thought he would, and he was a lot stronger than he looked, too.

“Do you want a ride home?” came his voice from behind you as he reached over you to put the last book on a shelf.

“Uh, I’ll be fine by myself,” you said, walking away from the shelf to get your bag again and sling it over your shoulder.

“I need to say thanks for taking the delivery, though,” his hands were back in the pockets of his black skinny jeans. His gaze floated over to you, the bottom lid of his eyes slightly swollen with sincerity.

“You already helped me put the books away, you’ve done more than enough—”

“But, I did make you stay late. And the city’s not safe at this hour.”

You sighed in defeat and readjusted your bag. You did hate walking at night and you’d been on your feet most of the day, so perhaps it wasn’t the worst idea to accept the lift home.

He grinned when you accepted and led you over to the van and you tried not to make a comment about getting into a van with a stranger.

You’d been driving for about ten minutes when you signalled for Jaemin to pull over in front of your apartment building. You reached for the door handle to let yourself out of the car once it came to a stop, but before you could, a hand caught your upper arm.

“Y/n…” he trailed off, eyes on the bend of your elbow.

You waited a moment, “Jaemin?”

And when he didn’t answer, you waved a hand in front of his face.

“Hmm? Oh,” he blinked out of his state and looked at you once again, “Uh, never mind.”

Your brows gathered like the ruffles on a dress but you gave him a moment before he let go of your arm, “You’ve been watching too many dramas, Jaemin. What were you going to say?”

He seemed taken aback at first, your directness not something he had anticipated. But then he smiled.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out sometime,” his shyness was almost gone now, your honesty pulling it away from him.

“And? Do you still want to?”

“Yes.”

Your calm façade faltered when he handed you his phone and told you to put your number in it. His fingers brushed yours and you nearly shivered from the contact. However, you managed to hide it during your swift turn away from him.

He texted you as soon as you got into your apartment. You sat in bed for hours, hands grasping your phone. You only needed to wait a few seconds at a time for his replies. Your body hurt from being pushed into the mattress in such an awkward position, but you barely noticed it. Until it reached 3am that is. You had to force yourself to stop replying after the third time you’d sent a “goodnight, i’m actually leaving this time” text. You lay there for a while before you drifted off, thoughts of Jaemin floating through your mind.

Waking up the next morning was one of the hardest things you’d done in a while. Your eyelids felt puffy — you could feel them around your eyeballs everytime you blinked — and your neck hurt from being held up to look at your phone all night. The only reason you wound up going into work was because of one of Jaemin’s texts from last night:

“I’ll come by the bookshop after work sometime this week and we can have that date.”

“I mean hang out*! Unless you’re okay with it being a date? Bc I’d like that.”

—

None of the drinks in the convenience store looked like the one you wanted, or even close to it. Green, orange and yellow bottles lined the refrigerated shelves and you had no interest in any of them. You’d been standing at the back of the store in front of the refrigerators for a few minutes too long and at this point it was probably getting strange for the cashier. If they were even looking, that is. You realised in your short time in the retail industry that the cashiers are never looking at the customers. Most of the time they were zoned out, or on their phones and not watching the customer’s every move, though it still felt like it. You faintly heard the door swing open, but your eyes remained glued to the drinks on the other side of the glass, and your thoughts most definitely not on your surroundings.

Jaemin hadn’t been to the store in three days and he hadn’t texted you since yesterday. As much as you hated to admit it, that boy had got into your head and so, too, had insecurity. Though your rational mind tried to explain the number of reasons he hadn’t been able to come, your irrational mind seemed to be winning in thinking that he was tired of you. It was absurd that you were having this crisis in the middle of the juice aisle of a 7 Eleven at 10pm and you knew it. You also knew he probably had a busy day at work, he’d even told you last week how busy Wednesdays were for some reason, in fact he’d complained for almost ten minutes while you sat staring at the fluffy ends of his hair. But what could you have done to drive him away? Maybe it was the staring…

“This is getting painful.”

And now you were hearing his voice everywhere. It really was time for you to go home. Take a nap. Maybe it was exhaustion talking. After all, you had stayed up late talking to him last night and you had to get up extra early because you were the one opening the shop.

“Just take the pineapple one.” No, that had to be Jaemin.

You whipped around then when the realisation hit you, however, you still stumbled back a bit when you saw it was his figure standing behind you in the aisle.

“What?” Your brain was still cloudy from all the thoughts swirling around it previously, though they’d completely disappeared now that Jaemin was within your line of sight.

“Take the pineapple soda,” he said again, a giant, perfect smile on his face.

“I don’t like pineapple,” you said, gears in your head finally working again, “I was looking for—”

“Please don’t say strawberry,” he hung his shoulders when he saw the sly grin that crept its way onto your face. “Why does everyone love strawberry so much? It tastes like medicine.”

He took you by the hand and pulled you towards the door, passing the very much unconscious cashier on the way out.

“Where are you taking me to?” Your hand was limp in his, you didn’t have the confidence quite yet to be able to grip his hand back.

“That place never has strawberry soda, I’m taking you somewhere that does,” he didn’t let go of your hand for a second.

You watched him as he walked slightly ahead of you, his hair bouncing as he walked. He was wearing a ring, though you couldn’t see exactly what it was in the streetlights’ glow. It was cold against your skin despite his own skin being warm as well.

You walked for a few minutes before Jaemin’s head suddenly perked up like a puppy who’d heard its name being called.

“Do you hear music?” he asked, whipping his head around in an attempt to find where the waves of music were coming from.

“It must be from the park down that way,” you pointed past Jaemin, to the road on your right.

Jaemin grinned and pulled you with him down the empty road. The park came into view and you saw what seemed to be the remains of a festival. People were littered around the centre of the park, surrounded by cherry blossom trees. Some were gazing up at the sparkling lights tangled among the branches, and others were dancing to the music playing.

Jaemin’s grin widened and he turned to you with bright eyes and a pleading expression on his face.

“I thought we were getting soda,” you said, with a smile on your face that told him there was no way you could say ’no.’

“Just ten minutes?” Jaemin bit his bottom lip in excitement as soon as he finished his sentence, he already knew your answer.

“Fine.”

By the time you got the word out, he was already pulling you after him to the row of trees.

Once you were on the path, beautiful trees surrounding you, Jaemin slowed down and craned his neck to look up. He squeezed your hand in order to get you to look up at the trees as well. Clouds of pink petals collected around the branches, and the lights shone like stars among them. The music and faint sound of cars filled your ears and the smell of freshly cooked food floated through the air.

“I’ve never been to one of these festivals at night,” you said, turning your head to the side to look at him instead.

Your words tore his eyes away from the view above, “Really?”

You nodded your head simply and the two of you continued walking in comfortable silence. Every now and then, drops of water fell from the trees above you like rain from the clouds, most likely from the rain that had run through the city earlier in the day. The music floated around your head, it was a song you didn’t remember the name of but the beat was familiar and it caused you to nod your head to the tune. Jaemin sensed the nodding of your head and did his best to hide his smile by looking down at the paved ground below him.

His gaze was brought back to you, though, when he heard a light giggle. Jaemin’s eyes followed your line of sight and found that you were looking at two kids dancing to the music. They bounced about with no sense of the rhythm of the music, giant smiles on their faces. He felt as though he was in the ending shot of a drama, a freeze frame centred on the main character, the background out of focus and the edges of the screen twinkling. Jaemin wanted so desperately to ask you to dance. Right there. In the middle of the park. And he considered doing it, too.

Just then, your smile widened as the two children began twirling aimlessly and Jaemin couldn’t stop himself from speaking his next words, “Did you want to da-“

Luckily for him, the rain was able to stop him when it suddenly came pouring down. Both of you stood frozen for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, until you started pulling Jaemin back the way you came.

“How far is the store you wanted to go to?” you asked when Jaemin furrowed his brows at you.

“Oh, right,” he said, grabbing your hand tighter and walking in front of you, “It’s just around the corner.”

Eventually he stopped the two of you in front of a frozen yoghurt shop. It was devoid of people except for the cashier, who you could barely make out the silhouette of in the neon lights.

He pulled you in through the glass door and pointed over to the drinks glistening in the lights. The whole shop was cold, making you put your hands on your upper arms to preserve heat. You took one of the many strawberry flavoured sodas off the shelf, but you shivered at the even cooler temperature inside the refrigerator. You stood there for a few seconds, thinking before grabbing a pineapple soda from the bottom shelf and turning around to head towards the cashier.

Jaemin was already sat at one of the white tables, facing away from you. The black material of his jacket hugged him comfortably, his body nearly drowning in the fabric. It made you want to wrap your arms around him, whether it was simply to get warmth or if it was to get to hold Jaemin, you weren’t sure.

You yanked your eyes away from him and went over to the cashier, setting the two bottles down on the counter.

“You don’t have to pay,” he said from his place on a stool near the cash register. He didn’t even look up from the phone in his hands, “It’s on the house.”

You jerked your head away in surprise, “Excuse me?”

“Really, you don’t have to pay for it” Jaemin’s voice came up behind you, “that’s my cousin, he’s trying to get fired.”

You looked back and forth between the two for a second, only just seeing the resemblance.

“What? Why?” you ask, not sure who to direct the question to, but that problem was solved when the boy sitting behind the register put AirPods in his ears.

“My aunt will kill him if he quits another job,” Jaemin snickered, “He’s quit five in the last four months.”

You walked over to Jaemin as he spoke and you noticed two cups of frozen yoghurt on the table.

“That has to be a record,” you sat down and Jaemin pushed one of the cups over to you. There was a curl of lilac coloured frozen yoghurt peeking out the top of the cup.

He chuckled, “Yeah, his mom completely cussed him out. But I’ve met the manager of this place and I would want to quit too if I were him.”

It was silent for a few seconds as you dipped the plastic spoon into the swirl of frozen yoghurt and hummed.

“You just don’t like him, because he stocks strawberry flavoured soda,” you spoke around your growing smirk before opening the can and taking a sip from said soda.

“Hey, at least I’m not the one mixing soda with frozen yoghurt,” he said, pointing to the aforementioned drink with a stern look in his eyes.

You narrowed your eyes at him, seeing through his judgemental facade, “You’ve never tried it have you?” His gaze melted into one of rather tense curiosity at your actions as you raised a spoonful of the frozen yoghurt to your mouth.

“No, doesn’t it feel weird?” he watched you with his confusion pulling on his brows.

“That’s the whole point,” you said, before following the spoon of yoghurt with a sip of soda again.

He quickly scooped some frozen yoghurt from the quickly diminishing supply into his mouth and then looked at you expectantly after swallowing, “So it’s like a chaser?”

You let out a giggle, “I mean kinda, yeah. Try it, but keep the soda in your mouth for a little.”

He reached out, took his soda into his right hand, and after opening it and giving it a curious look, he drank from it. His eyes widened at the pleasant sensation of fizzing and bubbling in his mouth and he pulled his lips together as if sucking from a straw. You laughed loudly at his animated reaction and tried to hold back the ‘I told you so’ that threatened to spill past your lips.

“Wow,” his mouth widened, his jaw comically lopsided, and held the can of soda out in front of him, looking at it as if it had just spoken to him. He then looked up at you, his expression turning back into confusion, “Why are you laughing?!”

“I’ve shown this to so many people, but they’ve never reacted like you just did,” you put a hand in front of your mouth as you continued to heave out giggles.

Jaemin’s features softened as he watched your eyes and nose crinkle from your laughter. A smile etched itself onto his own face at the sight and sound of you laughing at him. Your cheeks were jutting out to make room for your smile and he was sure your laugh was the best sound he’d ever heard. He was glad he could make you laugh so hard. Glad that he had any positive effect on you at all, really.

While the two of you continued talking, the sky outside emptied itself of rain until it had none left. The sound of rain clattering to the ground outside was replaced with only the occasional drip from the roof. However, neither you nor Jaemin would admit that you’d noticed it, instead opting to stay in the bubble your laughter and conversation had made around you. That was, until a set of keys was hurtled towards Jaemin, who very nearly caught them. They landed on the floor behind him and he twisted around to pick them up.

“What the hell?” said Jaemin, throwing his words at his cousin who had just woken up.

“When you’re done, lock up for me will you?” he said as he picked up a backpack from behind the counter, “But don’t stay too long, Jaemin, if you keep looking at them like that I’m pretty sure your eyes will turn heart shaped.”

Jaemin scoffed, watching his cousin disappear out the back entrance without another word, leaving only the lights above the refrigerators on.

“Alright let’s go,” he stood up and held his hand out for you to take and you couldn’t help the shy smile that pushed its way onto your face.

After locking up, the two of you began wandering the streets of Seoul, with no particular destination in mind. Jaemin kept your hand in his as you walked. The rain had stopped, but it had left blotches of water for you to dodge everywhere you went.

The boy next to you had become completely silent, the only sounds he made being occasional hums as you spoke. So eventually, you decided to let the sounds of the city enter the space between you instead of trying to fill it with your words.

You made your way to your apartment, Jaemin still by your side. When the two of you stopped in front of your building you had the urge to lean closer to him, to close your eyes and let your lips meld together in a kiss. You wanted to be as close to him as you could in that moment, but when he only gave you a rushed ‘goodnight’ and turned away, your hopes sunk down to the floor of your heart. As you watched him walk away, you felt coldness set in for the first time since you’d met him.

—

Three days after your date with Jaemin, an old man walked into the bookstore with a delivery box in his arms. You went around the counter to take the box from him and sign for the package, frowning all the while. The man left without saying a word, but when he turned around, you caught sight of what must have been a chewed piece of gum behind his ear. Your shoulders jostled in disgust as soon as he was out of sight.

A moment later, Jisoo appeared from the backroom. “Was that Jaemin?”

“No,” you said blankly before looking up from the box you’d just cut open, “but I have met the mold guy now, and you’re right. The smell does hang around after he’s gone.”

“Jaemin better be dying,” she said, going around the counter to start entering the stock on the computer, “or I'll kill him myself for staying home.”

“I don’t think he stayed home,” your shoulders slumped as you said it, “He probably changed his shifts.”

Jisoo hummed in confusion, signalling for you to elaborate. Her eyes were still on the screen but her face was aimed towards you.

“He hasn’t talked to me since we went on that date,” you huffed, placing your hands on your hips. Lifting books all the time still hadn’t become any easier since you‘d started this job. You had, however, learned to appreciate air conditioning after the one day it didn’t work and you were reminded why no one else had turned a greenhouse into a store of some kind.

That pulled Jisoo’s eyes away from the screen, “You went on a what? And he didn’t—? Okay, no, fill me in,” she leaned her forearms on the counter.

“Well, he asked me on a date that night that he made that late delivery, then didn’t specify a day or time and then found me in a convenience store and whisked me away on a really, really lovely date and then he didn’t call or text and now he’s most likely changed shifts because he hates me,” you took a sharp breath in at the end of your rambling.

“That doesn’t sound like something Jaemin would do,” she said, “I mean the last part, the late delivery and suddenly taking you on a date sounds just like him.” She paused for a moment, eyes cast down as she thought, “Have you tried texting him?”

“Of course I have.”

“And?”

“Delivered,” you deadpanned.

The bell on the door rang behind you and you rounded the counter to take over from Jisoo while she asked the customer if they needed any help. Before she left your side though, she sent you a sad, close-mouthed smile and squeezed your arm.

That night, as soon as you’d changed into comfortable clothing and sat on your sofa to watch reruns of an old show, you picked up your phone and wandered over to your chat with Jaemin absent mindedly. As you opened it, you felt a slight pinch in your heart. Maybe being left on delivered was better.

—

You held a bucket above the lamp in the centre of the room, the plop from the drops of water entering it being washed away under the sound of the rain outside the store. You were in the process of trying to place the pile of books you had in your hand onto the table without letting the drops of water get on the lamp, when you heard the sound of the bell ringing above the door.

It had been a while — maybe almost two weeks — since you’d last seen Jaemin; since you’d last talked to him. But now he pushed his way into the shop, bringing with him a whirlwind of the weather outside.

You looked over to his form in the doorway: a box littered with giant dark spots in his hands and his hair nearly dripping from the rain despite the hood of his sopping yellow raincoat framing his face.

When he caught sight of you, your arms holding books and buckets alike and struggling with both of them, he set the box down on the ground near a bookshelf and rushed over to take the pile of books from you. He set them on the old couch and helped you move the heavy lamp in order to put the bucket in its place to catch the water.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, keeping your eyes away from him.

“No problem,” he said, putting his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.

‘He has no business looking that pretty.’

“I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while…”

You scoffed immediately, “You haven’t answered my texts in a while either.”

“I’m sorry about that too,” you can’t tell if he’s avoiding your eyes because he’s ashamed, or because he’s lying.

“Well, at least you don’t have to apologise for not reading them, because you most certainly did that,” you nearly felt bad as the words sprang out of your mouth, nearly.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” his voice was weak, so were his words.

On hearing the words drop from his lips, your anger rose like a wave at high tide.

“Oh really? Then what exactly did you mean to do, Jaemin? Because, taking someone out on a date — which, by the way, was the best date I’ve ever been on — and then leaving them outside their apartment with barely a ‘goodbye,’ and not calling or texting for a week doesn’t sound like you’re trying very hard not to hurt someone.” You took a breath, before muttering, “Not to mention the fact that you switched your shift just to avoid me.”

“Fuck, I know, okay? I’m so sorry,” he looked up at you then, eyes shining with sadness, the excited glow diminished to barely a flicker, “I know I was an asshole. It was the best night I’ve ever had and I was an idiot not to hold on to you and I’m incredibly sorry. If I could rewind and do it the right way I would.”

“Then why’d you do it, Jaem?” his shoulders slumped at the change in your voice, you were holding back tears and you’d grown so small in front of him. His arms nearly wound themselves around you of their own accord.

“Honestly?” he took a moment to collect his thoughts and arrange them into words, “I was scared. It sounds insanely cheesy and like it comes from a Taylor Swift song or something, but the way you made me feel was terrifying.”

“Great, thanks, you really know how to make someone feel better,” You rolled your eyes, a tear falling down your warm cheek in the process.

He didn’t have time to stop the airy laugh that escaped him, “I felt fearless. You made me feel like there was nothing in the world that could stop me, as long as I was with you.”

You wanted to hate him, wanted to yell that that was bullshit. You wanted to push him out the door and into the rain yourself. But, you couldn’t. You knew he was being sincere. You knew it, because that was exactly how you’d felt and it had scared you, too.

“So you ghosted me completely? Because that doesn’t sound so ‘fearless’ to me,” you tried to keep your resolve until you got the answer you needed.

“Like I said, I was an idiot. It was stupid of me to try to get rid of someone who made me feel like that. I just — I’ve fallen for you so hard and so fast that it scared me, because by the end of the night I knew I wasn’t going to stop falling any time soon, I still haven’t. And then what if I lost you? What if I did something wrong and made you hate me?” he sighed, reigning in his thoughts and emotions, “So, I ran before I could fall anymore. I tried to minimise the pain before it even started.”

“So then, why are you here now?”

“This past week has felt like the place you go to if you’re too shitty even for hell,” he took a small step towards you, “I’ve already fallen way too hard to turn back. And plus, Jisoo called me and told me you were genuinely really upset and well, there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you. So, even if it means possibly getting my heart shattered by you in the future, I’d gladly do anything to make you happy.”

“Jae—”

“Oh and Jisoo said she’d get me fired if I didn’t at least explain myself and I really need the money so— Ow!” He rubbed the spot on his bicep where you’d pinched him. He still held a smile on his face from his own joke.

He was probably the happiest you’d seen someone who’d just been pinched, and suddenly, you couldn’t hide your own smile.

“Will you forgive me then? Or at least let me make it up to you?”

“Depends on how you plan to make it up to me,” gathering yourself, you turned around to enter the back room Jisoo was always hiding in, Jaemin following you close behind.

“What about a date? I’m on my lunch break right now and I just saw this—”

You stopped in the doorway and interrupted him, “I still have to work for another four hours, text me when your shift is over.”

He nodded vigorously, “Yes, uh, okay perfect. I will! I’ll see you later tonight then?” He began backing out of the bookstore with a giant, goofy smile plastered on his face.

Just before he opened the door, you called his name, “Jaemin! Actually text me this time okay?”

