#i actually did some wired work in PS with these | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hollowed-theory-hall · 5 months

Text

Harry was never really Dumbledore's man

So, in HBP Harry says himself:

“Well, it is clear to me that he has done a very good job on you,” said Scrimgeour, his eyes cold and hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren’t you, Potter?” “Yeah, I am,” said Harry.

(HBP, 348)

But, I'm here to argue Harry actually has many many doubts and reservations about Dumbledore throughout all books (even HBP), and I find it interesting how Harry convinced the Wizarding world (and the readers) that he's Dumbledore's man when he isn't. Not really.

(Just makes me all the more annoyed at him calling his son Albus...)

I'm going to go through some examples of Harry showing his doubts about Dumbledore way before book 7. Because Harry is an abused, distrusting boy, and Dumbledore isn't actually an exception to that until very late into the books. And even when Harry chooses to trust Dumbledore's intentions, he never fully trusts his judgment.

“D’you think he meant you to do it?” said Ron. “Sending you your father’s cloak and everything?” “Well, ” Hermione exploded, “if he did — I mean to say that’s terrible — you could have been killed.” “No, it isn’t,” said Harry thoughtfully. “He’s a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don’t think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It’s almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could….”

(PS, 217)

This quote above is from the ending of Philosopher's Stone and the outlook Harry, Ron, and Hermione have on Dumbledore and his behavior is the same as seen in the later books. So I wanted to talk about each of them and how they see Dumbledore because this quote really sets the tone for the rest of the series.

Ron is doubtful and distrustful. The situation is odd, and he's clever, he analyzed the situation and came to a frightening conclusion — the whole ordeal seemed planned by Dumbledore. And Ron isn't scared of voicing this question.

Hermione, while not always a rule-follower, respects Dumbledore and his authority. A lot. So, she doesn't believe Dumbledore could've planned it as it would reflect badly on his character and authority. Hermione is a very loyal person, and once she decides she respects someone she is willfully blind to their flaws (we see it with her later in the series).

Harry, while he's clever enough to notice the same things Ron did and come to the same conclusion — that Dumbledore planned for an 11-year-old to face Voldemort — he attributes good intentions to Dumbledore. Harry sees the situation and draws his conclusions, but chooses to hope/believe Dumbledore's intentions were good ones.

Harry’s brain seemed to have jammed. He stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry’s own parents, and so many others. . . . At last he forced himself to speak. “You’re not,” he said, his quiet voice full of hatred. “Not what?” snapped Riddle. “Not the greatest sorcerer in the world,” said Harry, breathing fast. “Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn’t dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you’re hiding these days —” The smile had gone from Riddle’s face, to be replaced by a very ugly look. “Dumbledore’s been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!” he hissed. “He’s not as gone as you might think!” Harry retorted. He was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true —

(CoS, 282)

This is one of the scenes people call to to show how much faith Harry has in Dumbledore (even Dumbledore himself), the thing is, Harry says (in his mind) he's just saying things to try and scare Tom. To try and buy time, or unbalance Tom so he may have a chance at escape.

The important note is that Harry doesn't actually believe what he's saying to Tom. He's just saying what he thinks would bother Tom the most.

Harry had never shared this piece of information with anybody. He was very fond of his wand, and as far as he was concerned its relation to Voldemort’s wand was something it couldn’t help — rather as he couldn’t help being related to Aunt Petunia. However, he really hoped that Mr. Ollivander wasn’t about to tell the room about it. He had a funny feeling Rita Skeeter’s Quick-Quotes Quill might just explode with excitement if he did.

(GoF, 310)

This part about telling no one about his wand's connection to Voldemort is true. He never told anyone by that point in GoF. Not Ron, not Hermione, not Dumbledore, not even Sirius.

As I mentioned above, Harry is abused and distrustful. He's not at all Dumbledore's perfect soldier who trusts him with everything. In GoF, Harry decides against telling Dumbledore about his dreams and the pain in his scar:

“Your scar hurt? Harry, that’s really serious. . . . Write to Professor Dumbledore! And I’ll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. . . . Maybe there’s something in there about curse scars. . . .” Yes, that would be Hermione’s advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts, and in the meantime, consult a book. [...] As for informing the headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long silver beard, fulllength wizard’s robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him; Harry’s owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an address. But what would he write? Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning. Yours sincerely, Harry Potter. Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.

(GoF, 21)

Harry doesn't wish to share secrets with Dumbledore, nor does he feel comfortable to go to him with his troubles (his go-to adult while Sirius was around was always Sirius). Again, Hermione is mentioned as the one who trusts Dumbledore's authority, in Harry's head, but he's right, he knows her well.

Harry actually spends a good portion of the series purposefully trying to hide information from Dumbledore. (I'm saying 'trying ' because Dumbledore always found out, but not because Harry told him).

“He seemed to think it was best,” said Hermione rather breathlessly. “Dumbledore, I mean.” “Right,” said Harry. He noticed that her hands too bore the marks of Hedwig’s beak and found that he was not at all sorry. “I think he thought you were safest with the Muggles —” Ron began. “Yeah?” said Harry, raising his eyebrows. “Have either of you been attacked by dementors this summer?” “Well, no — but that’s why he’s had people from the Order of the Phoenix tailing you all the time -” Harry felt a great jolt in his guts as though he had just missed a step going downstairs. So everyone had known he was being followed except him. “Didn’t work that well, though, did it?” said Harry, doing his utmost to keep his voice even. “Had to look after myself after all, didn’t I?” “He was so angry,” said Hermione in an almost awestruck voice. “Dumbledore. We saw him. When he found out Mundungus had left before his shift had ended. He was scary.” “Well, I’m glad he left,” Harry said coldly. “If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have done magic and Dumbledore would probably have left me at Privet Drive all summer.”

(OotP, 63)

Harry is angry here, true, but he doubts Dumbledore's idea of what's "safe" for him. He's actually glad for the dementors because he doubts Dumbledore would've brought him over if it wasn't an emergency.

And Harry is right to be doubtful and suspicious. He's right that he's less safe at the Dursleys than at Grimmauld Place. He's right to feel angry and betrayed at literally everyone knowing he's being followed except for him. He's right Dumbledore probably wouldn't have brought him if it wasn't for the dementor attack. Harry is correct in each and every one of his assessments of Dumbledore's character and decisions here.

“No,” said Harry, shaking his head. “It’s more like . . . his mood, I suppose. I’m just getting flashes of what mood he’s in. . . . Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. . . . He said that when Voldemort was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I’m feeling it when he’s pleased too. . . .” There was a pause. The wind and rain lashed at the building. “You’ve got to tell someone,” said Ron. “I told Sirius last time.” “Well, tell him about this time!” “Can’t, can I?” said Harry grimly. “Umbridge is watching the owls and the fires, remember?” “Well then, Dumbledore —” “I’ve just told you, he already knows,” said Harry shortly, getting to his feet, taking his cloak off his peg, and swinging it around himself. “There’s no point telling him again.” Ron did up the fastening of his own cloak, watching Harry thoughtfully. “Dumbledore’d want to know,” he said. Harry shrugged. “C’mon . . . we’ve still got Silencing Charms to practice . . .”

(OotP, 382)

Remember I mentioned Harry hiding things from Dumbledore? This is one of such occasions. There are more in GoF that I didn't copy, but this is an example of Voldemort-related, dangerous information Harry is hiding from Dumbledore because he doesn't trust him and doesn't feel comfortable telling him things.

“It’s lessons with Snape that are making it worse,” said Harry flatly. “I’m getting sick of my scar hurting, and I’m getting bored walking down that corridor every night.” He rubbed his forehead angrily. “I just wish the door would open, I’m sick of standing staring at it —” “That’s not funny,” said Hermione sharply. “Dumbledore doesn’t want you to have dreams about that corridor at all, or he wouldn’t have asked Snape to teach you Occlumency. You’re just going to have to work a bit harder in your lessons.” “I am working!” said Harry, nettled. “You try it sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it’s not a bundle of laughs, you know!” “Maybe . . .” said Ron slowly. “Maybe what?” said Hermione rather snappishly. “Maybe it’s not Harry’s fault he can’t close his mind,” said Ron darkly. “What do you mean?” said Hermione. “Well, maybe Snape isn’t really trying to help Harry. . . .” Harry and Hermione stared at him. Ron looked darkly and meaningfully from one to the other. “Maybe,” he said again in a lower voice, “he’s actually trying to open Harry’s mind a bit wider . . . make it easier for You-Know —” “Shut up, Ron,” said Hermione angrily. “How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough.” “He used to be a Death Eater,” said Ron stubbornly. “And we’ve never seen proof that he really swapped sides. . . .” “Dumbledore trusts him,” Hermione repeated. “And if we can’t trust Dumbledore, we can’t trust anyone.”

(OotP, 554)

Again we see the same exact dynamic from first year. Hermione is loyal to Dumbledore, not even considering he might be wrong about something, or not have their best interests at heart. Ron and Harry on the other hand, are both open to the possibility that things aren't so simple. They don't think Dumbledore is intentionally harming Harry, but they think he's wrong about Snape. Something Hermione, Arthur and Molly would never consider.

(This is actually the most annoying thing in Hermione's character for me, her unshakable faith in Dumbledore, who doesn't deserve her trust)

“. . . so you see what this means?” Harry finished at a gallop. “Dumbledore won’t be here tonight, so Malfoy’s going to have another clear shot at whatever he’s up to. No, listen to me!” he hissed angrily, as both Ron and Hermione showed every sign of interrupting. “I know it was Malfoy celebrating in the Room of Requirement. Here —” He shoved the Marauder’s Map into Hermione’s hands. “You’ve got to watch him and you’ve got to watch Snape too. Use anyone else who you can rustle up from the D.A., Hermione, those contact Galleons will still work, right? Dumbledore says he’s put extra protection in the school, but if Snape’s involved, he’ll know what Dumbledore’s protection is, and how to avoid it — but he won’t be expecting you lot to be on the watch, will he?” “Harry —” began Hermione, her eyes huge with fear.

(HBP, 552)

Even in book 6, the book Harry grows the most comfortable and trusting towards Dumbledore, even then, he doesn't trust Dumbledore. He thinks (and somewhat rightly so because he doesn't know of Snape and Dumbledore's plan) that Dumbledore is wrong about Snape. that Dumbledore is wrong about Malfoy. Harry doesn't trust that whatever protections Dumbledore would leave would be enough (and they weren't).

Even at the end of HBP, the point in the series where Harry has the most faith in Dumbledore, Harry still doesn't trust Dumbledore's judgment or his ability to protect the school. Even after Dumbledore calls Harry out on it, telling him the safety of the students is important to him, Harry still tells Ron and Hermione to get the DA to protect the school without notifying Dumbledore.

And Dumbledore raised Harry to feel responsible for the school's safety, Harry is doing what he was "bred" to do. But he does it behind Dumbledore's back, because like every adult, Harry deep down expects to be let down. After all, he's used to saving the school himself.

So, no, Harry never really trusted Dumbledore fully. At least, not Dumbledore's judgment. Harry does believe Dumbledore's intentions are good for the most part, even if ineffective.

“He never told me his sister was a Squib,” said Harry, without thinking, still cold inside. “And why on earth would he tell you?” screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry [...] Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar? Off being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!” “What d’you mean, locked in the cellar?” asked Harry. “What is this?” Doge looked wretched. Auntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry. [...] Numbly Harry thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of sight, all for the crime of being a wizard. Had Dumbledore’s sister suffered the same fate in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? Had Dumbledore truly left her to her fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?

(DH, 135-137)

And in Deathley Hollows, Harry is very quick to start questioning and doubting Dumbledore. Especially when compared to Hermione:

“Harry—” But he shook his head. Some inner certainty had crashed down inside him; it was exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: How much more could he lose? Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand . . . “Harry.” She seemed to have heard his thoughts. “Listen to me. It—it doesn’t make very nice reading—” “Yeah, you could say that—” “—but don’t forget, Harry this is Rita Skeeter writing.” “You did read that letter to Grindelwald, didn’t you?” “Yes, I—I did.” She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands.

(DH, 311)

Harry is hurt, he feels betrayed, because while he never 100% trusted Dumbledore's judgment, he trusted his intentions. He trusted Dumbledore was good and cared for him. He feels cold and betrayed, showing trust in his intentions. But his readiness to accept Skeeter's and Muriel's accusations so quickly shows he always had his doubts about Dumbledore and they never really left, even if he wanted to trust him, he never did, not fully.

Hermione, on the other hand, who was always loyal and trusted Dumbledore (both his intentions and judgment) 100%, tries to rationalize Dumbledore's actions and convince herself everyone who says bad things about him is lying.

Harry doesn't. Because out of the Golden Trio, Hermione was always Dumbledore's woman, Ron and Harry... not really. Not as much.

“That old berk,” muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. “Thought the sun shone out of my brother’s every office, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it.” Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled him for months now. He had made his choice while he dug Dobby’s grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again; he did not want to hear anything that would deflect him from his purpose. He met Aberforth’s gaze, which was so strikingly like his brothers’: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it. “Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much,” said Hermione in a low voice. “Did he now?” said Aberforth. “Funny thing how many of the people my brother cared about very much ended up in a worse state than if he’d left ’em well alone.”

(DH, 478)

More of how Harry thinks about Dumbledore, showing, again, how he always had his doubts and reservations but he chooses to trust Dumbledore's intentions because otherwise, he doesn't think he has any hope to defeat Voldemort. He chooses to keep following Dumbledore's path because he has no real choice but to trust what he sees as the only path that'll lead to Voldemort's destruction. But Harry has plenty of doubts about Dumbledore.

Hermione, on the other hand, has little to no doubts. She doesn't allow herself to doubt.

And this pattern, of Harry doubting Dumbledore again and again, never truly trusting him, just trusting his plan will kill Voldemort... like, how does that lead Harry to want to name his kid 'Albus'? I just don't get it...

TL;DR

Harry likes to say he's Dumbledore's man, but he always had his reservations, even when he choose to ignore them since trusting Dumbledore's plan felt like his only chance at survival. Hermione is much more trusting of Dumbledore than Harry is.

#harry potter #hp #harry potter thoughts #hp thoughts #harry potter meta #hp meta #hollowedtheory #hp theory #harry james potter #harry potter analysis #albus dumbledore

268 notes · View notes

whoamisposts · 25 days

Text

LOGAN HOWLETT×FEM!READER (FLUFF,BLOOD,Kissed,the next part will contain smut ..) Part 3 from the series

A SHARP EDGE...

(THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOLIERS!) ps. english isnt mi native language but I try my best, im open for request!

summary:since Wade needed you to save his and yours timeline,you decided to help,after all he was one of your dearest friend, right?....But he didn't warn you about someone...and that someone was The Wolverine....just a Canadian guy, you thought...

the next morning, after the strange yet cute conversation with Logan,you woke up, first thing you did was looking at your wound on you leg ,it was okay, even if it was a bit bloody....

you walked it the living room finding Logan at his usual smoking, he will be not breathing so well if he continued , you thought, and Wade was eating a bowl of cereal with hearts? you know what? okay...you chukle under your breath at cute scene, but you provided to put on you suit, even if it was broken

belive it or not, today was a big day, for two reason , one you needed to end the mission, two, Logan putted his yellow suit on? miracle...

After a good hour, and everyone was dressed, you and the other two went outside, y'all chatted for a bit, then after the watch hitted 12 am, you entered the TVA building to search for that ugly business man, but as the three of you even got near that, a gigant portal opened, put of nowhere actually and cassandra stepped out of it, with a gigantic grin in her lips

"THAT BALD BITCH!" wade yelled with an excited,pointing her with his right finger like a toddler,you chuckle but at the same time eyed Logan and saw his usual eye roll followed with a sigh,you prepared your knives and craking the bones of your neck your ready,but then Cassandra spoke

"No no no..." she said in a weird worried tone

"...you're not gonna fight me dear,they're are gonne help me while me and than classy man have a talk..." she continued as she opened d another portal and with her telekinesis dragged the man in her hands, obviously he was more that frightened but then in so little time were in the building, while from the portal exited many many many many copies of...Wade?

"Okay, wtf is going on?" you say in a whiny tone with your eyes wide open, wade just stared at every version of himself

"Ugh..." even Logan groaned as he saw his wrost nightmare and with a shift move he putted on his iconic mask

"UUUH, YOU SAVED THE BEST FOR LA-"

"shut the fuck up!" Logan interrupted wade

"oh okay..."

then when I looked at them both and how they were trying, I understood that it wouldn't be difficult but at the same time it wasn't easy either, so with a moving move we started killing all his clones one at a time, but we didn't know that they could regenerate, so Logan gave me a sign to go away and leave the work to them, I following his instructions I managed to enter the building and after a while to locate the machine, but already inside there was Cassandra, in the meantime Logan and Deadpool had arrived but they were on the ground floor

I took Cassandra by the neck but it was like an electricity conductor, which passed through all my arms but I continued, in this state she was very vulnerable so I decided to continue, with my telekinesis I started to make her remove her hand from the reactor but by then it was too late, Logan and Deadpool were acting as a wire to connect the two subjects in the basement, yes they could hear their screams, everything was quieted by a deathly silence, in fact the policemen thought we were dead, but Logan and Wade exited,logan his half of his cistume broken and wade the same , very iconic

"all good baby!" wade yelled and logan grinned

"mh okay..." one of the policemen spoke " but we knew that there was three of you? am i right?" they widened theyre eyes

"FUCK Y/N!" they're yell was full of worry,but after a bit,wade was sitting at the table amd Logan stading on his feet pooking at the celling waiting for some reply

"hey!" a voice could be heard "this will never come off my costume!" i said while walking towards them,my costume broken or at least most of it and covered in dust

"did you know that Cassandra grip is very light?..." as i said that both of then ran to hug me

"youre okay? youre here...oh lord" Logan whispered with a light smile as bith of them took some steps back

"yes penut im here.." i tased

"here i was worrying about you,you dumb chick!" he replied but this time not with anger,but with a smile a laugh that sounded genuine.

Then we all went to eat something,not the best idea but nevermind....

as we all parted ways i called for Logan, i ran to him

"so...i know you would not like that.." i stuttered trying to find words

"but waht if us? of course three can meet sometime? if you want-" i didnt not finished the phrase that he nodded with a smile

"really? oh wow, i though you didnt like my idea,i mean,you never like them,i was expe-" he gave me a light kiss on my lips,not with much pressure,and for the time i realized he spoke again

"I love to hear you yap kiddo,but sometimes you need to shut your mouth mh?" he chukled at my blushed face

"okay okay,i will stop teasing,see ya tomorrow night ,if it okay with you and Wade.." I nodded fast

"bye y/n..." he said be as he walked away I grabbed by the colar of his black hoodie he borrowed before and i palce a kiss on his cheek befkre walking away leaving him on the streets,

while...

WADE WAS WATCHING EVERYTHING BEHIND A WALL? WHAT THE ACTUALLY FUCK?

#deadpool vs wolverine #logan howlett #romantic #wolverine #wade wilson #part 3 #logan howlett x reader fluff

18 notes · View notes

dduane · 2 years

Note

Hi DD. I saw a while ago you posted your wedding announcement to Mr. Morwood (which I only realized when I double checked the spelling to send this ask is actually "Morwood" - he has been "Peter Wormwood" in my head forever) and the little magazine blurb said you were planning on a tri-coastal marriage. I wanted to know how that worked out and if you have any advice, bc I have a partner and all our friends and family on the west coast USA, and a girlfriend and all her friends and family in the UK, and it feels really hard, logistically and emotionally, to envision a future together with the tug of so much distance.

PS the Young Wizards have a very special place in my heart, thank you

You're very welcome!

Re the tricoastal lifestyle: We did it until we got bored with managing the logistics of it (which, frankly, was pretty quickly). The East Coast part of it, in any case, went obsolete with some speed when I realized that I was more or less immediately going to need to be mostly-on-the-West-Coast for work on Dinosaucers. This being the case, I gave up my apartment in Philly, and P. and I spent the next six months or so in LA. Then, when Dinosaucers was done, we headed back to Europe -- partly for P's sister's wedding, and partly for what turned into a fairly prolonged stay in England and Scotland—wandering around the landscape and hauling our (generally) very non-portable computers with us. (It was after all 1986/7, and there wasn't much in the way of "portable" hardware that wasn't an Osborne or Kaypro or something similar. ...Though I did write almost the entirety of Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100.)

We spent a fair amount of time residing in pubs (when we were between writing projects: like this one, and this one, and this one...) and in holiday cottages (when we weren't). I got very expert at wiring 1200-baud modems into half-timbered walls. I was nearly the first person to storyedit a US animated series from a different continent--via MCI Mail, ffs...!!)... but unfortunately the sponsor fell out of the deal for some reason; so there's a notch I never got to make in my belt. ...Anyway, we spent an autumn and winter in Scotland, in a cottage buried inside a castle wall (this castle, whose master was a charming guy—the family have since sold it on), and then in the spring decided it was time to find a place to sit still for a while. The only issue was to decide where.

Immigration to the US quickly fell off the table due to the irrationalities of the US Immigration Service. At this point in time it may sound bizarre, but UK Immigration was acting a lot more sanely (at least as far as allowing Americans to have "settled status"), so we got me as legal as it was possible for me to be without having been married to Peter for a lot longer, and spent the next six months wandering around and considering our options. Finally we decided that Ireland looked like the best fit for us, so we handled the necessary formalities and settled here. Five years after marrying Peter I became an EU national (as did he: due to the unique circumstances of his birth in Northern Ireland he was entitled to both UK and Irish nationality), and Ireland became our permanent home. I haven't resided in the US since I left in the late 80s.

...I don't know that I'm best positioned to offer advice on how to make such living arrangements work, especially in terms of friends and family, as everybody's personal circumstances are different. In our business we've fortunately often been in a position to visit the US long enough for conventions and so forth to see friends there, and catch up on how things are. I have no living close relations in the US, and so haven’t needed to be returning to visit settled family. Peter’s in a generally similar state.

But if I did have family groupings in the US who wanted to see me at something-like-regular intervals, I’d take a hard look at where they were located, and how near they were to the easiest and least expensive gateway to whatever other continent had my interest... and what it would cost to get back and forth on a regular basis. The other important metric to consider is how such travel is going to impact on your significant other(s).

...In any case, we’re fortunate in that we live in a time when face-to-face communication with your loved ones doesn’t have to be physical. There was at least one point where Peter said to me, absolutely seriously, “We’ve got to get married Real Soon Now, because the phone bills are going to kill me. ...Possibly even before my Mum does.”

Hope this has even vaguely helped! :)

106 notes · View notes

stillmumu · 1 year

Note

What was writing Sasha’s confession scene like?

oh god, it was such a bitch to do !!!

ch6: truthfully, in the entire leadup to the confession i was just as much in the dark as anetra was about whether or not sasha was actually going to tell her what was wrong. DTIE literally writes itself, i never know what's going to happen.

She's speaking softly now, simply, like she's talking to a child. It’s her last card to play. She doesn’t know what else she can say to convince Sasha to let her in.

Sasha’s gnawing at her lip, red transferring all over her teeth. For a second, Anetra thinks she’s going to deny her again.

But then Sasha lets her shoulders drop.

like writing this, i literally had no idea if sasha was going to open up or not. i was ready to be heartbroken for anetra, that she laid all her cards out and still couldn't get sasha to open up. i had a whole different development arc planned just in case sasha ended up keeping her walls up.

but then i had such a clear mental image of sasha just completely coming undone, surrendering, this lipstick on her teeth and shoulders sinking the physical manifestation of that. and i was like oh wait no, that's it.

if she doesn't do it now, that's just going to be it. they'll be over. there's nowhere left to run for her, no way for them to come back from that. so she's got to stop being hyprocritical and just face it, the same way anetra had to in ch1.

and then ch7: it just wasn't flowing with netra's pov, so it was pure desperation that made me do it from sasha's angle. i loved getting to give sasha that voice though, bc she didn't have one when everything was happening to her.

i also had sm fun getting to weave in and out of past/present tenses. originally i'd planned everything as a flashback, but that felt too immediate, like sasha hadn't done any healing in the meantime (which just felt so off since she isn't that same scared girl anymore.) entirely recounting felt too detached on the other hand, bc sasha still has enough fear in her to be haunted by everything for so long.

the tone of the dialogue and inner monologues were so hard for me to strike right too. sasha tries to brush things over with humour, a few times, with varying success:

“You don’t think a receding hairline and raging cocaine addiction are sexy?” Sasha clasps a hand to her chest in mock outrage.

“I’m trying to build an empire, over here,” She says, trying to make it into some kind of quip. It falls flat, sits dangerously between them like a live wire.

but i also wanted to drive home the fear that sasha still feels:

“They did it to Janet,” She says, and can’t help the way her voice shakes. “And Mariah, too.”

“It’s safer, there,” Sasha adds, like she can see Anetra’s hesitation. She’s rushing her words, now, getting desperate. “Please, I have to lie low for a bit, I- it’ll be lowkey. People there don’t talk.” (from ch6, but the sentiment is still there)

as well as expand on kerri/sasha's bond and how fiercely sasha believes in her & protects her, at the cost of her own self:

Kerri had looked at her, eyes wide, and Sasha had reached for her hand almost on instinct. She had just known, then, that they were kin, in that way that queer people often do, in that way they recognise each other and cling tight and don’t let go.

If she leaves her dreams behind… she won’t be Sasha, anymore. She won’t even recognise herself. But Kerri is her priority now, and so is keeping the Colby name alive.

it was so many thoughts, so many feelings--so overall, it reads hysterical, maybe even messy or jumbled, too many ideas all at once.

but i think in the end it actually makes sense with all the emotions sasha's feeling. of course she'll be all over the place, she's literally terrified out of her mind and voicing things she thought she'd never get to say! so it worked out, in a funny way.

(ps would love to hear your thoughts on this scene/these chapters bc the section is one i can't rly reread,,, i overthink it too much skdjks. tysm for the ask though bc it forced me to think it through, and i realised i AM proud of it and how it turned out, despite the struggles.)

#don't think it's easy #sasha colby #anetra #sashnetra #mumu gets asks

14 notes · View notes

thecoffeenebula · 10 months

Text

Shower Sex

James T Kirk/reader

Warnings: Smut

A/N: does it need explaining?

After a long day of work you were in need of a shower, and your boyfriend Jim is happy to join you.

ps. I have never truly written smut before so this is new for me, hope you enjoy!

You felt dirty. So incredibly dirty. It was a long exhausting day. The commander (Una) ordered you to crawl into the Jeffries tubes because of faulty wiring for the communications relay. She only did not tell you that this Jeffries tube has not been used in ages and was all dusty and greasy.

You enter your room, in the hope you would be alone, as you are very, very done with today. The lights in your room where on. They were shining very dimly, giving it a warm look. The room appeared empty at first, but when you looked over to your left you noticed Jim Kirk on the couch, with a glass in his hand, half filled. He smiled at you.

“Hey beautiful.”

You scoff at his words. Beautiful. How dare he say you are beautiful. You look disgusting. The black grease smeared out onto your uniform, face and arms. Your tied up hair was a mess and almost all loosened. There were dust clouds still stuck to your uniform. You raised your eyebrow at Jim, who was admiring you very lovingly.

“Beautiful? Darling, I look like a mess and what are you doing here by the way? Aren’t you supposed to be on the bridge or something?”

Jim smirked “No, not today. I have overworked for three days now, the captain told me to take some time off.” His sparkling eyes met with yours. “And I thought, what best to do then to surprise my girlfriend with some one on one time.” He does that smile he always does. That smile that always makes you melt. But this time it did not do much. You were too tired to care. Jim picked up the glass on the table in front of him and handed it to you. “Your drink”.

You locked your lips, looking like the cat from that one meme you saw. You learned about memes in your history class. You took those classes with Jim. That is where you met each other. In one of these classes there was a lecture on the internet culture including the topic of memes. You and Jim had discovered the library of memes. You scrolled through them most afternoon, and even then you had not seen it all. But you definitely loved the cat one. So the two of you have been using it a lot as a secret code.

Once Jim noticed your cat look he knew there was something wrong. He put the wine glasses in his hands back onto the table.

“What’s wrong?” he stood up from the couch and walked over to you, grabbing your arms with his big hands. His touch was so soft, yet still firm. He met your eyes again. His deep blue sea eyes staring into your soul. There was so much care and concern sparkling through those eyes of his.

You smiled at him softly and moved your head down to stare at your feet. “I’m sorry. You are being so sweet. It was a long day, I am tired and I feel really dirty from that dusty, greasy Jeffries tube.” You look back up again to meet with his eyes, but with a very dry look. “I am never going back in those things again.” Gesturing with your forearms as you like to talk with your body.

