#i got more satisfaction from the idea of planning than from actually using my systems

[joohto]

spent the whole morning organising my digital life… there were so many things that just made no sense for me

[altcontrollerproject]

Research: Grid system tabletop games

Another kind of game genre I wanted to research into was tabletop games because these often use alternative control schemes, however I still wanted to dive deeper into how grid systems are used in games, so I thought I would look into games that incorporate both.

Chess:

Chess uses a grid system to add strategy to the pieces on the board. Without it, or if it used a different grid/system entirely, the game would be drastically different because the game is all about understanding how the pieces move on the board, and using this knowledge to think ahead and outsmart your opponent. While this can be replicated with something like a hexagonal grid, the dynamics between the pieces become completely different and the game changes completely.

Chess being a tabletop game doesn't add much to the gameplay, the biggest changes compared to a digital version is that you're actively moving pieces on a board instead of clicking on them. This is a different experience that some players may prefer, but the core game is the exact same.

Dungeons & Dragons:

Dungeons & Dragons is a game that takes on many forms and versions, but what I wanted to focus on was the way combat/locations are simulated using grids, dice, and pen & paper.

This has been done with both hexagonal and square grids, depending on what fits the situation best:

Like chess, the grid is used to add strategy to combat, instead of just blindly telling the DM that you'd like to attack something. You have to be aware of both you and the enemies location, and then create strategies and plans from this using the spells, actions and knowledge of your location / enemies you have at your disposal.

The grid also provides an easy way for a DM to show distance. Rather than saying that an enemy is roughly 50 meters away, you can create a grid where one tile is 5 meters, and them place them 5 tiles away.

DnD being a tabletop game gives it alternate controls that I think I could try and replicate in my own work for this project. Having to move a figure of you character rather than inputting a movement key is alternative, and so is rolling dice to attack rather than pressing an attack button.

This actually gave me an idea for this project- a D&D combat simulation. This would essentially be a turn based, top down, grid, turn-based game that simulates the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm really passionate about this idea because I'm a Dungeon Master myself, and not only would this be an interesting challenge, I could also take this past the work I do on it in college and develop it into a tool for my use in my D&D sessions. I think the use of dice also fits the projects alternative controller requirement.

Snakes and Ladders:

I wanted to look at Snakes and Ladders because it was the most different thing from the other games I had looked at so far. This game is incredibly simple compared to the others: you roll your dice, move your character that many tiles, and interact with any snakes or ladders you land on.

The objective is incredibly simple so it's not really engaging, and to further this point you only have one action: rolling your dice. The most engagement this game gives is from the dice, though. Each turn, the unknown of whether you'll make progress or be impeded by a snake can elicit feelings of suspense and exictment, along with frustration or satisfaction depending on the outcome.

Past that, the game is really easy to play and, in regards to my considerations towards accessability, there's no efforts made in a standard board to make a more accessable experience, although the game only relies on vision and motor abilites, so it's not actively inaccessable.

This game also made me realise I like the idea of a game using dice of some kind, which again supports my idea I got of my D&D combat simulation, which I think is an idea i need to explore further.

[biggestdev]

Sup, intro post time.

Hmm, it's funny, I've never actually wanted to post anything online before! Turns out, when you subconsciously hate everything about the way you look and sound, one ends up wanting to hide from the public eye! Weird coincidence 🤔. After starting to transition, I began feeling those cool things I heard that other people have. You know, pride in the things I do, liking the way I look, and, weirdest of all, wanting to tell people about it!

So if you don't mind, lemme just dump this all out here:

So I figured out I was trans at 28, and it was an odd feeling to say the least. Once I got over my panic attack, I have never in my life had such a clear goal as transitioning. Everything I did before that: hobbies, college degree, career, was all picked out for me, in a sense. I went along with what others suggested, because I never had a clear idea of what I wanted, ever, my future was just a grey haze. I asked other people what I should do, and did that.

After starting transitioning, I found that I started caring about what I did. I realised I actually really like my job, and that I'm proud of my little hobby projects, handcrafted things with love and care put into them, as opposed to just a means to an end, tools to solve a problem, which is honestly why I picked up some of them in the first place.

And so that's what I'll be posting from my own life. Mostly pictures of things I make or do that I think are cool.

Tangent: My job is, in broad terms (stalker no stalking!) a service tech for communication infrastructure, on towers and in cars, buildings, random shacks by the side of the road, everywhere. Part IT tech, part system engineer, and part automotive upfitter, means nearly every day at work is different from all the others. Sprinkle that with a little ADHD for seasoning, and I've got probably the best job I could ask for! It translates well into my hobbies, which are ham radio, self-hosting internet services for myself, keeping my shitbox car running, and hobby electronics. Now that I actually want to share stuff with the world, I'll probably mainly post about all that.

Part of the reason I like my job so much is sometimes I get to play the "fixer", in the sense of "you went for the lowball price from our competitors and got shit for fuck. Thankfully you've realised your mistake and came pleading to my boss to come in and make it actually work". I like that feeling of satisfaction after fixing a problem for someone, which is why I have asks open for tech questions on top of normal asks.

... Back on topic, I guess? Occasionally maybe I'll post some pics of myself (no not like that), if I think I got a really good one. Lemme start with these. Which one do you think is better, hair up or down?

Once I figured out I was a trans woman, getting on hrt was the most obvious thing in the world to me, I have been for a year and change. Thankfully, being an adult in the US (New England) made that very easy for me. Aside from the occasional "am I trans enough?" worry (and now the ever-present low level dread of "will I be un-personed after the next election"), I've never experienced such a powerful feeling of "this is what WILL happen, come hell or high water". It was refreshing to feel that way about something in my life, finally. Like, I'm not just coasting through life to the grave any more!

I recognize that I'm very lucky as far as access goes, I went from egg crack to staring HRT in probably 3 months, thanks to informed consent in my state, and a halfway decent health insurance plan. I also found a local laser tech to zap my beard hair that is REALLY good, and doesn't gouge on price. Honestly, the hardest thing to deal with has been my voice, I was "blessed" with a pitch and inflection only a little less over-the-top than that movie trailer guy, so changing that has been... a journey.

I'm also lucky in the total lack of resistance on the personal side. None of my friends, family, or even co-workers have fought me on my transition, everyone that I care about has been accepting of me so far. From what I see posted here so often, I'm in a rare situation, and I deeply appreciate all the people IRL that support me. ❤️

Identity-wise, I'm still up in the air a bit, mostly because I haven't dug into what all the different labels mean in detail. I'm definately all about women, but I'm also some flavor of ace, so I guess only romantically? I think that nets me the L, T, Q and A in LGBTQIA+, though tbh I don't really keep a hard list of identities for myself. I'm not one of those weirdo transmeds, I never had overt disphoria before my egg cracked, everyone is valid in their identity, regardless of their dumb-ass takes (pickme's, lookin' at you).

So, intro post done, thanks for reading!

[p0orbaby]

Et Memoriae Venellam

Summary - Memories long forgotten get resurfaced.

Warnings - SMUT, Oral (both receiving), Fingering (Wanda receiving), Nipple play, Therapy, Child Abandonment? Language as usual.

Authors notes - Finally a snippet of readers’ past. Italics are flashbacks like always.

Word count - 3.2k

Navigation | Series Masterlist | W.M Masterlist

“So, let’s start with asking how you’ve been since our last session shall we?”

“I’ve been good I guess”

“You guess? Because the way you walked in here tells me you’re in a considerably better mood than last week”

The idea that everything, even your posture and the way you walked was being analysed, made you want to bolt for the door.

“I had a good evening. Made some progress with Wanda”

“Well that’s good to hear. Can I ask what the two of you did?

A blush crept up your neck at the thought of sharing details so intimate with someone that was practically a stranger.

Apparently Doctor Michaels caught onto your silence and filled in the gaps for herself.

“Sex is a healthy way to support relationships if used in the right way. Other than the obvious benefits, it also helps ease stress, increases immunity and improves sleep”

“Right, better sleep. Got it” god this was embarrassing.

“Apart from the intimate physical progressions of your relationship. How are things going in terms of breaking down the psychological barriers? Have you spoken to Wanda more about your feelings towards your situation?”

“Not yet, I’ve been trying to find the courage to tell her”

“But as you told me last time, you’ve spoken to your friends about how you feel, correct? Is there a reason it’s harder to talk to your wife than it is to talk to them?”

“Other than the fact I see her everyday? So if I fuck up then I’ve got to look at the disappointment on her face 24/7 and it be a constant reminder of my failure? No, I can’t think of a reason why I’m avoiding talking to her about everything”

“Alright, I can clearly see that you try to use humor and sarcasm as a way to avoid confrontation”

“You don’t think?“

“There are many reasons as to why one would use humor to deflect serious topics. It diffuses tension as well as it being a way to form stronger bonds with people. It also helps individuals take hardships in stride. Making it easier to bounce back from disappointment and loss. Do any of those factors resonate with you perhaps?”

-

You woke to the sound of a loud ringing. The incessant chime of the old copper bell echoed off of the walls in the corridor outside your room.

A groan into your pillow was deemed the only appropriate reaction to your abrupt awakening.

“One day I’m going to get that bell and shove it somewhere the sun don’t shine,” stated a voice, paired with a sigh and the squeak of a bed frame, all of which came from the other side of the room.

“Well tell me when you plan on doing that cause I’ll happily be witness to that”

“Oh you’ll know when, trust me. And even though I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of running at her beck and call, we better follow the old bats rules and go down for breakfast. I’m not in the mood for her medieval punishments today”

Grace, fifteen and confident, was the only thing you actually liked about this place. Her wit and carefree attitude to your miserable situations was like a breath of fresh air compared to the dismal atmosphere the rest of the orphanage had to offer.

She had been in the foster care system the same amount of time you had, so if she was able to use her positive outlook on life to ameliorate some of the misery in your lives, then the least you could do was follow in her footsteps.

“Do you think we’ve got grey slop or brown slop today? I’m fancying a bit of the brown” the sarcasm in your tone didn’t go unmissed.

“Hmm, maybe they’ll treat us to some stale waffles, it is zoo day today after all”

Zoo day, or more commonly known as Adoption Recommendation Day, is an event held by the orphanage for prospective parents to mingle with the kids to get a better idea of who they want to adopt. Zoo day was coined by the pair of you after you noticed some of the adults standing on one side of a window watching a few of the younger children play outside. Like they were watching caged animals.

“What time are the exhibits opening today?” You asked, finally getting out of bed, stretching as you walked towards the wardrobe in search of some appropriate clothing.

“I overheard Sister Melissa say it would be just after lunch”

“Oh dear, they’ll miss feeding time then, what a shame”

“However will they cope?”

The two of you laughed to yourselves from opposite sides of the room. Only stopping when your sides started to hurt.

-

You’d both made it downstairs just in time to get a share of food. The grey concoction presented to you just added to your already sour mood.

“Y/N, Grace, you’re almost late for breakfast for the third time this week. Is there a reason you can’t make it to the table at the same time as the others?”

“Sorry Sister Evangeline, Y/N was having stomach troubles. I was asked to be on air freshener standy”

“She’s right Sister, I think it was Monday's dinner. I’ve never been good with cabbage, my stomach rejects it like there’s no tomorrow”

Your comments earned both of you chuckles from the other kids and glares from the Sisters. Your tag teaming was never appreciated, your acting talents apparently wasted.

“We don’t have time for your circus act today, sit down and join in with morning grace”

“Just morning grace, Sister? Can I not be included in afternoon and evening activities also?”

You snorted from beside your friend at her comment.

“You may think you’re funny but no one else is laughing other than your silly friend. Now eat your food before you earn yourself another hour of chores, your free time is becoming increasingly thin”

Grace turned to you and rolled her eyes at Sister Evangeline's threat before closing them and joining in with morning prayer.

-

It was a few hours later that the adults started filtering in. You’d been advised to wear your Sunday best. A starched navy knee length dress, a crisp white blouse, black loafers and a navy hair bow to match. You hated it.

It was important to make a good impression, Sister Andrea liked to remind you. The nicer you looked, the more of a chance it was you’d get picked. She’d been saying that every few months for the past ten years.

Maybe you needed a new Sunday best.

Being a teenager, it was unlikely you were to be picked no matter how smart you looked. Not many people wanted to adopt a young adult. They wanted a child, someone they could mold to meet their lifestyles. Not a teen who could rebel against their wishes.

“How’s the behaving working out for you?” Grace's voice asked from behind you as you had just finished cleaning away the remnants of lunch in the dining room.

“Well I’ve been banished to the kitchen, so figure that one out”

“Better than toilet cleaning duty” she responded as she held up a toilet brush in her gloved hand. “You’d think they didn’t want us to leave, hiding us away from the parents to keep us all to themselves”

“How very kind of them” you grimaced at the thought of staying here with the Sisters. “Have any of the kids been picked yet?”

“A young couple have their eyes on Amelia, and Janice has just finished a walk of the garden with Sister Mary and the family from the other month”

“I’m glad, it’ll be good to have some of us get out of here. Those girls don’t deserve to be stuck in the system”

“And we do?”

“Well we’re not really the poster children for obedience are we? I don’t think we’d last very long before they sent up back”

“You’re right, we wouldn’t”

There were a few beats of silence before you heard a commotion coming from one of the other rooms in the house.

You ripped off your cleaning apron and briskly followed Grace to the source of the noise.

A huddle of people in the activities room seemed to be the centre of the issue. But before you could ask what was going on, a family of three brushed passed you hurriedly and found their way to the exit of the house.

Confused, you made your way to the group to see what the matter was.

“Now there Miss Janice, there’s no need to be upset”

The voice of Sister Mary could barely be heard over what you now know to be the crying of little Janice.

“What’s the matter?” Grace asked before you could.

“Nothing to worry about, just a complication. Nothing we can’t handle”

“A complication with what?”

“Y/N, it’s none of your business, can you please just go back to your chores”

Ignoring her, you pushed your way through the crowd, finding Janice hunched over in a ball, crying into her knees.

“Hey, Janice, can you look at me for a second?” Your voice was soft and soothing, she shook her head in defiance anyway. “Can you take some deep breaths? Slowly, in and out?”

Crouching down next to her, you placed a gentle hand on her back and felt her breathing come to a more regular pace.

“That’s it sweet girl, can you tell me what happened?”

Once she had gotten her breath back, she turned to you and wrapped her arms around your neck, hiding her face in your shoulder.