“I swear I will!”

if you liked this, buy me a coffee!

taglist: @infnteen (if anyone wants to be added, send an ask or a message!)

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Lovebug (14/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Notes: I know I usually post on Wednesdays but I'll be on the road on Wednesday and if I don't get this out soon, I'll probably end up dropping it next week or smthg so here it is. Two days early. I hope you enjoy :D

Is this all that there is to life? A glaring question that came unexpectedly, in between reading through codes for his nth freelance project the past few years.

In response, Levi closed his eyes, sat back and reflected. A part of him may have been asking that question for a while and slowly, Levi started to understand why he was asked that in the first place.

A few minutes ago, he had been strangely happy to see his code compiling at the first try. And just a few hours ago, he had been enthusiastic at running a debugger through a code and finding a few typos to fix.

Happiness. That was happiness right?

That part of him continued to nag. It soured that 'happiness,' leaving a burning dissatisfaction inside him. You’ve experienced better moments, happier moments.

Then Levi got fed up. He reached into the back of his mind, he remembered, then something stopped him from reminiscing for a while longer.

Something strange. Something buried.

He hadn’t allowed himself to feel much since he first moved into that new city. He had allowed the novelty and the business to carry him through his first months. But the novelty of a new beginning never lasted long.

Too shaken to even bother applying for a new job, Levi opted to work freelance. Consequently, his only companions were the four walls of his studio apartment and the occasional voices from next door.

There was only so much which could stimulate interest. His mind continued to search for them and naturally, time continued to move along with it. Routine and episodes of ennui seemed to last infinities in the moment. But in retrospect, it felt like they all happened too fast.

He had made sense of time in milestones, milestones worth ten times the refreshing feeling of running a debugger through code or the fleeting euphoria of compiling codes at the first try.

Is that all that there is to life? Eventually, he made sense of that strange voice. There was reason to that question.

That day was another milestone. If it wasn't for his nagging mind, he could have missed it.

It was a blustery autumn day in late October, the weather similar to the last view he had of his home five years ago. Shifting his gaze from the window of his present apartment, he took a quick look at the calendar and it was like a dam had ended up spilling open inside him.

The five year mark was a bittersweet milestone, five years since he left home. The fifth year rang more loudly than every year before that. Maybe because five was such a perfect number, or perhaps because he had been keeping something in for a while.

He felt a release. Then a reprieve from the monotony, a reprieve from the five years avoiding his old life. Levi found himself opening his browser tab, typing the words ‘love alarm’ on the search box and deleting it a second later.

An aimless and useless sequence of movements. He didn’t need a quick google search to know how it was doing.

The love alarm had become a household name even all the way in his side of the world. With his very human need to go out, whether it be for groceries, shopping or just some fresh air, Levi couldn’t completely ignore it. With the right decisions, Levi could choose not to give so much as a side glance at the people walking, heads bent down, staring at the number of hearts on their application.

When he went out though, even with his music at full blast, he would hear the familiar alarm as he walked through crowds.

At first, it had left a pang in his chest, a brief bout of nausea, perhaps disgust or embarrassment at his old life.

It had been five years since he first arrived though and it turned out, time did heal.

Levi looked through the wikipedia page of the love alarm and he found, it hurt more like a raw scar than a stab in his chest or a crushing weight. The nausea, the pang in his chest that plagued him years before were weak if almost nonexistent.

Curiosity took over.

Would would have felt like an ache in the chest years ago, felt more like a mosquito bite. Levi was just slightly annoyed. It did nothing to stop him though from registering again and looking through the application interface.

Nothing much had changed. There were some slight changes to the skin of the registration page, a change in the name of the company at the bottom. Levi purposely touched the activate button rapidly and found he had crashed the application.

That was one bug that he never got to fix. He turned his phone to the side, noting the way the screen glitched as it adjusted to the landscape orientation of the phone. Another bug Levi never got to fix.

Then he wondered who the developer on the other end had been to have never even caught it.

Biometrics registered, Levi activated the alarm to find no hearts. He couldn’t help but entertain that slight disappointment. Of course no hearts would have appeared though. He hadn’t even interacted with his neighbors.

It would have been creepy it rang. Letting out a sardonic laugh just loud enough for himself, he leaned back on the chair and stared at the ceiling, forcing his thoughts back to whatever coding freelance project he’d been dealing with a few minutes ago.

Work came in freelance projects. They were enough for rent, for savings and some capacity to eat out occasionally.

A simple yet comfortable life. But is that all that there is to life? That voice continued to tear into his work related thoughts. Levi gave in to the nagging thought again. He started scrolling through wikipedia articles detailing use, detailing acquisition history, he found another key word under related articles, more interesting than ‘love alarm.’

Mood Alarm.

It sent a strange shiver through the back of his neck. Levi rolled his shoulders, relieving the tension that came with the last few eons of reflection. He let out a whistle, opened the new article and scrolled down towards references.

There were lists of articles.

Partner of Zeke Jaeger and freshly minted PhD graduate Doctor Hange Zoe release Mood Alarm.

Doctor Hange Zoe. Something inside him was fighting for control. He couldn’t bring himself to click the link. At the same time though, there was this curiosity inside him that he couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of.

Under the link to the article was the official website.

At the front page, there was a boring and overly professional introduction Levi didn’t bother to read

Below them, everything else had been interesting enough to give more than a second long glance.

The list of functionalities. The color codes. Then newly launched dashboard functionalities, almost a carbon copy of the plan Levi had sent years back.

“Fucking hell, you actually did it,” Levi muttered. He couldn’t help but just allow the smile that tugged at his lips some control. Excitement had him searching for the application on the play store, downloading it and methodically going through the same registration process as the love alarm.

It didn’t look much like the mood alarm Levi had worked on years ago. He saw hints of it though and worked from there to admire it.

The front end had been cleaned up. The font chosen fit the silver-to-white gradient of the application. When Levi clicked ‘activate,’ the screen loaded.

The colors mixed against one another for a second, an aesthetic choice of animation that Levi couldn’t help but be amused with.

Red. Yellow. Blue. Purple. Green. Orange.

The colors continued to mix. Then some disappeared as if they had lost themselves in some colorful war.

Then it was only blue and yellow. The two colors danced against one another for a few seconds longer before they disappeared too. More specifically, they bundled against one another.

Green. It took him at least five seconds to get that reading.

He didn’t have to look at the guide on the website to know what it meant.

Sad happy? Or happy sad? Whatever that feeling was, Levi felt no need to introspect, or maybe he had been too lazy to.

It had been a while since he had even let himself feel something. The green on his screen, the feeling that accompanied it, seemed more like an old friend he hadn’t talked to a while.

If he had any ability at introspection, maybe it had already rusted. Still, he let those emotions inside him, that yellow and that blue do their work.

They had him turning off the mood alarm, then turning off the love alarm. Something inside him still hesitated to delete the applications. Then it had him considering the space on his phone for just a second.

He downloaded another app that night. A familiar app with a flame, then another one with a bee. Only months into his new life in a new city with a new job, Levi was already bored— and if he had to admit it—terribly, terribly lonely.

And maybe the best way to cure it was to spend the whole night swiping.

***

Finding a companion wasn’t as easy as desperation and a few second long rush of confidence made it out to be.

Perhaps, online dating was a rash idea, an uncharacteristic move.

Didn't he reject Petra years ago? How could he date anyone else? Petra… How is she… With nothing much to do but wait for his date, he found himself texting Petra as he waited in the cafe.

He sent a few thank you messages at her well wishes. They exchanged brief updates and Petra’s own updates dragged on for longer.

Her life was more eventful than his.

Petra had started dating Oluo. She had found someone who loved her, just as much as she loved him. Keeping a correspondence with her only highlighted points for reflection for Levi. The more he reflected, the more questions came up. The more he reflected, the more complicated the questions became.

He was lonely but could he be picky? At the same time, did he even have the heart to put anyone through the shitty experience of a half hearted courtship?

Hange’s words echoed in his head, not in any specific string, a few parts in words, a few parts in phrases.

Considering the circumstances… Love is a choice.

When he let her words echo through him, he managed to grip a presence long gone. A presence and a relationship, he clarified, that had never been his in the first place.

He never did completely brush away the guilt that accompanied every passing thought of Hange. There was this strange acceptance though that appended it, and it had him a little more discerning, a little more prudent.

If he couldn’t have her, he could always just keep her close in his own personal way.

“Have you heard of the love alarm?”

How long had she been there? How long had she been talking?

Right, Levi was on a date. She had said words before that question and Levi could have sworn they had exchanged greetings even before that.

“In passing,” Levi said. He manifested some reality from the words, as if a firm response was enough to forget decades worth of overtime and testing.

“It’s this application we can use to test compatibility… So at least we know if this could work.”

Levi listened with some fake intent as she explained how the love alarm worked. He made sure to nod at points where her tone had gone a little higher or louder.

“What do you think?” There was some finality to her voice, an expectant look on her face.

Levi hummed in thought.. “I don’t believe in using an app to check compatibility. What about when we consider circumstances? Get to know each other… Then decide if it could work?”

She looked at her phone for a second, then back at Levi, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Levi shook his head. “Sorry, I just don’t believe in things like the love alarm, it seems just like horoscopes or Myer Briggs to me. Compatibility, relationships, they’re just gonna be choices we make anyway.” He found himself guiltily looking away as he said those last points.

The pout that played at his date’s lips was evidence enough, there probably wouldn’t be a second date. “It’s not like our love alarm’s would have rung anyway,” she said.

It had been a while since Levi dated though and he started to realize, maybe his filter and his social skills had rusted just a bit.

***

Love is a choice.

It looked like he might have been the only one to believe that. He had managed to piss off countless other dates with his own ‘love is a choice’ schtick.

And he had been dating semi regularly for the past year already. Yet, nothing was coming up fruitful.

How the hell did Hange even manage to get married? Or maybe Hange had just been the exception. He then concluded, Hange just had too many other loveable qualities which could make anyone want to snap her up early on.

The more he entertained the thought of Hange, the heavier his own chest became. Then he stopped entertaining her then the cycle would start again, a very vicious cycle.

It just so happened that sometimes the thought of ‘Hange’ manifested as some domineering thought. ‘Love is a choice’ and the strange sensation that came with his whole body protesting, rebelling in their own little way worked hand in hand.

He was confused and consequently desperate enough to open the mood alarm for some inkling of comprehension. He would focus on the way the colors switched among one another, disappearing, always revealing a yellow and a light blue dancing between one another then always ending with a light blue.

Sometimes he was blue. Sometimes he was green.

Ane he continued to check. After all, he mood alarm had become a beautiful and constant companion. He had deleted the love alarm but kept the mood alarm close.

“What do you think of the love alarm?”

How many people are gonna ask about that fucking application?

Zeke had just been a little too good at marketing. It was the nth time someone had broken the ice of a first date with that fucking question and Levi regretted not making a drinking game out of it. Maybe he would have been able to drink enough to forget that cursed product.

“Are you okay?” his new date asked.

He had spent the past few minutes too silent, not thinking. “Nifa…” That was her name right? He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

She looked as nervous as he did, or even more nervous. That part was comforting at least. In a way, her demeanor seemed a little more pleasant, more genuinely curious than wary. “I asked just a second ago, have you ever used that love alarm?” she said in response.

Levi followed the same script. "In passing."

“Would you like to try it out? Just to make sure we’re on the same page, relationship wise.”

“I’d rather we relied on circumstances and compatibility to make the choice for us. Get to know each other maybe…” When it came to suggestions, Levi had revised his script just a bit. Too many people got offended by his invalidating horoscopes and Myer Briggs type for some weird reason. “Like get to know each other, like…” Levi trailed off for a second, allowing himself a pregnant pause. ”... Elizabeth and Darcy?”

Nifa had cocked her head to the side curiously, thought for a long second and smiled just a bit wider. “You read Pride and Prejudice?”

Levi nodded subtly. “A while back,.”

She paused for a second, seeming deep in thought. “Well… Now that I think about it, you might be right,” Nifa said. “This compatibility thing… Your idea of love. I think it makes sense.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, why?” Nifa asked.

Levi dropped his shoulders in relief, the weight of at least a hundred failed dates fell off his shoulders. “I’ve been dating for years and I feel like you’re the only one who actually said that.”

Nifa didn’t reply immediately and the longer Levi sat there, the more clearly he saw her face. Surprise morphed into something that seemed more like pity. Then, the chronic pang in his chest came back.

A first love did that to people maybe? A painful first love lost had that special power to maybe just twist his own philosophies, to make him almost disgusted at his own creations and the way it had challenged his own convictions.

Are you scared? Levi thought to himself. He couldn’t be too sure how he was handling himself in front of Nifa. He looked down at his hands, opening and closing them a few times and if he looked closely, he could almost feel those uncomfortable twinges in his wrist that came from years of coding.

“I’m willing to put the time into it if you are.” Nifa’s voice was more gentle and it flowed as if she had sensed the stiffness in his voice.

Levi didn’t respond immediately and suddenly their little corner of the crowded cafe was eerily silent. There was a melancholy that had blanketed their little corner despite the Saturday afternoon crowd.

Nifa seemed like she was trying to break away from it with some light conversation. “Hey, have you heard of the mood alarm?”

“The mood alarm?” Levi let that half smile creep up his lips, just high enough to be more invisible than obvious. Three words from a stranger and his emotions were reduced to a mess.

He once again felt that twinge again at his rests and that sleepless night, and her. He was remembering her in his office through sleepy exhausted eyes, with a cocktail dress and a sandwich bag in one hand.

There was also something amusing and painfully ironic about hearing his own brainchild, from someone so casually, as if it had turned into some household name while he wasn’t looking.

The conversation was getting painful, painfully interesting and the masochist in Levi was gripping him and pulling him back to reality. “Like the love alarm…” Levi added.

“Well, they’re products from the Jaeger corporation… You know the Jaeger family right?” Nifa added.

Levi could only be thankful he hadn’t been sipping at his tea then. He probably could have choked. How could he ever forget Zeke Jaeger?

He might have gotten a lot better at hiding his own disgust or Nifa could have been too deep in thought. She continued to talk. “They bought Love Alarm a few years back.”

“I know the Jaeger family,” Levi said.

“So you know about their eldest son, the heir of the Jaeger corporation… And his partner?”

Levi took a sip of tea, not bothering to respond.

Nifa may have taken that as a ‘no.’“His partner was working towards a PhD in psychology and apparently that was her final project. The codes for the mood alarm are very similar to the love alarm apparently."

“Oh?” Levi asked, feigning interest.

Soon, it turned into something genuine. Nifa was offering new information. “She got the PhD a few years ago and soon after that, the application was launched. And now they’re launching a solution for hospitals.”

“What kind of solution?” Levi asked.

“Wait, have you ever used the mood alarm? Or do you know how it works?” Nifa asked. “Anyway, I realized I ended up digressing here… The point I was trying to make is, the one who developed the mood alarm was able to prove that whatever measurements they use for the love alarm, are related to emotions. And what if, understanding how we feel when we work towards a relationship is a better determinant of whether the relationship could work?”

Levi nodded quickly, an attempt to be polite. At that point though, he wasn’t too interested in the point she had been trying to make “I’m familiar with the application and how it works. But you mentioned something about a solution for hospitals…” He didn’t think it was worth lying. He didn’t need a long winded explanation of the alarm he made. He needed an explanation of what Hange had been making."

Nifa didn’t seem to get the message. “So, the application will determine your emotions for you--- I have one right now and we could use it over time to articulate how we feel.” She pulled out her phone and dropped it on the table. “I think analyzing our own emotions would do a better job than relying on how the love alarm processes the emotions.”

There was something surreal about seeing a user explain it to him, as if they knew it more than him.

For a while, he couldn’t help but just entertain the possibility that in her own way, Nifa may have known more. With someone explaining and demonstrating, he was more easily able to make sense of the changes that had been implemented since Hange acquired it.

The app icon was reminiscent of the love alarm, two rings around it but instead of a heart in between, there was an icon, an elegant cross between a flower and a color wheel.

Red. Blue. Yellow. In between the primary colors were purple, green and orange.

Nifa activated it and held the phone between her fingertips. Just like the night when Levi had first played with it, the colored blobs swam amongst one another again, each blob would disappear one by one, leaving the remaining colors.

Yellow and Orange. “Looks like I’m happy,” Nifa commented. “So apparently the new dashboard allows us to connect this reading on the phone to a PC and get a more detailed explanation, numbers, heart rate, all the like.”

“You seem to know a lot about the app,” Levi mused.

Nifa cocked her head to one side. “Well, I’m into psychology too. I work as a psychologist in one of the hospitals. Our hospital is one of the first ones to buy software licenses so I’ve done my research.” She hummed, looking straight at him for a second as if studying him. “Now that I think about it, your job wasn’t on your profile. What do you do for a living?”

Levi’s response was automatic. “IT work.” He was suddenly self conscious about even mentioning the word ‘developer.’

“Ooooh... So you’d probably figure out how this app works much faster than I would.” Nifa sighed. “And you could probably help reassure me about this."

“Reassure you about what?”

“I’m honestly pretty nervous about rolling out this software.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s relatively new, a few bugs would come up here and there.”

“All softwares are going to face new bugs with every update. It’s never ending,” Levi said nonchalantly.

“Spoken like a true IT guy,” Nifa joked. She took a sip of her shake and stared down at his tea and up at him again. “Say, since you’re in IT, you think you can hook us up with someone?”

“Hook you up with someone?” Levi asked. His mind was going places more suited for a tinder date than a conversation on career. He raised one eyebrow in question. He couldn’t be too sure of what she meant just yet.

It looked like she had started to understand that double entendre. Nifa blushed then let out a cough. “No, no. Our company is looking to build a small support team.”

“An IT support team?” Levi asked.

“Well, people who could focus on learning the product, dealing with whatever bugs, testing them, compiling them and sending them over to the Mood Alarm team. You think you’d know anyone tech savvy? Maybe familiar with how biotechnology works?

“I could try to look around…” Levi said.

“Great!” Nifa chimed

By some magic, the conversation shifted elsewhere. Nifa had a way with conversation, keeping some sort of a flow, talking about her own job and getting him to talk about his freelance projects.

Levi’s thoughts on the hospital solution though were an ubiquitous part of his mind space.That was the whole point of the investment right? Back then, Zeke and Hange had plans on selling it to hospitals.

And there was a free trial. That night, Levi had been curious enough to click the ‘book a free trial button’ and to even fill out the first few lines.

Organization name? He didn't have one.

Purpose? To catch up with his own brain child maybe.

He ended up staring at the blank screen for a while, wondering where the hell he would get an organization and a valid purpose.

He wanted to check it out, he really did. And he was a little salty that they required a background check before they even allowed trials for a project he created.

Curiosity became desperation. With desperation, came creativity, audacity. He took his phone with the intention of just asking Nifa a few questions, only to see there was an unread message from her.

Thanks for today! I had a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can plan something soon. I might be busy with work this week but maybe the week after?

Levi stared at her message and composed a quick reply, pleasantries forgotten.

You mentioned something about IT support openings in the hospital...

***

The hiring manager introduced himself as Moblit but he didn't say much else. Instead, he spent the next few minutes looking through Levi's resume, his brow wrinkled.

"Is there something wrong with my resume?" Levi asked, breaking the silence. He had kept it minimalistic, only sticking to odd jobs the past five years.

Moblit shook his head. "Nothing, it just doesn't look like you have support role experience."

"Do I need experience in a support role? I think I'm familiar enough with how apps work to stand in as one," Levi said. Should he mention that he had done the support work before?

"So you've compiled tickets, sent them over to developers?"

I'm the developer who deals with those bullshit tickets. He thought to himself. On the outside though, he nodded and leaned a bit more forward on the table. It wasn’t too difficult to show interest. He was genuinely interested, having given in to that curiosity-turned-desperation.

"Well, if you're interested in taking the job then…” Moblit said. “Let's see how much you know about the mood alarm app." He opened a folder. "It's a relatively new solution, so I don't expect you to know much but if you've heard of the love alarm?"

"I have."

"Well they're from the same corporation…"

Information on their history flew into one ear and out the other. "Do you have any more questions for me?" Levi asked. He could have interrupted Moblit there but he didn’t want to hear about a history he actually experienced first hand.