Jim laughed. He runs his hand through your hair. When he took his hand back he noticed how black it was and cringed at the sight of his own hand. He looked back at you. You frowned at him. He smiled back at you.

“You know what you need?” That sentence started something in you. Even though you knew what he might say, you still wanted to know what he was going to say.

“A good shower.” Raising both of his eyebrows and dropping them both again. You smile at him.

“I would love that, Jim.” Your mood instantly shifting. Happy that your boyfriend was here with you to actually make your day a little better.

Jim moved his hands down over your arms. His left hand locked into yours. Jim guided you to bathroom. He lets go of your hand as you stand in front of the shower. He puts on the shower for you. The sissling of the sonic vibrations is going all around the small cubicle.

Jim places his hands on the out ends of your shirt and pulls it over your head. You take of the t-shirt you wear underneath your uniform and your bra. Jim is looking at you in admiration. His eyes are sparkling as if there are fireworks in them. He cannot get enough of the sight he is taking in. You undress further, with Jim’s eyes fixed upon you. It was a big relief for you to get out of those dirty clothes. Now a shower, you will finally be clean again. You are about to step into the shower, as you turn back to Jim, who has his eyes still fixed on you.

“Are you coming?” You say hopefully.

Jim snapped out of his daydream and noticed you were waiting for him. “You want me to join you?”

You nod excitedly. “You don’t think am going to take a shower without you” you said smiling and teasing him a little. Jim did not know how quickly he needed to undress. It was as if he almost ripped his clothes off. His eagerness to be naked with you was amusing to you.

Seeing Jim fully naked always gave you butterflies. His body was so perfect in every way. His soft and trained upper body. You loved his chest the most. His round butt was one of your favourites as well. You drag him in the shower with you, passionately kissing him, which took him a little by surprise. But he lets himself go in the moment completely. The moment you open your mouth, Jim sees his opportunity to stick his tongue down your throat. The feeling of his tongue against yours is everything you have been wanting all day, without even realising it. His touch in general is everything to keep you sane.

Jim’s hands move down your body. You tremble at his touch. His right hand moves down to your vagina. His fingers locked onto your clit as he starts moving around. An instant moan releases from your mouth. His other hands moves over your butt. Softly placing it there.

You move your hand down as well and begin to stroke his penis softly. Making him moan just the way you did. Jim moves his kisses down your neck. He moves his head up a little, just up in range to whisper something in your ear.

“Turn around” he said, his voice low, lower then usual. You do as he says and turn around. Both of your hands placed on the wall in front of you. Jim bends his knees to get into place and you slowly feel him going inside of you. Going up and down slowly. It is the best feeling ever. You throw your head back in pleasure. Jims hands gliding from your butt all the way up to your boobs. Squeezing them. Jim goes faster and faster. You both fall into a rhythm of moving up and down together. You wrap one arm around his neck, moving back your head even more to steal a kiss from him. The sonic shower becomes a lot steamier, making it that small cubicle a lot hotter than it already is.

Jim’s fingers move over your nipples, making this sensation even more pleasurable. You wish this would not end, the feeling is so good, you are completely lost in it. The thought of looking him in the eyes cross your mind. You stopped him in his movement and turn around to face him, placing a kiss onto his lips.

“Lift me.” You said closing your eyes as you move in for another kiss. Jim smirks at your words.

“You sure? It is very slippery in here”.

You nod your head “I am sure.”

Jim grabs your legs and lifts you. You wrap yourself around him as he presses you against the wall. Going inside of you again. You wished there was some place to grab a hold off, but all you can do is place your hand against the slippery wall.

You moan almost simultaneously. Both enjoying the motions. Both enjoying being inside one another. Your boobs are now hanging in between Jim’s face, he grabs the opportunity to kiss and suck your nipples. Your eyes roll at his tongue rolling over your nipple.

“Fuck! You’re good!”

A small smirk appears on Jim’s face. His legs are shaking from the position he is in, but he won’t take a break as you he does not want to shake of this feeling.

He pushes you against the wall even harder now. His kissing now plays over into hard sucking. Giving you a even more delightful pleasurable feeling. His pushes become harder and harder. Which makes you moan even louder. You feel a build up inside of you. You were coming so hard, you yelled out a moan, tugging on Jim’s hair. Doing so, made Jim want you even more. His movement became so incredibly fast. He was ready to fill you up so good. Jim moaned so loud. You could feel the heat inside of you. The heat of him filling you up.

You were both out of breath, but still you could not keep your hands and lips of each other. Your lips were locked. You tiredly place your foreheads against one another. Smiles appear onto your face. You sigh, completely out of breath. This was the best shower sex you have ever had. The passion the two of you had was insane.

“That is a way to get clean.” Jim said dryly. It made you smile even harder.

“The perfect way to get clean.”

Jim put you down onto the floor, as he looked down he noticed his cum covered dick.

“Now let’s get clean again. But for real this time.” You chuckle but agree with the state the two of you were in.

“Sounds perfect… and after that, I would like some wine.”

Jim chuckled and placed a kiss onto your cheek.

“Now that sounds perfect.”

He kisses you again but this time onto your lips. A real good kiss.

“I love you.”

“I love you too” Your cheeks turned red. You were in complete aw. You truly loved this guy. There is honestly no better guy in the universe than him… and he is all yours.

The end.

#star trek #star trek strange new worlds #james t kirk #James T Kirk/reader #fanfiction #snw fanfiction #star trek fanfiction #captain kirk fanfiction #captain kirk #paul wesley #star trek strange new worlds fanfiction

4 notes · View notes

donseo · 2 years

Text

I never suspected I'd make a site of any sort, so it's a wonder that this even exists. However, some of the time life is entertaining: you start a venture in view of one objective and end up elsewhere. At any rate, that is the way it works for me since I will more often than not do excessively. Or then again perhaps this is on the grounds that I'm quickly flustered. In this way, this occurred: I wanted a new Best Mig Welder, however rather than going to the home improvement shop and taking one out the rack, I concluded to do a little research to see what choices I had. I didn't figure it would be excessively hard. I should take a gander at a couple of sites and pick a welder. Actually no, not that. That is to say, there are many sorts of mig welders. They all have different elements, levels of force, and even others characteristics.

My Journey For The Best Mig Welder

At the point when I assumed I found the best mig welder, another mig welder grabbed my attention right that second, and I had to proceed with my hunt. In the long run, I understood that the mig welder's family is huge. Accordingly, it is trying to figure out best mig welder for me. Amidst this, I thought, "There should be a great many individuals very much like me going through this too, and for what reason would it be advisable for us to all be doing it all alone?"

So I proceeded with my exploration and chose to place everything in one spot, do a few fast surveys, and post it so you wouldn't need to invest as much energy web perusing as I did. Is it true or not that i are wonderful? Indeed, I'm; thank you for noticing! However, on a more serious point, I'm happy you're here, and I really want to believe that I can help you in finding exactly what you need.

PS. I've likewise assisted with mig welder audits on Speedy Examination, and You might need to look at that. A fast examination rundown of the best mig welder.

YESWELDER MIG-250 Master 220V 250 Amp MIG/Stick/TIG Multi-Cycle Welder

ETOSHA 140Amp Motion Center Wire Gasless Programmed Feed Welder

This welder's programmed change framework matches voltage and taking care of speed. Thickness-movable. It's novice cordial. The motion center wire is 0.030/0.035in. 140 Amps weld 1/4 in gentle steel. 2.2-pound wire curls fit.

Hobart - 500553 Controller 210 MVP MIG Welder,Small

Reboot MIG welder 220v 155A 5 of every 1 MultiProcess Welder

Best Mig Welder electronic reactor circuit in gas-safeguarded welding hardware. Controlling short-and blended circuit welding is conceivable. It's strong, light, energy-productive, and commotion free. Sprinkle, circular segment, pool, load.

VEVOR MIG Welder Machine, 130A 3 of every 1 Combo Welding Machine

Multifunction MIG/TIG/MMA proficient blend welder for composite, gentle steel, treated steel, copper, and cast iron. It can weld steel and treated steel utilizing strong wire, transition line wire, TIG Light, and STICK

Everlast Typhoon 212 Stick 230amp welder double voltage 110v/220v spool firearm prepared .

160A MIG, 4.3 "Show TFT, 600 IPM 240V Wire feed, 400 IPM 120V ,Spot Clock, Hot Beginning, Curve Power, Consume Back. MIG firearm with Polymer Liner and U notch Drive rollers. Weld interfere with, overcurrent, and obligation cycle alarms. .035-.035 consume back "V-drive (Transition Cored)

Reach out to Us:

[email protected]

You are allowed to anticipate a response from us at the earliest possible second…Best Mig Welder

We are grateful that you have chosen to talk with us and worth the time and effort you have set into doing accordingly.

I trust today gives you just satisfaction and accomplishment!

#Best Mig Welder

0 notes

audio-luddite · 2 years

Text

Cleaning out the pots!

My preamp is 40 ish years old. Works fine and better than my previous 50 ish year old preamp. I had noticed some noise and strange behavior at some of the quieter volume settings. Scrrrtch Squeeek. My wife is always saying "turn it down." Classic dirt or corrosion in the potentiometers. (pots) (AKA volume controls)

The standard fix is contact cleaner. The only one I could find that was tried and true for electronics was Deoxit. Many blogs claimed many things about stuff from hardware and autoparts stores. Excuse me if I don't believe everything I see online.

Deoxit comes in several flavors and eBay or amazon will sell it to me for stupid money and free shipping (not including tax and duty). I found a real live local brick and mortar store that had it. It was a professional supply store as it only was open during the week and business hours.

I was able to get there over lunch hour and buy a can of Deoxit D5. Not cheap, but half what the online thieves wanted.

Next step was to pull the SP14 out of the rack and undo 8 machine screws on the top. Audio Research really builds things nicely. Neat cable runs, and almost pretty circuit boards. (SAE had the lock on really pretty circuit boards back in the day).

BUT

They did not build it with spray cleaning the pots and switches in mind. First thing is all the knob controls are soldered directly to a narrow PC board mounted upside down. Then the pots were very high end ALPS which are nice small SEALED boxes. They had some very small openings in a few almost impossible to get to places.

This is not going to be easy. It wasn't. I started with the top off and tried to maneuver the spray tube into what holes I could find. This aint working! Then I put the front facing down resting on those handles. (OH, that's what they're for!) The rotary selectors were pretty open so they got a good blast. Spray and twiddle the knobs for 20 or 30 seconds. Repeat.

I assumed (hoped) the holes in the ALPS pots (volume and balance) went into their guts and gave them a blast and twiddle and came back to repeat.

During this I observed something. There are some brass contact strips on the selectors that were brown. Dirt? So I got a Qtip and gave it a shot of cleaner and rubbed the strips. They were bright brass again. The Qtip was black. WTF? This was not corrosion. I cleaned them all off I could get to. I also rubbed a bit on a metal plate holding the power transformer to the side panel it was filthy too.

About the only thing I can figure is one of the previous owners was a smoker. Hey my mom smoked a bit and lived to her 90s. I have never taken up the habit nor my wife or our kids. I thought about how I could give the whole device a bath. Then no lets just do another round of blast and twiddle and hope those holes actually do go into the guts of the pots.

I also gave the rear RCA plugs a shot and worked at the insides with a cut off Qtip stick. There was a bit of stuff in there.

I put it back together and let it sit for an hour. I set all the knobs and selectors to where they had been and turned it back on. No smoke that's good. Fire up the Iphone through the CD player and let it run.

Now even though the IPhone was set to lossless and high resolution or whatever they call it, it is only fairly good, about the same as a CD. But only as good as a good CD. (I am a vinyl guy remember?) I heard a difference.

I try to always qualify my judgements between better and different. Things are often different, but not better. Better is always different. This was different, and I think significantly better. There was gunk on my controls and the cleaner cleaned it. It sounded smoother nicer cleaner, it was better.

So glad I did not hurt anything.

I really should zap the Amplifier input and the speaker wire connectors. Though I did give the binding posts a bit of a twist.

One of those "Ask Paul" things on PS audio mentioned that sometimes when people swap speaker cables they are better because working the binding posts at each end actually clears corrosion from the wires. Bare copper (or silver for "those guys") will corrode out in the air and normal humidity. I bought some new speaker wire some time ago. Heavier gauge but still just two conductor. It is a bit of a pain to run. Maybe I should do that and hit it with the cleaner at the same time.

Conclusion: If you have some old equipment with knobs and selectors giving it a clean really helps.

Thumbs up for Deoxit D5.

#Deoxit D5 #audiophile #audioblr #audio research preamp #high end audio #audiophile on the cheap

0 notes

brmains · 2 years

Text

Evom bad cam sensor

#EVOM BAD CAM SENSOR MANUAL#

#EVOM BAD CAM SENSOR PATCH#

Before I touch on that, let me specify which 3G ECU will work since there are a few different types of ECU’s available for the 3G. There is, however, ONE major difference between the Evo ECU and 3G ECU.

#EVOM BAD CAM SENSOR PATCH#

The Evo 8 ECU pinout diagram is much easier to find, so use this when building your patch harness. You may also find that it is near impossible to find an actual pinout diagram on the internet for the 3G Eclipse ECU with the 4 cylinder engine. I have successfully put a 3G Eclipse ECU in my DSM using a patch harness built for an Evo 8 ECU. So if you stumble upon this information like I did, don’t believe it because it’s not true. Contrary to what I have found online, the ECU pinout’s between the Evo ECU and 3G ECU are the same.

#EVOM BAD CAM SENSOR MANUAL#

I am using a 3G Eclipse ECU (2001, i4, manual trans). One problem directly affects the rest of the setup in some way. I don’t want to add to the list of things I have to configure. I have been doing way too many things at once, which is why I am sticking with a very basic setup with the small turbo, injectors, and MAF. I have done a wire tuck, fuse box relocation, battery relocation, deletes (AC, cruise, PS, ABS, heater core, windshield wipers, emissions, EGR, FIAV, IAC, etc.), with a built-ish 6 bolt. I am using an Evo III 16G (for now until the car is up and running with all the bugs worked out, then switch to a Holset setup), RC 550’s (again for now, have FIC 1600’s ready to go in), 2G MAF (for now, switching to SD in the future). Since then, I have been building it while recovering from what should have been a fatal accident in my 2G. It’s a 92 GSX, bought it as a shell back in October of 2015. I would like to promote their efforts, more importantly the efforts of those that contributed to the Evo ECU stuff.Ī little background about my exact build that I am using the Evo ECU in. Some of us take their work for granite or don’t even consider it at all. ECMlink, Jackal, Ostrich, Ceddy, Tephra, etc. I think the biggest reason why I want to use the Evo ECU is to learn more about it and hopefully clear things up for others that find future interest in the swap.Ī lot of people put a ton of effort into giving us another option for tuning over the years. I used a Blackbox in my 2G and fell in love with ECUflash/EVOscan, though it does also have its downsides. I want to use the Evo ECU for many reasons. Over the years, I have tried contributing to our community via Eat Sleep DSM (website/social media groups/pages) and this is no different. There are several different combinations and variables that affect you and your exact setup. Including the 40+ page long threads which most of the information lies in. But the information is amazingly spotty at best and takes a LOT of time shuffling through it all. There is a sufficient amount of information out there on the web between DSMtuners, EvolutionM, DSMtalk, club3G, the GVR4 forums, etc. I am starting this post with the intention to simply help myself document any and all information I find throughout my own Evo 8 ECU–>1G DSM process.