“They don’t want me” she whispered, voice wavering again. “They came back to tell me they don’t want to take me home. They hate me”

“Oh no, they don’t hate you”

“Then why? Why would they leave me here?”

You didn’t have the answers to give her. You didn’t know why people did what they did. Especially to lead children on like that. You hated them and you didn’t even know who they were.

Janice started crying again, and all you could do to soothe her was tell her lies that tasted bitter on your tongue.

-

“Jesus wept, that was stressful” Grace stated as she slumped backwards onto her bed. Landing with a bounce.

“You’re telling me, I just had to console a seven year old”

“Hmm true, she in bed now?”

“Yeah, just about. Took a while but she’s sleeping. Sister Mary said she’d allow her to eat dinner in bed”

“Oh one of them has a soul then. That’s nice for future reference”

“Let’s make a pact” you said abruptly, sitting up against your headboard.

“Huh?”

“A pact, c'mon you know, like a promise”

“No I know what a pact is, but what for?”

“To not cause cause pain and suffering”

“What, like world peace or something?”

“Stop being soft, no. Let’s make a pact to stick together. Me and you. No one else, not even children. I’m not bringing a child into a world where it’s just sadness and misery. When we hit eighteen and get out of this hell hole, we could travel. Go to a different country. Never stay in one place too long. What do you say? You and me forever?”

It took a while for Grace to respond, but when her mouth turned up into a smirk, you knew the answer.

“Alright, why not? You've got a deal. You and me forever”

-

“Y/N?”

Doctor Michaels’ voice permeated your thoughts, and you found yourself back in the therapist's office.

“Sorry, no, nothing springs to mind”

“Okay well, if you remember anything, I’m all ears”

-

“Fuck baby, that feels good”

Your voice echoed off of the tiled walls, along with the sounds of the water from the shower head and Wanda’s soft hums from where she was crouched between your legs.

Her wet hair was tangled around your fingers as you used your hand to keep her head where you wanted it.

Wanda knew you were close by the way your knees buckled when her fingers thrusted in and out of you with vigour. Normally she would savor moments like these, have them last as long as possible, but it had been so long since she has had her head between your legs and she missed making you feel good. She wanted you to fall apart for her.

With a crook of her fingers and one final suck on your clit, you fell over the edge. Closing your eyes, you focused on the white hot pleasure coursing through your body and the tight grip Wanda had on your thighs in order to keep you upright.

It wasn’t until the warmth of Wanda was gone from underneath you that you opened your eyes again. You peered around to find her walking to the other side of the bathroom to grab both of your towels.

“Do you want me to repay the favour?” Your question came out quietly as you tried to catch your breath.

“No baby, it’s alright. Let’s get you dry and we can talk?”

You'd forgotten about your clause in your blissed out state. Therapy meant talking not just to Doctor Michaels, but to Wanda also.

So you nodded your head in her direction whilst stepping out of the shower and wrapping yourself in the towel that was held out for you.

The next few minutes were spent exchanging soft touches. You dried each other with relaxed movements and dressed yourselves in soft loungewear, the two of you both happy to spend the rest of the day in bed.

You settled yourself with your head in Wanda's lap looking up at her, whilst this time it was her hands running through your hair.

Before your eyes fluttered closed, Wanda’s voice broke the silence of the room.

“How has your day been, baby? She asked, her voice soft.

“Hmm, it was alright. Work was work, you know how Tony is. And therapy was weird today”

“Weird? In what way?”

“Just the questions. Triggered some memories that I thought I’d forgotten. About the orphanage”

Wanda’s hand stopped stroking your head at your response. She knew all about your time there and why you were there in the first place. It was a hard topic for her to listen to when she knew the pain that part of your life had put you through.

“Is that going to be a problem? Having your past brought up like that?”

“It’s going to be hard, to relive everything. But if it helps me come to terms with what’s going on with us, then I’m willing to talk about it”

“And we’re you willing? To talk about it?”

If there was one thing you knew about Wanda, it was that she was very perceptive. She was able to see through people more often than not, you especially. There was no point in lying to her about this.

“I didn’t mention anything to Dr Michaels, no. Perhaps next time if it’s brought up”

“Y/N” Wanda started with a sigh, “you need to try and be completely honest in those sessions. They’re there to help you”

“I know, I know” you said, removing yourself from Wanda’s lap and sitting up next to her against the headboard. “I just don’t want to let everything out so soon”

“I can’t imagine how hard it is. But you’ve got to try, alright? For us. For them”

Wanda grabbed your hand and gently placed it on her stomach.

Your flinch didn’t go unnoticed, but you kept your hand there anyway.

You knew she was right. About this especially. For this to work, you needed to be open and honest. Nothing should be off limits.

“You’re right. This isn’t about me, it’s about you guys”

Your fingers twitched against Wanda’s stomach before you stroked your hand slowly over her bump. Her breath hitched slightly at the sudden affection you were showing.

Her hands made their way back into your hair, but this time any resemblance of restrain was out of the window. Her touch desperate.

She pulled your face towards hers with force, and connected your lips to hers like it was the last time she would ever do so.

A small gasp was released from your mouth at her nipping your bottom lip. The gesture showcasing Wanda’s constant need for intimacy with you.

Who were you to deny her?

Before she even realised what you were doing, you started to trail sloppy kisses down her neck. You removed the T-shirt she was wearing in order to get your mouth on her breasts. Sucking a flicking each nipple with your tongue before giving her a final bite of her flesh, carrying on with your journey down her body.

Her bottoms were the next item to be rid off of her body. One swift movement and she was naked before you once more.

Wanda’s legs opened for you in a move well practiced as you settled between them on your stomach. As soon as you were comfortable, you got to work. Licking an experimental stripe against her slit, causes her to moan and throw her head back against the pillows. You lift one of your hands in order to use your fingers to keep her open for you as you dipped your tongue into her wanting heat. The taste of her overwhelmed your senses as you used your tongue to probe at her.

Once satisfied you’d worked at her entrance enough, you moved upwards slightly so you could give her clit some well deserved attention. You flicked your tongue against it, and Wanda’s back arched as you did. It was amazing how such a small bundle of nerves could cause one so much pleasure. You quickened the pace of your tongue against the sensitive bud as soon as you felt her legs starting to shake underneath you. You wouldn’t tease her.

Lifting your free hand to her breast, you pinched her nipple between two fingers. Not too hard, not too soft. Just the right amount of pressure. It seemed as though one of Wanda’s pregnancy symptoms was that her nipples had become hyper sensitive. She loved having her nipples played with anyway, but now she was pregnant the pleasure she got from it had increased tenfold. Meaning it wasn’t long before the combined sensation of you rolling her nipple between your digits and the movement of your mouth against her sex, sent her flying over the edge with a cry that almost resembled pain.

You took this time to lift your eyes and look at her. Finding her with her face slightly flushed red, mouth open just slightly whilst her chest rose and fell as she tried to get her breath back. It was a sight to see. You pulled away only when a hiss came from above you. She was too sensitive for you to carry on. You didn’t mind.

Wanda’s leg served as your pillow as you allowed you to fully regain her breath. It was a few minutes until she opened her eyes and looked down at you to reveal blown out pupils. It had all it took to not ravish her once again.

“I thought I told you you didn’t need to repay the favour” she asked with a small chuckle.

“Hmm, you did. But when have I ever been good at following rules?”

Taglist

General Taglist: @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @jromanoff @diaryoflife @xxromanoffxx @marrymemcgrath @smileyromanoff @rice-wiife

[lovelybarnes]

home- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: language, alcohol mentions and drinking, the use of my own headcanon that bucky gets very clingy when he finds someone he trusts and loves

about: (requested!) prompt 21: person a tugging on person b’s shirt

bucky has been a lot clingier than usual. you suppose it’s your fault, you have dragged him everywhere with you since you met him- although that was to help bring him out of his shell and get him to actually go outside. you’re not sure if your efforts have backfired, as he’ll be trudging behind you like a lovestruck puppy wherever you go, no matter if it’s around the compound or in the small boutiques you frequent. you convince yourself they didn’t, since his days aren’t spent locked in his room, which you consider a win.

a knock you identify as natasha’s interrupts your mutters about an entrance you hadn’t seen before, natasha’s voice cutting through the peaceful silence. “i swear i saw you in that exact same place like five hours ago,” she states, leaning against your door frame as you shrug, not looking up. “you should take a break, the plan you made yesterday is great.”

you’re going over mission plans in your room, trying to figure out the best way to infiltrate the very last hydra base and succeed in cutting off the last of the organization’s heads. bucky is sleeping, his head on your lap. the hand that isn’t skimming the lines on the blueprint is combing through bucky’s hair, calming him down and chasing away his nightmares. once in a while, you coo inattentively when he begins to stir, not wanting him to wake up.

you had been away for two days, during which he got a grand total of three hours of sleep, the rest of his attempts driven away by nightmares. you calm him down, he says, so he’s slept in your room with you ever since you got back. it’s a strange sight seeing the former winter soldier, over two hundred pounds and six feet tall, resting bitch face pressed on the skin of your legs.

“there are always possible ways to fail, i need it to be foolproof,” you respond distractedly. natasha rolls her eyes and raises her hand, holding a pair of black heels between her fingers. “we’re all going out in half an hour,” she instructs, and you furrow your brows, staring at the intimidatingly tall shoes, “what? we are?” natasha hums, raising an eyebrow at bucky, “i haven’t been able to spend any time with you since you got back, besides, you need to have fun for a few hours.”

“i am having fun,” you lie. and natasha, unsurprisingly, sees right through it, shaking the heels and letting you know you have thirty minutes. you sigh, pushing the plans away and stretching, already planning to wear something casual, even though wanda will probably have a fit about it and point out the new dresses you have stored in your closet.

“you do deserve a break,” bucky points out from your thighs, and you look down at him, not realizing he was awake. shrugging, you agree, “i guess you’re right.”

bucky hums in reply, sitting up and looking over the blueprints you just set down. “i also guess i have to get ready, then,” you say, pressing a kiss to bucky’s cheek before going to your closet and taking out what you want.

bucky isn’t in your room when you walk out of the bathroom, light makeup applied (an illusion because you have no idea how to do it), jeans and a loose shirt that you somehow make refined, and heels that you bought months ago with no real occasion in mind. you hope the heels pull the outfit together and get you the wanda seal of approval, avoiding getting sent back to your room and having the woman make a mess of your closet to find something else.

you check yourself out in the mirror one final time, squinting at yourself. “you look amazing, doll,” bucky compliments, coming in through your door to stare at you and kiss your shoulder. you look back at him, appreciating how he looks, stunning as always. “you don’t look so bad yourself,” you reply cheesily, admiring the smile that adorns his face when the words leave your mouth.

it appears you and bucky are the last to be ready, seeing how everyone other than sam, steve, and nat were already on their way to wherever it was you were going. “whoo,” sam whistles, and you twirl when nat claps and asks you to. “you look hot,” she comments, and you do a proud little bow, “i can clean up when i want to.”

“and this will be worth it. we are staying out late like we used to,” natasha declares. you grin, “hopefully i don’t fall asleep. missions are tiring. especially when you finish them that quick.”

“ah yes, we are celebrating the new record y/n set!” steve reminds, and you tilt your head in smug satisfaction. “oh yes, i did beat nat, didn’t i?”

shooting the russian redhead a faux complacent look as she smiles, “enjoy it while it lasts,” she replies simply, and you nod, “i absolutely will. i know there’ll be a new one by next week.”

you manage to drink half of your weight in liquor by the second hour you’re at the new bar, chatting with wanda over her and vision’s relationship while sam flirts with someone next to you. bucky is surprisingly invested in the conversation, pointing out how happy vision has been- as much as he’s noticed, he’s still getting used to vision being a synthezoid- which makes wanda blush and smile wider. you can tell his social battery is running out, though, and you can’t blame him, exhausting your own with how many times you’ve rejected guys and held useless conversations with both the avengers and random people you bump into.

natasha has managed to get you into the dance floor, and you manage to have fun, even through the tiredness that hasn’t stopped coursing throughout your veins and smell of sweat and sex. you’ve sweated out the alcohol in your system, sitting next to your boyfriend while you’re telling steve what you saw the other day. sam is listening along, head tilting back in laughter when you inform him that tony wears captain america underwear. how you found that out, you prefer not repeating.

bucky doesn’t add on to conversations anymore, instead listening silently and driving away any men that dare to bother you with a threatening glare. it isn’t needed, but appreciated regardless.

which each hour that passes, you can see less of the avengers and more of the sun’s yellow, your body planted in your seat, listening to the others’ conversations. you’ve bitten back enough yawns to know your night is ending, your shorter answers only reassuring you.

you’re nodding along to one of tony’s stories when you feel a tug on your shirt, not needing to turn to figure out who it is, but you do anyways.

“can we go home?” bucky asks, weariness clear in the bags under his eyes as you nod, tangling your fingers with his vibranium ones. you bid everyone goodbye, bucky lingering behind you, his own farewells a silent nod of his head if any.

you nearly fall asleep next to him in the car, and he swears it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

-

he’s waiting for you on your bed as you get ready for bed, walking out and ruffling his hair when you see how he’s sprawled out. “come to bed, y/n,” he pleads when you begin to walk away again, his fingers pulling at your-his, really- shirt. “i’m almost done,” you promise, fulfilling it when you come back not a minute later.

he wraps you in his arms and is out like a light, dreams of you replacing the nightmares he’s had, and he vows he’ll never let you go.

[lisatelramor]

Crossing Borders Ch3

Sorry for not posting on wednesday. My computer got broken irreparably on monday and i've spent all week getting a new one and transferring files over. Today involved almost 3.5 hours of driving because the store is 45 mins away give or take a bit on traffic. T_T I had to go back because I got home and couldn't find my files. Turns out for some reason the new microsoft system defaults to cloud--including desktop--and wasn't bringing any of my files up when I searched either -_-;;; I have had very high cortisol levels this last week. Sigh. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, guys!

*

There were few things Lan Zhan disliked about being a cultivator. He enjoyed the fulfilment he got from training, the pleasant burn of well-used muscles and the peace of a long meditation session. He enjoyed the challenge of a night hunt and knowing he was protecting people. He enjoyed his sect’s musical cultivation and the creative outlet it gave him. He even enjoyed, to some extent, the myriad of rules, because they gave life structure—even if by this point in his life he also had come to the conclusion that some rules were more worthwhile than others.

What Lan Zhan did not enjoy was dealing with people. Unfortunately, being a cultivator could occasionally require a lot of that. While he had grown to have some satisfaction in teaching, distraught, anxious, grieving people were not a demographic he ever found easier to deal with.