Moblit cleared his throat. "Well, if you could tell me how you think the mood alarm works? Then I’ll give you a list of common bugs and can you tell me how you will go about raising them to developers?

***

Six years hadn’t done much to make him forget. He had been working with the love alarm for almost a decade after all.

And the mood alarm? He had a strange connection to it, he couldn’t explain.

The code wasn’t open source. Of course it wouldn’t. That was an enterprise application and they wouldn’t want any hacker just randomly getting it. Yet, why did he feel so offended at not having access?

“Hey Levi, how would you handle this?”

“Handle what?” Levi didn’t look up from his monitor immediately. The voice and the question have all were all too familiar and it wasn’t urgent anyway.

“Levi, take a look…” Farlan seemed more frustrated than a second ago.

Levi looked at Farlan’s screen. Another display issue. He was all too familiar with the bugs and it looked like the love alarm and the mood alarm were coming up with the same issues. “Click the activate button three times really fast, right click the desktop, select inspect and take a screenshot. We send it over to the developers on the mood alarm team,” Levi said. That had become routine after a while, yet somehow, his two colleagues Farlan and Isabel were still asking questions.

Maybe because he was the only one who understood what the hell the developers needed to see to actually get to the bottom of the problem.

“Make sure to check it in both light mode and dark mode,” Levi said. “And also, there’s a known bug for the phone app, check if turning on the alarm affects your ability to receive notifications from other apps.” Those words had sent a wave of nostalgia through him. That was one of the bugs he had gotten around to fixing with the love alarm.

“Hey...”Isabel’s voice sounded from next to him. Levi turned around, almost jumping when he saw she had been close enough to look over his shoulder. “What are you researching?”

It wouldn't look good if he slacked off at work in front of colleagues a good few years his junior. Levi closed the tab. “Just my own research on mood alarm.” And when he looked at his codes a little longer, then back at Isabel who seemed almost confused, Levi realized it had looked more like extra work than anything else.

He spent the whole morning on ‘extra work, watching the API calls, making notes to himself to check the codes he had sent Hange years back just to see how much had changed.

“You finished all your tasks today and you still wanna do research on the mood alarm?” Farlan asked, a look of utter amazement on his face.

“What can I say? This app is pretty interesting.” it wasn’t a lie. Watching the growth of his own child from afar, was a fun thing to do.

“It honestly feels like you’ve done this type of work before."

“I did something similar,” Levi said.

“What kind of place did you work in before?” Isabel asked excitedly, her tasks also forgotten.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Levi answered, his tone unchanged.

“Something like the love alarm?”

Levi nodded. “Maybe that’s the reason I can figure things out pretty fast,” he said. The best plan of action was to digress.

“So that means we could make you handle the harder cases?” Farlan snickered.

“I’d rather you learn how to deal with others on your own,” Levi said. “I’ve worked with these apps for a long time. The bugs never end.”

***

“Moblit’s saying you’re doing a pretty good job picking out the bugs,” Nifa spoke above the bustle of the lunch time crowd.

“Are we?” Levi asked. He kept his words brief, not wanting to waste too much energy speaking over the others in the hospital cafeteria.

“Well, he was talking about you mostly,” Nifa said. “Most big issues get resolved with each release. And Moblit was saying that our support team just gives really good feedback.”

“The developers do the work. All we do is find the bugs.” Levi started to pick more meticulously at his salad

Nifa shook her head. “I think the support team deserves credit too. It’s difficult figuring out whether issues are user issues or there’s really a bug. Isabel also told me you find ways to reproduce it quickly.”

“Do I?” His responses were getting less and less creative. There just wasn’t much to say and the compliments were making him more and more uncomfortable by the second.

Moblit was a life saver. He had broken out of the crowd, running to Nifa, an urgent but excited expression on his face. “Nifa, you’ve got to hear this.”

Levi used that brief distraction to shovel more salad into his mouth.

Moblit had spoken just beneath the sounds of other conversations and Levi couldn’t make out what he had said. He did make out the urgency in Nifa’s face and the excitement. Whatever Moblit had said was contagious.

“When are they coming?” Nifa asked, her voice much louder than Moblit’s.

Levi stood up, gathering his plate, his utensils and his unfinished salad. “If I’m not supposed to be in this conversation…”

Moblit shook his head. “Levi, no, please stay. I’d rather you hear this since this is related to your line of work too.”

“Why?” Levi raised one eyebrow.

“Zeke Jaeger and his partner Doctor Hange Zoe, they’re planning to visit,” Moblit said.

Levi couldn’t even tell what expression he had on then.

Maybe Moblit had interpreted shock as confusion. “Zeke Jaeger is the owner of the love alarm. Hange Zoe’s the creator of the mood alarm… In case you didn't know.”

***

“Hey, I wanna see her… Is this how she looks like?” Isabel’s voice was a whisper, a very loud whisper. “She looks smart.”

Farlan’s voice wasn’t any softer. “Well, that’s what you’d expect from the mastermind behind the mood alarm right? I heard Zeke Jaeger bought her the love alarm so she could look through the code and make the mood alarm for herself.”

“Where did you hear that?” Isabel asked.

“Watch the interviews.”

The click and clack of the keyboard. Then there was the sound of voices coming from the loud speaker from Farlan’s computer.

Then Hange’s very familiar voice.

Levi didn’t want to listen. “You know, if you spend too much time looking through this. You’re not gonna get anything done.” He forced his voice into something louder than what he was comfortable with. “Don’t you two have other tasks to do?”

“Aren’t you excited to meet them?” Isabel rolled her chair next to Levi.

No way in hell am I meeting them. “I’m planning on taking a leave,” he said.

“Wait, why?” Isabel seeming heartbroken, as if Levi taking a leave was the most terrible thing in the world.

“Well, as employees we’re entitled to leaves right?” Levi asked emotionlessly, willing himself not to at all be affected by Isabel’s puppy dog face.

Farlan sighed. “You’re the best one at this type of work among the three of us. You know, this is a good opportunity for you to get noticed.”

“I don’t wanna get noticed,” Levi said, as he focused back again on the screen, refreshing their ticketing software a little bit faster that time. It really was an uneventful afternoon. He couldn’t blame Farlan and Isabel for doing nothing.

“It’s a big money, a chance at a big career move,” Farlan said, raising his voice as if that could have done anything to convince Levi.

Levi looked up from the monitor and back to Farlan. “Do you really want me out of here?”

Farlan shrugged. “I dunno, you just seem too overqualified for this kind of job.”

Levi sighed. “Believe me, I’m happy to be here.” He continued to click refresh, just in case anything could have halted that already seemingly awkward conversation. The reason why he didn’t want to run into Zeke or Hange… Was it written all over his face?

Just in case Farlan and Isabel were mind readers, Levi kept quiet, kept his eyes glued on the screen and he prayed the day would get busier somehow.

It did. But it got busy so close to the end of the day and overtime seemed inevitable.

“We’re not receiving any readings.”

The same exact fucking line, from ten different customers from different hospital branches around the country. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Levi muttered.

He opened all the test devices, only to find, none of them were receiving readings from the mood alarm either. He was sure though, he was annoyed, very very annoyed. Maybe even angry. “Try testing,” he ordered.

Farlan and Isabel were more emotional than he was. If it didn’t work for them, it probably wasn’t working at all.

They had full trust on him. Isabel and Farlan nodded and they went through the devices quickly. All test devices exhausted and there was nothing much to do. Levi was convinced it was an issue that could only be investigated on the backend. “We’re done for the day.”

“We have to send a report right?”

Levi started to pack his bag. “Send a report saying we’re not getting any readings,” he said with a shrug. “It’s probably a backend issue or an issue with their API.”

“You sure we can’t do anything from our side?” Farlan pressed.

Levi shook his head. “None.” He logged out, slung his backpack over his shoulder and exited the office.

He sensed their disappointment in him. In his months working there, Levi had never left the office without doing a thorough investigation and writing a detailed report.

That might be the first time in months, they would give something completely unhelpful for the developers. That wasn’t Levi’s intention though. There were just some things that were better off investigated on his own personal PC.

For the first time in a while, Levi didn’t go straight for the shower when he arrived back home. He booted up his own PC. When he checked his cloud account, he found the private repository with all the codes from the love alarm and the mood alarm was still there.

It hadn’t been touched in years though.

He scrolled through the code, allowing that wave of nostalgic to wash over him gently. Having been the only one who worked on the base, Levi was very very familiar with it. Memories came quickly with the nostalgia. There was a point where the server was down and he remembered the hundreds of support tickets about the temporarily malfunctioning love alarm.

No readings were coming through. Levi did a quick calculation of the time zones of his own city and of the mood alarm headquarters. Then he looked through the code again.

Convinced that it was a fair theory, Levi opened his pseudo email, entered the support email for the mood alarm and left just one sentence on the email body.

I’m convinced one of your devs left a debugger on one of these codes on the backend.

A few years ago, he had been guilty of leaving a debugger running overnight, fucking up the whole command system of the love alarm.

He copied and pasted a part of the code and the sent the email off. For all he knew, the mood alarm could have branched off far from the love alarm, rendering his theory completely stupid. Still, it was a theory worth entertaining.

The issues from work forgotten, Levi started to open his other emails, finding one from Petra on the third page, dated months ago.

Just a reminder that he hadn’t opened that email in months. “A wedding invite?”

Petra Ral and Oluo Bozado invite you to celebrate their wedding…

He didn’t need the rest of it to convince himself to go. He only needed to look at the date under, conveniently a week after Hange and Zeke were scheduled to visit the hospital where he worked.

He sent off two emails that night.

One to Petra, a very very late RSVP.

Then one to management, a request for a two week leave. For personal reasons.

A wedding always made a good personal reason. That was probably only half his actual personal reason though.

***

“I didn’t even expect you to come.” Petra seemed happy.

It could have been the make up or her natural blush. She was a glowing bride, glowing bright enough that Levi was starting to feel lonely.

“It’s been a while,” Levi said. “And you two are looking good.”

“How’s life abroad?” Petra asked.

“It’s fine,” Levi said.

“You adjusted well?” Petra asked again.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Levi took a sip of his wine.

“You managed to get a software engineering job there?” That time it was Oluo who asked.

“Something similar,” Levi said. He started to shake his glass a bit, feigning deep consideration. Maybe that would explain his inability to respond. In truth, he was in no mood to make conversation but when the bride and the groom had gone out of their way to sit next to him on the bench outside their party, and they had gone through all the trouble of asking, it was only polite that he kept his side of the conversation.

Somewhere along the exchanges, Petra brought up a question. And whether it had been appropriate or not, Levi couldn’t tell but he thought it worth an answer at least.

“Have you met anyone?” Petra asked.

“What?” Levi responded.

“I dunno… I guess someone who makes you feel good? Someone who manages to ring your love alarm?” Petra gave him a knowing look.

Levi only had to shift his gaze from Petra to the seemingly blank face of Oluo to know, Petra had at least kept that part to herself. To the others, his alarm ringing with Hange could have been just a bug.

Levi shook his head. “I haven’t touched the love alarm in years,” he admitted.

Petra seemed more understanding. “We haven’t touched it in years either.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Petra stared ahead, looking deep in thought. She turned to Oluo. “Well, I guess a part of us wanted to build this organically, get to know each other first. And maybe that’s the best way to find people. I think the love alarm just causes unnecessary chaos sometimes.”

Levi only had to look back at his past five years to see it. To be honest, he could actually put the blame on the love alarm for completely uprooting his life. He couldn't say he totally agreed though. He didn’t regret the time with Hange either.

But he wasn’t going to deny her credit where credit was due. “You make sense.”

It wasn’t as simple as that though. Somehow, Hange’s own words had torn into the silence. Just for him. The love alarm causes chaos but sometimes it can tie loose ends.

And for him, it had been both. It had caused chaos but somehow, meeting Hange, having gotten to know her, having gotten to talk to her had tied some loose ends inside him.

What kind of loose ends? He couldn’t be too sure.

“Even when you don’t use the love alarm now, have you met other people?” Petra was still very interested in his love life.

Oluo should have been silently uncomfortable about that. Levi couldn’t tell with a quick glance.

“I’ve met a few people though… There’s someone named Nifa,” Levi said,

“Next time you come here, you’ll take her for a visit? Make sure to introduce us to her?” Petra asked.

“Or maybe next time, it will be us visiting,” Oluo added.

The brief conversation ended soon after, with a few exchanged greetings and a promise to bring Nifa. In case something ever happened between him and NIfa.

By the end of the night, he had made a promise to himself not to use that love alarm to find his next love.

Petra was right, the love alarm could cause unnecessary chaos. Besides, love is a choice right?

***

Levi came back from his very relaxing two week leave to two words that made his stomach turn.

Doctor Zoe. That was what Farlan and Isabel called her.

“Doctor Zoe…” Levi repeated. The words tasted unfamiliar. Suddenly, the road trip, the beach trip and just the quiet meetings in the cafe all seemed like just a fevered dream.

“And she stopped to talk to all of us!” Isabel sang, her eyes filled with wonder. “You should have stayed. I swear, I feel like you would have gotten along. She never stops talking. You two could have talked about the mood alarm for hours.”

“She sounds tiring to be with,” Levi said, an attempt at a halfhearted reply.

Farlan grinned, an alarmingly knowing expression on his face. “Don’t lie, you would have enjoyed at least listening. You’re way more enthusiastic about the mood alarm than we are.”

“I’m just being a good employee.” Levi shook his head, as if that was enough to erase the regret that shoved itself into his throat and down to his chest.

“She really made sure to talk to everyone,” Isabel said. “And she stayed for a few days longer. Maybe the plans changed since she went alone.”

“Wait, she came alone?” Levi said. Don’t regret. Don’t you dare regret leaving.

Farlan nodded in response. “Moblit explained this to us before they came.” He turned to Isabel as if expecting some explanation from her.

“I can’t be too sure either, I’ve only heard a bit about it. And rich people like the Jaegers, they like to keep their personal lives a secret right?” Isabel answered.

Farlan shrugged. “Anyway, from what Moblit told me, they intended to visit all the major customers including our hospital chain. They’ve been planning this tour for months, maybe even years but Doctor Zoe ended up going alone.”

“Did you ever find out why?” Levi kept his voice soft, anything louder and he might just look more invested. He turned back to the unopened tickets on his screen. From his peripherals, he could see Farlan and Isabel exchanging glances.

It was Farlan who spoke up. “I have a theory.”

“Tell me,” Levi said.

“They fought.”

“Okay, couples fight.” Levi continued to click at the tickets, opening them one by one, just to feel productive.

“Yeah, but it must have been a big fight right?” Isabel added. “I did some research on Doctor Zoe after we met her and apparently, they were having problems even years ago. Apparently, there are rumors that her husband bought the love alarm to save their marriage.”

“Where the hell did you get that info?” Farlan sounded incredulous.

Isabel chuckled mischievously. “The dark, dark internet.”

“That can’t be true.” Farlan shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t really prove it anymore. A lot of the threads online that actually discuss this get taken down by the admin. But I swear, now that I think about it, it does make sense. I read some articles, no one expected Zeke Jaeger to buy the love alarm… Some said he did it to save the love alarm after a major bug showed up that could have prevented PR….Apparently, there was a certain point a few years ago, where there were photos of Doctor Zoe with another man. I tried looking for the photos but I can’t find them anymore.”

“You really got invested in her love life huh?”

Isabel groaned. “I couldn’t help it. She seemed so nice and she talked to us a lot even when we were just support, she took the time to teach us and she’s just so humble…”

“But what if she really did cheat on her husband?” Farlan challenged. “I mean, the rumors have to have been there for a reason right?”

“Do you think she looks like the type to cheat?” Isabel asked. “That very honest and open face?”

Farlan coughed in surprise. “She doesn’t for sure---but rumors don’t come out of nowhere right?”

“You two, go back to work,” Levi said. While the two had been working, he had been assigning tickets to them, an ingenious way to compose himself.

“Wait not yet, what do you think Levi? You might have better intuition than we do.”

“Intuition?” Levi repeated, one eyebrow raised.

“Does she really look like the type to cheat?” Farlan asked.

Levi continued to stare at the screen, not willing to risk showing them whatever expression played at his face then. “I didn’t meet her. You two did so you’re better qualified to answer that question. Tell me, does she look like the type to cheat?”

Farlan paused for a second, then narrowed his eyes at Levi. “I think I have a question which you might be more qualified to answer,” Farlan said. “You’re pretty good at finding bugs. Have you ever done research on the love alarm bug? What do you think the bug was… The one which made Zeke Jaeger buy the app?”

“I don’t think there was a bug,” Levi said.

“What do you mean?” Farlan pressed.

“Get back to work you two.” Levi kept his voice firm, loud and authoritative. Something he would have rather not done, if it hadn’t been for the weight which came with what should have been a light piece of gossip, and his whittling ability to keep a stoic demeanor.

The deep dark internet. Levi watched his two companions. Their eyes were once again fixed on the screen, Farlan’s fingers were flying over the keyboard, Isabel was playing with some test device.

Deep enough at work for Levi to take his own quick break. He opened an incognito tab and put his headphones on.

One video or one article, and he’d get back to work. He found an interview, the opening questions had been the same familiar ones Farlan had been playing on speaker months ago.

He played the first few questions at twice the speed. He knew the answers already.

What inspired you to make the mood alarm?

“Love alarm… Codes… Yadayadayada…” Levi muttered just a loud enough for himself. Hange had been careful not to mention anything about a developer. He could see the way she had shifted gazes for just a second, seeming uncomfortable.

He couldn’t blame her. Isabel had said so herself, in the deep dark internet, maybe there were rumors of an affair.

And some journalists were aware.

Personal Life? Around the point that someone asked about her personal life, Levi slowed the clip down. They had timed it, to the exact point where Hange had tensed up and looked away for just a second.

“Can you tell us about your relationship with Zeke Jaeger? How has it been?”

“How did you feel when you realized he bought you the love alarm? Is it true he bought it to win you back?”

Hange was admirably professional about it. “We’re digressing now,” she said with a light hearted tone, a laugh which seemed more rehearsed than actually Hange’s.

Is it true you had an affair with another man? It wasn’t loud enough for Hange to have heard it, just a sound among others. When Levi had been looking for that question and it rang more loudly for him. He rewinded the video a few times just to make sure.

What the hell… No we didn’t… We. Didn’t. Have. An. Affair.

“Levi, are you okay?” Isabel asked

“What?”

“You were talking to yourself just now.”

Levi quickly closed the tab as Isabel looked over his shoulder. “Nothing, just looking at tickets,” he said. He went back to their ticketing application, opened a few more tickets and decided to table the research until later that evening.

***

The deep, dark internet.

With his own personal wifi and his own VPN, Levi had more wriggle room to dig deeper.

There was a mention of a fight, a marriage on the rocks, and the rumors only grew from there. The more Levi found, the more courage he mustered. It turned out, the process of scrolling through threads, joining chat groups had been nothing but liberating.

Liberating but infuriating.

The internet was an aggregate of bad takes and the occasional good one. From bad takes came horrible half baked rumors.

I swear, if they end up divorcing…

Jaeger should have dumped her fucking ass from the start.

Slut…

Whore…

Hange Zoe. Fucking gold digger.

There were rumors that she had manipulated Zeke for the money. Rumors that she had only married him to complete her PhD.

Levi quickly went through those.

Some of the people were nice though and Levi read those comments a little more slowly.

The mood alarm was Zoe’s deal.

The money Jaeger put into was a donation.

If they’re not happy, let them divorce.

And there were videos, particularly zoomed videos in events of Zeke and Hange in conventions and conferences, the latest one only a few months ago. Before Hange had visited the hospital.

In the most recent one, they were talking, just at the corner behind the stage, still visible from the camera. Levi rewinded the video again and again just to confirm their identity.

The Hange on the screen seemed indignant. Zeke had pulled her in by the waist, she pulled away. In response, Zeke had once again gone for her hands, pulling her towards him.

Just like back in the school gym.

It was different, that time in the gym Hange had been accepted yet determined at the same time. The Hange on the video, or the least, the one he could make out from the flailing of her hands, the stamping of her food on the ground, the moment she had pulled away then turned away was telling.

Hange wasn’t accepting anything anymore.

Levi scrolled through the comments.

If Hange Zoe divorces Zeke Jaeger… If she keeps possession of the mood alarm... she’s a gold digger.