#Evom bad cam sensor

0 notes

sainadazai · 2 years

Text

This is a preview to a longer story I'm working on. Enjoyyh

Brent Faiyaz quotes as MHA characters relationships

"I remember when you couldn't tell me a thing, now you talk so much it drives me insane."

With Bakugou Katsuki

When Bakugou first spoke to you, it was in the support course lab. You were biting your lip as you scribbled notes into your journal. So annoying. You were always biting your lip.

He noticed over the many times he'd walk past the large glass walls just to peer in at you. Also annoying. He could never just walk by, he had to check if you were there. And if you weren't he developed a small sinking feeling in his tummy. As though he wanted to see you.

He had, however, finally decided to actually join you in the lab one day in the middle of your second year. Apparently he deduced that if he just spoke to you once, he'd realize how dumb you are, and never again feel the need to stare at you as you work, or take in your plush lips being furrowed in concentration.

So he creaked the door open and entered the lab with an uncertain frown on his face.

When you heard someone enter you were expecting it to be one of your classmates, probably trying to get extra time on an assignment or help out a hero course friend. Your eyes flickered up, prepared to display a polite smile, but no words. You really weren't one for casual banter, and no one in your class spoke to you all that much anyway.

So you were fairly startled to see a large, muscular, and disgruntled hero course student stomping into your lab. His eyes were pricing as though he intended to speak to you and it made you quickly avert your own.

You'd only met a few hero course students in your time at UA, mostly in the regard of upgrading their suits and gear. They weren't the easiest bunch to be quiet around.

Generally full of energy and words spilling out their mouths like vomit, it was hard to keep up with them.

"Hey." The blonde grunted out, huffing as you simply gave a head nod and returned to your microscope. He was now finally able to see your full face. It was structured and pure, eyes glistening with curiosity for a second before retreating and your hair was kept nicely out of the way with a very large clip. Half up, half down. He could see your neck all the way down to where you lab coat came into view and was for some reason enticed to stare more.

"Uhm, I need to fix these." He gestured to hit gauntlets, hoping to catch your eyes again.

When you heard him speak yet again you let out a frustrated sigh, and extended your arm. Signaling him to hand over the weapons.

He took a glance to either side of the room in confusion before walking further towards you. Were you really not gonna say a thing?

He watched as you examined his equipment, soft fingers smoothing over the burn marks and cracks that littered them before opening you control latch on the inside. You moved them underneath a magnifying glass and began looking as wires and circuits that he didn't even know could fit in there.

After further inspection tough you noticed it was just a leak in his collection pouch that seemed to the problem. And you spoke back to him for the very first time. He'll never forget it. "I'll return them tomorrow."

Before you set them to the side and continued to ignore Bakugou's presence, he stood there dumbfounded.

Why did your voice sound so quiet and calm? Unbothered even. And why did his heart rate pick up so much?

The next morning, when he walked into Mr.Aizawas classroom he found a slick leather bag on his desk, finished with a small sticky note that read.

Don't go easy on them - y/n

Ps. They needed a new paint job

And when he opens the bag he sees a slick and shiny coat of black line with one orange stripe across the bottom of each gauntlet. A smirk rests on his face. He's excited to see how he can overuse them, so that maybe he can go back to have to fix them again.

Six months later he gets the nerve to touch you for the first time. Bakugou Katsuki has come in to sit and watch you work. It's a new habit he's aquired. He realized overtime that even tough you really didn't speak all that much, you never told him to leave. And so he would just stare, watching as you added and refined his own gear.

Today is the first time he's seen you in two weeks. To you, this felt quite nice, you had grown so used to the large boys intense presence that you forgot how peaceful your work could be. Still, when he walked in today you felt your heart rate pick up, and noticed your own lips curl into a small smile.

You had been listening to a boy who usually worked with Hatsume rant on and on about his suit material and how you could theoretically enhance it. It had actually made you miss your blonde buddy from the hero course. He was always respectful of the quiet. His stare was brooding and intimidating, sure, but he never spoke more than a few words every now and then. Usually complaints that you learned to just roll your eyes at.

The boy in front of you was overwhelming. He had a very strong build but round cheeks and freckles. Very cute, but so energetic right off the bat. Usually it took you quite some time to speak your rants out loud to someone.

"Izuku." You wanted to startle him out of his rant by using his first name.

What Bakugou saw though, was his rival speaking to you. And then you using his first name. And gripping his wrist, a small smile on your face. And for some reason his chest began to ache. Stupid Deku.

#anime #mha fanfiction #aot anime #fanfic #mha bakugou #mha todoroki #bnha bakugo katsuki #maid dress #momo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou smut #bnha bakugou #bakusquad #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katuski #mha #mha fluff #Spotify

145 notes · View notes

pascalpanic · 3 years

Text

Fixer Upper PART ONE (Frankie Morales x f!Reader)

Summary: Nothing seems to go right in your new house. When yet another thing breaks, a certain handyman comes to your rescue.

W/C: 2k ish

Warnings: language, joking mentions of a house being cursed (it isn’t), reader has dirty thoughts bc it’s Frankie and he’s hot

A/N: this one goes out to my anons who’ve been sending me stuff about frankie as a repairman! I loved the idea and I thought it would be super fun to write! This will be part ONE of three-ish! ps idk if any references to reader’s gender are in this part but there certainly will be some in the future so.

It’s been a while that you’ve lived in this house. Since that day you hauled in the cardboard boxes, you’ve been feeling that your life is the epitome of Murphy’s law. Or rather, this damned house is.

Nothing ever goes right. The heat breaks in the winter and the air conditioning breaks in the summer. The plumbing needs work when you need it to work, and the oven only ever breaks halfway through cooking something. Seriously, you swear this place is cursed by some hex determined to pester you out of living here.

You’ve never exactly been the handy type. You don’t know much about mechanics, heating or cooling, the electricity and wiring in your house, any of it. By now, you wish you’d taken the time to learn it at some point rather than hiring someone every time.

The first sign was that the June heat seemed inescapable. You’d been outside all day, and you figured it was just your body taking its time to adjust to the cooler, indoor temperature. Then you never cooled down. When you stepped out of the bathroom after a shower and found the air to be nearly as muggy as that of the steamed bathroom, you realized that the air conditioning must be off.

Well, it was on. The problem was that it wasn’t working. You opened all the windows, and figured the night breeze would cool you, then you became worried about serial killers and crimes and promptly shut and locked all of them again. With the fan in your bedroom on, the air at least moved, but was still thick and heavy.

In the morning, when you wake with no blankets on and sweaty sheets, you dial the repair company as fast as you can. You inform them of the situation, and they tell you they’ll send someone out your way in the next hour or two.

The air is still somewhat cool outside, so you give the front porch a shot once you get changed out of your pajamas and take yet another cool shower. The heavy dew is an indicator of just how humid the air is, and you relish every little breeze that passes by and cools you down. You conduct your morning business outside, hoping to have this problem fixed before the sun reaches a height where the temperatures will rise exponentially.

About an hour after the call, the repair van rolls up into your driveway and parks. “Thank God,” you murmur to yourself.

Your focus returns to your computer, but you hear the door slam shut and look up to find the repairman there. He wears khaki cargo pants and a gray t-shirt, complete with a ball cap on top, with dark brown curls peeking out from the bottom. He fastens his tool belt around his waist as he walks up to the porch. “Hey there. I’m Frankie. I’ll be taking care of you today,” he informs you, a kind smile on his face. You already like him. “I got the basics from the boss, but can you tell me more about the problem?”

Looking up at him from the seated position you’re in, you give an awkward smile. Suddenly, you wish you’re better dressed, fixed up and looking nice. Even in work clothes, this man is beautiful. It makes you a little nervous, you in your pajamas and him looking like a god even in cargo pants. “I wish I could, but I don’t know anything about the air conditioner and how it works other than how to change the settings. All I know is that it isn’t working.”

He gives a good-natured chuckle, a soft bounce of his chest beneath the shirt. He looks down at his tool belt and his scruff brushes against the collar of the gray. “Well, let’s go give it a shot. I’ll need you to show me around, show me the control panel and the main system.” God, he’s handsome.

“Oh, of course,” you nod and stand, leaving your laptop on the small table. “Well, right this way. And please, you don’t need to take your boots off. Those look complicated,” you laugh as you look at the heavy tan boots at the bottom of his body.

Frankie nods and looks around as you lead him through the house. He doesn’t take his boots off, since you insisted, but he does give them a generous wipe on the doormat, careful not to track anything in. “It’s a beautiful place,” he tells you honestly, with a half-smile that just tugs at one of the corners of his ridiculously soft-looking lips.

“Thanks,” you shrug and show him to the control panel. “I try. Okay, here’s the button thingy.”

“The button thingy?” he teases, which leads to laughter from the both of you.

“If I knew what it was called, you wouldn’t be here,” you tease him back and shake your head.

Frankie uses the tools from his belt to take off the casing. You lean against the wall as he works, admiring the way his hands nimbly check the wires and paneling behind it. He holds a small flashlight between his teeth to look into the wall cavity.

“I can hold that for you,” you offer, and he moves his mouth for you to take it from him.

“Thanks,” he says, popping his jaw slightly to adjust from the awkward angle of holding it between his teeth. “You don’t have to. I’m just here to fix it.”

You point it at the same spot. “I might as well be some help, considering I don’t know shit about my own house.”

Frankie laughs at that, stealing a glance your way that makes your face warm before his gaze returns to the electrical situation. “Well,” he declares after a few seconds. “The wiring must not be the problem here. This all is working fine, so it must be with the actual system.”

“Great,” you groan. “The part I know even less about.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he chuckles and screws the panel back into place on your wall, making sure everything works properly and he didn’t mess with any functions.

Leading Frankie to your basement, you show him the cluttered laundry room and the central air conditioning unit. He’s already analyzing the system, and you back off to let him work. He looks focused. “Holler if you need me,” you tell him as he gets on his knees to look at something, daring to gently pat his shoulder. It’s strong, muscular beneath your palm.

Heading back to the kitchen, you open the fridge and sigh. For a moment, you allow yourself to close your eyes and just enjoy the cold air it produces. Hopefully, your house will be the same soon enough. Grabbing two tall glasses, you fill each with ice before pouring half sweet tea and half lemonade into the glasses.

You stand in the kitchen with the freezer open, sighing at the cool air it provides. Not sure how long he’ll take, you scroll through your phone. It’s surprisingly quick, you find.

“Hey, I found it!” Frankie calls from the basement.

Carrying the two glasses, you return to the laundry room to find him reorganizing his tool belt. “Here,” you tell him with a smile as you hold out the drink. “Least I could do. It’s unbearable in here.”

“Thanks,” he smiles and lifts the glass to you in a miniature salute before taking a sip. Frankie then launches into a detailed explanation of the issue with the A/C unit, using all kinds of terms you don’t understand and mentioning parts you didn’t even know were included in the machine. “I got it all fixed up, though, and it shouldn’t take long before it’s working just as good as normal.”

You sigh in relief, swallowing the sweet drink and smiling at him. “God, thank you so much. You don’t even know how awful it was in here.”

“If it’s anything like right now, I do,” he chuckles. The man takes the hem of his t-shirt and lifts it to wipe his face, revealing a muscular but soft body beneath it, with a beautiful little trail of dark hair leading to beneath his belt. Is it terrible that your first thought is that you want to lick it?

You force the image from your mind with another swig of the drink. “Yeah, just about. Well, how much do I owe you?” You ask the man, leading him out of the laundry room and into the basement that’s already feeling cooler.

“Oh, nothing right now,” he shakes his head as you lead him upstairs and to the kitchen. “I just tweaked some things for you, didn’t need any parts or anything, so it’s just gonna be labor.” He seems to remember something. “Ah, shit. I gotta have you sign something. I’ll grab the paper from the van and be right back,” he tells you and leaves his drink on the counter, half-jogging outside.

While he’s outside, you lean against the cool kitchen counter and let yourself daydream. This Frankie guy certainly is attractive, and his personality is definitely something you’re interested in. What if the situation right now played out like a porno, and he fucked you on the countertop? You certainly wouldn’t complain. You noticed his hands and feet are large. Certainly he must be big somewhere else too. “Oh Jesus Christ,” you murmur to yourself. Why did my mind have to go there? And why is the thought so hot? He’s a sweet man too, clearly goofy and sweet. Why is your mind going there then? Really, upon further pondering, you just want to hug the man, admire his strong body pressed to yours in an intimate but innocent gesture.

“Sorry, what was that?” Frankie calls out as he walks into the house again.

His voice snaps you from your daydreaming. “Oh, just talking to myself,” you say quickly and cheerfully, taking the paper from him. The top is printed with repairman name: Francisco Morales. Francisco. That makes you smile. What a cute name. The rest is filled with the details of what he did to the machine to fix it, and you sign and date at the bottom. “Here you go, Francisco.”

His tanned skin turns a little pinker on the cheeks. “Great,” Frankie smiles and takes it back.

“Before you leave,” you tell him quickly, darting to grab your purse from the entryway, “here.”

Frankie walks to you and you hand him a generous cash tip, with a stupid smile stuck to your face. “Thank you, wow,” he says, voice honest in its surprise as he notices the total of the money.

“Of course. I really can’t thank you enough. God, it’s been painfully hot in here and I really just can’t stand the heat,” you ramble, your voice speeding up. “And… yeah. Thank you. For your company, too.”

“Just doing my job,” he tells you with a smile, putting his hands in his pockets. “Oh, here.”

From his pocket, he pulls a little rectangle of paper with his name and company on it. “The shop number is on here; if anything changes, just call and ask for Catfish.”