“What do you mean he’s dead?” Wan Haoran, one of the victim’s friends asked, his face not as upset as Lan Zhan would have expected considering he just received news of his friend’s demise. “He was just with us in the pottery hall less than two hours ago.”

“Unfortunately,” Lan Zhan repeated, “there was an accident.”

“What kind of accident?” Chen Xinyi asked. She, at least, looked properly upset. Her face was pale and pinched with anxiety. She had been dating the victim, if he remembered correctly.

“He fell off one of the cliffs off-trail,” Wei Ying said bluntly at Lan Zhan’s side. “Do you have any idea why he might have been wandering in the mountain alone and far from the walking trails?”

Chen Xinyi shook her head, tears building in her eyes that she didn’t let fall. “I. No… He was. He was upset. Needed to go on a walk, he’d said, but. He was planning to join us for dinner and never showed up.”

“I guess now we know why,” Li Zihan said, the last member of their group sitting on one of the corner beds in the room. She looked tired, resigned, like bad news was one more thing on top of many bad things. “I thought he just needed more time to cool down. He feels things—felt things… strongly, you know? Sometimes he needed to go on his own for a while until he evened out again.”

“He always tried to follow what he said he’d do though,” Chen Xinyi said. The tears spilled over, sliding down her cheek uninhibited.

“Did something trigger his poor mood?” Lan Zhan asked. “The monitors in the group activities you were present in did not notice anything unusual with his behavior during the program.”

The group collectively hesitated, and Wei Ying clearly honed in on it, leaning forward.

“So something did upset him,” Wei Ying said. “During or after the activities?”

“…After,” Li Zihan grunted. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have mentioned some things.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Wan Haoran argued. “It’s ridiculous to act like nothing happened and just forget—”

“Forget what?” Wei Ying said, frustration making his voice sharp.

None of them could look them in the face. Chen Xinyi twisted a handkerchief, its edges already wet through.

“About a month ago, one of our friends died,” Wan Haoran said after a long moment. “They were really close. Shen Ming knew him from before college, and of all of us I think he was taking the death the worst. It’s actually why we decided to come here. Everything we read said this place was good for calming strong emotions and finding peace. We thought…” He trailed off.

“I shouldn’t have brought up Huang Fang,” Li Zihan said. “It’s just… he was looking calmer and I didn’t even think… It was a good memory of him. We should be able to remember the good without focusing on the tragedy.”

“People do not recover the same way, or in a straightforward manner,” Lan Zhan said. His own grief over his parents—his mother’s death, father’s neglect, and his father’s eventual death—had taken a long time to process. Presumably, Shen Ming could have recovered over time. Instead, he’d been killed before he could finish working through those emotions. It was sad, but also a little worrisome; their victim had more reasons than his murder to hold resentment past his death.

“May I ask how your friend died?” Wei Ying said, remaining focused on the important things even as Lan Zhan let himself be distracted. “I know it’s probably not something you want to think about…”

“He…fell,” Chen Xinyi said. “Not off a cliff. But.”

“He suicided,” Li Zihan said heavily. “Or at least that’s what it seemed to be. Shen Ming was there. Couldn’t talk him down.”

“You don’t think it was suicide?” Wei Ying asked, catching her wording. “Do you think Shen Ming pushed him?”

“He wouldn’t!” Chen Xinyi said immediately, eyes wide and horrified at the mere thought. “He was so devastated after! They were like brothers…”

To the side, Wan Haoran shifted, uncomfortable. Lan Zhan studied the pinched tension in his face and jaw. Remembering the event? Or something else entirely?

“Either way, the result is the same,” Li Zihan said. “They’re both dead now… Did. Did Shen Ming… Did it look like he…?”

“I do not think he went out there intending to die,” Lan Zhan said as gently as he was able. Wei Ying was better with sympathy, but he’d been told in the past that sometimes a calm, even tone could be just as helpful.

“An accident then,” Chen Xinyi said, sniffling. “He must have slipped…”

Lan Zhan exchanged a glance with Wei Ying, neither of them offering the true cause of death for the moment. There was still the uncomfortable look on Wan Haoran’s face, and too many questions to say that these people weren’t also involved in some way.

“Oh yeah,” Wei Ying said, like a thought had only just occurred to him. “We found an odd wooden bead on him; would you know anything about that?”

Recognition. Chen Xinyi’s hand twitched toward her chest—right about where a pendant would be—and her two friends also twitched.

“The bead was Huang Fang’s,” Wan Haoran said after a moment. “He had a bracelet of prayer beads his grandfather gave him that he wore everywhere. When he died, most of the bracelet was ruined, but we each kept a bead. To remember, you know?”

Lan Zhan resisted the urge to pinch his brow and sigh. Prayer beads that were emotionally significant to their owner, that had been worn regularly, and then died with him. That would definitely be enough for a ghost to latch onto. Although, why only Shen Ming had been affected was unclear. Now at least one bead had two deaths in its existence, and could possibly be on its way to a resentful artifact if they were unlucky.

“Huh,” Wei Ying said, leaning forward. “Would you mind showing me one?”

“That’s a little insensitive,” Wan Haoran said, one wrist pulling close to his body where he must have his bead. He looked at Wei Ying, cold and accusative. “Our friend died, so soon after another, and you want to look at a bead?”

“Ah, sorry, sorry.” Wei Ying held up his hands apologetically. “It just felt significant.”

“Well it’s not.” Wan Haoran shifted in front of his friends. “Unless you’re going to let us see his body, I think you should go now.”

“Of course,” Lan Zhan cut in with the slightest of polite nods. “You will be informed when his body can be visited.” He and Wei Ying retreated, the door closing on the sound of Chen Xinyi’s tears starting up in earnest again.

Wei Ying sighed as they left the room behind them. “Well. That could have gone better.”

“Hm. The beads?”

“Probably how that spirit got in. If it’s their friend, there is the question of why he’s targeting them.”

Lan Zhan hummed speculatively. “Perhaps anger over not preventing his death?”

“Or something… Wan Haoran was kind of shifty, did you notice?” Wei Ying’s fingers drummed absently on his crossed arms. “There’s something we are missing about the friendship.”

“I do not think Wan Haoran will reveal what that is.”

“Same.” Wei Ying sighed before nudging Lan Zhan. “If we play Inquiry, do you think our angry spirit will answer? Or should I go plant a spirit trap?”

“First we should add extra warding to the dormitories,” Lan Zhan said. “After… Perhaps Shen Ming’s spirit would remember what occurred at his friend’s death.”

“…Do you think I can get away with some of my specialized talismans?”

Lan Zhan’s lips tipped up at the edges. “If Wei Ying places them very carefully out of view, no one will know.”

“Are you encouraging me to be heretical?” Wei Ying asked, delighted.

“To take all the possible care in protecting our guests,” Lan Zhan corrected.

“Yeah, well your uncle would still skin me if he knew. Ah, I’m such a corrupting force on you!” Wei Ying swooned dramatically.

“Are not.” Lan Zhan let their shoulders bump together gently. “You still have not eaten,” he said into the companionable silence that followed. “Eat, then set talismans.”

“Or I could set talismans, then eat.”

Lan Zhan looked at Wei Ying patiently, knowing he would cave to Lan Zhan’s desire to ensure he was cared for.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, you’re spoiling me again.”

Lan Zhan hummed, content. There might be a crisis going on, but he wasn’t going to let Wei Ying neglect himself if he could help it.

*O*O*

Conan was going to break something. Preferably something on a certain someone. Kid, with his usual level of charisma, had managed to put Ran and Mouri in a good mood with card tricks, four games of poker, and a bunch of random stories that flowed seamlessly into one another, keeping everyone entertained. It was annoying because if it hadn’t been Kid, Conan might have actually found it entertaining.

Because it was Kid, he kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. There had to be something more going on here.

“—field full of bunnies,” Kid said, shuffling cards for a new game—blackjack now as poker had become frustrating. “I admit, I was pretty surprised to see them since this place has all kind of rules against bringing in pets and vegetarianism as the norm, but apparently, they were wild rabbits that became domesticated from people sneaking to feed them or something, and eventually the higher ups caved and made them official protected animals. That was before they got added as part of the therapy program, I think. Fuzzy animals are actually really good for soothing the spirit. Good on the newer generations for thinking outside the meditative box, right?”

Conan huffed. He would love to escape and go looking for clues, but there was no way to sneak off. Even with Kid keeping them entertained, Mouri and Ran were on high alert after Conan snuck off earlier.

“What are you here researching?” Ran asked Kid, taking the cards he dealt comfortably. Conan took his cards grudgingly; he’d tried backing out of games only to be dragged back by Mouri because it would ‘keep him occupied.’

“Ah.” Kid’s smile never faltered. “You know, there’s a huge library here, full of a lot of interesting topics. It’s well-known in certain circles for its obscure texts on the supernatural.”

“So you’re here researching, what? Legends and ghost stories?” Mouri muttered, with a frown at his hand of cards.

“Legends in part,” Kid said, dealing another card when prompted. “It probably seems silly, but legends have fueled humanity’s progress. Chasing better medicines, better weapons, better technology and methods… I ran across a legend in Japan, and was having trouble tracing it. A friend recommended trying here since their records are so comprehensive.”

“It’s also all in Chinese,” Conan said drily. And who knew what dialect or how simplified some of those documents were.

“I can read enough to get a sense of if I have the right topic,” Kid said, “and then there’s several individuals who are more than happy to help me on my research.”

Conan narrowed his eyes. “Was one called Wei Ying by chance?”

“You must have been by the library.” Kid dealt Ran another card at her gesture, then Mouri, who grimaced hard. He had a terrible poker face.

“He looked like he lived there.” Reluctantly, Conan gestured for another card as well. The three he was dealt brought him to twenty; a decently good hand.  

“Oh, he basically does. Well, in the library, in the bunny field, or glued to his boyfriend’s side depending on his mood. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he’s actually one of the leading minds of his generation in paranormal studies.”

“Great, so he’s a genius with ghost stories,” Mouri said sarcastically. “Sounds real useful for a career.”

“More like exorcisms, warding, and demonic identification, if I’m getting the translation right,” Kid said cheerfully like he’d missed the sarcasm entirely. “He has some fascinating thoughts about the search for immortality.”

Conan might never live down the moment that he shares a commiserating look with Mouri.

“Any more cards?” Kid asked, still cheerful. “No? Well then…” He laid out his cards. Blackjack. Again.

This was the third time in six rounds.

“You’re cheating,” Conan said as he showed his hand. “You’ve won five of the rounds.” This one included because Ran had nineteen and Mouri had busted, going seven over twenty-one. Kid had to be cheating.

“I could be counting cards,” Kid said, returning the hands to the deck, “but I’m not. And I’m not palming them, or cutting the deck in my favor. I just have Lady Luck on my side.”

“Well share a bit of it around because this is getting boring,” Mouri grumbled. “Are they going to keep us here all night, or what?”

“I’m sure they have good reason,” Ran said.

Conan had a twinge of guilt because he hadn’t told them about the murder yet. If he did, Mouri would probably try to swan in on it without even being able to speak to anyone clearly, and muddle everything up even more. He could feel Kid’s glance like a weight as cards shuffled endlessly. Some kind of tic probably.

“I’m sure we’ll be allowed out in the morning,” Kid said.

“Oh, so now you’re inviting yourself to stay the night, too?” Mouri said. “Well, there’s only three beds, so you’re out of luck.”

“I can share with Conan-kun,” Kid said with a friendly grin. “If it comes down to that anyway.”

“I don’t think the beds are big enough to share!” Conan cut in. The idea of being crammed in with Kid onto a cot of a bed was nightmare fuel.

“You’re not that big,” Kid said. “I could take the floor too if sharing is asking too much, but I’d like to save my back if I can.”

“Conan-kun, you can sleep with me,” Ran said.

It was meant to be kind. No one would think anything of a child sleeping beside them. But. Conan felt himself freeze. Sleep next to Ran? With her pressed against him? Just the two of them? “I can take the floor,” he blurted, face probably fire truck red.

Kid snickered, covering the expression innocently when the others looked. Conan scowled at him, not that scowling ever seemed to do anything.  “I couldn’t kick you out of your bed,” Kid said, almost convincingly sincere, the bastard.

“I insist,” Conan said, hating him.

“Ah, I have a travel pillow,” Ran said, accepting the change in plans easily enough like she always did. “And there’s a spare blanket… Conan-kun, do you mind using a few towels as a mattress?”

“That’s fine…” Damn Kid, this was a defeat for Conan this time. Next time he’d definitely win though.

The card game was wrapped up and bedding distributed with little discussion after that. Conan grumpily curled up on his ‘mattress’ of towels and uncharitably wished Kid an unpleasant sleep and a crick in the neck.

*O*O*

When the alarm started ringing, Wei Ying was horribly tempted to shove a pillow over his head, burrow closer in Lan Zhan’s arms, and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, this wasn’t their morning alarm clock alarm, but the emergency bell. Again. At—Wei Ying squinted at the soft glow of the alarm clock—four in the morning. Not even the Lan woke at four in the morning.

Naturally, there wasn’t actually a choice in going back to sleep. There certainly wasn’t any burrowing back into Lan Zhan’s arms, because he was already sitting up and reaching for a shirt.

“Why?” Wei Ying asked rhetorically.

Lan Zhan paused where he was slipping on his earlier-discarded socks. He gently tucked a strand of Wei Ying’s bird-nest, slept-on hair behind an ear, hand lingering on Wei Ying’s face. “You do not have to get up.”

Lan Zhan was sweet. Really. As much as Wei Ying wanted to go back to sleep and blissfully leave whatever problem was happening now in someone else’s hands, that wasn’t really an option.

“They might need me,” Wei Ying said forcing himself upright. Ugh. Too early. He was going to have an awful headache, like a sleep hangover. “Want to bet it’s the ghost no one could find earlier?”

Lan Zhan scoffed. “Obvious.”

“I dunno. Could have a couple murderous spirits by now. You never know.”

Wei Ying got yesterday’s pants to the face as Lan Zhan started gathering up clothes for Wei Ying too.

“Peh. Thanks, I wanted dusty denim to the face first thing in the morning.”

“I will grab you coffee later,” Lan Zhan said. He already looked like he hadn’t just rolled out of bed. Wei Ying was wildly jealous of how easily his boyfriend went from ‘disheveled’ to ‘could be in an office or a fashion runway’ with seemingly zero effort. Wei Ying felt lucky if he didn’t look like a bum in the same amount of time.