She needed Jaeger funds to complete PhD… It’s Zeke Jaeger’s PhD not hers lmao XD

It was around the fifth most liked comment when Levi closed the tab, not bothering to bookmark the site. That was enough internet toxicity for the day.

***

“You’re transferring me?” Levi had ended up preempting the discussion.

Nifa and Moblit looked at each other, then back at him. Then Nifa nodded.

Moblit shook his head, creating some confusion. “No, we wanted your opinion on this first. The city we’ll be transferring you to isn’t very… convenient.”

“But you will be paid more,” Nifa said.

Since no one actually wants to live there. A fact no one actually admitted during those types of meetings but Levi had been in corporate long enough to know.

“And it’s just for a few years,” Moblit said, his tone, a tone of reassurance more than actual confidence. “Our hospital got special permission to do testing and research and we’ll need one support guy there. This is an important project for our hospital so...”

Levi had done a quick google search of the city under the table, a name he never heard of, and just the picture of a very sleepy town with not many buildings with even two floors was indicative. There was a reason why Moblit and Nifa seemed uncertain about a transfer.

There wasn’t much he did anyway in that city. How could moving away be any different?

“What’s this research about?” Levi asked.

Moblit responded to that more clearly and more confidently. “We’re planning to do further research, create programs for kids who grew up in difficult households to help them process emotions better. We’re starting with a few kids, on a small research facility up north… And having someone on call would be helpful.”

It didn’t take much to convince Levi after that. “There isn’t much for me to miss here anyway.” Really, he would have taken that transfer even without the pay raise.

***

There was peace and quiet which came with living in the middle of nowhere. Peace and quiet had a way of making Levi unbearably bored yet at the same time more perceptive as to why the hell no one wanted to live there in the first place.

Winters were cruel, with snow piling up meters high. Even in the summers, the sky was overcast and in all four seasons, the air still found a way to be suffocatingly dry.

Someone mentioned something about lake effects and something about rain shadows, and Levi couldn’t really tell which one was it. He wasn’t a scientist after all.

He was human though, a very simple minded human with no science degree. So he let the weather affect his moods, maybe even affect his long term philosophies in life. His current environment was too different from the bustling city he grew up in, or the other urban jungle he had lived the past five years of his life, he deemed his new home, the epitome of the middle of nowhere.

It was completely unfamiliar and by some psychological consequence to Levi, it was too far flung from his old life for Levi to even entertain anything about his old life, beyond work. So it became easier to take a more pragmatic approach at reminiscing.

A few months into his transfer, he had even started reading articles on Zeke and Hange again.

Billionaire Zeke Jaeger finalizes divorce would Mood Alarm founder Hange Zoe.

Then the comments section:

That was fast.

I knew it, Zoe’s a gold digger.

There was the string of names, whore, sluts, cheaters and gold diggers that never made too much sense as sentences. So Levi quickly closed the tab.

You actually did it. He thought to himself. And when he thought a little longer about it, he realized he did feel happy for her.

Happy? Sad? Disappointed? Out of curiosity, he opened his own mood alarm and clicked activate. It glowed with a bright green.

He could have been happier.

Levi decided to blame the sky for his fickle mood. That grey view that stretched far unimpeded by any of the surrounding low rising buildings, only ending by the mountains that seemed hundreds of miles away.

The surrounding mountains and the large lake followed him to work. An overly scenic landscape that reminded him, the train back to the capital only came once a day, the train that passed through the next major city only passed three times a day.

And fucking hell, train tickets were expensive.

By some modern day definition, Levi really was trapped in the middle of nowhere.

The weather only made him more cynical, yet angrier at the tasteless comments under the news article on Zeke and Hange’s divorce. As he neared the research center, he ended up tabling that reflection with one sentence, something comforting yet oddly depressing.

Hange wouldn’t look for me. Then he brushed it away violently soon after. The audacity of even considering the prospect that he was important enough for her to want to search for him. Why would Hange care where he is?

The fact that Hange was followed by the press while he was trapped in the middle of nowhere was indicative enough. They were from two completely different worlds.

***

It may have taken months more, but what Levi clocked to a ‘bout of wanderlust’ eventually settled. He found, keeping himself busy with the right work had done wonders to placate the turmoil inside him.

Keeping busy somehow made it easier to sit up and get ready for work. It meant managing to desensitize his own moods to the weather around him.

Most importantly, it meant seeing some connection with the world, some sliver of motivation to go the extra mile with the people who worked with.

“Early as always, Ackerman.” Same greeting everyday.

“Morning to you too, Onyankopon,” Levi responded as he entered the irsmall office.

Onyankopon was a companion duringearly in the mornings, lunch times, late afternoons and sometimes, even the dinners when he would invite Levi out for a drink in the only bar for miles around.

Still, it made life remotely eventful when the only changing things had been the weather and his work.

And his work was very eventful.

“Uncle Levi! Did you find any bugs yesterday?” Just like every other morning, the two kids would burst through the door. Or more specifically, the brunette was always the one bursting through the door, the blonde just followed.

“Gaby, you might be bothering them,” Falco said. He said that at least three times a week.

Levi had never been the type anyway to tell them he didn’t mind their morning visits. It always meant something to look forward to.

“Nothing so far,” Levi said. He looked towards Onyakopon, the one in charge of reporting issues. “Hopefully.”

Onyankopon raised his hands in defense. “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the devs who created the mood alarm in the first place."

Levi was constantly mad at the devs anyway, if he considered that constant state of self loathing. Working on the mood alarm as support had only made Levi realize how many shortcuts he had taken into making that damn application years ago.

“There’s nothing today,” Levi said as he looked at the two kids. “But I could give you a quick lesson,” he added. He couldn’t say no to the crestfallen faces of the two kids.

He dragged one seat next to him and guided Gaby to one of them and Falco to his own seat. “When I want to look for errors in the code, I look here first.” It was a terribly boring lesson, a useless one. Support 101. At the least, the kids seemed satisfied. “If I right click here, and then inspect, I can see what this website is made out of.”

Gaby let out a breath, a mix between a ‘wow’ and an ‘oh.’ “I can’t read it.”

“It’s another language,” Levi explained. “Computers don’t understand our language. So we have to learn another language to be able to talk to them. And when we’re able to tell them what we want, they’ll do things for us, things we can’t do ourselves.”

Gaby had asked more questions after that. Falco had asked his own too, albeit hesitantly.

The difference between the network and console tabs, the meanings of the strange brackets, what happens if they just aimlessly click…

That morning session ended with less than half the questions answered, and a promise to teach them more the next morning. Like every other day before, at eight in the morning, Onyankopon brought them to the activity room and Levi was left alone in the office.

There weren’t many people in the research center, only five employees in total. After all, there were only ten to twenty kids who came and went every day, a very manageable number for five people. He and Onyankopon shared an office and with Onyankopon busy a good chunk of the day, Levi was left alone.

With his own efficient working methods and his outstanding ability to quickly pick out the bugs, Levi was usually free for a cumulated five hours a day.

When he first started working there, his five hour long breaks consisted of reading novels or whatever stupid article came up on his timeline. He could have taken longer breaks yet chose to spend them as short sporadic bouts of inactivity

By spreading out periods of inactivity, Levi managed to somehow pacify the guilt at ‘doing nothing’ while being paid for the eight hours a day. There were times, it was strong, remnants maybe of his stint with the love alarm, barely taking leaves, willingly putting him through the pain of overtime.

Some days, they were particularly strong, sometimes incomprehensible that Levi suspected they could have been related to the burning curiosity, the burning attachment to his own application that never abated.

A burning attachment, a natural need to be productive eventually resulted in sporadic bouts of unproductivity spent just testing the mood alarm all for a brief look into his own emotions.

Even when he wasn’t feeling anything in particular, the application continued to glow colors, just flitting between greens and blues. They could have been yellows or oranges maybe, when Onyankopon or Gabi or Falco visited. He had never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve though and thus, had never opened it with them around.

That day wasn’t any different. Alone in the office, he opened it again, held it in his hands and watched the colored blobs swim amongst each other, mix amongst one another, then disappear.

Blue or Green? That day it was blue. Why blue and why not green? He could never ask. ‘How’ was always an easier question to answer. He only had to connect his phone to the PC then boot up the dashboard.

His next break, he decided to try a visualization exercise, like every other time before.

Memories never seemed to do the trick. He’d take a risk and dive deep, into his memories with Hange, his anger at the situation, the loss of a life before. Yet it all came out greens and blues. The alarm rang, an almost deafening sound in the silent room and for a split second, it had Levi attentive and a little paranoid. Levi knew though, with the thick concrete walls around him, it was a sound just for him.

He connected his phone to the dashboard and booted the PC again.

There were numbers. He switched to a bar graph view, noting how there were terms, hormones and chemicals he could only barely make sense of. But the blue and the green bars higher than usual yet still very low were signs in themselves.

That morning was a normal morning. And every morning since he built that habit had been a normal morning.

The only thing which ended up different about that day was when footsteps sounded just outside the door. If Levi had been listening closely, he would have been able to point out, those weren't a rhythm of footsteps he was particularly privy too.

But normal mornings tended to desensitize people. Footsteps weren’t particularly interesting either.

In a town with only a few hundred people, it would most likely be someone who already lived there. He continued to work. He disconnected his phone from the dashboard and played with the mood alarm in his own phone again.

The door clicked open behind him, slowly enough for the creak to sound, then fast enough for the slam to come right after yet gently.

Onyankopon always opened the door a little wider, always slamming the door behind him and in between, there was always a greeting. If Levi had been more aware of his surroundings, maybe the lack of all that could have peaked his interest.

In the grand scheme of things though, the door slamming wasn’t anything particularly interesting. Levi continued to sit and stare at his phone.

“Levi Ackerman.”

A voice in an empty room though, was always an interesting thing. By some natural inclination towards voices, any presence in a room that was always his by mid morning, Levi was listening.

Making sense of the voice was a surprisingly slow process. The mood alarm reacted first.

The alarm sounded.

A wave climbed from his chest up until his neck, there was a bristle at the back of his neck, a tickle at his ears, then something pricked at his eyes. He looked down at the alarm before he could completely understand. The colors continued to swim then mix.

They always disappeared and finalized the reading in five seconds.

A second or two passed, and the colors still didn’t look at all in a hurry to disappear.

You’re going crazy Levi. He took a deep breath. He was dreaming. Because what the fuck. Of course she wouldn’t be here. She had an international company to run.

“Levi…” The voice sang. “That’s you right?”

Don’t look back.

“Or maybe there are just a lot of developers named Levi in this world… “ The footsteps were only getting closer. “Developers who are just really good at using the mood alarm.” Then the voice was right next to him.

When she had settled on that seat right at his peripherals, he couldn’t exactly chalk it up to a fevered dream. The mood alarm in his hands continued to ring. He could have sworn at least five seconds had passed. Yet the colors never disappeared, countless colors still swimming around on the interface as the mood alarm continued to read his emotions.

Levi had never been a master of articulation. The war of colors, the chaos on the phone were the best visual representation. He struggled to find the right words, but she continued to stare from his peripherals, her face many things at once.

Apologetic? Expectant?

“It is you,” she said, triumph and relief apparent in her tone.

That only pissed Levi off more. Another emotion added to his boiling pot. Eventually Levi thought it necessary to respond. With too little time, too little mindspace to even attempt to articulate, Levi kept himself to three words, the only three which could have meant everything at once.

“What the fuck.”

In response, she let out a soft laugh. “Are you crying?”

Crying? Now that Levi did think about it, there had been a crack in her voice too. Levi looked up to see her, smiling. Her eyes were smiling too. Then he followed the tear streak that barely grazed the side of her lip.

There was enough time, enough silence for Levi to gather himself. To stare at the reading on the application that couldn’t seem to decide what emotion Levi was feeling.

With enough self discipline, enough concentration, Levi managed to speak. “Hange, if you ask people why they’re crying, you’re just gonna make it worse.”

***

There was only one tea shop in the town, a tea shop which naturally, Levi had chosen as his favorite hang out spot.

Over the months, he had grown familiar with it and in turn, it had grown to become an intimate friend. An intimate friend he had never expected to ever introduce to Hange.

Onyankopon and Moblit had joined them for tea though, and suddenly, Hange didn’t feel like Hange. It could have been the way she shifted to an ‘all business’ demeanor or maybe a part of him was still trying to rationalize what he had deemed to be a very irrational thought.

Maybe he had imagined visiting the cafe with Hange a few times. The realist inside him though, had always believed it to be impossible. At that moment, the dreamer inside him was still taking its victory lap.

“You should have told us you’d be coming. We could have set up something better than late afternoon tea,” Onyankopon said. Either way, he seemed very happy to see them.

Moblit took a sip from his cup then revealed an apologetic smile underneath as he put the cup down. “Apologies for visiting all of a sudden. Doctor Zoe is a very impulsive person.”

Hange nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. As soon as I heard about this, I hopped on the next plane just to get here as soon as possible,” she said “I’m hoping to start something like this in the hospitals back home.”

Moblit put his cup down. “Right, I never got to properly introduce you to Levi.” He turned to Onyankopon then to Levi. “But I’m sure you’ve had a fair share of introductions… You did barge into his office this morning.” He had an apologetic look on his face.

“Hey, Doctor Zoe just wanted to see how we were using the software,” Onyankopon said in Hange’s defense. “I’m more than honored to see that the founder of the mood alarm is taking the time to even wander around our facility.”

Moblit cleared his throat. “Anyway, Levi, this is Doctor Hange Zoe, the founder of the mood alarm application. She visited our main hospital a year back but if I remember correctly, you were on leave right?”

“On a personal leave,” Levi clarified. He couldn’t find much else to say. He took a long sip of tea.

“This is Levi Ackerman,” Moblit said. “One of our best in IT support. He learned how to use your application pretty fast.”

“Yes…” Hange said. “And ever since you told me about him, I’ve been very excited to meet him.” Her grin only got wider as she studied his features, her eyes giving him a good once over. “I guess that’s the reason I ended up taking my own tour of the center while you too were catching up. I wanted to see your genius IT support in action,” she joked.

It was almost unbelievable that that morning, Hange had showed a completely different side to him. She had wiped her own tears pretty fast, shifting her expression to something very professional as soon as Onyankopon and Moblit had entered the office just that morning.

The whole afternoon, Hange was busy with activities and tours of the town, Levi busy with his own work. They barely got to talk. Fortunately, that had allowed Levi time to compose himself, enough to keep a straight face when Onyankopon had invited them over for some tea.

Then and there, there were conversations of partnerships and business, almost reminiscent to whatever bullshit he had to deal with in his old company. But this conversation had Hange, and Hange had shifted her gaze towards him enough times for Levi to feel it only proper to reciprocate.

“Once this project is over, would you consider letting Levi go?” Hange asked. “I’d love to have him visit our main office, maybe help out with some of our development work.”

Moblit shook his head vigorously. “No hesitation. It always felt like he was overqualified for this type of job.”

“By the way you talk about him, I can tell.” She looked at Levi knowingly, a silent form of communication just between both of them. She turned back to Moblit then Onyankopon, her face once again all business. “There are many things I hope to still improve with this application so any support on research, troubleshooting, development is very much appreciated.”

“What do you suggest?” Moblit asked.

A quick glance at Onyankopon and Levi knew he was asking the same question.

Hange put one finger to her chin in thought “A partnership…”

It looked like they had expected Hange to talk Levi’s ear off non stop about the application. Moblit had mentioned something about going straight home while Hange discussed the partnership with Levi, mentioning bugs, the debugger that had been stuck in the system and the bugs which Levi had been quick to point out.

Levi, being respectful, had only listened.

That was until Onyankopon and Moblit offered to walk ahead, leaving Levi and Hange alone on the red brick road overlooking the large lake.

It was early in the evening but it still felt like late afternoon. The sun never set until seven or eight during the mid months of spring.

Yet, the streets was empty, bereft of anything but the both of them.

With one quick scan of their surroundings, Hange turned back to him, she bit her lip and took a deep breath.

Her demeanor was suddenly a stark contrast with the enthusiastic, eloquent one back at a cafe. The sudden transformation was enough for Levi to tense up,

Hange spoke up. “This town really sleeps early,” she commented. “You're planning on going home now too?”

“I usually go home an hour earlier, especially on weekdays,” Levi responded. “I’m only out at this time because they invited me for late afternoon tea.” Technically it was dinner.

“Do you go home….” Hange started, she paused for a second, a very out-of-place pause. “To anyone?”

It took a lot of effort for Levi to resist choking or even letting out a ghost of a laugh at that question. I’m married to my job. That was the answer that popped into his mind out of instinct.

“Did I make it time?” Hange added a second later, only reminding Levi that he hadn’t even mustered a glimmer of answer.

“Make it in time?” Levi asked, in an attempt to stall for time.

“Petra…”

“She married Oluo.”

Hange didn’t seem satisfied. “Is there someone else…” she pressed. “Someone else...”

Hange started to speak with her hands, gesturing for Levi to ‘go on,’ in some awkward wave of a hand. The first awkward gesture Hange had done since they arrived.

Levi couldn’t help but just appreciate that bout of vulnerability he could pull out of her. “There is,” he said.

Just for a second, Hange’s face fell and for a moment Levi relished it.

“Oh…” Hange turned away. “Then, I should take you home… I’d love to meet her…”

Then suddenly, Levi felt just a little bad for that trick. “I was fucking kidding,” he said.

Hange let out a loud sigh of relief, an ugly huff and she looked away, suddenly self conscious.

Levi had to admit, it was an ugly snort. He was tempted to take a good look at her face, and maybe he had craned his neck as she kept silent for a second longer. “I’m not some idiot who would marry someone just because it’s convenient," he said.

“Give me a break. I just graduated from college when I decided to get married,” Hange said. “Besides, we enjoyed each other’s company.”

“If you chose that type of life, I wouldn’t have stopped you. Besides, you had a lot on the line, your PhD, your mood alarm, the love alarm, your reputation. It wouldn’t have been easy choice to make.”

Hange hummed. “The PhD is done, my reputation, I don’t give too much of a rat’s ass about that. And the mood alarm? That has always been mine. I put my own money into building that business.”

“It definitely wasn’t cheap.”

“It wasn’t,” Hange admitted. “What if I told you, I earned my own capital for building it in one night in a casino.”

Levi's thoughts flew back to the night at the casino. He grinned. “I’d believe you.”

“So the mood alarm is mine and I managed to keep it,” Hange said. “But I never forgot you know... The plans, the codes, they’re all yours.”

“So you did get the email,” Levi said.

Hange nodded. “And the email got me thinking…” she trailed off for what seemed like an eternity.

Levi couldn’t wait. “About what?”

Hange thought for a few seconds longer, putting her hands behind her back. “That ended up one reason why I even considered leaving Zeke,” she said. “He has a different way of loving, I have a different one too. Love is freedom. Love is just trusting. Zeke on the other hand, always likes to play safe, tie people down.”

“What happened to ‘love is a choice?’”

Hange seemed unperturbed. “Love still is a choice.”

“Then why not choose to love Zeke?” Levi challenged.

Hange sighed and put one hand up. “You said it yourself, deciding to leave wouldn’t be an easy decision,” she started. “I considered three things.”

She put one finger up. “Our own views of love. Zeke sees it as a game, as an investment and he approaches it conservatively… On the other hand, I see love and relationships as a form of freedom, a risk. In love, I don't believe in playing to win.”

She put another finger up. “I considered how I was feeling, this really weird feeling, my thoughts on Pemberley then on colors.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be a slave to your emotions.”

Hange shook her head. “I’m not. I approached this methodically. Even before considering my feelings, I considered my circumstances.” She put the third finger up. “I considered the backlash, I considered Zeke’s feelings, dealing with a divorce. And that’s what brought me here, despite the criticism, despite my inability to buy the love alarm and to barely salvage the mood alarm.”

“You still gave in to your emotions.”

Hange nodded. “After thinking long and hard about it, I did. But before that, I weighed all three, and I decided to take the risk.”

“Was it worth it?”

Hange shrugged and she leaned over the rail, seeming mesmerized by the lake. “I won’t know yet but I guess, even when I thought you had someone else…” There was a flash of hurt on her face, enough for Levi to regret playing that little joke on her.