“Catfish?” You ask with a smile, puzzled.

“My old military nickname. It’s what the guys around there call me,” he shrugs, shy at the nickname.

It makes you laugh a little, and you tuck the card in your purse. “Well, Catfish, thank you. I’ll be sure to use this next time I have some stupid thing I can’t repair myself.”

“Please do,” he chuckles, a shy smile on his face. “I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks!” You call again and cringe. That’s, what, the ninth time you’ve said that now? He walks to the van and you give him a wave before retreating back inside. God, now you can’t wait for this shitty house to need another repair. You’ll certainly be asking for Catfish.

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @blo0dangel @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy @lv7867 @greeneyedblondie44 @hunnambabe @astoryisaloveaffair @emesispo @pedritobalmando @magikfanatic @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan @princess76179 @starless-eyes-remain @tacticalsparkles @queridopascal

#frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales headcanons #frankie catfish morales #frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie catfish morales headcanons #francisco catfish morales #francisco catfish morales x reader #francisco morales #francisco morales x reader #catfish morales x reader #catfish morales #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader

214 notes · View notes

vrishchikawrites · 3 years

Note

I gotta ask though this is definitely not your everyday question... how did you manage to read mdzs? It's so cringy and rushed and filled with short sentences and over exposition. I personally managed to only read like 20 chapters before I gave up and decided to learn the story from fanfiction and english isnt even my native language. But you are such a good writer and I love your style and it's so much different from how the novel is written and yet you praise it so much so I guess what I'm asking is how did you manage?

(And to make sure there are no misunderstandings I dont ever wanna blame any of the translators who are doing an amazing job!)

Honestly, since I don't know better, I can't say the cringe factor actually exists. MDZS wasn't written for me (as in a non-Chinese person), so parts that make it an uncomfortable reading for me may not bother the Chinese readers at all. Readers from different cultures expect different things. Aren't short and concise sentences considered good in Chinese linguistics? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I recall reading it somewhere. But I digress.

I'm sort of accustomed to things sounding strange once they're translated because a lot of nuance from the language gets lost (I read a lot of classical Sanskrit and Tamil works, some of them don't sound pleasant when translated) That's the case with almost any work you translate. (not the fault of the translators, but that's just how things are.)

When I read these kinds of works, I don't necessarily focus on the words, but more on the spirit of the text. The surface just fades away when I'm intent on understanding the character and plot nuances, tbh.

I praise MDZS because imo it is very tight work, especially from an author's perspective. The characterization is beautiful, the plot is interesting and makes sense, and there are many things MXTX lets readers figure out without telling them. All elements fit in well and if you remove one puzzle piece, the plot unravels. The work is that tight.

It is also very satisfying. You end the novel on a pleasant, content note that feels completely realistic as well.

Sometimes, the dialogue and scenes are a little unpleasant to read, but looking beyond that into the motivations of the character can help. Like the WWX confession scene, on the surface, is cringe. But underneath, you can tell there are several factors influencing it:

WWX definitely doesn't know if he'll survive to the next moment, not when a wire is literally cutting into his neck.

He was just told about LWJ's devotion to him.

LWJ has risked everything to support him.

LWJ was hurt by their relationship dynamic.

He has been holding himself back without the need to do so. And he may have inadvertently given LWJ the wrong impression that may be hurting him even now.

When you take factors like these into consideration, WWX's confession takes on a much deeper meaning. It is essentially the words of a man who has died once, who knows what it is like to take secrets to the grave, who is naturally compassionate, and who loves LWJ.

It becomes less of an 'omg, this is an embarrassingly public and clumsy confession' and more about, 'oh, a man who doesn't know what's going to happen next has just poured his entire heart out, honestly, and without restraint.' I think that's beautiful.

TL;DR - Some novels just need a deeper, slower reading. Just ignore the surface and look underneath (underneath the underneath, heh). You can just skim sections you're uncomfortable with, too.

PS; All of this is my personal opinion and experience. Every person interacts with the material differently.

#reader asks

47 notes · View notes

professional-dikut · 3 years

Note

ooh ooh a request? tech/crosshair, crosshair being supportive of tech's interest tangents and making sure he takes care of himself when he gets too invested and distracted with work? idk how to write requests lol. ps. i read your latest echo/cross one and it was freaking amazing wow so fluff much angst yes comfort :)))

Ahhhh so sorry this took so long! I love this idea sm and i had many plans for this req so i hope you enjoy! (Fic under cut⬇️)

Word Count: 2673

TW: minor bad eating habits?

"Ouch!"

Crosshair snapped his eyes up towards a muffled hiss from Tech.

The man was sitting at his small work table, shaking his right hand around as sparks began to die down on a small bundle of wires in front of him. He had a stylus between his teeth and there was a tiny pair of pliers in his left hand. His leg bounced and his eyes darted back and fourth between the flimsy next to him and the bundle of wires.

Crosshair raised an eyebrow and swung his legs off his bunk to rest his feet on the ground.

Tech grumbled some incoherent curses before snatching the stylus out of his mouth and jamming down a few messy scribbles onto the flimsy.

Hunter had randomly decided to head down to the training facilities for a few hours, and Wrecker and Echo were in the cafeteria having some late night snacks. Crosshair had grabbed a snack on the way back from their simulator course earlier, though he hadnt eaten since lunch. So He and Tech were left in the barracks to do their own thing for a while until they decided to sleep.

Slowly, he pulled a leg up to his chest as he watched Tech move.

His hands flew across the pieces and parts that only he understood. His eyebrows were furrowed in the way they always were when he was deep in thought, and his eyes were zeroed in on what was in front of him and nothing else. His leg continued to bounce up and down while he twirled the stylus in his hand.

Crosshair smirked.

He stood up, quietly, and began to make his way around and over to Tech's table.

Tech muttered something and scribbled down some more notes, readjusting the bundle of wires.

The sniper slowly pulled a stool around to sit across from Tech, making as little noise as possible.

Tech didnt look up. His eyes stayed narrowed on his project, hyper focused on the goal in front of him. He picked at a few of the wires with the pliers, before twisting some together into a pattern.

Crosshair watched and got comfortable in the stool, crossing his arms and resting a leg on one of the bars around the middle of it.

Still twisting and pulling the wires into a weird pattern, Tech glanced aside to look at a black panel with some buttons and screens on it. He looked back and fourth between the wires he was still messing with, and the panel, as if he was deciding which one he should focus on. The wires were starting to look less jumbled as he wove them together, and he chewed his lip before switching to only one hand on the wires.

Crosshair's eyes widened, watching as Tech worked the wires with one hand, as the other fiddled with the panel.

His right hand moved—somehow—still weaving the wires together in a perfect pattern. It was slower than both hands, of course, but it seemed to be working and he hadn't messed up yet. Crosshair watched with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

The panel had lit up at some point and was blinking in a few spots. Tech put a small screwdriver between his teeth as he tapped at the panel. Every few seconds, he'd grab the screwdriver and poke around the buttons, causing tiny colorful sparks that reflected in his goggles.

Eventually, the wires came together into one part, and Tech pinned the ends together with small ties. Pulling the panel towards him, he flipped it over and set the wires aside as he opened a small flap in the back of the panel.

He poked around in the small flap a bit with the screwdriver before grabbing the wires again.

Crosshair watched while Techs eyes narrowed and squinted at the wires, as he slowly placed them into the panel. Sparks jumped around his fingers as he attached the wires from the top and bottom, allowing them to sear together by them selves. Every few minutes a hand would fly up to readjust his goggles.

Shaking his head, Crosshair tried to suppress a grin as Tech finished up his project, swatting sparks away here and there.

"What is it?" Crosshair asked quietly, finding an opening where Tech wasnt as focused.

He waited a minute or two as Tech caught up to the question while putting things back together and into their original places.

"It is..." Tech mumbled, stuffing screws and tools into small containers and pouches.

Crosshair watched, waiting with patience as Tech finally gave a satisfied sigh.

"A power calibrator that I constructed to connect into the rear nose cannons." Tech began to say all at once. Crosshair listened intently. "It will allow more power to be transferred to the shields while the rear cannon is being fired, so that way we can do both at once without losing one mid-battle."

Crosshair squinted. It was actually genius. Half the time during missions, their shields would fail while firing the rear cannons due to the power usage. Though they had more power in the firing, the Marauder almost always got a pretty good beating if they used the cannons for to long.

"What wires did you use?" Crosshair asked, scooting his stool closer the table so that he could rest an arm in it.

"Twinaxial cables, acutally." Tech said spinning around in his own stool to toss something onto his bunk. "They're a variant of the coaxial cables, and have more than one conductor. They are good for short-range and high-speed power signals so they'll work well for what I'm using them for."

Crosshair nodded. He knew most of what Tech was talking about, and tried to understand what he didn't. Tech would usually explain if he was confused, but at the moment, he was pretty educated on what he was talking about.

"Great idea, Tech." Crosshair praised. Now that he had a quick opening, he could do their little routine that they always went through around these times.

"What did you have for lunch?"

Tech shut a drawer and froze.

Slowly, he turned in his stool to face the sniper with a look of deep thought on his face. He furrowed his eyebrows and rested his hand on his chin as Crosshair waited. Slowly, Tech conjured up an answer.

"It was a..." Tech began, tapping a finget on his chin. "A ration bar, I believe."

Crosshair raised an eyebrow and turned his head to the side.

"You had one for breakfast." He implied quietly.

Tech blinked and looked down at his hands.

"It's possible Ive had two, today." Said Tech, picking at his gloved hands.

"Any real food?" Cross asked.

A defeated look rested onto Tech’s face and he readjusted his goggles.

"Water?" He asked again.

Tech stared.

Crosshair sighed and turned in his seat, glancing at the snack next to his bed that he'd grabbed from the cafeteria earlier. He hadn't been hungry much then, but he did plan on eating it. He was pretty sure there was some soup, maybe a biscuit or two and possibly some meat.

He hopped out of his stool and Tech looked up in surprise.

Stalking over to his bunk, he grabbed the biscuits and a small thermal of soup. The meat was in a foil like bag and had a jerky texture and taste that Tech always liked, even since they were cadets. Cross took the bag and tossed it on his bed, poking around for any spoons or silverware. When he didnt find any, he shrugged and popped open the little thermal.

Crosshair caught Techs look of confusion as he spun around to sit down in his bunk, taking a whiff of the soup.

It smelled good, and it was still somewhat warm. If he didn't eat it soon, it would get cold in the next thirty minutes or so. He took a sip from the thermal and sighed as the warm liquid trickled into his belly and the bland taste settled on his tongue.

He looked up.

Tech frowned as he pulled his second glove off, the first one already on the table. His head was hung low and his eyebrows were still furrowed like he was thinking hard about something. His lips parted slightly as if he was going to say something, but he shut his mouth and froze as he looked up.

"Come here." Crosshair spoke, patting the spot next to him on his bunk.

Tech blinked and rested his hands on each other.

"The soup is gonna get cold." He spoke again, nodding to the thermal before taking another sip.

Tech looked at the soup, and then back up at Crosshair before scrambling out of his stool and padding over to the spot next to him on the bunk.

Cross leaned back to get the jerky/meat stuff as Tech got comfortable, pulling a leg up to his chest and turning towards the sniper.

Techs eyes lit up behind his goggles as Crosshair opened the bad of jerky, and quickly grabbed for a piece.

Crosshair caught his hand and swatted it away as Tech gave him an offended look.

"Excuse me?" Tech frowned, trying to maneuver around Cross's hand.

"Water first." The sniper said, shrugging and pulling the bag away from Tech and taking a bite of the jerky himself.

"Ugh." Tech grumbled and stood to stalk over to his own bunk, grabbing a flask of water that he took a few angry sips of on the way back.

"There."

Crosshair smirked as Tech plopped back down and snatched a piece of jerky out of the bag, taking a bite with a small smile on his face.

Cross handed Tech the thermal so he could open the small plastic container that had three biscuits in it. He peeled the plastic seal top off and took one if the biscuits out. They were a little deformed, and kind of stale and soggy at the same time, but thats what they got; And truthfully, they didn't really care.

Tech went between the thermal and the jerky, starting to realize how hungry he really was.

Cross handed him one if the biscuits and he took it happily, taking a bite and washing it down with some water from his flask.

"When's the last time you slept?" Crosshair asked randomly while Tech chewed.

Tech looked up up in thought and shoved another piece of jerky in his mouth. Crosshair sighed and moved the bag of jerky away for a second so Tech could finish chewing and not choke. He narrowed his eyes behind his goggles and stared at Crosshair as he took another sip of the soup.

"I woke up at five-hundred thirty like always." Tech said, wiping his mouth and shrugging.

Cross cocked an eyebrow at him. It was already nearing close to twenty-hundred, so Tech had been awake for longer than twelve hours at the least. He sighed again.

"Okay, what time did you go to sleep last night?" Crosshair asked.

"Around the time when I finished fixing Wrecker's blaster." Tech answered easily, looking around Cross for the bag of jerky.

The sniper was pretty sure he had fallen asleep before Tech finished up on Wreckers blaster. The amount of time spent fixing them depended in the damage, and depending on Wrecker, the damage was usually pretty major. Cross had fallen asleep at around twenty-four hundred, and Tech had only started working on the blaster a little bit before that.

"And when did you finish that." Crosshair questioned.

"Around four-hundred thir-"

Tech stopped, thermal tipped halfway towards his mouth.

Crosshairs eyes widened and the crease deepened between his brows.

"I meant-"

"No," Crosshair cut Tech off, turning to face him more. "You got an hour of sleep?!"

"Well, more like forty five minutes because it takes me a while to fall asleep sometimes." Tech said simply and then winced as Crosshair let his jaw drop.

"You need to sleep." Crosshair stated, closing the bag of jerky and standing.

"Wait," Tech whined, reaching after the bag of jerky. "Im not tired yet."

Crosshair tossed the bag of jerky onto the little work table and whipped back around towards Tech.

"Yes you are." The sniper said, looking pointedly at the bags under Techs eyes that he tried to hid behind his goggles.

"But-"

"Finish your soup, then you are sleeping."

Crosshair raised an eyebrow as Tech began to protest again, but wearily sipped the last of the soup and took the last bite of the biscuit.

Soon, Tech was out of his armor and in his blacks, pouting around as Crosshair nudged him towards his bunk. He had also gotten out of his armor, as encouragement to Tech so that he didn't feel like Crosshair was prodding too much or being too bossy. Even as cadets, Tech was never one for normal sleep; he loved to use the late hours of the night to get things done.