Shoving his limbs haphazardly into clothing, Wei Ying staggered toward the door. “Wait! No, talismans, talismans…”

Lan Zhan handed him a stack and Suiban at the same time.

“Oh. Thanks.”

His boyfriend took a moment to smooth Wei Ying’s hair out of his face because he was the functional one between the two of them, and then they were hurrying out into the night. Day? Night; the sun wasn’t up yet so it wasn’t morning in his book.

Outside, disciples were poking their heads out or hurrying by, some still in sleep clothes. Unfortunately, the guests were too, and they didn’t look like they were going to cooperate in returning to their beds this time without some sort of explanation.

Wei Ying scanned the crowd for familiar faces. Sure enough, the child from before was wiggling to the front of the group, probably trying to see what was going on. What an annoyingly nosy child. Hadn’t he heard of listening to adults? (Not that Wei Ying had ever been good at that himself, but it was the principle of things.) Add a probable curse to the mix and the kid had the potential to be a danger magnet.

Lan Zhan, much less distractable, caught someone heading from the emergency bell’s direction. “What is happening?”

The girl had a harried look of someone on a mission, but she stopped because Lan Zhan was one of the heirs to the sect. “The body is gone and another guest is dead.”

“Well shit,” Wei Ying said. He was not awake enough for this. “Who died now?”

“Chen Xinyi,” the disciple said, shifting in the way that said she’d be walking away already if it was polite to.

Lan Zhan nodded in thanks. “We won’t keep you longer,” he said, and the girl hurried away before he got all the words out.

“Chen Xinyi is…?” Wei Ying asked, drawing a blank. He wasn’t good with names and faces at the best of times, let alone just after waking up.

“The first victim’s girlfriend,” Lan Zhan said.

“Oh.” Well, double shit then. “Nothing should have gotten past the talismans we set last night.”

“Hm.”

Ugh. Either they had a human hand working in all of this or someone had messed up somewhere with the first corpse. “And the first victim, what, walked off? Killed his girlfriend?”

“We will find out,” Lan Zhan said, as composed as ever.

“Lan Zhan, Wei Ying!” a young voice called. Oh look, there was their cursed child. He elbowed past people’s legs, hurrying over, the guy here to research alchemic immortality behind him looking like he’d rather be somewhere else. Like asleep.

Wei Ying related. “Hey kid. Didn’t we say you should stick with your guardians?”

“Good luck getting him to do that,” the man—ah, what was his name again? Kuroba, right? Kuroba Kaito, jeeze Wei Ying needed caffeine—said. “Edogawa has a reputation.”

“Mr. Kuroba, Edogawa Conan,” Lan Zhan said.

“This brat is going to give Mouri-chan a panic attack, but obviously it’s more important to find out who died now.”

“Shut up!” Edogawa said with a truly impressive scowl.

“Huh.” Wei Ying glanced between them. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

“Oh,” Kuroba said with a long-suffering look, “we’ve definitely met. So, who’s dead now?”

“What makes you think someone is dead?” Lan Zhan asked, his natural blank face keeping any hint of his thoughts at bay.

Kuroba, who could have just as good of a blank face as Lan Zhan, gave him a deadpan stare. “It’s always someone dying when Edogawa is around.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Edogawa snapped. He looked like a different child than the one Wei Ying met before, but maybe he was just less polite and more aggressive toward people he knew well. “There are plenty of times no one dies. You make it sound like I have corpses falling from the sky when I’m around.”

“Didn’t that happen?” Kuroba said.

“Falling out of a building doesn’t count.”

Oh wow, Wei Ying was getting more concerned for this child by the second, but he really couldn’t even start digging into that problem until they’d done something about the current one. “Yeah, there is someone else dead,” Wei Ying said softly, hoping no one overheard.

“Who?” Edogawa demanded. “Where was the body found? Cause of death?”

Wei Ying looked to Lan Zhan because he really was too tired to deal with this.

“Another from the same group,” Lan Zhan said calm as could be. “We have yet to learn the particulars.”

“I can help,” Edogawa said.

“Oh hell no,” Wei Ying said. It came out in English even though he was thinking it in Mandarin. “We already had this conversation. You’re a child. Children shouldn’t be interacting with corpses.”

“Thank you!” Kuroba said. “I’m so glad someone said it because it’s really unnerving.”

“Oh, come on! You’ve helped me solve cases before!” Edogawa said, glaring up at Kuroba.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to solve them! Other people can figure things out!”

Edogawa shot into a furious sounding mess of Japanese that had Kuroba grimacing and rolling his eyes.

Wei Ying was losing patience with this. “Look, you just. Stay. We need to find out what the hell is going on.”

Kuroba grimaced again. “Actually, can we tag along? It’s probably safer than him sneaking out.”

“I thought it was his guardian that was the detective,” Wei Ying said to Lan Zhan in Mandarin. “If this didn’t involve ghosts, I’d say drag him along.”

“It would be better to keep an eye on Edogawa,” Lan Zhan said slowly. “His curse might be part of what is happening.”

“You think? I thought it seemed pretty clearly a spirit with a grudge.”

“Mm, but perhaps the curse has a side effect of boosting resentment. If that were the case…”

“Ah. It would tip a scale from a mild threat to a serious one.”

“And perhaps be enough to lead to people near him to commit murder if they were already contemplating it.”

Well, that was a terrifying thought. It made him want to ask how big a range the deaths this kid ran across. If it was concentrated around where he lived, then there could be a plottable range of a curse’s effects. And it could be cumulative, the longer someone was in the range, the more likely they’d reach the conclusion that murder was the solution to whatever their problem was.

Who the hell even came up with something like that??

“Lan Zhan, I don’t think I’m qualified enough to deal with that level of a curse,” Wei Ying said, exhausted.

“Mm, set it aside for now. One problem at a time.”

“Right.” Just a ghost and maybe a fierce corpse that shouldn’t have been able to become a fierce corpse, and a dead girl and a missing corpse. And a child who might be escalating things by accident just by existing. Lovely. On the other hand, Kuroba had abnormally good luck, finding things in the library that Wei Ying hadn’t even known existed that actually related to what the man was researching. With any luck, maybe some of that good fortune would cancel out some of Edogawa’s and they wouldn’t have any more corpses. “You two,” Wei Ying said, switching back to English to point at the two guests so insistent about tangling themselves up in this mess. “You’re staying with each other at all times. Kuroba, you’re his impulse control. And no one is walking around without a partner.”

“He’s my impulse control?” Edogawa said indignantly.

“I didn’t catch him hanging off a wall to spy on a corpse,” Wei Ying said, “so yes, he’s your impulse control.”

Kuroba grinned. “Oh, I think I can do that. Hear that? I have better control than you, Conan-kun.”

“Do you like your shins? Because you’re going to be bruised all over them if you continue.”

Ignoring that sickeningly sweet threat, Wei Ying caught Lan Zhan’s hand. “C’mon. Your uncle is probably having an aneurism.”

*O*O*

Kaito was having a bad day. Morning? Morning. He was having a bad morning because 1, there was a murder. A second murder. 2, he had an annoying detective to keep track of (for multiple reasons of course). 3, he had slept terribly. 4, the inevitable chaos that followed Edogawa was playing havoc with his research time. And 5, he was on his way to see yet another corpse.

Yippie. Just what he wanted to be doing with his day, right? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen more than enough dead bodies killed in violent ways in the last year since Edogawa showed up. Not even a year, really. How had his luck failed so badly that Edogawa Conan managed to show up in a remote, selective, semi-religious retreat in a whole different country?

Really, Kaito had been grasping for straws when he asked Akako about different flavors of immortality. He’d fully expected to be brushed off, but he must have caught her at one of her good moods since she’d written him a recommendation to get in here. They followed a different branch of magic, a different religion, and spoke a different language, but magic communities must all be pretty interconnected because when Kaito reached out, he’d gotten a response and permission to look through their library.

Where had Lady Luck gone to land Edogawa in his lap?

Kaito fully expected the disciples hanging around the infirmary to block their way, but a word from Lan Zhan and they stepped aside, letting Kaito and Edogawa stroll right in. If he hadn’t already known that Lan Zhan was the second in line for being the leader of this place—kind of archaic to have familial leaders, like tiny kingdoms, but who was Kaito to judge—then he’d have probably figured it out with that alone.

People respected Lan Zhan. The only truly surprising thing was how often that respect wasn’t extended toward Wei Ying as well considering how likely it looked that he’d be marrying into the family. Or whatever people did in places where gay marriage wasn’t recognized.

If it were Kaito, he’d hop off to America for a bit and get a legally binding Vegas wedding, but that was just wanting to have a legally binding marriage somewhere even if it wasn’t at home.

…Not that he was all that likely to have a gay marriage in the first place.

Anyway. Corpse! There was a freshly murdered—it was definitely murder; there were hand-shaped bruises on the neck—corpse was set up on an exam table like she was a patient. Except that she was very clearly dead. What with the bruises and the unnatural angle of her neck…

Kaito grimaced. At least this wasn’t a bloody sort of murder.

There was a sharp-eyed man watching over the body. He frowned when he caught sight of their group—or more specifically the people that shouldn’t have been part of it. Kaito gave a little wave, like this was just another part of his daily routine. It was honestly not something he was unfamiliar with by this time, which was a depressing thought.

Edogawa, as typical, zeroed in on the body and ignored everything else around him as irrelevant.

The man said something, a question, and Lan Zhan answered in a few curt words. Kaito was working on it, but his spoken and audial comprehension of Mandarin was still playing catch up to his reading skills. Either way, the man guarding the body didn’t stop Edogawa as the brat walked right up and started looking at the body’s throat.

“Is he always like that?” Wei Ying asked, not even bothering to be subtle as he nodded at Edogawa.

“Pretty much.” Kaito sighed. As Edogawa moved on to examining the woman’s wrists—there were a few bruises there too—Lan Zhan pulled a musical instrument from seemingly nowhere. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the people here bend spatial reality, but it was still made him twitch inside. The magician in him was a little jealous of that kind of technology; imagine the things he could pull off if he wasn’t confined to physical space! The rest of him, the part that prided itself on artistry was annoyed by magical cheats for the sort of thing he would have to pull off with sleight of hand and creative use of mirrors. “What’s that for?” Kaito asked nodding at the string instrument.

“Communication,” Lan Zhan said like that wasn’t the most uncomfortable response he could have had.

Kaito shivered. Yeah, talking to ghosts was now up there with finding a corpse at all.

“It looks like she was killed by someone’s bare hands,” Edogawa said, still focused on the body to the point where he hadn’t even noticed actual magic happening behind him. “You can see the individual finger marks here…” He touched her neck lightly. “But it shouldn’t have been possible to do this much damage. This is… I could expect a gorilla to have that kind of grip, but a human hand—and this was a human hand—shouldn’t have done that much damage, let alone broken her neck the way it did. Breaking someone’s neck bare-handed is usually just leverage. This is practically crushing part of her vertebrae.”

Wei Ying raised an eyebrow in Kaito’s direction. Kaito shrugged. He didn’t really know how to say that Edogawa didn’t know anything about magic—real magic—and was a skeptic without leading to Edogawa having an argument about why magic couldn’t possibly be real with them.

“Anything else?” Wei Ying asked. Lan Zhan started playing, and aside from a glance at him, Edogawa seemed to assume that music was just part of death rituals here.

“She tried to fight, but it was a quick death. There’s a bit of skin under her nails and one of them broke, but most of her injuries seem to be confined to her neck.”

Edogawa frowned. “She shouldn’t have been able to get in here with everyone patrolling, let alone be killed. And then there’s the missing body of the first victim… What happened to him? He couldn’t have just walked away. Although if someone was strong enough to break a neck like that, they were probably strong enough to carry out a corpse single-handedly.”

Kaito and Wei Ying winced. Based on some of the things Kaito had been skimming, there was a pretty real probability that the corpse did in fact walk away. Kaito had never been more unhappy to hear that something like zombies existed, and he dealt with a witch that literally called upon Satan on the regular. It was all well outside Kaito’s area of expertise.

“Could you maybe not touch the corpse?” Wei Ying said, looking a little queasy as Edogawa took out a goddamn glove and started shifting clothing.

“I’m wearing a glove,” Edogawa said.

“…That is not the problem,” Wei Ying muttered under his breath.

“Just let him do his thing,” Kaito advised. “Creepy as it is, this really is normal for him.”

“Does he see a therapist? Because it feels like the sort of thing someone should see a therapist for.”

“You overestimate the willingness to seek out a therapist.”

“I know there’s stigma, but hell, you’re here aren’t you?”

Kaito snorted. “Yeah, we’re not here for the health benefits and you know it.”

“He might be.”

“Mouri-ojisan got free tickets from a lady at the racetracks,” Edogawa said, cutting into the conversation before they could get too off topic. “And the victim has an odd necklace…”

“Let me see,” Wei Ying said, leaning forward.

Kaito joined him. Wei Ying tugged down the victim’s shirt to show… a plain wooden bead that had been stuck on a fine chain. “That’s not the sort of necklace most young women would wear,” Kaito said. The chain was cheap, probably not even silver plated, and the bead looked worn. Paired with the otherwise normal outfit Kaito would expect from a college student spending time at a monastic-ish location—sleeves modestly long, clothing loose but flattering, wearing a simple patterned circle skirt—it was out of place. The victim’s earrings were far nicer comparatively; real silver with teardrop pearls.

How odd.

Wei Ying, however, didn’t appear to be surprised to see the necklace at all. “So she was also wearing it at the time she died,” Wei Ying muttered under his breath, thankfully still in English.

Edogawa jumped on the sentence like a terrier chasing a rat. “Too? Someone else had a bead like this?”

“The first victim,” Wei Ying said. “The beads are from a bracelet their friend owned, worn in his memory.”

Edogawa’s eyes burned with connections being made. “So it’s possible the deaths here are related to their friend’s demise.”

“Yeah,” Wei Ying said with a wry twist of his lips that meant whatever had done the murders was definitely of the supernatural variety, “I think it’s definitely related to that friend’s death.”

“Meaning the others in their group are either killers or the next victims,” Edogawa said, hand on his chin.

“If they stay where they’re supposed to, hopefully there will be no more victims,” Wei Ying said.

“I kind of doubt that’s going to happen,” Kaito said. Considering the track record with basically every time Kaito ended up around Edogawa.

“That’s pessimism talking,” Wei Ying said with forced cheerfulness. To the side, the sound of guqin strings faded to silence. “Lan Zhan. What’d you get?”