“I don’t have anyone else,” Levi clarified.

Hange continued to speak. “I still thought the risk was worth taking. It would have been unfair to Zeke if I stayed and who am I to stop you if someone makes you feel happy.” She turned back to him. “This is the way I’ll choose to love. I’ll weigh my emotions, my circumstances and my worst case scenarios. Then I decide the most loving thing to do. If I have to take a risk, I take it. And I guess, given all that, looking for you seemed like the correct decision.”

Levi couldn’t stifle that smile any longer, and he hoped somehow, his own words would stop it from getting any wider. “Well, it's too early to tell if it's a good decision.”

Hange opened her phone and opened the application. “Can we try again?”

“You wanna use the love alarm?” Levi asked. “Your ex-husband’s application.”

“It’s still your brainchild,” Hange said as she waited for it to load. She hovered her thumb over it.

“I don’t have it installed,” Levi said.

“I can wait,” Hange said. And there was no room for argument in her voice.

An awkward few minutes as Hange watched him download the application. Levi focused on the loading bar, and luckily, his biometrics were still registered from that brief experiment of a year ago.

“On three…” Hange said, her voice a little stilted.

But they didn’t finish counting or maybe they just counted at completely different paces.

The alarms rang, filling the empty space between them, two rings which never seemed to find a uniform pace. Even with a very dominant fastidious side though, Levi wasn’t thinking too much about such a small detail.

Hange’s was smiling, grinning, or whatever that was called. Her face was a mix between pure ecstasy and pure passion. She wrinkled her eyes at him, her mouth climbed into a grin wider than he had ever been used to.

She let out a loud sigh. “I was fucking scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That you would have gotten over me… I dunno, thought you might just think love was a choice, and I dunno, stop feeling whatever that love alarm thing was feeling.”

“I don’t think the love alarm works like that,” Levi said. Really, he started to realize he didn’t know how it worked.

Hange shook her head. “I’m probably just overthinking. You know… I learned how to code over the years, talked to a few developers and tried to look into how the application works,” she said.

“Did you find anything?”

“Remember when you told me that the love alarm starts to figure out for its own what love is. It creates its own definition. Something we can’t even comprehend...” Hange was still grinning, her voice coming out as breaths and sometimes sounds.

Still, Levi could comprehend most of it. “You have any theories?” he pressed. Hange always had theories.

“Soulmates? Relationships in a past life?” Hange suggested.

“Well, we can’t really look back at those right?” Levi said. “Well, what else?”

One word, one word out of Hange’s mouth. “Pemberley.”

“Pemberley?” Levi asked. Somehow though as Hange looked back at the lake, up at the sky then at the gaudy main street of that small town. Levi started to understand it himself.

“It’s ugly here,” Levi said. At first he had meant it. As Hange started to look at her surroundings then back at the lake, with a look of wonder in her eyes, Levi was sure he had meant it as a challenge.

“When you’re in love then with the person we love, everywhere starts to feel like Pemberley,” Hange completed a second later.

Does it? And he wondered why the hell, he needed Hange to point it out.

They were in an ugly town, a place people were paid to live in. The sky was constantly overcast. When it wasn’t raining, it was snowing and it snowed six months a year. When it wasn’t snowing or raining, the sky was at least threatening it.

The way that Hange had looked at it with such naive wonder, the way she had just stood there, looking at everything and back at him, Levi couldn’t help but entertain the idea of Pemberley.

Maybe give the colors a chance to show themselves? Hange didn’t say it out loud. In the moment they made eye contact though, Levi couldn’t help but just give that little piece of advice a chance, whether it had been his own or Hange’s.

He looked first at the main road and the red brick path, noting how the gaudy red, worn by the elements more than actual foot traffic seemed to still glow a bright red despite the grey undertones. He then looked to the buildings, varying shades of concrete grey yet ‘the varying shades’ of it seemed to still have some sense of novelty.

He then looked back at the ocean, the dark sky above never allowed it a more beautiful shade of blue, yet the bluish black still continued to glow. The waves only sent glimmers of silver against the dark blue. Then it was only natural that he looked up at the sky, the sky which never allowed any other shade for itself, except on a few select days a year.

The fog blocked whatever green the mountains beyond the lake would have shown him.

Looking back at Hange then back at his surroundings, he started to accept it. There were greens, reds, blues, yellows and every other color in the spectrum. The world glowed with so many colors, so many lights and sounds. His emotions were a whirlwind that spun to whatever rhythm the lights and colors blinked at.

Colors persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Emotions persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Even emotions we don’t understand ourselves. Levi added to himself.

Maybe Hange was right. That was what the love alarm had been trying to show. The one person who made the colors, the emotions all the clearer.

“This is a beautiful place,” Hange said. “And I wouldn’t mind staying here, lay low a bit, just long enough for people to forget the divorce fiasco.”

“There are a few nice places here,” Levi said.

Hange continued to stare.

Why don’t we just live here together right Levi?

I know you, you wouldn’t be able to stay out of the action.

Levi felt almost ashamed at that mystery response that seemed to pop into his head out of nowhere. We can live here long enough to get our shit together. "First things first, let’s discuss this partnership, over tea in my house.”

“Now?” Hange’s widened her eyes. And her eyes were smiling.

“Well, unless you have other plans tonight,” Levi said.

Hange shook her head. “Nothing much…”

They made the whole way back to his home in silence. Surprisingly, Levi preferred it that way. It had been enough for him to appreciate his new comprehension of his surroundings, the small details he hadn't noticed before.

It wasn’t just the view. The rhythm of their footsteps, their uncoordinated breathing, and just the way the trees rustled, the wind blew, always found a way to glow different colors. His emotions, the chaos of every moment after that were also challenging him to find their colors.

And the circumstances that had them locked in his cramped apartment, sitting over tea, with no one else watching, nothing restricting them had Levi reflecting. It probably had Hange reflecting too. They spoke unhindered with just thoughts, expressions and locked gazes.

For one reason or the other, it happened quickly and abruptly, leaving no space or time to comprehend it.

Sitting on his living room sofa right next to her. Hands clasped against the other. Her dry lips were on his.

The magic welling in his chest, the thunder that climbed quickly up his throat, persevering even underneath the grey. They were all screaming at him then, they all glowed colors.

At that moment though, he had been to tired to reflect on it for any longer. He decided to just roll with it.

It was no use making sense of it. After all, life, love and emotions... They were all just complicated that way.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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everlarkficexchange · 3 years

Text

That’s Just Tachy

Written by: @everybirdfellsilent

Prompt 153: Best friends!Everlark who have always been in love with one another. Katniss is in a pretty serious accident, of course Peeta visits her every single day. He notices that every time he enters the room her heart monitor beeps due to elevated heart rate. He notices and finally mentions to a mutual friend (Madge? Finnick?) how it’s sweet that she gets excited to see her friends, said friend rolls eyes and is like uh yeah ok “friend”. Peeta’s all what? Cue suspicion so next time he visits her he takes it a step further and gives little touches (brushes her hair back, strokes her cheek, grazes her arm? LET IT BURN) to see what happens. Sure enough her HR skyrockets. Tell us all the sweet and suspenseful details :))) [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone] (@peetamewllark)

I do not own The Hunger Games or it’s characters. All credit where credit is due.

Thank you to @xteenwolfwritingsx, @smartalexy, and @papofglencoe for looking this over for me!

Warnings: Some language. (I think?) Mostly just fluff, though. (Rated K-Teen.)

Word count: 6,712

A/N: This didn’t turn out quite how I wanted, but it is what it is. 😆 It was a 2k document I sat down to flush out and suddenly it was over 6k words, so I figured it was time. I like to write where you just jump right in kind of like a TV show, but that didn’t really work for this prompt, and was a sort of learning curve for me. But I still hope you all like it! This was fun to write, and I have loved this prompt from the beginning. (Especially the “LET IT BURN”. Haha! So here are my two lovesick idiots who don’t know it until it’s right in front of their face. I have missed writing for them.)

Xxx

“You guys coming?” Jo called from up at the front of the group as they made their way across the quad.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Johanna stopped, effectively stopping Gale and Finnick as well, and they all stared at the two stragglers of the group who were locked in some kind of glare off.

“I don’t trust him,” Katniss stated, her eyes never wavering from his.

“Me?!” Peeta cried in disbelief. “You’re the one with impeccable aim and on the archery team, why in the world am I the bigger threat here?”

“Because you started it.”

Gale huffed. “Started what?”

“Poking me in the sides at the most inopportune moments all day.”

Gale sighed heavily. “Catnip….”

Her head snapped his way, the glare now on him, she missed the two thumbs up Peeta sent Gale from behind her in thanks. “You know I hate that nickna-”

The rest of her sentence stopped abruptly as she felt two strong and familiar hands start to play her sides like a piano, and it was a wonder she avoided letting out a screech. Batting the hands away with her own, using the thin folder in her hand to swat at them as they tried to come near again, she couldn’t help the smile that crawled across her face, muttering nonsense at the lighthearted taunts Peeta sent her way.

Finnick rolled his eyes, smiling almost imperceptibly. “Come on, let the lovebirds be.”

As the three up ahead continued on, Peeta and Katniss called a truce, both breathing heavily, an errant chuckle here and there the only noise as they caught their breath.

“So are you meeting up with Haymitch before work today?” Peeta asked, staring at the ground as they began to follow their friends.

“Yup,” Katniss nodded, looking at the ground herself, but glancing over at Peeta every now and then. Each time made her heart race just a little bit more, and she wasn’t quite sure how that made her feel. “I need to talk to him about enrolling in one more course, or how to get some extra hours somehow.”

“Well, we’ll meet up when you’re off work later, then, and you can tell me how it went.” He looked up and right at her. “And, you know, if Haymitch doesn’t have any ideas, I can always try and talk to our professors and see where that gets us.” His voice was smooth and deep, and he playfully bumped shoulders with her as they continued to walk.

She couldn’t help but blush at the implication, knowing Peeta could sell anything to anyone with the way he spoke. “I’ll think about it,” she managed to get out. “But I have to work late tonight, so I’ll just text you when I get off, and we’ll go from there. Sound good?”

“Sure,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets, and she couldn’t help but sigh in relief knowing he wouldn’t be poking her for the foreseeable future, making him smirk. “How late?”

“I’m not sure exactly. They just said some may need to stay late.” She shrugged, clutching her folder close to her chest. “But not too late, I don’t think. Definitely before midnight.”

“I’ll see you at midnight, then.”

Xxx

She’d been in an accident. An awful, terrible accident.

There were more details, he was sure, but his mind tuned out of any further conversation past that. Images flashed in his mind, everything from horrendous to benign, of the condition she was in, or would be in. Did she need surgery? Did she need a kidney? A really big bandaid?

All he knew was that he’d be there for her. They all would. Because that’s what friends do. They protect each other, it’s just what they do.

Xxx

They went in as a group, right before visiting hours were over that same day.

He didn’t know what exactly he was expecting, but he still had a breath catch in his chest at the sight of her.

Gale and Johanna were teary eyed as they walked around to the opposite side of the bed, Gale gently taking Katniss’ hand in his where it lay beside her on the bed, and Jo hanging back behind him, almost as if to have a barrier between her and the situation.

Finnick stood beside Peeta on the opposite side, up by her head, and rested his hand beside her head, supporting his weight. Normally one for a playful nudge or flirtatious tuck of hair behind one’s ear, his lack of physical touch and in fact distance between his hand and her spoke volumes. “Hey, Katniss,” he said softly. The hitch in his voice not missed by anyone in the room, or the shuddering breath he took in after.

Her eyes fluttered open, and while still somewhat glassy from the pain medicine pumping through her system, she let out a tentative smile, and gently squeezed Gale’s hand back. “Hey,” voice scratchy from lack of use. “What-” she coughed a rattling cough, making everybody in the room cringe. “What happened?”

“You were in an accident,” Finnick’s voice came out much stronger than before, relief painting his tone. “No one else was hurt, they think you just fell asleep at the wheel coming home from work.”

Her pulse kicked up just slightly at the info, but her typical poker face was in full swing.

“Don’t worry, your job is giving you paid leave until you are totally recovered. You shouldn’t have been working that late, anyway.”

Her eyes flicked over to Peeta as he spoke, her heart monitor seeming to glitch as it registered a missed beat.

“They just don’t want a lawsuit,” Johanna muttered, causing Katniss to laugh, which turned into a major coughing fit.

A nurse poked her head in, pushing some buttons on machines that started to let off incessant beeping, and letting them know visiting hours were over.

They all filed from the room, including the nurse, but Peeta stayed behind. Reaching out to take her hand in his left, he gave it a squeeze, and smiled. “I’ll be back by tomorrow. We’ll go over the assignments coming up.”

Her heart monitor started an intermittent beeping again, a light flashing at the top. “Shhhhhh, it’s okay.” He reached up to brush a piece of hair behind her ear, and the monitor started going crazy, the nurse coming in, lightly scolding him and ushering him from the room. Turning off all the beeping, the only sound was Katniss’ shallow breathing and rapid heart rate.

One last squeeze to her hand, and he was out the door. He faintly heard the nurse say, “Calm down, honey, your boyfriend can come back by tomorrow.”

Then the monitors started going off again.

Xxx

True to his word, the next day Peeta showed up as soon as his last class was over, giving him just a few hours with her, as opposed to every other day when his schedule allowed most of the afternoon, if she’d let him stay.

He smiled at the thought. She did love her time alone. But however long she’d let him stay, he would.

Rounding the corner into her room, he saw Haymitch on the other side of the bed with his hand on her shoulder, grinning down at her, and Katniss sitting more upright than the night before scowling up at him.

Following Haymitch’s glance up, she met Peeta’s eyes, and almost instantly startled away to look at the floor when her heart monitor started beeping like the night before.

Looking at it with knit eyebrows and a slight smirk, he made his way into the room. “So you got defective machines, huh?”

Pushing a button on the rail of the bed to make the head go up slightly, she sat a little further up, muttering, “Something like that….”

Haymitch snickered, quickly coughing to cover it up, moving to the recliner in the corner of the room, observing them over the top of a magazine he grabbed from atop a nearby table.

At some point during the exchange, a nurse must have come in and turned off the alert, though Peeta still noticed the rapid beeping of her pulse.

Holding up the assignments, giving them a little jiggle and raising an eyebrow in question, Peeta set them down on the little rolling table over her on the bed when she gave him a little nod.

Reaching out to touch a few pages absently, she finally muttered in a scratchy voice, “You came back.”

It took a moment before Peeta realized she was talking to him, but he quickly shook his head and said, “I said I would.”

They stared at each other for a moment before the monitor started beeping again, Katniss sighing and reaching out to push a button and silence it. Looking back to Peeta, she held his gaze before darting it all over the room, looking anywhere but him. “They said I could do that.”

Haymitch snorted from behind the magazine, earning daggers of a glare from her.

“Thanks for coming by, Haymitch. You really didn’t need to.” Her tone was sincere in her thanks, but also very clear in her sarcasm.

“Nonsense, sweetheart!” He lowered the magazine to his lap, which made a slapping sound against his thighs. Feet propped up on the footrest of the recliner, legs crossed at the ankles, he just smiled. “I’m your advisor, and I’m here to advise in any way I can.” He glanced at Peeta. “On whoever I can.”

He snickered, blocking the tissue box she threw at him with his arm, before pulling the magazine back up to read.

Chuckling softly, Peeta pulled up a nearby chair to sit next to Katniss. “Luckily, we have all the same classes, except for one, which Finnick will bring by. He gets off before me, so he said he would swing by on his way home.”

Katniss just nodded, staring at the pile of papers on the little table.

The nurse came in with a little cup of pills. “Time for your medicine!” She glanced at Peeta and smiled. “See? I told you your boyfriend could come back!”

Katniss started choking on the water she had used to take the pills, spluttering as Haymitch guffawed in the corner.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she choked out, taking another quick sip as the nurse pushed the button to silence the alert to her elevated pulse yet again, not even sparing it a glance, taking the empty cup when Katniss was done with a smirk.

The nurse looked at Peeta with a raised eyebrow.

“Yup, just friends,” he clarified, and wasn’t really sure if he liked the way that made him feel.

“She just really loves her friends. Close knit. Tight bond,” Haymitch said emphatically to the nurse.

She smiled at him. “I see.”

Xxx

The next day Peeta sat next to Finnick in one of their shared classes, in the back row of the stadium like seating. Finnick leaned back in his chair, hands knit behind his head like he was laying out in the sun lounging on a pool float somewhere.

After a few moments Finnick turned his head just slightly toward Peeta on his right, his eyes still on the ceiling. “So what you’re telling me, is her pulse was elevated the whole time you were there?”

“Yeah,” Peeta said, tossing his hands up a little in exasperation and letting them lightly slap back down on to the desktop. “I was concerned at first, but then,” he smiled, looking down to the desktop for a moment, playing with his pencil, then looking forward again. “Then I realized it was whenever we talked, specifically, not Haymitch or the nurse, and I put it together. She’s just really glad to see her friends, I think. I mean, I don’t blame her, that place is all greys and whites and blah.”

When Finnick didn’t respond, Peeta looked to his left to find Finnick still splayed back, but looking right at him. “Just ‘blah’?” He stared blankly at Peeta. “You think she’s happy - so happy it sets off alarms - that her friends are bringing a dash of color into her world?”

“….Yeah?” Peeta was hesitant to answer, shrugging his shoulders as he responded.

Rolling his eyes, Finnick rolled his head back toward the ceiling with the movement, scoffing and letting out a small chuckle. “Uh, yeah. Okay, ‘friend’.”

“What-” Peeta huffed, looking for the right words, “What are you- What do you even mean, Finnick?”

Finnick shrugged with a smirk, everyone quieting down when the teacher walked in. Looking to his friends one more time, Finnick spoke in a hushed tone as the teacher began the lecture. “You’re a great friend, Peeta.”

They both looked forward toward the lecture happening in front of them, but Peeta wasn’t absorbing anything, his mind going a million miles a minute trying to figure out what Finnick meant.

He had his suspicions, but, no…. Surely not. Finnick was crazy.

Xxx

He had waited until the end of the visit to test Finnick’s theory.

As he went over the notes he had taken, reading them aloud to Katniss while she sat with the bed a little straighter up than the day before, her head back and eyes closed while she listened, he kept looking at her. Wondered what was going on in her head. Silently daring her to open her eyes and meet his.

Shaking his head as Finnick’s voice echoed in his head, he went back to staring at the paper as he read, not even looking up.

The medicine she was on for pain made everything blurry, so he had volunteered to read to her. But as he went on, he found himself unconsciously speaking to the rhythm of her heart monitor, her pulse holding steady for the time being. And he couldn’t help the little grin that came across his face.

“And that’s it,” he said, closing his notebook and looking up to see Katniss blinking her eyes open, letting them readjust to the hospital room’s bright lights.

“Thank you,” she said softly, her voice a little stronger than the day before.

Reaching out like the day she came in here, he gently took her hand in his, giving it a soft squeeze. “Don’t mention it.”

He glanced to the monitor that registered what looked to be a missed beat or two, but her pulse stayed fairly even, going slightly higher, but not enough to set off any alarm bells - on the machine or in his head.

The nurse came by and poked her head in the door, announcing that visiting hours were almost over, then came all the way in to the other side of the bed.

Katniss looked at the needle in her hand with disgust. “I hate this medicine,” she said offhandedly. “It is supposed to help me sleep, but it just gives me nightmares.” Looking at Peeta as the nurse injected the medicine into her IV, her pulse started to quicken.

Absentmindedly packing up his stuff, Peeta looked to the monitor when it finally started beeping and flashing. Swinging his backpack onto his shoulder, he noticed a particularly high spike, setting off new alarms he hadn’t heard before, and he looked to Katniss worriedly.

As the nurse came around the foot of the bed to turn off the machines, fiddling with them after the blaring stopped, Katniss spoke quietly, “Peeta. Stay with me?”

It was a question, not a statement or demand, and he so wanted to give in and ease her mind as she fell asleep, but visiting hours were over.

Katniss looked like she was starting to drift off to sleep, reaching for him blindly with the hand he had held moments before.

The nurse looked between them, smiled and winked at Peeta as she made her way out of the room. “I’ll come check on her in a few hours. You know, she is allowed one person to stay with her.”