Crosshair paused as he looked at Techs bed.

"Well no wonder you don't sleep." Cross muttered, poking at cords and wires that were hanging from the ceiling of the bunk.

"They are projects." Tech argued, sliding a box away and onto the floor.

"I see that." Crosshair said and scanned the writing on the walls.

Tech yawned, and Crosshair found himself yawning too. He didn't feel too tired, but he didn't sleep well these days.

They usually didn't.

Tech gave a tired sigh before climbing into his bunk, and grabbing for the thin blanket.

"Are you- Oh." Tech stuttered in surprise as Crosshair climbed in after him.

The sniper wrapped an arm around Tech's waist and pulled him close as he tugged the blanket over the two of them. Tech wriggled around and tried to get comfortable under the blanket as Crosshair reached up to the light switch on the wall of the bunk. A wave of sleepiness surged over Cross as the lights slowly dimmed, until the only light was the faint glow of Tipoca City outside of the large wide window.

"You need to start getting better sleep," Crosshair started, closing his eyes as Tech scooted closer to him. "You're gonna stunt your growth."

Tech snorted and nuzzled farther into the snipers chest.

"Right." Tech whispered and yawned again.

Rain pattered against the window, and Crosshair could never tell if it was gentle or not. He'd gotten used to the ever present rain of Kamino, and wasn't sure there was such thing as gentle rain on the ocean planet. It was cool growing up, but it got old eventually.

"Do you remember when we went off-planet for the first time?" Crosshair asked randomly.

Tech pulled his head away from Cross's chest to look up at him with a confused face.

"Remember how fascinated you were by the karking grass." He said, grinning down at Tech.

Tech laughed and buried his face into the pillow, shaking his head a little.

"I thought it was so interesting." Tech said, voice muffled by the pillow.

He looked up at Crosshair and smiled sadly.

"It's so colorful." He sighed, resting his head next to Crosshair’s.

"I know." Cross whispered, pressing a kiss to Tech's forehead and nosing his dark curls as he closed his eyes.

Tech was out quick, snoring softly next to him within minutes. Crosshair smiled, a real smile, and gently pulled Tech’s goggles off. His eyes were tired, but his breathing was steady and his body was relaxed.

He looked so peaceful. So different from his constant state of either jumping around from project to project and rambling about different information and facts—or hyper focused and oblivious to everything around him. It was rare to have time like this with Tech.

Crosshair appreciated Tech.

He loved Tech.

He let that settle proudly in his thoughts as he slowly began to drift to sleep too.

#arrhegshshdhehe i loved writing this #so sorry it so long #im visiting florida and elsa is scary #anyways #hope you enjoy these cuties!!!#cloneshipping #clonecest #the bad batch #tech #crosshair #tech x crosshair #crosshair x tech #crosstech #crosshair/tech #tech/crosshair #fanfic #request

48 notes · View notes

thatfanficstuff · 4 years

Text

That’s my Girl - Poe Dameron

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Warnings: nope.

A/N: Flangst! It’s my fave. Enjoy. PS: I’m so happy to be writing again.

***

You had a reputation.

You wished you could say it was for something as exciting as sleeping around or being a trouble maker, but no. You had a reputation for being the best mechanic on base. Yep. You were the best at your job. How boring.

And, let’s be honest, all that really meant was more work for you. If no one else could find the problem, they got you to take a look at it. Did they care if you hadn’t had a day off in weeks? Or that you hadn’t strung together more than five hours of sleep at one time in the last two? Of course not. Not when the great and mighty Poe Dameron was complaining that his fighter was sluggish and none of them could find anything wrong.

You huffed out a breath in irritation. It wasn’t Poe you should be mad at. He wasn’t the one that woke you from a sound sleep to look at his ship. But you’d bet good money that he did more than hint that they should get you down to the hangar when they couldn’t fix the problem.

Something bumped against your leg startling you from your thoughts. You jerked in surprise causing your wrench to slip and you barked your knuckles. Damn it. That hurt. You sucked on the tender skin and glared down at BB-8. “What did I tell you about doing that?”

“Don’t be mad at him. He just gets excited to see you. Who can blame him?”

The smooth voice drew your attention and you snapped your gaze from the droid to his owner. Poe Dameron. He smiled as your gaze met his and your heart sped. Heat flooded your face and you cursed under your breath. Why did he always have this effect on you? Every single time you hated yourself for it and swore it would never happen again yet here you were.

“Dameron.” You turned back to your work doing your best to dismiss him. The sooner he left you alone the better. He was far too distracting.

“Y/L/N,” he responded in a mockingly serious tone. “Fix my ship?”

“Haven’t found anything wrong with her yet.”

“Yet. See, that’s why you’re my favorite. Everyone else just gives up.”

You grunted in disagreement. “They don’t give up. Not really. You just pick up on microscopic changes in your ship before they actually become a problem. Makes them harder to find. That’s all.” You knew some of the mechanics didn’t even bother trying to look beyond the obvious. They turned it over to you to do the hard work and walked away. But not all of them were like that and you didn’t like to listen to anyone besides you complain about it.

“But you always find the problem, Y/N. I swear some of the others think I make stuff up.”

You glanced at him to find him grinning at you and your traitorous heart threatened to skip a beat entirely. You quickly shifted your eyes back to the wiring you were now inspecting. “I’ve never known you to be wrong about your ship, Poe. I’ll find the problem.”

“That’s my girl,” he said in that sweet, smooth voice. And didn’t that do all sorts of things to your fragile pulmonary system. Damn the man. Before you could even think of a response, he disappeared, taking his droid with him.

***

“Are you still working on this stupid fighter?” Rey’s voice caught your attention and you looked up with a smile. You were currently sat on the floor of the hangar taking a break in the shadow of the ship.

“I’m nearly finished,” you assured her.

Her brows shot up in surprise. “You’ve found the problem then?”

You shook your head. “No, but I’m running out of places to look.” With that pronouncement you got back on your feet and climbed the ladder to the wiring you had exposed for your inspection.

Rey sighed and pulled over a nearby stool to sit on. “You’ve been at this for two days. Have you even slept?”

“I caught a few hours.” And you had, but your brain wouldn’t let you rest for long when there was a problem to solve. So for the past two days you’d been mainlining caffeine and sleeping in short bursts before getting back to work. In fact, you’d just come back from a three-hour break to rest and eat. It was supposed to be a full eight hours, but you’d had an idea and couldn’t rest until you looked into it.

“That’s not healthy, Y/N, and you know it.”

You glanced at her. “You know how I am, Rey. I can’t help it.” You turned back to your work, separating the wires to inspect them individually. And then you found it. Finally.

For some reason one of the bolts on Poe’s seat had been replaced with one far longer than the original. The extra length was enough to have it rubbing against the wires in the compartment below. Undoubtedly the fluxuation in power Poe had complained about came from the bolt hitting the bare wire once the protective covering had been worn away. You had no idea who had replaced the bolt but once you looked back over the maintenance logs to find out, you were going to chew their ass. This was the kind of thing that could cause a system to short out during a flight. It was the kind of thing that killed pilots. The First Order did enough of that without the mechanics adding to the body count.

“Y/N—” Rey started and you cut her off.

“Give me a minute. I finally found the problem. Let me fix it and we can get out of here.” You slid down the ladder and dug through your tool box. A quick comparison of two bolts and a length of wire later and you were back in the access hatch under the fighter.

Now that you knew the problem, it was a quick matter to fix it. After one last check over the wiring to make sure only the one had been compromised, you grinned. “All fixed,” you announced as you sealed up the access hatch.

“I knew you could do it. This calls for a celebration with my favorite girl.”

You were surprised to hear Poe’s deep voice and were thankful your back was turned so you had a moment to compose yourself before facing him. Your heart was racing as your feet hit the floor and you turned to accept his invitation. Only Poe wasn’t looking at you. No, his focus was solely on the petite blonde under his arm. She giggled at his attentions and your heart dropped somewhere in the neighborhood of your stomach. Of course he wasn’t talking to you. You should have known better.

Your gaze shifted from them to Rey to find her looking at you with a face full of sympathy. Great. Just what you wanted. Her pity. You shook your head and sighed. Stepping around Poe and his date, you spoke to Rey as you walked by. “Let’s go get something to eat so I can get some sleep and you can get off my ass.”

She fell into step with you. “Don’t be pissy with me just because…”

You glanced over to see why she had trailed off. She was looking behind you with a frown. Before you could question why, a hand grasped your arm pulling you to a stop. You turned to find Poe standing behind you. “Seriously, Y/N. Thank you. You’re the best.”

You grunted in annoyance and gestured toward the woman trailing behind him with a lift of your chin. “Pretty sure that designation falls to her. Have a good day, Dameron.” You twisted your arm from his grasp and walked off, ignoring the weight of his stare on your back.

***

Three weeks passed. Three weeks in which you did your level best to ignore Poe Dameron. You monumentally failed, but you tried. Fortunately, things had been busy so you were never left without an excuse when he tried to engage you in conversation.

Currently, you sat at a table in the mess hall with one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee while the other picked at the plate of food Rey was making you eat. One of the squadrons had gotten into a firefight with some First Order assholes and you’d been busy patching holes in their ships for the last three days.

You grinned as she filled you in on the details of her and Finn’s date the day before.

“Fantastic,” she grumbled and rolled her eyes. “Incoming.”

Before you could ask what she meant, Poe dropped into the seat beside you. Rey made a face and you snickered as you broke off a piece of bread and popped it in your mouth.

“I just came from the hangar. Campbell told me he fixed my fighter.”

You gave Poe your attention, your brows arched in question. “And? It’s usually a good thing when your ship gets fixed isn’t it?”

The pilot frowned. “Yeah, when you fix it.”

You rolled your eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, Dameron, I’ve got half of red squadron in for repairs right now. I don’t have time to be your personal mechanic.”

“I know you’re not my personal mechanic, Y/N, but I feel better when you look her over before I take her up again. I trust you.”

Your traitorous, traitorous heart sped up just a little. Damn it. You sighed and tore your gaze from his. “Flattery changes nothing, flyboy. I’m busy.”

“Can’t my girl find a little time for her favorite pilot?”

You didn’t even glance in his direction. Instead, you stood and grabbed the bread from your plate. “See you later, Rey.”

As you walked off you heard Rey behind you. “Sometimes, you’re a real asshole, you know that, Poe?”

“What did I do?”

***

Two days later you’d finally finished the repairs. You sat on the roof of the hangar with your feet dangling over the edge while you sipped from your flask. It wouldn’t be long before you headed to bed for some much needed sleep but for the moment you were simply enjoying a bit of peace as you watched the stars. It was late and most of the base was dark as people with much less work than you were already asleep.

Footsteps fell on the roof behind you and you didn’t so much as glance in that direction. You didn’t need to. Only one person ever bothered you when you came up here. Poe fucking Dameron.

He sat beside you and you passed him your flask. He took a drink and you smirked when he coughed as he returned it to you. “Are you trying to get drunk or strip paint?”

You shrugged. “Works for both. It’s particularly useful for cleaning engine parts.”

“I don’t know if you’re joking or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you weren’t. That’s disgusting.” Even as he said the words, he held out his hand for another drink.

You took one of your own before handing it back to him. “Grows on you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Like a fungus.” He took another swig then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stared at the flask in his hand for a moment before stealing another drink.

You snatched it from him, causing some of the liquid to spill on him as a result. “Quit drinking all my liquor, Dameron.”

“Name’s Poe, Y/N.”

You lifted your brows but didn’t look at him. “Pretty sure your name is also Dameron, Dameron.”

“You have been avoiding me since you fixed my ship. And you haven’t once called me Poe. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t know what to tell you.”

He huffed a laugh. “How about you tell me what I did to piss you off? And how I can fix it. I miss you.”

You clenched your teeth and worked a muscle in your jaw. “If this is about your ship, you can stow it. I already looked it over. It’s fine.” You saluted him with your flask. “You’re welcome.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Dameron, that you smile and flirt until you get what you want from me. Which, let’s be honest, is always fixing your ship. Once she’s back in fighting condition, you disappear until something else goes wrong.” You took another swallow of liquor. “I’ll save you the effort and tell you that you don’t have to sweet talk me into doing my job.”

“That’s not…okay, yeah maybe that’s fair. But in my defense you don’t make this easy, you know?”

You laughed and shook your head in disbelief. “What exactly is it that I make so difficult for you?”

“Liking you, okay?” He muttered to himself and ran a hand down his face when you didn’t immediately respond.

Realizing you were staring, you tore your gaze away and cleared your throat. “Liking me as in I’m a horrible person and there is nothing likable about me?”

He laughed. “No. Liking you as in you’re amazing and I’m just another flyboy.”

You cringed as you remembered calling him exactly that the last time you’d talked to him. “I’m just a mechanic, Poe. Pretty sure the Resistance would crumble without their best pilot.”

He shook his head. “You underestimate your value. To me and the Resistance.”

“I didn’t think you saw me as anything special.” The confession hurt so the words were quieter than you’d intended.

“Rey was right. I am an asshole if you believe that.”

“Not going to argue with you, Dameron.”

“Hey now. That’s not fair,” he protested.

You shrugged. “You only talk to me if you want something. Forgive me if I find it difficult to believe you see me as anything other than a mechanic.”

He sighed. “I can talk to you about my ship. I can talk to you about flying and fighting and know that you won’t think I’m an idiot. I know about all that stuff.”

“Do you remember the first time I fixed your ship?” you asked.

He frowned but nodded. “Yeah. What about it?”

“You took it out the next day. When you came back, I was arguing with Roberts about something and you interrupted. Told him to quit giving your girl a hard time. When I looked over, you just gave me a grin and a wink before walking off. I was smitten from that moment on. Stupid.”

“Y/N, I—”

“Let me finish,” you interrupted. “’My girl.’ That’s what you call me. And every time it melts my heart. Gives me a minute where I can pretend maybe it’s real. Then I heard you call Victoria that. And Shelly. And some blonde I didn’t recognize. And every time it hurts. Which is stupid, you know, because I’d never had any indication those words meant to you what they meant to me.” You sighed as you pushed yourself to your feet. “I expected something from you that you’d never promised me. That’s on me, not you. I’ll get over it.”

You were half way to the ladder when Poe grabbed your wrist and pulled you to a stop before releasing his grip. “Wait. Can we just start over?”

This was stupid but you found yourself unwilling to disappoint him. You turned to face him, extending a hand. “Y/N Y/L/N. Head mechanic. Nice to meet you.”