“The victim snuck out alone and slipped past the guards while they were changing shifts. I believe she merely intended to view the body of the first victim, but her presence seemed to have triggered resentment, and led to her death.” Lan Zhan reported this with a straight back and neutral expression. It was a little creepy considering he must have been communicating with the dead woman. Kaito suppressed a grimace.

“Thank you, Lan Zhan. Now we have to go tell the remaining guests about a second death…”

Edogawa frowned. “Wait. That’s all conjecture. There’s still no clear proof on who might have killed her, and if it was someone in her group, should we tell them we found her body?”

“Counter argument,” Kaito cut in, “if they’re the next potential victims, they need to know. Two dead friends are pretty convincing evidence that they have something to fear and everything to gain for not going anywhere alone.”

“Besides,” Wei Ying said, “this is going to be a legal shit show already. We’re going to have to make up so many waivers going forward.”

“Didn’t we already have to do that?” Kaito asked. He distinctly remembered skimming a document in English and Mandarin, hoping there wasn’t anything he was missing that he was agreeing to on there.

“I didn’t sign a waiver,” Edogawa said.

“You’re a minor,” Kaito said.

“Mm, normal visitors don’t sign them,” Lan Zhan said softly. “The library is different.”

“Ah.” Magic secrets and all that. Yeah, that made sense.

“Lan Zhan, do you want to be on bad-news duty or corpse searching? Or finding your uncle, I guess…”

“I do not believe I will have much to add to Uncle’s legal efforts. Although perhaps, Wei Ying would be best suited for searching for the first body…?” Lan Zhan tilted his head slightly in question.

Something about the intensity in which he said ‘best suited’ made Kaito’s neck hairs stand on end. Kaito didn’t really know a lot about what Wei Ying was researching in the library. He’d gathered that it was controversial, but the specifics were lost to his limited reading ability.

“Corpse duty it is,” Wei Ying said with a sigh. He rubbed his neck. “Well, Kuroba, Edogawa, you should either go back or stick with Lan Zhan because wandering around isn’t a good idea right now.”

“You’re wandering around,” Edogawa pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m trained to take care of myself with this sort of thing.”

Kaito could practically feel the curiosity warring with confusion in Edogawa’s twisty little brain. Ugh. He almost wanted to go back to his room. But the best place to be to know what was happening was at Edogawa’s side. Or perhaps Wei Ying’s too… If Kaito didn’t think this would blow up, he’d suggest splitting up and letting Edogawa deal with the human aspects while he helped Wei Ying with the supernatural.

That said, things were definitely going to go wrong, and he was probably going to be needed for damage control. Staying with Edogawa it was.

“Then I guess we’re going to break the news to some unhappy people,” Kaito said.

Edogawa looked even more torn for a moment, clearly wanting to see out his curiosity about Wei Ying, and yet also needing to know more about the victims’ friend group. “Fine…”

“Aw, don’t be grumpy,” Wei Ying said. “You’re still not being tossed back in your room.”

“Stop treating me like a little kid.”

“Technically, you are a little kid,” Kaito pointed out.

Edogawa scowled.

“Only technically?” Wei Ying said.

“He has a brain of someone three times that.”

“We will go now,” Lan Zhan cut in. “Wei Ying, stay safe.”

“You too.” Wei Ying leaned in to kiss his boyfriend’s cheek. It was cute, Kaito thought absently. It was rare to see same sex couples openly affectionate in public. It was nice to know that here it was accepted enough to do that even if not in the country as a whole. For all that he was in love with Aoko… well, he’d seen men he couldn’t help looking at before. It was nice to imagine that under different circumstances he might be able to find somewhere or someone to be that way toward.

Edogawa, on the other hand, looked like witnessing this was like watching people make out instead of a kiss on the cheek.

“Are you homophobic?” Kaito asked, in Japanese.

Edogawa twitched. “What? No! I just feel uncomfortable with people kissing in public. It’s like, hey, we’re still right here!”

This was perhaps the most like an actual child thing Edogawa had ever said and meant to Kaito’s face. “Really. Kissing bothers you.”

“Yes!”

Kaito laughed. And laughed harder when Edogawa scowled harder at him than when Wei Ying called him a child. “You’ll—heh—you’ll get it once you—ha—go through puberty!”

“I am going to kick you somewhere painful.”

“Is there a problem?” Lan Zhan asked. Wei Ying had walked away while Kaito was distracted.

Just them, Lan Zhan, a body, and an unhappy looking disciple at the doorway.

“No,” Kaito said back to English, forcing his laughter to subside. Ah, he’d needed that laugh. There was too much stress in his life lately. “I just found something Conan-kun said funny.”

“Then we must go.” Lan Zhan nodded to the disciple and turned away from the corpse.

Kaito followed him leisurely and, predictably, Edogawa trailed behind, glancing back at the corpse.

“What happened to the musical instrument?” Kaito heard Edogawa mutter, but it was quiet enough that it was to himself, so he didn’t answer. Let Edogawa broaden his horizons a bit and learn to accept the inexplicable.

Wasn’t there a Holmes quote about that? Ugh, he needed to stop hanging around Hakuba. He was actually starting to infiltrate his brain…

[wanderinginksplot]

One-Shot: Sev + Motto

Sev x gn!reader fic, features the rest of Delta Squad as supporting characters.

Word Count: 1400 or so

Warnings: reader receives minor injuries (burns) on a mission

---

"Play di’kutla games, win di’kutla prizes."

If you had heard Sev say it once, you had heard him say it a thousand times.

Working with Delta Squad was normally fine. Honestly, it was outright entertaining on a regular basis. As an expert in untraceable comms, you were often partnered with commando squads. Infiltrating enemy planets was a norm in your job, and you made sure the squads could communicate with each other and nearby GAR ships regardless of which side controlled the planetside communications systems.

Delta was one of your favorite groups. Fixer was direct and to-the-point, efficient beyond all else. Scorch was side-splittingly funny, even in the middle of an intense battle. Sev was funny as well, though his humor was darker and full of wickedly clever observations. Boss was a natural leader, and he never felt the need to throw his authority around to make a point. More importantly, Delta Squad accepted you as one of their own, and your work with them was seamless in a way it wasn’t among other commando squads.

Of course, that also meant that you were subject to the same treatment as any other member of Delta Squad.

“Watch your fingers!” Fixer warned. “Heat gloves are standard issue for a reason.”

“Does it look like I have time to put on gloves?” you demanded. “Focus on covering me, and I’ll get this done.”

Two minutes, forty-seven seconds later, you had finished setting up the tower and taken a major step toward establishing communications on the Separatist-controlled planet. You would never admit it to Fixer, but you had thoroughly burnt several of your fingers on the superheated durasteel of the communication diverter’s inner core.

Crawling back through the brush to avoid enemy detection was awful. It may not have been so bad, but the burns were scattered across both of your hands and they were already beginning to blister.

You made it back in good time, despite the injuries you were trying to hide. Boss and Scorch had been the other team, going to plant detonators in the appropriate spots. Despite the comparative complexity of your task, you and Fixer were the first ones back. Sev was there to greet you, scowling at the pair of you.

“Took you long enough,” he grumbled.

“Excuse me, are we not the first team to finish?” you asked, satisfaction clear in your voice.

“Yeah, but if you had been faster, we would have an update on Boss and Scorch by now,” Sev countered. “You know how Scorch gets around too many thermal dets. He may have blown himself up by now and we missed it.”

“Considering how many detonators he had, I’m sure we would have seen the explosion from here,” Fixer told him.

You laughed at the solid point - half because Fixer was funny when he wanted to be and half to release the anxiety and adrenaline of a successfully completed stealth mission.

Fixer leveled an unimpressed look at you. “Besides, some of us could spend this time treating the injuries we’re trying to hide.”

“You got hurt?” Sev asked, frowning at you. From any other squad, it might have sounded like concern, but you immediately spotted it for what it was: a vague irritated belief that you would slow them down.

"Barely," you snorted. "Minor burns, nothing to worry about."

"Until the blisters pop and leave you open to infection," Fixed countered, already taking over the observation post Sev had been manning. "Oh-Seven, take care of it, please? I'm not up to playing medic right now."

"Oh, so I have to?" Sev griped.

You stood up, throwing a look of disgust at the pair. "I think I'll patch myself up, thanks."

You had barely cracked open Delta Squad's first aid kit when heavy footsteps warned that someone had followed you. You ignored Sev's red-streaked armor as he stepped up behind you, focusing instead on spreading bacta gel across the tender burns on your hands.

"Here, just- Would you let me do that?" Sev asked impatiently, taking the gel from your hands.

"I could do it myself," you told him, a little pointlessly, since he had already taken over.

"I know you could, but it'll be faster if you let me."

Sev had removed his helmet, and he had the stubborn set to his jaw that warned that he wasn't going to let this go. Rather than waste both of your time, you rolled your eyes and stuck out your hands. He knelt in front of you, the kit open beside him, and started to apply the bacta gel.

He worked in silence for a few minutes, callused fingers oddly gentle against your skin, until you couldn't take it anymore. "Go ahead, say it."

"Say what?" Sev asked, looking up at you with a frown on his scarred face.

"What you always say," you explained with a frown of your own. "Come on, it's basically your motto."

"I don't have a motto," Sev told you slowly. "I'm not some idiot with a motto. I'm not Scorch."

"Okay, but you can't think of a single phrase you repeat often?" You pressed. "Especially when someone gets hurt doing something you think is stupid?"

"Not really," Sev denied, clearly puzzling it over.

You watched him, aghast at the idea that you had been making up his insulting phrase. As he turned his attention back to your burns, you caught a glimmer in his eye and you nudged him with your foot.

"That's not funny, Sev!" you tried your best to sound furious, but the way you were laughing detracted from the effect. Sev chuckled along with you. "I thought I was going insane!"

"I wouldn't say it to you," Sev said, finishing the last bandage.

You stared at him. "Yeah, of course not. It isn't like you've said it to me multiple times in past missions."

"Well, those, you actually had done something stupid and you got what you deserved," he told you mercilessly. "But this time, you got hurt trying to complete a mission."

"Yeah, but I wasn't wearing the proper gear," you countered.

Sev didn't look impressed, picking up one of your carefully bandaged hands as he spoke. "I know burns, and heat gloves wouldn't have saved you here. Maybe the burns would have been less intense, but we would also be picking melted synthweave out of your hands."

You squeezed Sev's hand since it was still wrapped around your own. "Thanks for making me feel better, Sev, and for taking care of my hands."

"Well, I have to make sure my favorite comm specialist is willing to work with us again," Sev told you, helping you to your feet.

You had never taken a step away, and from your position standing close to Sev, you stared up with a dumb grin spreading across your face. "I'm your favorite comm specialist?"

"You're my favorite anything specialist," he told you and you beamed at him. To your complete shock, he returned your smile, his handsome face glowing with the quiet happiness of the moment.

You began to speak, though you had no idea what you planned to say. Unfortunately - or fortunately - you were interrupted by the arrival of Sergeant Boss and Scorch. Delta Squad's leader was supporting Scorch, who limped along making exaggerated noises of pain.

"Scorch, what happened? Are you okay?" you asked, horrified that he had been hurt.

"I didn't bring enough fuse," Scorch answered, immediately dropping his pained attitude - though his limp didn't change a bit. "Had to run from the site and I twisted my ankle."

"Well, play di'kutla games, win di'kutla prizes," Sev told him sourly as you shot him a disbelieving grin.

"Yeah, yeah," Scorch muttered. "This team doesn't appreciate my talents."

"Talents," Fixed scoffed.

"Of course!" Scorch replied, sounding offended. "It takes talent to get hurt this often and not die."

"The Kaminoans may have bred us for tenacity, but I don't think that's what they had in mind," Boss told him. "There's something to be said for learning from your mistakes."

"Isn't anyone on my side?" Scorch complained, eyeing you pointedly.

You sighed, but threw him some sympathy anyway. "I'm on your side, Scorch. I'm glad you're okay."

Fixer cut short Scorch's gloating. "That's only because you weren't the only one who was injured doing something stupid today."

Scorch gave you a commiserating nod. "Did Sev give you the speech, too?"

You glanced up at Sev. The scarred commando was watching you as he tried to bite back a smile. You shot him a subtle wink and said, "Yeah, something like that."

---

A/N - dedicated to myself, because I say "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" way too often for someone who is usually the one playing the stupid game. Feel free to visit my masterlist for other one-shots and series, or make a request!

[3rensgf]

rent a gf - two eren yeager x reader

word count: 2.9k

warnings: mentions of sex, talks about "getting bitches", eren is an idiot, fuckboy!eren implied, tatbilb mention, uhh fluff idk theres not much to warn abt in here, not beta read

notes: chapter two is out! i'm really glad a lot of people are enjoying rent a gf. it really means a lot! i see some people commented on the previous chapter, and i would love to reply to them, but i'm not familiar with tumblrs commenting system D: if you wanna leave a comment for me to just read, that's fine you can still keep commenting here on tumblr. but if you would like me to reply to it, you can comment on ao3, and i will reply! happy reading :) p.s, waffles w whipped cream r so much better

[ read on ao3 ]

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In the early hours of Saturday morning, you felt a hand shaking your shoulder to wake you. Groaning and mumbling, you sleepily swatted the hand away and pulled the covers over your head. No one should be forced to wake up early on the weekends. It was Saturday, for fucks sake. Not to mention your hangover due to last nights mistakes was making your head throb.

The hand rested on your shoulder once more, shaking you gently. “(Y/N),” Mikasa said softly. “Your alarm has been going off for the past 10 minutes. Wake up. I have water and Advil.”

“Nooooo,” you moaned, snuggling deeper into your bed. “Don’ wanna.”

Mikasa stopped bothering you for a moment, and you let your guard down. Finally you could sleep. When it was time to wake up, you’d wake up.

Right as you were about to pass out again, your blanket was roughly tugged off of you. “Mikasaaa!” you whined, covering your face with your hands. “What was that for? I was trying to sleep.”

“Get up. You have to shower and get ready for lunch with Eren today. Breakfast is almost finished,” she explained, setting down the pills and water on your bedside table. “Go brush your teeth and wash your face so you can eat. Now,” she instructed sternly, moving to your window to open the curtains. The bright sunlight hit your still half-asleep face, making you hiss quietly.

She left the room moments after, probably to check up on breakfast. Honestly, you didn’t know how she could function this early in the morning despite having partied all night last night. Curse her and her inability to get hungover.