Setting his backpack on the ground, Peeta went to the hand still outstretched for him, and held it tight.

“Peeta?” Her voice was small and barely awake.

“Yeah. I’m here. Go back to sleep.” He went to go over to the recliner in the corner, but her hand clutched his with a strength he didn’t think had returned to her yet, keeping him beside her.

“Stay with me.”

This time it wasn’t a question but a statement, a demand, and it made him smile. Glancing to the monitor again, he saw her heart rate settle back down as the chair he had moved over earlier scraped against the floor as he pulled it closer to her bedside, still clutching her hand tightly in his own.

“Always,” he said matter of factly, as if any other answer were wrong.

Resting his chin on his hand, giving hers one last squeeze, he stared at her and smiled softly. He found himself yawning and drifting off to sleep soon, preparing for the nightmares, and dreading the moment he would finally have to let go.

Xxx

Peeta woke to sunlight hitting his eyes, blinking them open only to squint and lift up his left arm to block the rays slipping through the blinds. Looking toward Katniss, he saw her staring at him, already wide awake, and she even smiled a little bit.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice leaps and bounds better than previous days.

“Morning,” Peeta mumbled, sitting up from where his head still rested on his hand, groaning at his stiff back stretching for the first time in hours, and swiping at his face, hoping he hadn’t drooled in his sleep. His hand froze over his eye as he blearily gave it a rub when he heard a giggle.

Eyes snapping to Katniss, he saw her smiling broadly and uninhibited. “You really aren’t a morning person, are you?” she asked.

Yawning, Peeta spoke through the stretch. “You’re really a morning person, aren’t you?”

She threw her head back and laughed the first real laugh he had heard in days. Leaving her head back against the bed she sighed. “No,” she said honestly, and they both chuckled. “No, I’m really not, but that was the first night of sleep I have had since being here, and I guess I needed it, so thank you.”

Reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, Peeta let his hand linger, and heard the monitor spike, making him smile. “I can tell. Your hair is crazy.”

She scowled at him but it melted into a chuckle and pink cheeks.

Letting his hand fall slightly, down to her cheeks, he traced the back of his finger over her blush. “You’re getting your color back. That’s good.”

She reached up to grab his wrist gently, groaning what sounded an embarrassed reply.

“Hang on,” he mumbled, and she lightly held on to his wrist as he moved down to trace her lips with his thumb.

Her breath hitched and the monitor beeped faster again.

Grinning impishly, he swiped his thumb on the side of her mouth as if wiping something off, and said softly, “You drool.”

She shoved his hand away, once again trying to scowl but ended up snickering along with him as he jokingly wiped his hand on his jeans, making a ridiculous face before chuckling himself.

Xxx

Since it was a Saturday, Peeta took his time, lingering at her bedside, and lounging in the chair he had slept in, despite Katniss telling him repeatedly to go sit in the recliner in the corner, so he would be more comfortable.

Instead of comfort, he took the chance to sit by her and steal a glance every now and then, since he no longer got to do it in class. He always felt a sense of calm when looking at her, much like last night, when Katniss’ heart rate had calmed down when he agreed to stay. Something just felt right.

They brought her a breakfast tray, if it could even be called that. Peeta stared at the tray just like it that sat in his lap, thanking the nurse who had given it to him with a wink and a smirk, and trying to decide what exactly was on the tray that they were trying to pass off as “food”.

Standing up after the nurse left, he walked his tray over to the nearby counter, turning to see Katniss glaring at him.

“If I have to eat this, you have to eat this,” she hissed, gesturing to the food then him with her fork.

Peeta gulped. “How about we share?”

Katniss narrowed her eyes at him briefly, before mumbling a “fine”, looking back to the food and picking at the imposter waffles.

The TV was playing softly in the background, the only other noise aside from Katniss’ incessant fidgeting.

“Are you okay?” Peeta asked after what felt like the millionth time, and tried to swallow the “waffles” that didn’t seem to want to be eaten as much as he didn’t want to eat them.

Katniss grimaced. “Yeah, it’s just,” she fidgeted again. “This is the most uncomfortable bed, and I can’t find a way to help it anymore. They changed my medication to something a little less potent, so now I’m feeling all the aches and pains and itches and everything glorious.”

Peeta chuckled. “Well, how about we get up and walk around the hallways a little bit, and after that I can give you a little massage?” He had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling at her wide eyes. He didn’t need a machine to know her pulse was elevated, her cheeks gave that away as they tinged pink. Ever since Finnick had made his “observation” the day before, he’d found himself being much bolder than he had ever been before. “I mean, it can’t be too much different than kneading bread….”

Katniss simultaneously choked and chuckled at the same time. “The medicine I’m due for in a few minutes makes me really dizzy, and I’d have to use the walker, and-”

“And I’ll help you,” Peeta interrupted, earning him a scowl. “I’ll walk right beside you in case you need help, and catch you if you start to fall.”

“And if I can’t walk the whole time you’ll go find me a wheelchair at the nurses station, right?” Katniss rolled her eyes with a little scoff, but her cheeks still bloomed in a bright blush.

“No, I’ll just carry you if it comes to that.”

“Oh.” Was all Katniss could muster, a short decisive nod in confirmation as she sat the bed up all the way, lowering her propped up feet and pushing away the tray of “food”. “Could I- I mean, Can you-” she stuttered out, timidly reaching her hand out in a request for help up.

Peeta scrambled to his feet, immediately offering his hand to help her sit totally upright, easing her legs over the side of the bed and lowered the rail on the side to help her even more.

She turned toward the edge of the bed, her feet dangling off the edge in the yellow socks with grippy bottoms they kept replacing every day, and flitted her eyes over to the walker in the corner, Peeta following her gaze and immediately reaching over with his long reach to grab it, placing it in front of her.

“Can I have my robe, please?” she asked in a small voice, pointing to where it hung on the bathroom door. “These hospital gowns are drafty in all the wrong places.” She pulled a hand down her face, sighing at the words that kept coming out of her mouth. “Sorry, too much information.”

Peeta smiled as he handed her the robe. “No, I get it. I’ve been in here once or twice, remember?”

She smiled sadly. “Yeah, I remember.”

As Peeta helped her into the robe, he also smiled sadly. Staring at the floor, memories he’d rather forget started flashing through his mind. He must have spaced out, or maybe he clutched her shoulders just a little too tightly, but the next thing he really registered was Katniss holding his face in her hands, searching his face frantically.

“Stay with me,” she echoed her words from last night, once again not a question, but a matter of fact.

Locking his eyes on hers, he found the fog clearing. Swallowing thickly, he nodded, letting his gaze dart around the room. “Thanks,” he finally muttered, smiling sadly one last time before he cleared his throat and smiled a bit more genuinely. “Now quit procrastinating.”

Xxx

They made it a few laps around the floor before Katniss was too tired to make one more round. When they passed back by her room, they went in and saw that the food trays had been removed, thankfully, and the bed linens changed. At the foot of the bed sat a new hospital gown, bright yellow and folded neatly, on top of it a matching set of those same yellow socks.

“Feel up to changing?” Peeta asked her as he helped slip off her robe, carrying it back to the hook on the bathroom door.

“I guess,” Katniss sighed, her breathing labored. “Makes the most sense to do it before getting back in bed.”

“Let me know if you need any help,” he said, holding the bathroom door open as she shuffled by, the gown and socks clutched tightly to her chest with one hand, the other holding the back of the hospital gown together as best she could.

Closing the door all but a sliver, Peeta stood right outside in case she needed help, absently staring at the TV. His mind was far away, though, thinking about all the times he had been the one in here, and she had visited and helped him. He didn’t dwell on the reason he was there, but the fact she had come to help.

“Peeta?” Her small voice echoing around the small bathroom caught his attention.

“Yeah?” He cleared his throat.

“I need some help tying this gown.”

Now it was his turn to have his cheeks go pink. Nothing is more awkward than a hospital gown. The door slowly swung open, and her back was revealed to him, her hands clutching the back tightly around her hips, but her back was on full display, making him swallow thickly.

It was moments like these that he found himself getting lost in an emotion he only ever felt around her, but he never fully understood. If he had to describe it, it was how he pictured love feeling.

Slowly walking into the little room, he stepped up behind her, closer than needed, and noticed she was shaking as he reached for the little ties.

“Are you cold?”

“Y-yeah,” she stuttered out, looking at the floor.

Slowly tying a double knotted bow so it wouldn’t slip open on accident, Peeta accidentally brushed his fingertips on the soft exposed skin of her back, and she instantly stilled. “Is that too tight?” he asked softly.

“N-no. But can you tie the top one a little looser? I think when I sit down it might be just a little too tight.”

He nodded, reaching up to tie the top strings in just one bow in case she wanted to adjust it, and his skin brushed her clavicle, making her shiver once again.

Leaning in toward her ear, he spoke in a low voice, “Can you please hold your hair up? I don’t want to get it caught in the strings.”

The shivering turned into a violent shudder before she nodded, lifting her hair up with her free hand not clutching the lower part of the gown closed, and took deep, steadying breaths.

“Thank you,” she breathed, letting go of her hair as he set his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back flush with his front gently, and placing his chin gently on one shoulder, his cheek right by her ear.

“Don’t mention it,” he said in a quiet tone much like her own. With their bodies so close, he could feel her rapid heartbeat against his own, and they both were above average.

“I’ll let you take care of the lower ties.” He took a few steps back before turning to go back to the room. Her voice so close behind him startled him.

“I think I will leave those open. I’ll be under the covers anyway, and it makes it a little easier to move and sit in that bed. But I could use your help switching out these socks…. If you don’t mind.” She smiled timidly. “Bending over is still really hard.”

Nodding, he gestured her to the bed and helped her sit on the edge. Pulling off the old pair and putting on the new, he heard her hooking the various little monitors back up as she settled back in. Looking up he saw her plug the pulse monitor back in and immediately the machine started blaring like it had before. Looking up at her with wide eyes, they both glanced at the monitor as the nurse came in and turned it off.

“Why does that keep happening?” Peeta questioned her. “Isn’t that something bad?”

The nurse smiled kindly at him. “That? Oh, that’s just tachycardia. Elevated heart rate. The machine has certain parameters set for ‘normal’ and sometimes exertion or excitement can make your pulse shoot up to what the parameters deem ‘too high’. It’s completely safe.”

She leaned into Peeta. “But between you and me, I think it’s just you in general that keeps making hers go off. You have some effect on her, no one else who visits has it going off this much. Someone named Finnick had it going, but she was laughing really hard. Haymitch seems to put her in a bad mood - or annoyed - and that sets it off sometimes. But you, you make it go off the most. I’d be very unhappy about that if she wasn’t looking so much better having you here.” The machine went off again, and the nurse glanced at a mortified looking Katniss before smiling knowingly at Peeta. “Just push this button if it happens again.” Reaching out she silenced the machine once again, winking at Katniss, before promptly leaving the room.

Katniss and Peeta just stared at one another for a long moment before he clapped his hands together and said, “Now how about that massage?”

He reached out and shut off the machine before it let out too many alerts.

Xxx

If he had thought it through, tying the gown before the massage wasn’t the brightest idea, but he was so glad he had because it was one more excuse to be so close to her. He was surprised she wasn’t swatting him away with how ticklish she tended to be.

The head of the bed was lowered enough for him to squeeze in behind her, and they finally settled on her sitting between his legs as she hugged a pillow to her front as she slightly bent forward, and laid her head on a pillow on the little rolling table they had locked to sit in front of her. Her head was turned to her right so he could see her profile, and her typical braid going over her shoulder had been done so he could have easier access to her shoulders and neck.

He wanted to take a moment to just admire her, but he understood the horribleness of a hospital bed, and went to working on her shoulders immediately. Working from the bottom of her shoulder blades up to the top of her neck, he tried to be gentle not entirely sure what might still hurt from the accident, but dug in to the knots he found, earning appreciative groans from her.

He worked down to her lower back, right above her hips was as much as he could get to, and he made a mental note to ask the nurse for a heating pad next time she came in. Even his baker trained hands couldn’t work that tension out without some help.

“Is the pressure okay?” He kept asking, to which she answered a groggy sounding yes every time. Finally instead of an answer he got a snore in response. Glancing to her face he saw her peacefully asleep, not even a flinch as he found yet another knot near her shoulder blade. He worked on it gently for a few minutes, not seeing her flinch once, but finally decided that was enough for now.

Someone cleared their throat to his left, and he snapped his head to see Finnick leaning in the doorway, ankles crossed, arms crossed over his chest, and a smirk across his face that was absolutely beaming.

“Friends,” he said quietly, but with emphasis, snickering, before hanging his head and gently shaking it.

Double knotting the one tie and loosely tying the top one again, Peeta slowly eased out of the bed, taking the pillow Katniss was hugging and adding it to the one that had been behind his back, slowly lowering her back until she was laying on the slight incline of the bed, her snoring not wavering once. He took the pillow her head had been on on the tray and gave it to her to hug like the other one, and she clutched it tight, snuggling into the blankets he pulled back up over her.

Walking past Finnick, Peeta gave him a dirty look before continuing out into the hall, pulling him along by the elbow when Finnick didn’t follow, closing the door all but a crack so he would hear if she woke up or the machines went off.

Finnick was just smirking.

“Why did you have to say anything the other day?” Peeta hissed. “Everything was fine until then, and now I can’t think about anything else.”

“Could you before? Really?” Finnick prodded. “I mean, sure, you didn’t sit an analyze her heart rate, but can you honestly tell me you didn’t think about her, look at her and get that feeling you can’t really describe but understand, and just know this person is supposed to be in your life?” It was quiet for a minute before Finnick spoke in a softer voice. “I get it, man.” He put a hand on Peeta’s shoulder, despite Peeta’s arms still being firmly crossed. “It’s the same feeling I get-”

“Let me guess, it’s the same feeling you get when you see me?” Peeta’s sarcasm was off the charts.

Finnick threw his head back and laughed. “Well, yeah, but in a different way. No, man, it’s how I feel when I see Annie.” Peeta’s face softened at the mention of Finnick’s fiancé. “And no matter how long we have been together, that feeling doesn’t change. It gets more comfortable, yeah, but it’s the same feeling, same emotion.” He smiled a goofy smile and looked off in the distance over Peeta’s shoulder. “It’s like…. You look at them and….” He met Peeta’s gaze again, “you know you’re home.”

Peeta had to glance over his shoulder to see if Annie was actually there, because the way Finnick had stared down that hallway, Peeta was almost certain she had to be there.

Letting his arms drop as he sighed, his shoulders hunching, Peeta rested his forehead on Finnick’s chest and groaned softly.

Snickering, Finnick pushed him to arms length, hands on his shoulders, and gently shook him until he met his eyes again. “You’re here. You’re safe. This is real.” He sighed. “It’s a really messed up situation, but it’s where you are.” He grinned impishly. “Now go get her and tell her you love her, you idiot, before I do.”

Gently shoving Peeta back toward the room, all thought of flipping Finnick the bird faded from his mind when he heard Katniss sleeping fitfully, moaning softly in what sounded like pain or distress, and her monitor registering a higher and higher pulse rate.

The nurses words about what causes the elevation came back to him, and Peeta was in the room and beside her faster than Finnick could say “go”.

The door shut softly behind him, but it was enough to make Katniss sit upright in bed, wide eyed, immediately grimacing and groaning as she grabbed her midsection.

Peeta put a hand on her shoulder, and she immediately flinched, but looking up and seeing his face, relief washed over her features, and her pulse began to calm down. “You’re okay,” he reassured softly.

“Thank you,” she all but whispered. “I am now that you’re here.”

They looked at one another and shared a soft smile, their eye contact never wavering.

“Scoot over,” Peeta said simply, jutting his chin forward as if to motion to her which way to go.

“What? Why?” Katniss asked, but did as he asked.

Slipping his shoes off, Peeta took the pillow she had been hugging away form her, ignoring her lighthearted protests, and stuck it a bit further up than her pillows, and climbed in the bed in the spot she had made for him. Pulling the sheets up over them, he laid his head on the pillow slightly further up, and gently pulled her so that she was resting on his chest, hugging him like she had clutched the pillow.

“You slept better leaning forward when I was giving you the massage, I figured this might help-”

They heard a snort from the doorway and both looked to see Finnick in the exact position he had been in only minutes earlier. “You two idiots are going to be the death of me,” he muttered softly with a smirk, hanging his head once again with a gentle shake.

Looking back to one another, Peeta began again after a moment of silence, “Really, it was just an instinct, I’m sorry if I- I can get out of you want-”

He was cut off by Katniss firmly planting a kiss on his lips. Pulling away just enough to speak, she whispered, “Thank you.”

“Always,” Peeta responded without even thinking.

They both smiled when they heard Finnick whoop and say something about “finally” from down the hall before the door clicked shut.

Searching each other’s face, eyes flitting this way and that, from lips to eyes to nose to lashes, the space between them slowly began to close again, until it finally disappeared and was lost in a kiss, then another, and some more.

In longing touches, laughter, and whispered discussions.

Stolen glances and hidden smiles.

The distance between them stayed small, much like the distance between each heart beat, until finally the nurses cleared her to no longer need the monitor. Probably more for their own sanity than anything else.

When she finally got dressed in normal clothes and was discharged, she came out of the bathroom after braiding her hair, and smiled as Peeta waited for her by the door, his own broad smile across his face, one hand outstretched for her. When they were within touching distance, he firmly gripped her hand with his, reaching out to touch the tip of her braid with the other, fiddling with it absentmindedly, a goofy grin on his face.

Walking the few feet to the waiting wheelchair the hospital insisted she leave in, Peeta let go of her hand, but stayed as close as he could. After she finally was in the passenger seat of his car, he once again took her hand across the console, threaded their fingers together, and they both smiled.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Looking at him now, she understood her feelings of only a few days ago, walking through the quad with stolen glances.

“Ready,” she said.

Shifting the car into gear, Peeta gave her one more dazzling grin, and one last squeeze of her hand, before he turned to look at the road, and they rode in comfortable silence, and that wonderful feeling, of knowing that that special someone loves you back.

After a few minutes, Peeta finally piped up, “Just so you know, that truce I called in the quad the other day? That only extends a few more days.”

Katniss turned a glare on him and he snickered.

#everybirdfellsilent #lovely-tothe-bone #prompt 153 #Springtime edition 2021 #submission

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m-y-fandoms · 3 years

Text

COMMISSION: Joker/Akira/Ren x Reader Part 2

Part 1

This is gonna be many more parts... I can already tell

Word Count: 2.2k

SFW, SLOW BURN romance friends to lovers, gender neutral reader, anyone can enjoy it and place themselves as the reader!

- Admin Myah

You spent your entire free period up on that roof, hoping by some miracle that you weren’t crazy, that the group of second-year students that had seemingly vanished before your eyes were in fact pranking you, and upon seeing that you weren’t amused, would get tired of hiding and pop out, finishing the surprise. No such luck, however, and so you left, the second-period bell forcing your hand. Spending the first period of your day - a bit of free time meant for studying, finishing homework, or otherwise enriching yourself educationally - up on the roof and unaccounted for by any teachers was a bit risky already, and you were a decent enough student. There was no way you could just sit there all day, skipping the rest of your classes. Sighing, you resolved to just give up the hunt for your destined main character and by extension the group of potential new friends.

＊

Often after school, you headed to the library, which stayed open along with a select few other areas of Shujin for student use after the last bell rang. Today, however, you felt drawn back to that place, back to that rooftop where you’d seen Akira, Ryuji, and Ann disappear hours earlier. It just wasn’t sitting right with you; you felt a stirring in your soul, like a tiny voice in your head, a shimmering blue butterfly in your stomach. Lucky for you, the rooftop was also open, though you’d never really spent time there. Certain students, including another third-year you admired raised plants up there where the sun could reach them, while others simply came up there for the view or the breeze, some private space to study.