Poe shook your hand. “Poe Dameron. Pilot.” Instead of releasing you, he tugged you closer until there was little more than a breath between you. His eyes ran over your face and a small smile curled his lips. “I think you’re brilliant and beautiful and amazing and I’d love it if you’d be my girl.”

Your heart raced as you licked your suddenly dry lips. “Don’t you think you’re moving a little fast? After all, we just met.”

He narrowed his gaze and pulled you closer before wrapping an arm around your waist to hold you to him. “Be my girl, Y/N.” His lips brushed yours as he spoke but he stopped short of actually kissing you.

You leaned into him and moved your lips over his in answer. Your hands fisted in his shirt to keep him close as you kissed. When you separated, you sucked in a breath and smiled. “Finally.”

His answering grin lit his whole face. “Finally.” Then he dipped his head for another kiss.

As the night wore on, he walked you to your room. And when the two of you couldn’t separate long enough to say goodnight, he followed you inside. You slept in his arms and woke to sweet kisses and lazy smiles.

And when he talked you into staying in bed instead of heading into work on your day off, he rewarded you by pulling you closer. “That’s my girl.”

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron imagine #star wars imagine #star wars fanfiction #poe dameron x you

255 notes · View notes

recurring-polynya · 3 years

Note

For the AU request, whichever one(s) you prefer (for RenRuki of course):

the X-Men universe

the Mafia/criminal underworld

the circus

as FBI agents (the X-Files world perhaps)

So, I got this ask, and I immediately wanted to go for X-Files, because I was hugely into X-Files when I was a tween/teen, and I think that my actual first published work of fanfic on the internet might actually be X-Files. (I didn’t even post it myself, I was like 12 and I didn’t have the internet at home, but a friend of mine posted it on Usenet for me, I have no idea whatever became of it). Anyway, I was going back and forth in my head who I wanted to be Mulder and who I wanted to be Scully, and then I got this ask:

@ulkoilla said:

I though the 10 would be full in about 1 microsecond so I didn’t even try :D This is maybe not AU enough for the purpose but I'd love to see your take on Bleach world where the shinigami work among humans as if they were in gigai -> they'll have to balance the supernatural, perhaps violent elements of their life with the modern day laws and such (like in Supernatural). Renji and Rukia have ofc gotten in trouble with the non-supernatural law (meet: Detective!Aizen?) and are on the run…

It suddenly occurred to me, What If: X-Files World, but Renruki are the cryptids. And it suddenly popped into my head exactly who I wanted to be Mulder. Anyway, I am sorry missrambler, if I messed it all up, I hope you like it anyway.

Also, I somehow thought that I would save myself some trouble by combining two prompts, but then it ended up… really long. (Forty! Eight! Hundred! Words! Go to Talks-Too-Much-Jail, Polynya!!)

PS: This takes place in D.C. because it’s X-Files and also because I am familiar with D.C. and I never get to write about places I know about. A half-smoke is a local delicacy that’s halfway between a hot dog and an Italian sausage. They are delicious.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

👻 👻 👻

Ichigo Kurosaki had known that an office with a view of the Smithsonian might be too much to ask, but he had not expected to take have to take two separate elevators down to sub-basement C, and walk past a storage room, two broom closets and a weird old vending machine full of brands of snacks he swore he hadn’t seen since he was a child.

Maybe Agent Inoue has a huge lab, he told himself. Maybe it needs to be 50 meters below ground because she collides large hadrons down here or so that her work can’t be picked up by spy satellites.

He had to turn sideways to get past a rack of wire shelves full of banker’s boxes, but there, on the other side was a door sporting a handwritten cardboard nameplate reading “Special Agent Orihime Inoue.”

“Come in!” a voice called inside, just as he raised his hand to knock on the door.

Ichigo blinked twice, and then went in.

The office was cluttered, mostly with more cardboard boxes, but books were also stacked precariously on top of boxes on top of books. The walls were plastered with maps and graphs and photographs of hazy blurs in front of staircases. There was a large poster showing a UFO, with the words “I WANT TO BELIEVE” in block caps below it.

A woman with long chestnut hair twisted up into a bun and held in place with three pencils was hunched over a metal box full of diodes and transistors and other things you would buy at Radio Shack. Or rather, that other people would buy at a Radio Shack. Ichigo had never set foot in a Radio Shack in his life.

“Er, good morning,” Ichigo said, as the woman looked up and blinked at him owlishly. “Agent Inoue? I’m Ichigo Kurosaki. I’ve been assigned to work with you.”

“To spy on me, you mean,” Agent Inoue corrected, cheerfully shaking his hand with great vigor.

Ichigo bristled. Yes, he had been directed to ‘provide additional documentation on Agent Inoue’s activities,’ but that hardly counted as spying. She was known to be somewhat scatterbrained, and having an organized person around would probably be a great benefit to her. “If you have any doubts about my qualifications or motivations--”

“Oh, don’t take it personally!” Inoue replied, slotting a lid onto her electronics project, and attacking it vigorously with a jeweler’s screwdriver. “Just because you’re a spy doesn’t mean you aren’t a nice person. Also, I read your file, you have a very interesting background! Degree in literature with a focus on folk legends. Teaching at the academy for the last few years while working on your book.” She took a momentary break from her screwing to fix him with her big, soft brown eyes. “Tell me, Agent Kurosaki, what do you think happens after you die?”

Ichigo froze. “I would be buried? Maybe there would be a funeral first?”

Inoue started laughing so hard that Ichigo was sure he caught a tiny, adorable snort. “Sorry, sorry! I wasn’t clear!” She sniffed, and wiped a tear from her eye. “Do you believe in continued existence after the death of the body? An afterlife, religion-based or otherwise? The existence of ectoplasm, cold spots, spirit photographs, EVP?”

“Are you talking about… ghosts?” Ichigo asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” Orihime replied with a nod. “Ghosts.”

“We-elll…” Ichigo drew out. “I believe that people believe they observe certain phenomena, as part of the cycle of grief and--”

“Just say ‘no’ if you don’t,” Inoue interrupted him.

“Er, no. I don’t.”

“That’s okay. Are you good at carrying heavy things?”

“Am I... I guess?”

“Perfect!” She shoved the box into his arms, and Ichigo’s knees almost buckled under the weight. “Let’s walk and talk, I want to go get a reading over near Franklin Square before 9 am. We’re gonna pass a really good half-smoke cart on the way, do you like half-smokes?”

👻 👻 👻

“Take a look at this,” Inoue said, her cheek half stuffed with sausage, jabbing a finger at the LED read-out of her mysterious box.

It was rather hard for Ichigo to see, because he was holding the box and the readout was on the other side, but he did his best to crane his neck around. “What am I looking at? The squiggles? I’m sorry, it looks like nothing to me.”

“Exactly right!” Inoue announced, waving her half smoke in the air. “Not a sniff of spiritual residue!”

Ichigo pressed his lips together. “Um… is that good?”

“It is interesting,” Inoue corrected. “Five days ago, a sixty-four year old woman had a heart attack while sitting in that bus shelter.” On every day since, I have been able to record EMF fluctuations, and on Sunday, I was able to get a voice recording that sounded like a woman reciting a grocery list. But this morning, nothing! Nada!”

“Well, uh, ghosts gotta move on eventually, right? Otherwise, just about everywhere would be haunted, right?” It’s not that Ichigo had suddenly started believing ghosts or anything, but there was something about Agent Inoue that just made you want to go along with her and see where all this panned out.

Inoue shot him a finger gun. “Or, they get moved along.” She shoved a folded paper map at him. “You can put that thing down.”

Ichigo eased the Spirit Detect-O 9000, or whatever it was called, to the grass and accepted her map. It was a street map of DC, meant for tourists, emphasizing all the local transit routes and popular attractions. There was also a great loop marked on it in orange highlighter, zig-zagging back and forth through the city. There was a little ‘x’ marked on Franklin Park, with “Tuesday, early morning” written in a bubbly hand.

“What is this?” Ichigo frowned. It didn’t seem to match up with any of the metro or bus lines. It didn’t even match with the sidewalks, it appeared to cut straight through large buildings like the convention center.

“As far as I can tell,” Inoue said, her brown eyes very solemn, “that is the patrol route of our local grim reaper.”

👻 👻 👻

“So I actually got interested in grim reapers,” Inoue explained, once they were back in the office, “while I was investigating violent ghost phenomena.” She was eating a bag of corn chips that she had gotten from that ancient vending machine by punching it and then shoving her own arm up the chute. (She’d gotten Ichigo a bag, too, but he was too afraid to eat them.)

Ichigo was sitting at a cluttered table that Inoue had told him “could be his desk.” Half of it was taken up by a large aquarium full of rocks and a water bowl, but no life forms that Ichigo could detect. The other half was covered with back issues of “Ghost Hunter Technology” magazine. “You mean like poltergeists?” he asked.

“Not exactly. Poltergeists are noisy, but they aren’t usually able to kill their targets.”

“Kill? Ghosts can’t kill people, aside from, like scaring them to death,” Ichigo scoffed. “I mean, folklorically speaking. As we established earlier, I am not a ghost-believer.”

Inoue tipped her head to the side. “They do, actually, it just tends to get blamed on something else.”

“By ghost-non-believers.”

“By everyone, really, and that’s what’s so strange.” Inoue pulled a fat binder from a stack of seemingly identical ones, and tossed it open in front of Ichigo. “Edison, New Jersey, 2014. An elderly woman dies ‘of a broken heart’ a week after her husband dies of cancer. Coincidentally, a telephone pole falls on her house the same night and rips a hole in her house.” She turned a page. “Norfolk, Virginia, 2017. A young woman dies in what the police rule as a suicide, despite the fact that she made a 911 call 48 hours previous, expressing fear of her ex-boyfriend. Three days later, the boyfriend is dead of mysterious causes. Coincidentally, his apartment complex suffered significant damages from ‘a wild cougar.’”

Ichigo squinted at the pictures. The walls of the building were scored with what did appear to be scratch marks. “Hell of a cougar.”

“Exactly! And I’ve got dozens of these historic cases. But about four months ago, I was able to investigate one myself-- a young man named Joe Wallace. He lives here in the city, over near Dupont Circle. Wallace had cut off his toxic dad years ago, and refused to visit him in the hospital as he was dying. Four days after his father’s death, a truck crashes into his house in the middle of the night and then drives away before the police can arrive.”

“And he died.”

“No!” Inoue held up one finger. “Scratches and bruises, but he doesn’t die!”

“Okay, great. So what does he remember?”

“He remembers a truck crashing into his house.”

Ichigo scratched his chin. “I am confused.”

“Look at this!” Inoue stabbed a finger at the pictures. “These are claw marks, not vehicular wreckage! There’s damage on the second story window! Wallace had scratches and defensive wounds, as if he had been fending off an animal! And look here, at the damage to the walls of the bedroom!”

“What am I looking at?” Ichigo asked, squinting at a photograph that looked like it had been blown up past the point of recognition.

“There were cuts and slashes in the walls and bedding as though someone had been fighting with a sword.”

“Like a Medieval Times sword? Was the guy a Medieval Times enthusiast?”

“More consistent with a katana. Do you like Medieval Times?”

“No one likes Medieval Times.”

“I like Medieval Times. You’ve probably never even been. But back to the ghost! Why would Wallace remember a truck crashing into his house, when nothing about the scene is consistent with that story?”

“He was...lying?”

“His memories were replaced.”

“His memories were replaced,” Ichigo echoed.

“Yes.”

“By… aliens?”

Orihime heaved a deep sigh. “By a grim reaper.”

“A grim reaper with a samurai sword.”

“How on earth did you come to this conclusion?”

Inoue raised one eyebrow. “Because when I placed him under hypnosis, Wallace didn’t remember anything about a truck. He did remember a monster with batwings and a mask made of bone and his dead father’s voice who tried to kill him, except that he was saved by a tall man dressed in black. The man had bright red hair and fought the monster with a sword that was also a whip and then he wiped Wallace’s memories.”

Ichigo stared at her. “You can hypnotize people?”

Inoue gave him a long-suffering face. Ichigo had the sudden flash that he was going to be seeing that face a lot in the days to come. “Yes, I am a certified hypnotist.” Inoue’s phone suddenly started playing “Tubular Bells”. “Oops, that’s an alarm. Come on, we have a meeting with some important people. Do you like diners?”

👻 👻 👻

Agent Inoue apparently did not care for public transit, but she walked very quickly. Ichigo was concentrating so hard on keeping up with her that he nearly collided with her back when she stopped very suddenly.

“You don’t mind if we make a quick stop, do we?” Inoue asked.

“You said the meeting was with important people.”

“Oh, don’t worry about them!” Inoue pursed her lips. “You see that bodega right there?”

They were in a part of downtown that was mostly mid-to-upscale restaurants and government buildings and FedExes. But sure enough, there was a dingy little bodega nestled between a Mexican-Indian fusion place and an Au Bon Pain, the windows stuffed with t-shirts from the last administration and a variety of cell phone chargers. The overhead sign read “Urahara Shop.”

“Y...eah…” Ichigo replied.

“That place is a hotbed of supernatural activity.”

“Is it?” Ichigo asked.

“I am almost positive that it is a supply point and meeting place for grim reapers, monster slayers, cryptids, alien hunters, and lycanthropes, but the owner is on to me.”

“I see,” Ichigo said levelly.

“Can you go in and pretend to be a customer? They have lots of good candy you can look through. Inoue dug in her purse and came up with a fiver. “Here. Buy a scratch ticket or something.”

“I’m not buying a scratch ticket, they’re a scam.”

“If the big guy is working the counter, he’ll glare at you until you buy something, so be prepared.”

As Ichigo pushed open the door, he realized he’d never actually agreed to any of this. Agent Inoue’s secret hypnosis powers, once again. Whatever. It was a bodega, there were a thousand of them in DC. They all had the same Nats t-shirts and coffee mugs with pictures of the Washington Monument on them. Ichigo pretended to be interested in a rack of comics. He tended to prefer indy comics over the big publishers himself, but even so, he didn’t recognize any of the books. Maybe they were by local authors.

Up at the front of the shop, a tiny, dark-haired woman was giving whatfor to the man behind the counter, a tall fellow with pale, straw-colored hair sticking out in tufts from under the saddest hat Ichigo had ever seen, a shapeless, battered bucket, striped green and white.

“Well, I can sell you a new battery for your phone, Miss Kuchiki, maybe that would help.”