Grumbling to yourself, you adjusted your sleep clothes that had gotten disheveled overnight to make sure you looked decent. Your sleepy gaze wandered over to your nightstand to see two Advils on a napkin beside a glass of cold water. Thanking every higher power for sending Mikasa to you, you downed both pills and the glass of water. Even though you might bitch and moan to her constantly, you really weren’t lying when you said you’d die without Mikasa.

After sitting down at the edge of your bed for a few moments, you eventually shuffled into the bathroom to brush your teeth and do your morning routine. It took longer than usual thanks to your sluggish and tired movements, but you got done nevertheless.

A wonderful aroma came from the kitchen when you left, stomach grumbling in anticipation for the wonderful food you were about to scarf down. Mikasa was in the process of setting down both your breakfasts on the island, sitting down on the stools when you walked in. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” she greeted, resting her chin on her hands.

“Morning, sweet angel,” you replied, sitting at the stool beside her. In front of you was a plate of Funfetti pancakes with whipped cream instead of maple syrup (syrup was for pancakes only). There were a couple of cut up fruits beside them, too. “Where did you get these?” you asked, picking up your fork to take a bite of your breakfast.

Mikasa dug into her own breakfast of oatmeal as soon as you started eating. “Went grocery shopping and saw the mix in the baking aisle. I thought you’d like it,” she explained, taking a bite of her food. “Good?”

Your response was a moan, tilting your head back as you chewed. “Insanely,” you said, cutting up another bite. You stabbed the piece with your fork and guided it to Mikasa, keeping your hand under it to catch anything if it dropped.

She finished her bite and leaned in to take the bite, humming in satisfaction at the taste. “Good,” she nodded.

“They put like crack ‘n this shit,” you said through a full mouth, shoveling forkful after forkful into your mouth.

You could feel Mikasa's judging gaze for eating like a pig, but you didn’t care. All you cared about was eating these crack laced waffles as greedily as possible. “What time are you supposed to meet Eren today?” she asked to make conversation.

You remember drunkenly slurring to her that Eren was supposed to take you out for lunch today while she was trying to put you to bed. All she did was nod and dodge your flailing limbs while she tried to change you into your night clothes.

“Uhhh,” you trailed off, “I dunno actually. I think he’s gonna text me when.” The familiar notification from your phone indicated you had a text from Eren. “Right now.”

ren ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ - 9:04 AM picking u up at 12 dont be late

you - 9:04 AM k

ren ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ - 9:05 AM dont use k with me that makes me sad :(

you - 9:05 AM k

“He says 12,” you told Mikasa, setting your phone back down on the table. You went to go take another bite of your waffles, only to be met with stray bits of whipped cream and waffle crumbs. How disappointing.

“You have time to get ready then,” she said, finishing up the last bit of her own breakfast. Holding her plate, she got up to go put it in the sink, taking your plate for you as well. Literally an angel.

Suddenly, she leaned in to sniff you like the weird English professor you had your freshman year and cringed. “You’re gonna need all the time you can get. You stink.”

Never mind, not an angel.

Grumbling and cursing under your breath, you got off the stool to go take a shower. “And here I was about to offer to get you something for lunch while I was out.”

“A burger from the joint I like would be nice. So would a Coke and side of onion rings.”

“Size?”

“Medium for both.”

You would’ve caved in and bought her something, anyways. Might as well know what she wanted in the first place.

Showering took longer than expected. Most of your time got wasted by you standing under the shower stream and soaking in all the warmth. It wasn’t until Mikasa knocked on the door asking you not to use up all the hot water that made you actually start going through your routine.

The clock read 10:09 when you got out. You still had more time to kill until Eren came, so you elected to sit on your bed in your towel to scroll through social media. At 10:45, you started to get ready for real now.

Your makeup was just enough to cover any imperfections on your face, and your outfit cute enough for a lunch outing with your friend-fuckbuddy.

At 11:50, you stepped out into the living room with your belongings in hand to lounge around while you waited for Eren. You would’ve gone to bug Mikasa, but she had just stepped into the shower minutes prior.

12 on the dot, a rhythmic knocking was rapped on your door, meaning Eren was finally here. Skipping over to the door, you opened it to reveal him while slipping on your shoes.

“Hey,” he grinned when the door opened. He leaned in to give you a kiss on the lips after you’d straightened up from putting on your shoes.

A grin found its way on your lips during the kiss. It only lasted a couple of seconds, ending with you pulling away with a quiet smack. “Hi,” you greeted back.

“Ready to go?” he asked, one hand leaving his jacket pocket to jut his thumb down the hallway towards the elevators.

“Yup, ready,” you said. Over your shoulder, you yelled into the apartment to say goodbye to Mikasa and locking the door once you closed. “Okay, ready for real now.”

There was a new hot pot restaurant near campus, Eren told you, that he so desperately wanted to try. He overheard some people talking about the place in his Stats class, and he’s been wanting to go ever since.

“So, about what I told you last night,” he said, leaning on the table close to you after giving your orders to the waitress. “You said you would help me get Mina.”

“I said it was a bad idea,” you countered, taking a sip of your drink.

“But you said you would help me. For a price.”

“That I… did say,” you sighed. “What’s your plan?”

Smiling, he opened up his jacket and dug into the inner pockets, getting out a small notepad and a pen. Your eyebrows raised at the sight of them. “Okay,” he started, flipping through his notepad. “So I was thinking about it this morning, and this is what I have down so far.”

Sliding it towards you, he waited impatiently for you to read what he had.

Your lips pursed to prevent giggled from leaving your lips. Well, it was a plan, alright. Written in Eren’s chicken scratch of handwriting were a few very simple steps.

eren yaegers fool proof plan to get bitches get mina aka operation rent a gf by eren yaeger 1. talk to mina to get her interested in you ✓ 2. get hot girl ((Y/N)) to pretend to be your gf and show you can be a good bf 3. get mina jealous so she wants you even more and not poopy thomas wanker 4. “break up” with (Y/N) and pretend to be sad 5. get mina to comfort you 6. get bitches make mina your gf 7. pay (Y/N) for her services 8. ta-da!

When you looked up from the notepad, you saw Eren waiting for your answer. “Well? What do you think? Is it any good?” he asked.

“Were you high when you wrote this?” was the first thing you asked him. Eren shook his head innocently. “You’re 100% serious?” He nodded.

You bit your lip, deep in thought about Eren’s supposedly fool proof plan. “What makes you think it’s gonna work?”

“I know girls and how they act. If Paradis University let me major in women -- don’t get smart with me I don’t mean Women Studies -- I would be passing all my classes with flying colors. I know it’ll work, trust me,” he said cockily, leaning back in his chair.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. I know you. I know everything about you, (Y/N). I even know how to make you scream my name in--”

“Okay!” you cut him off, not wanting the strangers around you to know the intimate details of your sex life with Eren. “Okay.”

“I knew you were gonna do that. See, I do know women.”

A moment or two passed, both of you staring at each other. You with a deadpan expression, and him with a proud one. You were the first one to break the silence with a heavy sigh. “Okay, say I agree to this. What do I get in return?”

“Anything you want,” he said. “Within reason, of course. Please don’t ask me to like, hide a body or something.”

Ignoring his last comment, you continued speaking, “You’re not allowed to back out of whatever I ask you to, right? If this plan fails or succeeds, you still owe me whatever you promised.”

Eren nodded. “Of course. I swear on it.” He shifted a little so his elbow was on the table, holding out a pinky. Instinctively, you held out your pinky as well and intertwined the both of them. Pinky promises were something you and Eren had been doing for years now. It meant that the other was dead serious on their promise.

The waitress came back with your broth and dipping ingredients, setting them on the table for you right when your pinkes left each other. Thanking the waitress, the two of you talked some more while you waited for the broth to heat up.

“We should make it official. With a contract and set of rules,” he said. “Like that one movie you forced me to watch with you. The Boys I Loved or some shit like that.”

“To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” you corrected.

“Yeah, that. They’re kinda doing something like us, yeah?”

“Guess so,” you shrugged, picking up your chopsticks and a sice of pork belly when the broth started to boil. “After we eat though.”

Idle chatter was shared between the two of you as you ate. Even though you saw each other nearly every day, you never ran out of things to talk to. You could be talking about complete nonsense or how quantum physics made no sense, and you would still have the best time of your life.

By now, the broth had been drunk up and the table had been cleared out to be replaced with banana milk and ice cream. Eren brought out his notepad again to write down the set of rules for your fake relationship while enjoying your desserts.

Good progress had been written so far on the notepad. Both of you had given input and criticism on each rule made. In the end, you finally had a good set of rules written down.

(Y/N) and erens contract and rules for eren yaegers fool proof plan to get mina aka operation rent a gf by eren yaeger 1. act normally. eren and (Y/N) act like a couple already. just double the pda a little more 2. don’t tell anyone about the deal. the more people who believe in the relationship, the more likely it is for the plan to work 3. post each other on ig a lot. maybe add names and a date to bios to make it more believable 4. date night every saturday (go out or just hang out) 5. go to parties together 6. walk each other to class if you can 7. call each other cute pet names 8. after breaking up, the couple act has to stop including the sex 9. DON’T SLIP UP

payment for (Y/N):

Eren tapped a beat on the notepad, reading “payment” over and over again. Eventually he looked up at you, deep in thought. “Have you thought of anything so far?” he asked, clicking the pen to write what you wanted.

This was a tough decision. Eren was ready to give you anything to help him get Mina. You had to be wise and pick something big to take advantage of him. Something you were sure you wouldn’t ever regret getting.

“How about,” you started, trailing off, “you do my laundry for the rest of our time at ParadisU, buy me lunch every Wednesday even after we break up, recommend that godsend of a tutor you keep gatekeeping to help me too, and…”

“And?” Eren asked, looking up from his writing, waiting for your next words.

“All the orgasms I want during our relationship,” you finished, satisfied with what you chose.

“Is that all?” he asked, writing down the last of your words. “That’s a lot.”

“How about I let you know if I wanna add more,” you said. Eren nodded in response. His head hung to look at the notepad again, writing something down. Once he was done, he plaed the pen on the pad and slid it to you.

“Sign it so it’s official,” he instructed.

There were two lines beside each other, one already with Eren’s signature. Without hesitation, you signed your name neatly on the paper, giving the items back to Eren once you were done.

(Y/N) and erens contract and rules for eren yaegers fool proof plan to get mina aka operation rent a gf by eren yaeger 1. act normally. eren and (Y/N) act like a couple already. just double the pda a little more 2. don’t tell anyone about the deal. the more people who believe in the relationship, the more likely it is for the plan to work 3. post each other on ig a lot. maybe add names and a date to bios to make it more believable 4. date night every saturday (go out or just hang out) 5. go to parties together 6. walk each other to class if you can 7. call each other cute pet names 8. after breaking up, the couple act has to stop including the sex 9. DON’T SLIP UP

payment for (Y/N): eren has to do the (Y/N)’s laundry for the rest of university, buy her lunch ever wednesday, get tutor to help her and give her as many orgasms as she wants during the course of the relationship

signed x eren yaeger x (y/n) (l/n)

The two of you shook hands when Eren put away his things, to seal the deal again. The waitress came by again to give you the bill and collect your dirty dishes. Eren set down the cash needed to pay along with a tip in the check presenter before the two of you left.

You walked hand in hand back to Erens car before you realized you missed something. “Wait. What do we tell people when they ask how we got together?” you asked, pausing in your tracks.

Eren stopped with you, turning to look at you. “Um, you can say I confessed after lunch, and that this is technically our first date,” he suggested, tugging your hand to walk back to the car.

“Huh. Okay. That works,” you nodded.

The two of you got into the car a little bit past 2:30 in the afternoon, ready to go home. “Wait,” you said again, making Eren pause. “Mikasa wanted a burger from that one joint near our apartment. Could you take me there first?”

Eren smiled and nodded, starting the car. “Of course. Burger with medium Coke and onion rings?”

“How did you know?”

“She always gets that when we go there.”

“Huh… I guess you’re right.”

“When am I not?”

"Always."

taglist - @thestrugglesofateenagedirtbag , @lazalee , @countthemoons , @se-va-muriendo-mialma , @liaxxx109 , @prxttyguardian , @jeansbabycake

italic names, it wouldn't let me tag you!

3rensgf © 2021 ; do not repost or translate my work.

[quillsandtypos]

Pretzels, Popcorn, and Winners

Summary: Peter simply won't leave you alone to watch a movie till you finally turn the tables. But can you keep the tables turned?

Warnings: none but this fic is basically just a tickle fight

Words: 1.8k

Pairings: none but could definitely be read as Peter Parker x reader

...........................................

You quickly took your seat next to your best friend on the large sectional in the middle of the Avenger’s living room. Peter and you had decided to watch a move on one of your days off of school and hero work.

“Peter, did you grab my popcorn?” you called out as Peter messed with something in the kitchen behind you.

A large popcorn bowl quickly appeared overhead. “Thank you!” You gladly took the popcorn bowl and immediately started munching on it.

“Wait, you can’t eat it yet, the movie hasn't started!” He attempted to pull the popcorn bowl out of his hands, but you held it out of his reach.

“Then play the movie then!” you argued, as you still protected the bowl.

“Fine, but you’re no fun,” Peter said with a faux irritated eye roll. You chose to ignore it in favor of watching the movie.

But apparently, Peter had other plans. You probably hadn’t even got five minutes into your movie when Peter reached for your popcorn.

“Peter, you have your own snack!” you pointed out as you held it above your head.

Peter’s mischievous face matched your amused one. “I know, but I want your’s,” he pleaded, as he still reached for your popcorn.

“Well you’re not getting it,” you said as you stretched it further out of reach.

Peter's eyes seemed to glitter as a sly grin formed on his face. “You do know I could stand up to get it right?”

You cocked your head, you knew your best friend well enough to know that you were going to win this argument. “Are you going to bother to stand up?”

He thought for a moment as he considered his options before giving up with a shrug. “Mhmm, probably not.”

“That’s what I thought,” you said smugly.

After another five minutes had passed you found that Peter’s mood had somehow infected you. You waited until he was fully engrossed in the movie before slowly snaking your arm over to his pretzel bowl, but just as you were about to pull your arm away with a handful of pretzels, Peter’s hand grabbed a hold of your wrists.

Peter raised an eyebrow. “What exactly do you think you’re doing with that?”

You perfectly matched his body language. “You tried to take my popcorn, I think this is perfectly fair.”