Today, the breeze was indeed blowing, and you sat there writing as it whistled past your ears, polishing up some plot points, scrawling down ideas for your protagonist straight from the imagination, since it seemed you wouldn’t be finding any real-life inspiration anytime soon. It was frustrating, writer’s block, and for the past month or so, it’s all you could do to write a single paragraph. You always found yourself lost in the pages of the novels you loved, and you could identify great writing, appreciate the artistry of another writer, but it was sometimes so hard to put your own thoughts down on the pages of your journal. Why was it so hard? You knew what real romance was. You knew which themes and cliches were overdone and unrealistic. You had a mature and healthy outlook on real relationships and could pick apart the stereotypical female protagonist who was strong and independent until she met the man who would break down her walls or the toxic bad boy who women loved on paper but would cry their eyes out over in real life. You’d read thousands of books and fan-fiction, listened to hundreds of audiobooks, watched tons of romance movies, so why, lately, was it not clicking?! Where was the disconnect between having thoughts and transcribing said thoughts down into your very own masterpiece? Fantasy came so easily to you, sci-fi, non-fiction essays for class, mysteries, research papers, but romance, the genre you loved the most, seemed to purposely elude you.

You were shaken out of your frazzled state when something caught your attention out of the corner of your eye. Shaking your head a bit to try and focus your vision, you looked over your shoulder to see that the black spot on the fringe of your blind spot was in fact actually there. You rubbed your eyes just to be sure, but there it was, a wavering black inky spot hovering in the air. Another appeared, then another, now red in color. You were beginning to feel insane for the second time that day, but rather safe than sorry, you quickly stood, shoving your work and pencils into your bag and shuffling away from the blobs, which were now oscillating and dancing around each other, phasing in and out of existence like a fisheye lens. This was a bit too freaky for your liking, and you were beginning to feel a frightening chill up your spine. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up, and you elected to put some kind of barrier of safety between yourself and the floating bubbles. Like any rational person, your mind was screaming “unknown situation: possible threat: run!” but again, that little butterfly in the pit of your guts was saying there was something worth staying for. So, running to the door to the roof, you swung it open, a ringing in your ear starting to buzz and chime. You closed it frantically, pressing your nose up against the small glass windows that allowed a limited view of the roof. A small gasp escaped your lips, and you instinctively grabbed onto your bag a bit tighter.

The red and black splotches began to dissipate and fade like some kind of glitch in reality, and three figures appeared like mist, like ghosts before beginning to solidify and slowly become tangible silhouettes. Then, as if some kind of magic ritual was coming to a close, the figures poofed into existence, and your brain processed the scene before you.

“Holy shit…” you whispered. There, clear as day were Sakamoto, Takamaki, and the new kid. They were just standing adjusting their clothes, stretching their arms and legs, situating their personal items. It was just then that you saw a little furry head poke up out of Akira’s school bag. Your harsh, analytical gaze softened a bit upon seeing the small black cat that appeared. Had he been carrying that cat around all day? Surely not, right? How would he keep it quiet and still? “What the…?” The inquisitive glare returned to your features when they began… speaking to the cat. It wasn’t the cute baby talk people often use with their pets, either. It was a full-on, serious conversation, and the cat was meowing back, clearly, in response to their statements.

It was a bit muffled by the thick door, but you could make out bits and pieces.

Metaverse? Palace. Shadows... treasure? Kamoshida? Great, that asshole, but what could he have to do with this? What even was this?

You were questioning everything you knew. You were wondering if the juice you had this morning at breakfast was spiked. There was no winning in this scenario, either you were crazy, or these kids were. You looked downward, contemplating your navel as your mind tried to make sense of the events of today. You glanced up again, trying to eavesdrop a little better, get some more detail. You took a step closer, trying to will the sound of their voices through the door to be just a little louder, just a little clearer, when Sakamoto suddenly pivoted, stretching and cracking his spine with a sigh.

“Gah!” You shouted out. His eyes met yours through the window and widened like a kid caught in the cookie jar. You jumped with a start, taking a cautionary step back and nearly tumbling down the stairs. It was a miracle you caught yourself in time, but your little outburst had definitely caught the attention of the group. Your cover was thoroughly blown. “Oh, no…” You cursed under your breath, spotting both Ann and Akira’s eyes on you now as well.

“Shit! Do you think they saw?” Ryuji’s hands flew to his hair, mussing and working out his frustrations on the dyed strands while simultaneously, Akira was already in motion, rushing toward the door to apprehend the unwelcome listener.

Your heartbeat sped up, and like a gazelle spotted by a lion, a fire was lit under you and you began to sprint, clumsily fumbling down the stairwell and onto the flat platform where the stairs rotated 90 degrees and continued downward. Inhaling sharply, your foot, nervous and supporting jelly-like legs, missed the final step. Your belongings, along with your body, spilled across the square, flat platform, and the door behind you slammed open.

“Hey!” Akira’s yell echoed through the stairwell, and your thoughts bounced off the walls just like his voice. Scrambling, you scooped only the essentials into your hands: your journal, the phone of course, a few homework binders, ditching the easily replaceable items like chewing gum and pencils. Taking to one scraped-up knee and ready to bolt, you felt a hand close upon your bicep and clamp down firmly. “Hey, hey… slow down.” Akira again, now gentler with his tone, spun you around to face him. You stood clutching your things to your chest like a life preserver. “I’m not gonna like… kill you or anything.” A breathy chuckle, and now he was on the platform next to you, scanning you up and down for injuries with his hands in his pockets. “So, uh… so don’t kill yourself by fallin’ down these stairs, huh?” He played off the tense feeling in the air with humor, but the sheer proximity of him, standing there in front of you mere inches away in the cramped space, it was like you could hear your blood pounding in your ears.

What was he thinking right now? Did he think you were some weirdo stalker? I mean, you’d just met him this morning and now you were watching him through a small window like a creep after school… after following him there. Wait, that wasn’t important right now! Was he going to kill you? He didn’t seem like the type of guy to do that, but then again, he didn’t seem like the type to phase in and out of existence either… neither did Ryuji and Ann… what were people with powers like that capable of?

Right now, you were just going to mind your business, and play it safe. It wasn’t worth getting mixed up with people who warp through a “metaverse” and talk to animals just for some good writing material, not if it turned out to be dangerous.

“Well…” you hesitated, “it’s none of my business, what I just saw, and I won’t tell anyone.” You breathed a little easier, tried to regain your composure, to not look too weak.

“So they did see! Awww, shit!” Ryuji’s head popped through the door, interrupting the uncomfortable conversation, and the hot air of the enclosed space was cut through by a gust of wind from the now open rooftop door.

“Now, just hold on, Ryuji,” Akira held out one hand to placate his rather temperamental friend.

“No, no really it’s fine that you talk to your… cat and just… vanish... and I’m sure it’s all fine and multiverse-y and…”

“Metaverse.” Akira corrected you with a small smile, bending down to pick up the rest of your scattered objects.

“Dude!” Ryuji ran a hand down his face in defeat.

“They saw us, no point in being tight-lipped,” he stood, handing them to you.

“Metaverse… right,” you took them, watching every move he made carefully. “Sorry, I’m… a bit more... eloquent in my writing,” you moved to the side, ready to sneak past and descend the rest of the stairs. Anything to get on with your day and escape this unbelievable situation. Akira shuffled, mirroring you and completely blocking the stairwell. There was something clever about him, something sharp and charismatic. He knew exactly what he was doing, what he wanted to achieve, and he knew how to calmly and smoothly execute his plans, unlike Sakamoto, who was far less… organized.

“Writing…?” He was keeping you locked into this conversation, as gently and amiably as he could, and you were not leaving until he was sure he could trust your word.

“Uh… yeah, that’s why I was up…” your eyes met his, quickly recoiling and looking toward the floor again, “...up on the roof. I was just looking for a quiet place to write.”

“What, uh, what kind of stuff do you write?” Ann had now joined Ryuji at the top of the stairs, leaving you feeling completely caged in. Ann threw Akira - who seemed like the leader of the small band of misfits - a desperate glance, a sort of look that seemed to ask: “Where are you going with this? Are we screwed?”

“It’s… it’s kind of private. It’s just… romance stuff. I don’t know, I do all kinds of different stuff, whatever I’m in the mood for.” Akira nodded, more to his friends than you, something you had a feeling you weren’t supposed to pick up on. He stuck his hand out flat, gesturing toward the rooftop behind you. You took the hint, heading a bit anxiously back up the stairs, Ryuji and Ann making way for you.

“You any good?” Akira followed behind you, and now on the rooftop once again, the cool air felt freeing, less constricting, though his question felt a bit insulting, a bit nosey.

“I don’t know… I’ve been told I am…” The three friends took a seat in areas that seemed very familiar to them, like they’d been up here warping in and out of this realm many times before. Now settled into place, Ann spoke up, obviously as apprehensive as you were:

“Well do you… do you think…?” Her high-pitched voice seemed to be hesitant, not yet confident in her next words, not sure if they were all on the same page.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Akira smirked as if the three had one mind. He turned to you, trying to make eye contact that you vehemently avoided. “How would you feel about helping us out?”

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blu-joons · 3 years

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Hosting Christmas ~ Jeon Jungkook

It had hardly been the serene build up to Christmas that you hoped for, your house was a mess, and the pressure was on to make sure that every last detail about your home was perfect.

“You’re going to pass out if you’re not careful,” Jungkook’s voice called through from the living room where you had him up on a ladder, tying to tinsel to anything that it could be put on.

You paused for a moment allowing yourself to catch your breath, there was still so much to do as you looked around the house, but time was quickly running away from you. You had it all planned out in your head, yet nothing really felt like it was going to plan.

Once the last piece of tinsel was tied, Jungkook climbed down from the ladder, walking into the kitchen where you were and wrapping his arms around you. His smile grew feeling how hot you were, the heavy pounding on your chest making him laugh.

His face tilted down to meet yours, “neither my parents nor your parents are expecting all of this, not everything needs to be perfect you know.”

You sighed, resting against his chest feeling his hand move up to the back of your head. Christmas had always been perfect when you were growing up, you didn’t quite understand how your mum always made it look so easy.

With the added pressure of Jungkook’s family joining yours at your home it was more important than ever that things went perfectly without so much as a glitch.

“We’ve still got a couple of hours before everyone arrives, so why don’t you get yourself a drink and put your feet up for a moment, then I’ll help you whatever is left,” he smiled.

Reluctantly your head nodded, being guided into the living room. “I think there’s a bottle of wine lying around if you want to open it.”

“Wow…you really must be feeling the pressure to start on the wine.”

If you were honest, it was just that you’d bought enough bottles to last you both until next year, just in case any of your parents fancied a glass, but you were still happy to take the glass from him as he sat down beside you.

“Drink this, you’ll feel better,” he smiled, allowing himself to relax.

The sweet taste brought the corners of your mouth upwards, taking a moment for yourself was exactly what you needed in amongst all the chaos.

“Why don’t we just sit for a while, all the decorations will be up before they arrive, if we get it done together it’ll be easy,” Jungkook told you.

You turned your head to look at the pile of decorations still yet to organise, the only thing completed was the tree the two of you had gone out and bought yesterday. It was tradition for his parents to have a real tree, and you weren’t prepared to let that tradition die.

“I feel so much pressure having both sets of parents here, they’re the ones who have done Christmas for years for the two of us, but now it’s our turn,” you confessed, “I don’t want them to be left disappointed.”

“They won’t be disappointed Y/N, more than anything I think they’re thankful we invited them. Mum’s really looking forward to coming and not having to be the boss this year, but she’ll still help you out, as I’m sure your mum will.”

Your head nodded, you didn’t want to admit it to Jungkook, but you’d rung your mum on a couple of occasions over the week as you tried to get things sorted in the hope she’d help you and make sure that Christmas was perfect for welcoming his family.

“There’s no reason to stress at Christmas,” he reminded you, resting his free hand against your thigh, “I want you to enjoy our first Christmas in our home with all our families coming.”

“I am excited,” you spoke, quick to assure him, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t be glad when all of this is over.”

He chuckled lightly, finishing his glass of wine, taking yours and placing them in the sink in the kitchen. On his way back through he grabbed a couple of the boxes of decorations, unboxing the ornaments that they kept hold of.

His attention was drawn to one box with black tape around it, placing it in his lap, his eyes lit up when he pulled out the old snow globe his parents had kept hold of from when he was little.

“That’s cute,” you smiled as you watched on, his hands shook it quickly, the snow still whirled around inside of the glass.

“Mum bought me this for my fifth Christmas, I forgot she gave it to me when we moved here, said she wanted us to display it somewhere if we could.”

Within an instant you were on your feet, clearing a part of the fireplace to make room for his decoration, it stood beautifully as the centrepiece, just as you knew his mother would have wanted.

“There’s something of mine around here too,” you told him, grabbing another one of the boxes, pulling out the nutcracker you were given on your very first Christmas. It was a little tattered and broken, the paintwork was chipped in many places, but that didn’t stop you loving it.

“Why don’t you put it next to the snow globe?” Jungkook suggested.

You hummed back at him, moving the globe slightly so there was room for your childhood ornament, standing back and admiring how beautiful they looked next to each other.

A pair of arms snaked around your waist as you studied them, lips pressing into the crook of your neck. “Our parents will love them there; they look nice together.”

“I think they will too, let’s leave them so they can be the stars of our house.”

Around the stars of your house you put up the rest of your decorations, checking your cupboards to make sure you had all the food you needed, checking over the guest bedrooms so they had everything that your parents would need, before finally accepting that the job was done.

You placed the two wine glasses on the drying rack as your final job, with Jungkook moving around beside you tidying up the kitchen counters to make sure they were perfect when you were disturbed by the doorbell.

You both turned to each other, anxious smiles shared, drying your hands on the end of your jumper. “Ready for the start of Christmas?” Jungkook asked, offering his hand to you.

You smiled, taking a hold of his hand feeling him squeeze your hand tightly. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”

The two of you walked over to the front door, chuckling as both sets of parents looked back at you both, their hands filled with suitcases and present bags for everyone.

“Merry Christmas!” They smiled, walking through the door, hugging both of you as you stood back, helping your dad with all of the bags.

You were terrified of your parent’s judgment as they walked around, keeping close into Jungkook’s side as his arm wrapped tightly around you. Time stood still as they looked around; your own eyes scanned the room making sure that you hadn’t messed anything up.

“Breathe,” Jungkook whispered down to you as he felt you tense up, kissing the top of your head.

You watched closely as your mum walked towards the fireplace, picking up the nutcracker and turning to face it, “I didn’t realise you actually kept hold of this.”

“Of course, I did. I’ve had it for too long to forget about it, Christmas isn’t Christmas without getting the nutcracker out,” you smiled.

Jungkook’s mum walked over to take a look, where she spotted his snow globe next to where your mum had placed the nutcracker back, turning to the two of you with a wide smile.

“You kept it?” She chuckled.

“It holds too many memories to forget about it, even though we’re not at your house this year, it makes Christmas still feel at home,” Jungkook grinned, opening his arm up for her to hug closely into your side.

Once everyone had settled down and sat on the sofas, the two of you headed into the kitchen to grab them a drink, sighing in relief.

“I think that went well,” you whispered, grabbing more glasses down from the cupboard.

“I told you it would go well and that you didn’t need to stress. Now, you can relax and make sure you enjoy the best Christmas yet!”

---

Masterlist

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oasislake76 · 3 years

Text

I’m finally getting around to organizing just what the Admin Academy is and what they stand for in like... almost all my Mcyt Au’s.

First we have the ‘home base’ of the four, Admin Academy of Leadership. Almost all A-class, I’ll explain what that means a little later, server Admins and Godlings graduate from here. Almost every big server owner and all the higher Cabinet had graduated from here. It’s the OG school and it’s very old. Old styled castle buildings, gardens that have been thriving for millennia, very Harry Potter themed. Their the strictest with uniforms, all Classes have different colors and embroidered letters on one side of their chest. Their the only school with all student dormitory but instead of separating by class their separated by graduation year not gender mixed. Unlike the classrooms and the exterior of the school the dormitory is kind of like a fancy frat house in a sense. It’s the only spot for kids to drink and smoke weed and King Sparklez, the main dormitory officer and the one that lives with the kids for the most part, doesn’t care as long as it doesn’t stink up the place or cause problems with roommates. He even indulges with the older kids when their legally allowed to drink, which also allows him to keep a close eye to the younger students to make sure they don’t consume to much under his direct care.

The second us Admin Academy of Safety. Their a little less strict on the outfit, no student wears skirts durning school hours as they are practicing Safety, maneuver and demos with big sharp objects. Most B-class students notoriously graduate from here but they have been seeing a surge of C-class students. They have dorm rooms but only for the older classes, year 4 through 8, to easily transitioning into living on their own and not with parents/guardians. Their much more of the calmer Admins and seem even more stricter then the Leadership ones. Always being joked about having a stick up their butts but they all till love them as they play a big role by keeping all severs up to date and helping Players with glitches before the true server Admins can help. Their grounds are very much still Harry Potter themed but they have obvious updates like automatic doors, ramps, and high end security cameras around the stone buildings.

Their sister school, made just a few months apart, Admin Academy of Innovation is much on the looser side of the spectrum of strictness. Allowing students to fully view what their world is and reflect it through outfits and belongings. Most of Innovation Admins tend to flock towards building SMP’s, artistic SMP’s, or fairy tail kind of SMP’s. Letting their creative juices flowing and helping creating ideas for plugin’s and Mods making almost all plugin’s and mods come from this Academy rather then the other three. They offer dormitory for all Year’s and they seem to continue having an influx of younger Admins who seem to not want to go home when summer approaches and the year ends. This Academy is very not traditionalist in its decore. All the walls are painted a different shade so all the details blend together to make this rainbow shade, like a rainbow cloud or something. Lockers are scattered and depending on the size will easily describe what year someone is in. There’s still old buildings like the ‘park’ grounds where all the fruit Notch is testing, before bringing it in as a realm wide update if he likes them enough, is growing.

Last but certainly not least is the last, Admin Academy of Coding. Unlike the other three who generally set their skill sets across the board as much as they can, Coding Academy is prepared to ‘keep the code running’ which means keeping all the public and private worlds and Servers safe from corruption and or folding in on itself. They have access to most worlds, some are strictly watched over by the Admin Cabinet only, cods and are constantly keeping eyes out for stuff like Virus demons or any of Herobrine’s losses monsters he’d created while possessed. They don’t keep dormitories because it forces all the students to go home, shower, get some actual fucking sleep, and socialize outside of teachers and other students. Their building is very high tech with multiple elevators instead of stairs, water fountains, vending machines, also a fucking coffee bar.

Now this is how the ranking goes. There’s A-class, B-class, C-class, and D-class. They all mean very different things in all of the Academies.

Usually the difference is between Leadership and Safety against Innovation and Coding. While A-class to the first two school means that their the best Admins. The best grades, attendance, school social life, just the best of the fucking best on the field. A-class is literally just a rank you gain once you hit a certain Year. It doesn’t matter how good you are or if you’re absolutely dog shit, you’ll get the grade.

D-classes are generally just “hey you’re new to all of this. This is your class. It’ll change over time, have fun.”

B-class and C-classes are of course the middle grounds. B-classes for Innovation is basically their A-classes students who work great but still need to be taught on some subjects. While C-class Safety students will most likely be drafted as what older Admins call as ‘helper Admins’. They help keep larger populated Servers safe and keep the code of safety contact always up to date.

So Dream could refer to himself as “I’m Dream Adams. Graduated as an A-class Admin from the Academy of Leadership, my position in my class is A-1, and I’m the main Admin of the DreamSMP.” Or “I’m Philza Craft. I did not graduate from any Admin Academy but, compared to the skill set against the Cabinet and the Emperors, I am D-class with a position of D-15. I am the secondary Admin of the DreamSMP.” Or even “I’m Illumina. Graduated as an B-class Admin from the Academy of Innovation, my position in my class is B-5. I hold no ownership over a server but I do have open worlds.”

This generally lets other Admins your general skill set, how good you are, and where to put you if you offer your help in some case. Also a great conversation starter if you’re meeting a lot of people you don’t know.

The numbers work in Home Room classes, not graduation years like the letters. So there could be multiple A-3’s or D-17’s, it just depends on how many Home Room teachers there were for that year. This is all literally just a four way spectrum that Admins can quickly place each other in. It’s confusing to a lot of players, don’t even try and explain it to a villager, but its a system that works and have been implemented for years.

#adam family!au #admin academy #dream #dreamwastaken #philza craft #illumina #captain sparklez #world building #yaaay #this has been PLAGGING ME #LIKE ALL THE MOMENTS THAT IM AWAKE #AND FOR WHAT??