“Not if it only lasts as long as the last one you sold me! I really need to get in touch with my partner, except that even if I could get my phone working again, his battery is probably dead because everything you sell is the same crap!”

“Ah, that’s too bad! You know, I think Mr. Abarai was in here a few days ago… I wasn’t in at the time, but Jinta said he came in, asking about…”

The man trailed off, and Ichigo glanced up to see the shopkeeper looking directly at him.

“...metrocards. But as you know, we don’t sell metrocards anymore.”

The woman made an aggravated noise. “You’re so useless! If I write him a damned note, will you give it to him if he comes in?”

“Oh, of course! Anything for you, Miss Kuchiki!”

The conversation trailed off as the woman hunched over the counter to angrily scratch out a note.

Ichigo stuffed the comic he was flipping through back on its rack. He skipped the enormous display of bedazzled flip-flops and started perusing the surprisingly extensive selection of gum.

“Here!” the woman finished and shoved her note at the shopkeeper. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Have a wonderful day!” the shopkeeper tootled, giving her a little finger wave.

Ichigo felt bad for the woman. “Er, excuse me?” he said as she passed.

She turned to scowl at him. For such a tiny person, she seemed to contain a remarkable amount of rage.

“Do you need to call someone? You can use my phone, if you’d like.” He held it out like an offering.

The woman blinked at him for a moment.

“I didn’t mean to be nosy! You were just kind of loud and you sounded worried about your, um, partner.”

“I’m not worried about him, I just need to find him.” Her face softened. “Thanks, Mister, but I can’t reach him on a regular phone. Don’t worry, I’ll track him down eventually.” She turned to leave, then stopped to jab an accusatory finger at Ichigo. “And that’s professional partner, not… you know! Whatever!” She stomped out.

What a strange, tiny person.

Ichigo selected a gum and walked up to the counter.

“Oooh, dragonberry lime, good choice!” the man trilled. “Anything else I can get you? Bottled water? Fanny pack? Spare phone battery?”

“I’ll pass,” Ichigo replied dryly.

“I imagine it’s against FBI policy to let a stranger use your cell phone,” the shopkeeper said sweetly.

Ichigo’s brows furrowed. “This is my personal phone. And how did you…?”

The man gave a chortling laugh that sent shivers down Ichigo’s spine. “Because headquarters is three blocks away and only an FBI agent would wear a suit that square.”

Ichigo took his change and his gum and shoved them both in his pocket. “Yeah, well, your hat sucks.”

The man laughed harder. “Doesn’t it, though?”

Once he was outside again, Ichigo handed Inoue the gum and her change. “The owner of that place is a creep.”

“The guy in the green and white hat?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Urahara. You’re right, he’s the owner. Were there any other customers?”

“Just the short lady. You must have seen her come out. She was ripping Urahara a new one for some dodgy cell phone battery he sold her. I think she must have been NSA or something. She said she was trying to get ahold of her partner, but she needed a special phone.” As he said it, Ichigo realized it would be pretty odd for an NSA agent to be buying cell phone batteries from some shady bodega.

“No one came out,” Inoue replied.

“She definitely did! I heard the bell over the door ring.”

Inoue regarded Ichigo very seriously. “Agent Kurosaki. I was standing here the whole time. You were the only person who went in or out.” She looked at the gum. “Ooh! Dragonfruit lime! Do you want some?”

👻 👻 👻

They were late to the meeting.

Two men were waiting for them in the back corner booth. One of them had pinched, pointy features and piercing blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. His chin-length haircut was pretty dramatic, but not as dramatic as his pure white trench coat. A cup of black coffee sat on the faded Formica table in front of him, but it didn’t look like it had been touched.

His companion was an enormous, good-looking Latino who was shoveling pancakes into his face.

“Inoue,” the dramatic guy said. “Who’s this?”

“This is my new partner, Kurosaki,” Inoue replied. “Kurosaki, this is Uryuu Ishida,” she indicated the white trenchcoat guy, “and Chad,” Mr. Pancakes.

“Also known as the ‘Lone Archers,’” Ishida specified. “We are apolitical actors who are interested in revealing the truths that are regularly hidden from the general populace by secret forces that conspire within the machinery of the American government.”

“You can just call me Chad,” said Chad.

“Good morning!” the waitress said. “Can I get you folks anything?”

“Oh, yes! I’m getting mozzarella sticks! Do you like mozzarella sticks, Kurosaki? They’re so good here!”

“So’re the pancakes,” added Chad.

“I’ll just have a coffee,” Ichigo announced. He glanced at Ishida’s cup. “Black.”

“Double mozzarella sticks, please!” Inoue chorused. “And a cherry coke!” She leaned over to Ichigo and spoke out of the side of her mouth. “I’ll give you a mozzarella stick.”

“Do you want some pancake?” Chad offered to Ishida. “I never think to offer.”

Ishida waved him off with a hand. “Agent Inoue. At great personal peril, I was able to obtain a sample of the item we discussed.” He slid a small paper packet across the table. “There are two tablets inside, but one should be sufficient for your purposes.” Ishida leaned forward, his mouth set in a firm line. “I was cautioned very strongly against using this, unless one had a firm plan for handling the… consequences.”

“I understand,” Inoue replied, stuffing the envelope into her purse.

Ichigo wanted to ask more questions, but the conversation shifted very quickly to some USGS floodplain maps that Ishida wanted Inoue to obtain for him that were apparently not available from the public webportals, allegedly because of filesize. Ichigo could practically hear the air quotes around the word “filesize.”

“We’re going to look for Jersey Devils next weekend,” Chad explained, sounding pretty excited about it.

“There’s only one, Chad,” Ishida corrected. “It’s just ‘Jersey Devil.’”

“There could be more than one,” Chad shrugged.

Thirty minutes later, they departed. Inoue had an order of mozzarella sticks in her purse. Ichigo had an armload of backissues of the Lone Archers’ ‘zine, which was, conveniently enough, titled The Lone Archer. There was no doubt in his mind that at least Ishida was completely off his rocker. The jury was still out on Chad… he struck Ichigo as the sort of guy who just went along with Ishida’s nonsense because he was a good friend and also liked taking camping trips and doing layout for ‘zines.

“So what was that thing they gave you?” Ichigo pestered. The idea of that little paper packet had been burning a hole in his brain the entire time.

“You busy tonight?” Inoue asked, raising an eyebrow slyly. “Between 10 and 11?”

“What are we doing?” Ichigo asked cautiously, wondering if he would be able to charge his time.

“We’re going to try and attract an angry ghost.”

👻 👻 👻

“Are you… sure this is… a good idea?” Ichigo asked for the sixteenth time, as Inoue focused the thermal camera on him.

They were in an old, abandoned lot that had formerly served as a Metro service facility. It was pretty spooky all on its own, filled with train cars too dilapidated for salvage.

It was 10:25pm. Inoue had set up no less than 17 different pieces of ghost detection equipment. Ichigo was questioning his life choices.

“You told me you don’t believe in ghosts. If ghosts don’t exist, then what could possibly go wrong?” Inoue posed.

“Well… that’s true,” Ichigo granted. “And, for the record, I still do not believe in ghosts. But in the Pascal’s wager sense of things, I am considering the ramifications of what happens if there are ghosts that exist, regardless of my belief in them.”

“And?” Inoue asked.

“Well, you said that these ghosts have hurt and killed people before. It seems like trying to attract one without having any method of, um, fighting it, seems kind of… irresponsible?”

“Ah, but you see, I’ve specifically picked this time and location to coincide with the grim reaper patrol routes I’ve been mapping out. Our friendly neighborhood psychopomp ought to show up just on schedule to fight the angry ghost for us. We’re doing them a favor, as I see it.”

“How so?” Ichigo exclaimed.

“It’s not like we’re creating an angry ghost out of nowhere. We’re just attracting an existing one to our location. We’re saving the grim reaper the trouble of having to hunt it down.”

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was it so difficult to argue with Inoue? Possibly because she was so incredibly earnest in all her beliefs, and all her arguments were in completely good faith, it’s just that her logic came from some other dimension. This woman has solved multiple, high-profile murders, including several that were ice cold, Ichigo reminded himself. So she’s quirky. I am sure I can learn a lot from her.

“Okay, everything is in place!” Inoue announced, placing her hand on her hips. “Go hide behind that pile of moldy seats!”

Inoue took Ichigo’s place at the center of her recording equipment. “Agent Orihime Inoue speaking,” she said, for posterity. “It is 10:28pm. I am crushing one tablet of a substance called ‘Hollow Bait.’” She crunched the little white tablet, which looked an awful lot like an Alka-Seltzer, between her fingers, and then made a flying leap for the rotting pile of damp, orange upholstery that Ichigo was crouched behind.

“So, just out of curiosity,” Ichigo started. “How long would we have to wait, theoretically, with nothing happening, before we would declare this a bust?”

Inoue pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Usually, I would give it about two hours, but if you’ve got somewhere to be, I don’t mind if you leave early. It is nice to have company for a change.”

“No, I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Ichigo replied. “I mean… sleeping, I guess.”

Inoue gave a charming little laugh. “I don’t sleep very well. And hunting for ghosts is more interesting than most of the stuff on Hulu.”

The way that she said it gave Ichigo the distinct impression that Inoue was, well, lonely. But that didn’t seem correct. She was weird, sure, but she was also friendly and talkative, and, er, well, she was extremely cute. Surely she had tons of friends.

“How’d you get into ghost hunting, anyway?” he tried to be conversational.

“Hmm,” Inoue hummed noncommittally. “Let’s just say there was an incident in my teen years, where my memories don’t match up to the property damage.”

Oh. Ichigo wondered if he should apologize, when suddenly, a cold chill ran down his spine and a sound like a roar echoed in his ears, except he didn’t actually hear anything. “Did you hear that?” he gasped.

“It’s the EMF detector,” Inoue nodded, scrambling for the reader and Ichigo realized he could hear a faint beeping.

“No, not the beeping, it was like a… a… scream…”

“You heard a scream?”

“I didn’t exactly…” Ichigo trailed off as he heard two more, coming from different directions. “There’s more than one. Monster screams. Not human screams.”

Inoue stared at him, eyes wide. “I don’t hear anything. Have you ever been tested for latent psychic ability?”

There was a sudden change in the air pressure, and a fetid, rotting smell, even worse than the Metro seats. Ichigo grabbed Inoue by the shoulders and rolled out of the way, just as the pile of junk they had been crouched behind compacted like it had been through a car crusher. Or smashed by a giant foot.

“Whoa!” Inoue exclaimed, trying to push Ichigo off of her so she could see what was going on.

Ichigo blinked through the night. He couldn’t see anything, but there was an area of space that looked thick and hazy, like it wasn’t refracting the harsh glow of the sodium street lights quite correctly.

“We have to get out of here,” Ichigo gasped.

“Can you see it?” Inoue asked, her eyes wide and excited.

“Not-- not really,” Ichigo replied, pulling at her arm. The air blurred, and Ichigo had the sense the thing was jumping at them. He could tell it was fast, but he couldn’t see it, he didn’t know what to--

“Howl, Zabimaru!”

It was both there and not quite there, a liquid blade made of glass and starlight, that snapped through the air at the invisible thing. The monster bellowed, and whipped around, charging at a dark figure standing atop one of the old Metro cars.

“Pick on someone your own size, ugly!” the man bellowed, and as Ichigo squinted, he realized that their savior was dressed all in black. He was tall, and his hair was pulled back in a spiky ponytail. It was bright red. He was also wearing sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night. They were pushed up on top of his head, to be fair, but Ichigo had a feeling this detail would stick with him.

“You can see that guy, right?” Ichigo asked Inoue desperately. “The guy who’s fighting the ghost? The guy that looks just like the guy in your report?”

“There’s a guy?” Inoue asked. “No. Where is he? Can you usually see ghosts?”

“I don’t even believe in ghosts!”

“Well, maybe you don’t believe in them because you can see them and you don’t want to, did you ever think of that?”

“I don’t think now is the time to interrogate my personal traumas!”

Suddenly, there was another drop in pressure, and Ichigo had the sense of heavy breathing and sharp teeth. “Inoue. I think there’s another one.”

“Well, can you get the guy to come fight this one, too?”

“He seems busy,” Ichigo squeaked.

Something black flashed by his vision, and there was a loud crack and a sound of something screeching in pain. A second dark-clad person had arrived, landing softly on sandaled feet. There was the same unreality to her, a sense that she wasn’t entirely there, as well as a certain familiarity that Ichigo couldn’t place. Her sword was bright in the darkness, like moonlight reflecting on snow.

“Oi, there you are, you big dummy!” she shouted at the first man and Ichigo realized with a jolt that it was the angry woman from the bodega. “I’ve been looking for you for four days!”

“I had a problem with my gigai and maybe you should check your texts once in a while!” the tall guy shouted back. Ichigo refused to think of him as a grim reaper. A grim reaper would not wear sunglasses.

“My phone died!”

“Can we-- ow! -- discuss this later? I’m glad you’re okay, I missed you. Why are there so many Hollows in this train yard?”

“You’re such a sap! And the Hollows are here because some stupid humans got ahold of some Hollow bait.” The woman turned, and glared at Ichigo. Her eyes burned with blue flame, like the burner of a gas stove.

That would have been the last thing Ichigo remembered, if he had actually remembered it, or any of the things that came before it.

👻 👻 👻

Ichigo was sitting at his desk.

Inoue was sitting at her desk.

The sun was streaming in the window. The clock on Ichigo’s phone read 7:12am.

Inoue frowned. She examined a coffee cup on her desk. She took a hesitant sip, and then made a face. “Why are we here?” she wondered softly.

“I hate to pull an all-nighter,” Ichigo said, stretching, “but it sure does feel good to be caught up on paperwork!”

Inoue regarded him. “Kurosaki,” she said, “how long have you worked here?”

Ichigo frowned. “Well, I guess this is my second day.”

“Right. So… how much paperwork did you have to catch up on?”

Ichigo blinked. He very distinctively recalled working through the night-- his hand cramping, the incredibly spicy Thai food they’d ordered, Inoue’s seemingly infinite Boy Bands of the 90’s playlist. “I… was helping you, I guess?” Come to think of it, why was he filling out paperwork by hand, anyway? His laptop sat next to him, the lid closed. It wasn’t even plugged in.

Inoue’s fist slammed down onto her desk. “Gosh darnit! They wiped my memories again!!”

#wacky au requests #my writing #in my youth i shipped mulder and scully so hard #and now it's like...girl #you could do so much better #it is not possible to do better than gillian anderson

11 notes · View notes