“But I didn’t take it,” Peter pointed out.

“That’s because you’re,” you poked his chest with your free hand, “way too short to,” you scoffed.

“I’m not even that much shorter than you!” Peter released your wrist to throw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

“It’s okay, I still love you Lil Petey,” you teased as you happily ate your stolen pretzels.

If it was possible Peter glarred more, but you noted the smile he was trying to fight off. “I hate you.”

“You wish,” you laughed.

Peter shook his head but he turned back to watch the movie. You soon found yourself engrossed in the movie. Now that you were getting into the plot of it, it was actually fairly interesting. But just as you were on the edge of your seat you felt someone squeeze your side.

You didn’t bother to let your eyes leave the tv screen. “Peter, don’t start shit you can’t finish,” you sang.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.” You didn’t have to look over at him to know that he was lying, or that he was trying to look innocent and failing miserably. You chose not to give him the satisfaction of answering him. That was until you felt another squeeze at your side.

“Peter,” you warned. This time your eyes drifted over to his.

“What?” His grin grew wider, but so did the devious glance in your eyes.

“I will beat you at this,” you smirked.

“You’re joking, right? I would wreck you,” he gloated.

“Maybe,” you shrugged. To Peter’s surprise, you turned back to the movie. He eyed you curiously, he was certain that you were going to try to do something, but you didn’t seem to be up to anything. He cautiously went back to watching tv, but just as he did you jumped on top of him, successfully pinning him to the couch.

“But I’d wreck you first,” you whispered as you squeezed his sides in unison.

“Whahahahit y/n nohohoh!” he giggled. Peter was desperately trying to pull your hands off his sides, but to no avail, he was laughing too hard to use his strength.

“You know you’re too short to get away, right? You’re stuck here Pete,” you teased as you noted his failing attempts.

“Liahahar,” he retorted. Even in his unfortunate state he still wouldn’t give in. You weren’t in the slightest bit surprised, but you decided to play along.

You held one hand up to your heart. “Peter I am honestly offend-” you had started to say, but removing your other hand had given Peter the opportunity to flip the tables.

He immediately started squeezing right at your hip bones, which he knew killed you.

“Peter!” you screeched. It felt like your nervous system was being played like a piano. All you could do was laugh, you couldn’t even tame your reactions.

“What, does it tickle y/n?” he asked. Though you both knew it wasn’t really a question.

You managed to wheeze out a response. “Shuhuht uhuhp!”

“Aw, I bet your face is so warm right now,” Peter taunted.

You couldn’t answer from all of the screams and laughter coming out of your mouth, but you could feel your cheeks heating up. But that evidently wasn’t enough for Peter, considering that he was still teasing you.

“I bet you couldn’t wipe the smile off your face if you tried.” If he hadn’t pinned you, you would’ve had him on the ground screaming in that moment. You sincerely wished you could wipe the evil smirk off of Peter’s face but he was not giving your hips a break.

“Oh, I have an idea!” he suddenly blurted out. His hands finally moved away from your hips, but just as he did, his face tucked down to blow on your stomach. You screeched as your feet kicked out at the air.

After your third raspberry, you had decided that you need to turn the tables somehow. So just as he pulled away from another raspberry you took your chance to dance your fingers around his neck. Peter practically ducked and rolled to get away from your hand, and you had pinned him again in a second.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait-NO!” Peter screeched as you scuttled your hands across his neck.

“See, all it takes is one poke to your neck and you’re done for,” you grinned.

“Fuhuhuck ohohff,” Peter giggled.

“Oh, and you can’t forget the saying about people who have really ticklish necks,” you said ominously.

“Whahaht?” Peter asked, as he unknowingly played right into master plan.

You bent down so your mouth was parallel to his ear. “Everywhere else is worse,” you whispered. Before he could figure out what you were doing, your hands darted down to claw at his ribcage, and Peter practically screamed.

“Sthohohop!” Peter barely squeaked out.

“What? I thought you’ve told me that teasing doesn’t affect you?” you asked smugly.

“Youhoho are so dead!” he yelled.

“That was so intimidating with your eyes all scrunched up because you’re totally not the most ticklish person ever,” you said, sarcastically as ever.

“Shut up!” he screeched like a pterodactyl.

“What was that you said earlier? Right! I have an idea!” You quickly reminded him of his earlier torture of you by blowing a raspberry right on his neck.

Peter’s laughter went silent, but his body did not. His arms desperately tried to push away your head as his legs twisted from side to side.

You paused for a moment to look at him. “Aww, Peter are you blushing?”

His face turned an even brighter red at your mention, but pausing to take it in was your first mistake.

You were once again underneath him, but this time you noted that you couldn’t move your arms. He had webbed your hands to the floor, which left you with no way to escape, until he decided you were done.

“Now, for the real tickling to begin,” he paused, “after you tell me your worst spot,” Peter instructed.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise. “I’m not telling you that.” You subconsciously looked down to where Peter was sitting for a split second, but the second was long enough for Peter.

“Ahh, so it’s your thighs,” Peter concluded.

You bit your lip in anticipation. Peter’s hands hovered just above them, and you couldn’t help but let a few nervous giggles slip out.

“I have a deal,” he started as his hands neared closer to your legs. “If you admit defeat, I won’t tickle you anymore.”

You stubbornly shook your head and you clamped your mouth down more.

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Based on Peter’s smile, you were certain that you had given him the exact answer he wanted.

His hands hovered just centimeters away from your thighs and they began to wiggle as he counted down. He was counting painfully slow, but you wouldn’t look away.

“3…...2….-” His hands latched onto your thighs before he hit one.

You would’ve yelled at him for cheating, but your belly laughter was using too much of your air. It was loud, and it seemed to fill the whole space with a sort of light, a light that Peter couldn’t help but grin at too.

He squeezed up and down your thighs just as you had done to his sides. “If you admit that I won, then I’ll stop,” Peter sang. You knew he was taunting you, but you weren’t willing to give in just yet.

“Fine, if that’s how you want it.” His hands moved down to squeeze just above your kneecap and your laughter went silent.

“Fine!” you screamed. Peter stopped and looked at you.

“You win,” you admitted quietly.

He smiled in satisfaction, but he cupped his hand to his ear. “What was that?”

You would’ve crossed your arms if you could’ve. “Peter you have super hearing, I know you heard that.”

Peter squeezed above your knees again.

“Fine, you won!” you yelled.

“That’s what I thought,” he laughed.

Peter finally released you from his web fluid and offered you a hand up. You each took your spots on the couch again, but this time you made sure to stay a safe distance from him.

“I hate you,” you joked as you finally got your blankets situated again.

Peter returned your grin. “You wish.”

The two of you peacefully existed for the rest of the day, happily enjoying one another's presence. Or at least you did till Tony questioned why he could hear your laughter from five floors down, and then Peter and you took off again.

[robininthelabyrinth]

My prompt is just more trans au. Various people reacting to baobei. Just i love trans au so much thank u for this gift.

Baobai Pt 1 - on tumblr, on ao3

-

“Oh, hey, you have a kid,” Wei Wuxian said, out of lack of any other conversational topics that weren’t ‘so are you here to kill us all?’. Kids were usually a good, neural topic, especially when they were that small. “Look at her, she’s so tiny! Her parents know you brought her out here?”

“She’s da-ge’s,” Lan Xichen said with a smile and a nod towards Nie Mingjue, who as tall and terrifying as always. He was glowering at the half-grown radish fields as if he was personally offended by them.

“Congratulations, Chifeng-zun,” Wei Wuxian said to him, hoping to stave off any impending violence. The baby was young enough that the mom was probably still in isolation recovering, and maybe hadn’t consented to said baby being brought to the Burial Mounds of all places - certainly Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have agreed to cart a small infant all the way from Qinghe, and he’d thought mothers preferred to remain near their children in the few months after birth - but Wei Wuxian was not really in a position to object.

Certainly not after the quick work Nie Mingjue’s saber made of all of his defensive arrays. That man was scary.

“Thank you,” Nie Mingjue said, and it was awkward for a moment until he added, “Pain in the ass to acquire.”

That made everything better: Wei Wuxian knew how to deal with snark. “Oh yeah? Carried her yourself, did you?”

“Ten fucking months,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wei Wuxian laughed and shot Lan Xichen a wink, figuring that his stupid joke about having given birth to A-Yuan had made the rounds. Funny, he wouldn’t have pegged Lan Wangji to be the sort of person to pass on jokes…

At that point, Nie MIngjue twisted his head around to look at Wen Ning and Wen Qing, who were hovering nearby, trying to hide A-Yuan behind their legs, and said, “She’s your cousin three times removed, if I have my family tree down right, so stop being queasy and let the kid come see her.”

“Fuck,” Wen Qing said, and abruptly sat down. “I’m sorry.”

Wei Wuxian had the distinct feeling he was missing something, especially when Wen Ning’s expression shifted from equally puzzled to outright horrified.

“It’s not exactly your fault, you’re not soldiers,” Nie Mingjue said, and glared at the radish field again. “But in all seriousness: let the kid see her.”

Wen Qing waved a vague hand at A-Yuan, who correctly interpreted it as permission and zoomed over to the baby as fast as his little legs could carry him. He was in that another-kid-how-cool phase that all kids had, and babies were a particular fascination.

“You’re cousins?” Wei Wuxian asked Nie Mingjue, feeling a bit weird about. Three times removed wasn’t close, but still…of all people...“With the Wen sect? You?”

Nie Huaisang made a strangled noise that from anyone else Wei Wuxian would have said sounded a bit like he was going to imminently stab someone.

Nie Mingjue just gave Wei Wuxian a look like he was an idiot. 

“No,” he said very slowly. “I’m not.”

Wei Wuxian continued not to get it, right up until he glanced at Wen Ning who mouthed a name at him and – wait, but no, that’s impossible – but he’d have to be – wait, he was from Qinghe –

Wei Wuxian suddenly noticed that he had sat down on the ground as well at some point.

“Pain in the ass,” he said blankly. “Right.”

Nie Huaisang was glaring at him like he really was going to pull out his never-used saber to start chopping Wei Wuxian into bits, and honestly that might be a preferable option to the sheer awkwardness of having just put two and two together like that in front of so many people. Maybe he could use demonic cultivation to open the ground up beneath him? It’d never been done before, but then again, that was most things he did…

“Why are people so weird about babies?” Nie Mingjue complained, picking up the baby in one arm and a giggling and blissfully ignorant A-Yuan in the other, swinging them both around a bit. “They’re like – lumps of little people. We were all babies once. It’s not that weird.”

“You heard him,” Jin Guangyao said to Wei Wuxian with a smile that looked like it had daggers in it. “It’s not weird at all. Right?”

“Right!” Wei Wuxian said hastily.

Apparently scary people flocked together. Though, did that mean there something he was missing about Lan Xichen..?

-

Lan Xichen smiled at Jin Guangyao, who smiled back. That was really the only good thing about these discussion conferences, he thought – they were long and draining and he had to meet a lot of people he didn’t want to see (Sect Leader Yao ranked highly), but he got to spend a great deal of time with his sworn brothers, which he didn’t often manage. And, really, that made everything worth it.

“How are things going?” he asked in an undertone, scanning Jin Guangyao with his eyes. Madame Jin did not have the reputation for being a kind woman, especially not about her husband’s affairs, and he couldn’t help but worry.

“Manageable,” Jin Guangyao assured him, though it wasn’t really that comforting. “It helps that this conference isn’t at Jinlin Tower – less to arrange, less work to fall on my shoulders. It’s positively easy by comparison. When did you arrive? We’ve been here for a shichen already, setting up.”

“Just now. They’re still moving our things into our rooms –”

“Er-ge! San-ge!” Nie Huaisang’s voice rang out, sharp and clear and murderous; they both turned to look at him at once to try to determine if it was the sort of murderous that meant someone had bought out a painting he’d liked before he got there or if it someone had actually offended him. He had a fixed smile on his face, which boded no one any good. “I was just looking for you. I want to chat.”

“What happened?” Lan Xichen asked, looking around – they were more or less alone, and a quick hand-seal made it so that they wouldn’t be easily overheard. “Did someone do something to Baobei…?”

He couldn’t believe they still hadn’t named her, the poor thing.

(Jin Guangyao had briefly been lobbying for them to name her A-Shi, but then Nie Mingjue told him that if he wanted to have a girl named Nie Shi he ought to man up and sire her himself, and ever since then Jin Guangyao had been proposing different names entirely. Possibly he was concerned Nie Mingjue would take back the offer if he used up the name.)

“Surely not,” Jin Guangyao said. “In the middle of the Lotus Pier…?”

“Not Baobei,” Nie Huaisang said. “But your father just figured out who carried her, and he just – he put his hands – he said he had the right to check on account of da-ge having misled them –”

Lan Xichen observed, a little distantly, that he’d previously thought that the phrase ‘seeing red’ was an exaggeration, rather than a perfectly accurate description.

“Did da-ge rip him to pieces?” Jin Guangyao asked, sounding as if he was very much in favor of that result.

“He did not,” Nie Huaisang said. “You know how he is during these conferences; he’s far too reserved. Slapped his hands away but didn’t do anything else about it.”

“Surely that would put an end to it…?” Lan Xichen suggested, mildly hopeful, but the expression on Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang’s face did not fill him with much expectation.

“He’ll try something,” Jin Guangyao said flatly. His voice tremored briefly, full of rage even he couldn’t hide, and he gripped his hands together tightly. “He will try something.”

“Sect Leader Jiang will help us keep them separate for the conference,” Nie Huaisang said. “He still hasn’t figured out the details of Baobei’s parentage, I think he’s convinced himself that men just bear children – in some way that man is as dumb as a rock, same as when we were teenagers, I don’t know how anyone is that gullible – but he’s offended on da-ge’s behalf anyway. But when the conference is over for the evening…”

“It would be unfilial of me to plan my own father’s assassination,” Jin Guangyao said, and his eyes slide towards Lan Xichen, questioning. “But if you wanted to have a theoretical discussion regarding the security system at Jinlin Tower, and the weaknesses thereof…”

“Yes,” Lan Xichen said, putting aside all concerns regarding the morality of assassinations, and found that he didn’t regret the decision one bit. He’d barely tolerated that lecher when he had no choice, when he was Jin Guangyao’s father and a powerful sect leader. But putting his hands on da-ge – thinking of doing more – “Let’s have that...theoretical discussion.”