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burning-clutch · 3 years

Text

Shielded From The Truth

Cross posted on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30441042 -.-.-.-.- Warnings: Mild wounds. Number two in the phic phight! When his parents put a shield up around Casper high to keep the ghosts out, and it means that Danny’s day hardly goes to plan. And he was so close to being on time for once too…. PHIC PHIGHT 2021 For team ghost! -.-.-.-.-.- Prompt by: Silverwing013 Danny's parents have kindly offered to set up a ghost shield generator for Casper High. Hijinks ensue as Danny attempts to handle the situation.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Danny groaned as he only half listened to his parents rattle off whatever ghost nonsense they were going on about as he ate his breakfast. A bowl of dry cereal because the milk was contaminated and he really didn’t want to chance it giving him more than a stomach ache. This had become the norm this week it seemed as his parents seemed invested more than usual into the ghost shields that they had been working on and improving.

Why only shields? They would be installing one in the school soon… but beyond that? He wasn’t sure. They probably told him, sure, but being a teenager and one that had parents that hated half of him, had the effect of making him only lightly listen to the weapons and things that were meant to fully kill him off. That and at least the ghost shields weren’t usually a hindrance to him, in fact, they had proven themselves useful on a few occasions.

Plus he had the added advantage of being able to simply return to his human form and slip through the shield with little issue. Given his parents had no knowledge of half ghosts existing, at least he hoped not, they shouldn’t be designing a ghost and human shield. After all, that would defeat the purpose, right? It wasn’t as if Amity really had any human threats anymore.

Well, regardless of the eccentricities of his parents he could at least take some comfort in the fact that Skulker couldn’t simply attack the school to get to him any longer.

Small mercies he supposed.

Danny blinked as his father said something to him before slapping him on his back causing the teen to practically choke on his cereal from the force of the smack. “Isn’t that just great Dann-o?” the large man exclaimed happily before looking at his son expectantly. Oh great, he wanted him to ask something? Great.

“S-Sure” Danny choked out as he flailed, grabbing in front of him for the orange juice he had nabbed from the fridge, it thankfully hadn’t been in there long enough to start glowing… yet…

He shook his head as he finally got his breath back without inhaling dry cereal pieces into his lungs. When he was sure he wasn’t going to sound like some dollar store squeaky toy he tried to ask his parents a question, always a dreadful time if he were honest, but hey, he would usually be late for school anyway.

“So this will go around the whole school?” Danny tried weakly.

“Yep! And the best part is it’ll sense where there's an evil ectoplasmic entity nearby and spring up instantly! We made sure there won’t be a ghost within Twenty feet of the school before that puppy jumps up to the rescue! Like a big Fenton airbag!” Jack exclaimed all too enthusiastically for what the current time in the AM should allow a normal person to exhume.

Danny hummed noncommittally and sent a glance of ‘help me’ to his sister, who, in turn, rolled her eyes at her little brother. “And the shield even uses the ghost’s power to run the shield right?” Jazz asked side eyeing her father from her own spot not wanting to fully engage in the conversation they were having.

“Oh, yea! That’s the best part!” Jack practically cheered out.

“And the stronger the evil skum is the faster the shield will react and sooner it will be picked up. It will only go off on a level three or higher.” Maddie explained with a pleasant smile as she sips at her coffee.

“And we got it all finished last night to be ready for you kids today” Jack added happily.

“Hooray, more fun on a Monday” Danny sighed out into his last bites of cereal. Jazz snorted but didn’t comment, though Danny blew her a childish raspberry.

Jack continued to go on about the more intricate details of the shield they had put up though only one thing really caught his attention in the spiel, “-And Vladdie helped with the funding to outfit the school! Even helped us get the materials we needed to make such a large shield!”

“Ah, there it is…” Danny groaned letting his head fall forward onto the table in instant defeat.

“Danny! I really wish you would learn not to stay up so late playing video games! Look at you! If I get another call from one of your teachers about you sleeping in class-” Maddie started only for Danny to cut her off jumping to his feet.

“Yep! Thanks for that, mom! Look at the time! Love you bye!” Danny prattled off quick as could be before grabbing his book bag by his feet and bolting like a scared rabbit. After all, if his mother never finished that sentence when he inevitably fell asleep he couldn’t be grounded… she never officially gave him the last warning…

That’ll work, right?

It wasn’t long when he was out of the house that he was at his usual waiting spot for Sam and Tucker. Unsurprisingly, Sam got there first though they didn't have to wait long for Tucker to lumber forward, half asleep to his friends, and together they made their way towards the school as a unit.

Things seemed well enough until he got onto the stairs leading up to the main doors. That was when all hell broke loose. A deep alarm sounded before his father’s voice rang out from the speakers, in his over the top cheery way that only Jack Fenton knew how to pull off.

“Attention kids! Guess there’s an evil spook nearby so we’re deploying the shield! This ghost protection was brought to you by Fenton-works and sponsored by your mayor!”

Danny frowned. “My ghost sense didn’t go off…” He mentioned quietly to his friends.

“Maybe the shield sensors are more sensitive than you are?” Tucker asked with a frown.

“Since when?” Sam argued incredulously.

“Well who or whatever it is, it isn’t bothering me right now and no one’s screaming, no one’s panicking, so it can wait. I’m actually going to be on time for once!” Danny says waving the notion off.

He continues his trek up the stairs and towards the doors of the school, though when he reaches the threshold of the shield he finds himself having to really push hard against the thing. It was like hitting a wall of foam or Jell-O. He could push through if he pressed hard enough but it was not pleasant or as easy as going through the air.

Once through the initial shield wall, he blinked slowly feeling sluggish and as though all his limbs were moving through water. He even sort of felt like he was having to ‘swim’ as he walked like he was both heavier and lighter than he should be, but unable to find that buoyancy happy middle ground.

“Dude…” Tucker said smartly as he frowned at his friend’s almost slow motion, yet stop motion like movements. It was eerie, to say the least, not to mention the more pressing issue that he noticed right off the hop, “Your eyes are shining, man. And your, um… Neck...”

Sam, ever prepared for whatever bull their lives seem to throw their way, slipped her bag around to her front and offered Danny a pair of sunglasses, which the halfa put on promptly, along with the spider webbed patterned black and silver scarf. “I mean, it’s better,” Sam argued, not even giving Tucker's look of disapproval her full attention.

“They’re spider glasses.” The boy states with a shake of his head. “Not really digging the whole-” Tucker waved his arm about Danny’s head in little circles, “-pseudo goth thing” he finished finally. Though he had to admit it was at least marginally better than seeing his friend’s glowing eyes and the electric scars showing up on his neck and disappearing under his shirt collar.

“Better?” Danny asked out sluggish, his voice almost sounding like it was being drawn out on a tape deck that was starting to lack battery power and not playing at quite the proper speed making the pitch and timing slower and lower.

Sam and Tucker shared a look before offering a thumbs up to their friend, both deciding it better not to address… whatever that was… The look they shared between one another spoke of their mutual hope that this would perhaps be one of those problems that simply go away on its own.

Ignoring the problems they have usually makes it go away… Yeah, that always works out.

Danny makes a grab for the door to pull it open again, having that weird slow stop motion effect, like he was flickering between blinks rather than making a smooth motion forward. “Ehm, maybe don’t move around too much man… it’s um… creeping me out.” Tucker offers helpfully.

“Huh?” it took Danny a minute to process, as while he looked slow to them they seemed to be hyped up on caffeine to him… “Why are you talking so fast?” He wondered, his head almost appearing to glitch into a tilted and confused look.

“I think the ghost shield is making you go all slow motion. Just stop talking.” Sam says forcefully before letting out a shudder of her own.

Sam and Tucker share a glance before they each grab onto one of Danny’s arms and half drag him off to his locker. Despite his friends’ efforts he still got many looks shot his way, and a couple of people started whispering to one another as he passed by them.

“How is this going to work if I’m already weirding everyone out?” Danny asked, voice still sounding like a slowed record as he blinked sluggishly and his head jerked almost unsteadily from side to side. From his perspective, everyone was speeding along and talking at 1.5 times the normal speed.

“Maybe I should look for the ghost that triggered this, maybe Tuck, can you look into this mess?” Danny asked after a moment of trying to figure out what was being said around him through the noise of the hall.

“Yeah that might be best…” Sam responded shifting from leg to leg as she locks eyes with a basketball jock who was staring at their group incredulously.

“I got you, man, I’ll change everything to present and, block any ‘call home’ recommendations.” Tucker pipped up already pulling out his PDA to set that up preemptively.

Danny nodded and let out a hum before glitching his way out the nearest exit and out of the shield’s bounds. Once he slipped back out through the barrier, strangely enough, a harder feat than it was getting in, but that wasn’t a problem he wanted to focus on, he already blamed Vlad so he would simply continue to do so until the fruitloop showed himself.

As soon as he was through the green line of the shield Danny practically fell forward in relief. That stifling feeling now gone from his core and bones making his movements fluid and normal, well as normal as a clumsy half ghost could be anyhow…

It was a moot point and not one Danny wanted to think on too long. He gave a quick “thanks” to his friends, before diving between the dumpster and the school’s bricks, transforming into his ghostly alter ego and taking off into the sky. He would do a few laps around the school and city as he looks for whatever ghost set off the shield.

-BREAK-

It wasn’t until lunchtime Danny returned looking much more windswept and all around more miserable. He entered the courtyard through the side joining his friends out on the picnic table they had claimed. He made it over to them, flopped down on the bench next to tucker with a groan before his head smacked into the table before him.

“You find them?” Tucker asked around whatever horrid monstrosity of a sandwich he was eating, spewing bits of half chewed bred at Danny’s head.

“No” Came the muffled reply, filled with tired disdain.

“No ghost sense?” Sam wandered, flicking the bits of bread from Danny’s raven hair and back towards Tucker.

“No”

“Huh… You think it was you who set off the shield?” Sam wondered with a thoughtful frown.

“When I went into the back end of the generator though it wasn’t supposed to go off for anything that low, Danny in human form is like a two at best,” Tucker argued spinning his PDA around to show what he’d found when he hacked into the motherboard of the Fenton’s latest device.

Danny groaned. He supposed had he listened to his parents he could have been more prepared for whatever lunacy his parents’ decided to toss his way but alas, his short attention span and teenage rebellion and lack of caring got the best of him yet again.

Joyous of joys.

He tuned out his friend’s back and forthing for a bit, wondering if he could get away with smashing the device as Phantom when Tucker had his a-ha moment of discovery. Danny turned his head and raised a brow at his friend who was furiously typing away at his device.

“You were right about Vlad, Sam”

“Naturally,” She agreed.

“Well, he had an over right line here specifically set for Phantom’s ecto- signature,” the boy states running his finger along the line of code he’d found in the program.

Danny’s mood instantly brightened at that. “So then we just get rid of that bit right? And BAM everything’s fine?” He asked. “Man, what happened to me? Why do I want to get into the school again?”

“To keep up the illusion of normalcy on this mortal plane.” Sam supplied stabbing at her salad a little more forcefully than she probably needed to.

“Eh, yeah, I suppose.” Danny agreed with a lacklustre shrug.

“There, that should do it” Tucker spoke, interrupting whatever tangent Sam was getting ready to spew off about how normalcy was only an illusion created by corporations or some other such thing.

“And just in time The bell just rang,” Danny says with a small grin clasping a firm hand onto his friend’s shoulder. “Nice one Tucker!” he cheered as the trio made their way over to the doors that would lead them back into the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, as soon as Danny’s hand hit the door handle the shield once again sprung to life, though this time, instead of simply having a hard time passing through the shield, he was thrown back across the field earning a cry from several students who were following the trio.

“Grapes of wrath Mister Fenton!” Lancer, (of course it was Lancer) shouted out in worry, his shout even carrying over the prerecorded message containing his father’s voice. Lancer half jogged half waddled over to Danny who blinked up blearily to his teacher, eyes flashing green for the briefest of seconds before draining back to blue.

“Leave it to Fen-turd to get himself possessed.” Dash snorted from behind the pot bellied teacher earning a few nervous glances between the small crowd of gathering students. The mutterings of the students didn’t take long to start up after that.

“I’m not possessed,” Danny argued, though, it was rather hard to make said argument when the palm of his hand was burned and leaking ectoplasm from where he had touched the door.

“Course he’s not possessed! He’s a ghost himself!” Wes shouted pointing an accusatory finger at the youngest Fenton.

Danny glared. “Not the time Westly.” He muttered under his breath as he was hauled to his feet by his friends. He tried to brush himself off only to end up smearing the ectoplasm from his hand onto his jeans, leaving a luminescent streak across his thigh.

Seeing his chance the ginger jock was all too eager to point it out. “See look! He’s bleeding ectoplasm!”

“No, I’m not! It’s from the shield! it sputtered out at me.” Danny tried to protest, though even in his own ears it sounded like a weak argument.

“Really?” Wes argued and marched over to the shimmering shield. The teen waved his arms about freely in the shield’s range hopping back and forth pointedly across the line of the barrier before showing his hands and clothes were completely clean of any glowing goo. “See! Ghost!” he accused again after he did a little pirouette to show his lack of ectoplasm.

“Yeah? Well, it sputtered at Danny only ‘cuz it turned on with him in the threshold.” Sam tried to argue back glaring at the ginger, venom in her gaze.

“Well then, why don’t you just walk through the shield Fen-toad?” Dash said with a smarmy grin, ever eager to get his own jabs in and seemingly not wanting to be outshined by the ginger conspiracy theorist’s bullying of his favourite punching bag.

“Fine” He spat back bitterly and marched up to the shield with a huff.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance with one another as Danny presses his hand into the shield again. Thankfully this time there wasn’t anything that blows him back but he also really had to try and push through the shield.

Danny could see out of the corner of his eye Wes’s smug grin as he grunts and does his best to push through the shield. His persistence is rewarded and he falls to the ground on the other side jumping up and giving a quick ‘HA!’ as he faces the small gathering crowd of students shifting uncomfortably just beyond the shield.

Sam had a look of exasperation and she looked like she was trying to restrain herself from face palming. Tucker on the other hand had no such restraint. He was almost over eager to bury his face into his hands.

From Danny’s perspective, he simply smacked into the ground and stood back up, but from the other students’ perspectives, Danny fell into the shield but instantly slowed down, looking as though he were falling with the moon’s gravity rather than the earthly speed everyone was used to. It also didn’t really look to them like he had hit the ground, instead glitching his body back into an upright position before cheering in that low slow motion state as he had earlier.

And if that wasn’t damning enough his eyes were glowing a lovely shade of ectoplasmic green.

Wes smirked, seemingly very smug and content with himself and this development. “See told you all he was a ghost!”

“T-that’s enough Mister Weston… Right…” LAncer muttered to himself a few moments watching as Danny seemed to glitch about as he cheered before seemingly realizing something was wrong. “I think there was a procedure to depossess a student…I bet the teachers in Bridgestone don’t have to exercise their students in this manner…” He complains. Sure they had gym class and he would appreciate the pun and irony if he wasn’t so tired.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” he muttered, ignoring the look of panic that spread across Danny’s face.

It took some doing, a lot of flailing limbs and pressing himself against the damn shield, but Danny soon was through back out and free. His eyes still glowed brightly as he stared at his classmates looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Eyeshine and all might he add.

A few of the students were snickering, because only in Amity park could one get possessed by a ghost and have it come across as though someone had merely said something embarrassing or misheard an instruction and was now staring blankly ahead.

“Er….” Danny stared at his classmates half panicked before simply vanishing from view.

“Moby Dick!” Lancer exclaimed, almost dropping the book he was thumbing through from the Fenton parents. Sure it was a ghost, and could potentially be dangerous, but it wasn’t attacking so there wasn’t really anyone panicking.

Instead, the teacher simply felt tired. “Right, I’ll call the Fentons and let them deal with this, Everyone back inside I do believe the lunch bell rang already!” the teacher called out shooing the students into dispersing.

Danny stood there invisibly and holding strong as he internally groaned. At least they thought he was possessed, that could be easily explained away but he was not looking forward to trying to explain it to his parents…

Still maybe if he gets ahead of this…

It was with that thought in mind that he bolted away into the treeline beside the school, transformed and headed off to his home landing in his bedroom only a few minutes later. He went human, back intangible and invisible came out the door, made sure the coast was clear before speeding his way down into the basement.

He just made it down the stairs startling his mother and father who blinked at him curiously, when the phone rang cutting off his mother’s “Honey? What are you doing home so soon?”

“It’s the school calling Mads,” Jack says, sounding disappointed as the large man sent a look of disapproval to his boy.

“Wait!” Danny jumped forward answering the phone and instantly hanging it up.

“Daniel!” His mother exclaimed abashedly.

“I wanna explain first! Do you know how all your stuff goes off on me? Well, the shield at school started doing that and they think I’m possessed! I’m not, it's just the… ya know…” Danny rambled off hurriedly hoping against hope that his parents wouldn’t try to send him to decontamination … again… (Thanks to his ghost half, it burned in places he didn’t ever want to burn)

“You’re possessed Dann-o?!” Jack exclaimed instantly pulling a Fenton gun from somewhere on his person and brandishing it towards his son.

Danny threw his hands up and waved them placatingly at his father. “NO! Just the normal stuff! The contamination from the portal accident set it off. I got too close to the sensor!” He says quickly ignoring how his parents seem to flinch slightly.

His parents shared a look before his father seemed to deflate, seemingly upset at the fact his son wasn’t possessed. “I thought we fixed that... “ Jack says with a frown. “But, we can’t let the school know we may have messed it up! I know we’ll just run the tests again and fix it in the night!”

“Yeah, that would be- Wait what?” Danny blinks. Why couldn’t they just go down and fix it normally? Of course, his parents had to be weird about this too. “Thanks… Is there anything you need from me to help?”

And with those words said he almost instantly regretted it. “Well… We would really like to know why your ecto signature lines up perfectly with Phantom’s but perhaps that can wait.” Maddie offered with a small amused smile.

Danny sputtered at that, “Wh-What?”

“We set up a monitoring system so we can tell which ghosts most frequent the school… Phantom was the one that triggered the shield twice today. There actually wasn’t anything else that did,” Maddie explained with a deepening frown.

“You sure you’re not possessed, son?” Jack asked again this time sounding almost defeated in how, well, normal a volume he asked that. The hidden meaning was all too obvious especially after he mentioned his accident…

They thought he was dead! The portal killed him! And as the growing pit of dread grew into Danny’s stomach he couldn’t help but feel awful knowing they were correct in that assumption, well at least half right anyhow.

“Yeah… I’m… I’m me…” Danny managed out his voice cracking

“O-oh hun....” Maddie sniffed.

“But it’s not I… I’m me, I promise and I’m not all dead. I still have a heartbeat and everything!” Danny argued or rather tried to as his mother was quick to kneel before him taking his face in her hands as tears bubbled down her chin.

“Mom really I’m like … half at most. More human with a side of ghostly abilities ya know?”

“Oh, it’s okay Dann-o… You're still my son, I know ya are. It’s been almost a year since that accident and you’re mostly still you.” Jack said. “Just worse grades and more hormones and-”

“Thanks, guys really,” Danny sighed in relief both at dodging the potentially awkward birds and ghostly bees talk as well as the tepid acceptance he was getting. Awkward though it may be it was still acceptance nonetheless. He was happy for it just the same.

“Maybe while we work on fixing up the shield to ignore Phantom’s signature you can tell us about some things?” Maddie asked sniffling again as she looked over her son’s face trying her best to hold herself together and not outright bawl at the thought she had killed her youngest child.

“Y-yeah… I’ve been wanting to tell you about this for a while now but, well, ya know…” Danny offered uselessly.

“I think it’s us who should apologize for that, son but maybe we can just all go get some triple chocolate fudge milkshakes and go deal with that shield after dinner?” Jack offered with a smile, ever the one to break up tension.

“Yeah, yeah… that sounds good.” Danny agreed. Well, it wasn't how he was expecting this to go, but he was kinda glad it ended up like this. Maybe now they could repair their strained relationship.

As Maddie ruffled up Danny’s hair the teen offered her his first genuine smile in almost a year.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Total words: 4245 Complete

#phic phight 2021 #Phic Phight #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #lancer #ghost shields are a problem #kinfa fluffy #danny is so done

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