“I knew I could count on you two,” Nie Huaisang said with satisfaction. “So here’s what I was thinking –”

-

One of the worst days of Nie Huaisang’s life started quite normally – waking up when his brother lifted him bodily out of bed and slung him over his shoulder.

“Da-ge!” he yelped. “Da-ge, no – it’s too early –”

“If you stayed up late, that’s your own problem,” his brother said with the sort of purposeful cheerful sadism that only a person who actually enjoyed waking up with the sun to go train could employ. “I told you yesterday that we were going to be training this morning.”

“But da-ge –”

“You missed the last three days. You’re not missing today.”

But it’s so fucking early, Nie Huaisang thought despairingly, drooping into dead weight over his brother’s shoulder – not that that helped, of course. His brother was too damn strong.

“Are you sure you’re not taking out your feelings about getting fat on me?” he asked, poking at his brother’s somewhat-rounder-than-usual waist. “That peacetime bulge of yours hasn’t gotten any smaller, you know…”

In all honestly, Nie Huaisang was delighted by the small swell of his brother’s usually flat stomach. His brother wasn’t vain – his body was a tool shaped for purpose – and the idea that his brother had finally let go enough, whether by eating more or resting more, to actually gain some weight…

“Whatever you say, pork bun,” his brother said, and Nie Huaisang yelped and hit him because he was not a pork bun! No matter how pale or chubby he might become!

It was a hot day, which of course made going through the steps of training even more miserable than usual. His brother was patient as always, showing him the steps and then making him repeat them a few times before starting up his own morning training routine; after a while, they both got into a nice rhythm, swings and chops.

Training wasn’t that bad, especially when it meant he could spend more time with his always-busy brother. He still didn’t like it, and obviously he had a reputation to uphold, and yes, it was obnoxious to get up early...but it could be worst.

And then, just as Nie Huaisang was turning to tell his brother a joke he’d heard the day before, he saw his brother abruptly turn pale and fall over.

He even dropped Baxia.

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang screamed, a thousand ancient fears rearing their heads at once, and he rushed over at top speed. “Someone get a doctor! Quick!”

Not a qi deviation, not a qi deviation, don’t be a qi deviation, he prayed, dropping to his knees next to his brother, who was already waking up – eyes clear, not red, and looking more confused than anything else. He’s too young, I’m not ready, I can’t lose him, not him, not yet, please –

On Nie Huaisang’s instructions, some of the nearby retainers helped Nie Mingjue back inside, even though he was insisting that he was fine.

“You collapsed,” Nie Huaisang snapped at him. “In morning training. You are going to see a doctor, and that’s final.”

Nie Mingjue held up his hands in surrender, looking amused at Nie Huaisang’s uncharacteristic fierceness. His amusement faded into sympathy when he realized why Nie Huaisang was so tense – their father’s death had hit them both hard – and he pulled Nie Huaisang into his arms for a hug.

“It’s not that,” he said confidently. “Not yet. The doctor will tell you.”

The doctor’s face did something funny, though, when he listened to Nie Mingjue’s pulse. Not the oh-no-it-really-is-a-minor-qi-deviation sort of funny or even a nah-total-fluke-you’re-overreacting sort of funny, more of a what-the-fuck sort of funny.

“What is it?” Nie Huaisang demanded. He knew enough medicine – the entire Nie sect knew enough medicine – to understand most basic diagnoses, as well as what they might mean for future health. “What type of pulse?”

The doctor hesitated.

“Well?” Nie Mingjue said. “Spit it out.”

“…a joy pulse,” the doctor said. “About five months, I’d guess.”

For a moment Nie Huaisang didn’t understand. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what a joy pulse was – he did have female friends, some of whom were now mothers – nor that he didn’t know that his brother was capable of carrying, he’d known that forever.

It was just that his brother was an antisocial misanthrope. He didn’t have any lovers, as far as Nie Huaisang knew, which meant he shouldn’t have a joy pulse. 

Besides, five months ago they were still at war! His brother took his duties far too seriously to waste time on a battlefield dallying with someone, anyone, and especially not if there was a major battle around that time. Five months ago there must have been one – which one was it?

Five months…the main force of the army had gone up from Xingtai to Shijiazhuang six months ago, and then there would have been – Yangquan.

Yangquan.

When his brother had been duped by false information into leading an attack on what should have been a mostly abandoned outpost, but which turned out to be in the middle of being reinforced by Wen Ruohan personally – when his brother had been captured – tortured – and even -

“Shit,” his brother said, presumably realizing at that exact moment that Nie Huaisang was capable of math and also dates and possibly even logic. “Doctor, you can go, thank you.”

Nie Huaisang didn’t even hear the doctor leave.

“Huaisang…didi…” His brother was trying to pull him into a hug, but Nie Huaisang didn’t want one, struggling unsuccessfully to get away. He didn’t want to be any closer to – to that – to the creature sitting his brother’s stomach, weighing him down; to what he’d thought was a sign of peace and good times and what was actually nothing more than yet another scar left by the war.

He’d actually been happy about it, and the thought twisted his stomach.

“Can you get rid of it?” he asked, voice strangled. “You can, right? It’s still early…”

“Five months is pretty close to quickening,” his brother said, wincing. “After quickening, the medicines don’t work as well. It might not be that easy.”

“Do you know how dangerous childbirth is?!” Nie Huaisang demanded. His mouth was moving on automatic; he wasn’t even thinking about what he was saying. He wasn’t thinking of anything, anything at all, because if he was thinking he’d have to think – he’d have to – his brother – “What if it kills you? You can’t let them kill you! Not after everything we did to avenge A-die!”

“I’m not going to die,” Nie Mingjue said, holding him tightly, his chin on Nie Huaisang’s head the way they always where when they hugged. “I’m a very good cultivator, Huaisang. My golden core will keep me healthy, even if I start bleeding…it won’t be like your mother. I promise.”

Nie Huaisang started shaking. “Da-ge,” he whimpered, pressing his face into his brother’s shoulder. “Da-ge, tell me…”

“Anything,” his brother promised, and he’d regret that promise in another moment, Nie Huaisang knew, the question would only cause him pain, but he needed to know. The second they were out of this situation his brother would clam up, pretend that nothing had happened and that it was all fine, so if he had questions – and he did – then he needed to answer them now.

“Was it – who was it? Was it him?”

His brother stilled.

“You said you’d tell me,” Nie Huaisang reminded him.

“…I don’t know,” his brother said. “I don’t – it could be. But it might be – someone else.”

There had been more than one, then. Nie Huaisang swallowed back bile, wanting to be sick. His father’s murderer had forced himself on his brother, and he’d let others do the same, and now they had to deal with the fallout.

“I want to kill them,” he whispered. “I want – I want them dead – all of them –”

“If it’s anything, I’ve made a pretty good head start on that already?” his brother offered, and of course his brother was trying to find some levity in a terrible situation. “We broke them, Huaisang. Even if some individuals remain, there’s no Wen sect left. If I do end up keeping it, the child won’t have a paternal family to lay a claim – they’ll be surnamed Nie. Another Nie, like you and me. You’ll be their uncle; you have to forgive them, it wasn’t their fault...you have to spoil them rotten.”

His brother’s thumb wiped away some of Nie Huaisang’s tears.

“You’ll be a good uncle, didi,” he murmured, pressing his lips to Nie Huaisang’s brow. “If the child is surnamed Nie, that’s all that matters.”

“People will know,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “About you, about…I’m not the only one who can do math. We won’t…it can’t be kept quiet, can it? People will know. About you, about - what happened.”

“Let people know,” his brother, brave as ever, said with an indifferent shrug. “What do I care? In the end, it’s just another way to show that even when they threw everything they had against me, I still won.”

-

“What a charming child you have,” the young man from the mountain – Xiao Xingchen, he said his name was, and he was already famous despite having only been around for a few months – said, smiling down at her. “She’s beautiful.”

Nie Mingjue was not currently feeling especially kindly disposed towards human reproduction at the moment, being currently heavy with his second – the world needed more Nies, he wanted more Nies, children to keep Nie Huaisang company if that qi deviation he was promised ever actually turned up, and he had a very good list of cultivators with various pros and cons willing to help him introduce some more diversity into the Nie bloodline to try to minimize the chance of future qi deviations for his descendants, but at the same time he hated waddling around like a stuffed hippo with a bunch of people insisting that he not even think of physical exertion – but he nodded his thanks regardless.

At least for once someone wasn’t going to comment about the child’s parentage, he reflected wryly. There was only so much purposeful playing dumb a man could do, and the first year or so of his little baobei’s life – by the time they’d finally gotten around to trying to name her, the nickname had stick so firmly that they’d succumbed to reality and made her given name A-Bao, though of course, it being Qinghe, no one actually called her that – had really strained his tolerance in that specific regard. 

It was the quickest way to avoid awkwardness, to pass along the information while avoiding conversations he didn’t want to have, but still…

Nobody brought up on a celestial mountain would know about Wen Ruohan, though. He was pretty sure of that.

“And I see you’re expecting another? Sometime soon..?”

“I am,” Nie Mingjue said. “Soon enough.”

Not soon enough. He wanted to go back to training – why did he keep getting high blood pressure no matter how much medicine he took?

“I see,” Xiao Xingchen said. “You’ll have to let me give you a gift of some sort. Do you have a favorite form of cloth?”

Nie MIngjue blinked at him. “Cloth?”

That was a strange gift. Did Xiao Xingchen think that his sect was so poor that he couldn’t cloth a child?

Xiao Xingchen – who was really quite young – blushed red, the color going all the way to his ears.

“I’m sorry for my presumption,” he said, then hesitated, before saying, very delicately, “Have you finished preparing the nest for the egg, then?”

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing #81 Review

i swear i actually thought no one was interested so i didn’t write one but a grand total of two (2) people said they wanted to read it, so here it is. honestly, my opinion’s been going a bit downhill, but the art is really cool and there are some decent parts so. holding out i guess? i really hope taylor has an end goal or at least a cohesive plan, otherwise i don’t see this series going anywhere i’ll particularly enjoy

the cover is very straightforward in its imagery, this villain has nightwing in the palm of his hand, easily manipulated, easily controlled no matter the action dick thinks he’ll take. 

what i find interesting is the colour: both previously and heavily in this issue, the colourist has chosen to make pink this villain’s main colour, with different shades of pink as accents. so why the red in the cover? possibly to just make it more eye-grabbing, though one could argue that pink is even more eye-catching than red. maybe to convey a sense of dread or fear that pink won’t fully get across. either way, it’s definitely a decision i’m curious about.

so melinda zucco is in a high enough political position within bludhaven that she is next in line to become the mayor after the previous mayor died and dick just,,,,didn’t have any idea she existed? dick didn’t know anything about her? forget dick’s own brilliant detective skills, forget his doggedness at anything zucco related, you’re telling me bruce never found her and told dick about her? maybe he wouldn’t have now, but back when dick was a young kid, he definitely would have at least made dick aware of her existence, to let dick know and ask if he wanted to interfere with her life or anything.

i have a thought about zucco’s facial expressions. she is very much stone-cold poker face throughout the entire issue. the only time i see her pull a different expression is near the end when dick corners her against a wall with an arm around her throat. 

this is most certainly intentional, what with the varied and intense expressions we see on other characters, dick most prominently. i’m wondering what exactly is the creative team’s reasoning behind this. in these panels, zucco is meeting with the most dangerous, powerful, near-bloodthirsty man in all of bludhaven and becoming the mayor of the city respectfully. in both of these panels, there is barely a hint of emotion in her face: no fear, no determination, no satisfaction. it’s just odd, considering the circumstances she’s in, regardless of any training recieved.

just spitballing here but. like. from what i’ve read so far, dick doesn’t really seem like bludhaven’s guardian angel. more like when peter parker first put on spandex and blindly stepped out into new york.

dick, how exactly can you underestimate someone from one move. so he caught your escrima. anyone with enhanced reflexes can do that. you still don’t know how he can actually fight, and this is shown in the next set of panels. 

i just don’t like the wording here. dick’s “underestimated” him, but beats him up easy in the next page. in addition, i don’t know much about combat, but i would assume it would take more than one move to determine exactly what an opponent’s skill level is, made even more complex when you add physical enhancements and metahumans and aliens into the mixture.

idk my first thought when i saw that he caught the stick was “ah ok he’s enhanced” because obviously he couldn’t have reacted fast enough if he wasn’t (as there are few people trained enough to catch it on human reflexes alone.) then the wording in the next panel, i’ve underestimated him, made me think “oh no ok so he’s not enhanced, he’s just a really good fighter and can give dick a run for his money in a fight.” then, it turns out my first assumption was proven correct in the next panel. it just comes across as misleading to me.

(also sidenote but his curls are cute.)

have i praised the art enough in this series? no, i have not.

i adore the way this is laid out and illustrated. without even having to read the text, the action sequence is visually engaging and intense, and easily followable from one panel to the next. dick’s physical expertise comes through quite efficiently, and i love the special attention shown to draw our attention to dick’s escrima in the bottom right corner.

also that move in the middle row leftmost panel that’s the mcu black widow move to get up off the ground it was the first thing i noticed and it made me laugh; thought it was worth noting

i’m really loving dick’s escrima sticks in this run. they’re just so multipurpose, it’s hilarious and exhilarating. kinda reminds me of bruce’s belt, the way the button in the middle does eevveeerrryyytthhiinngg. 

got a problem? don’t worry! dick’s installed a feature into his escrima that can fix that! (i like thinking dick helped make them it makes me happy and makes my engineer!dick side satisfied)

yawn. your big heart is your one true weakness yadda yadda the fact that you care will be used against you blah blah we get it. jesus can the villains please find a different weakness to exploit, this is getting old.

i need dick’s capacity to empathize and care and love to stop being a weakness that villains sneer about. bonus points if dick saves everyone anyway, either because of or despite his great big heart and the villain is surprised by the goodness of mankind or some shit like that.

i need it to be a strength, right from the get-go. the fact that he cares so incredibly much should be an asset that dick has and will use. he’s a very complex character with years of background, it can’t possibly be that hard to find another weakness of his. 

ooooh this is cool, gosh i absolutely love this.

because what exactly is the reader doing? we are seeing the fear in dick’s face, just as this villain intended. even better, we’re seeing the reflection of it from the villain’s glossy mask, telling us exactly what we’re seeing and exactly what he likes so much about it.

dick’s standing up straight, shoulders drawn back, looking up at this villain’s face with determination and resolve, but his suit is tattered. one eye looks to be swollen. his hair is falling limply around his eyes, as opposed to the curls from earlier. his escrima aren’t even part of the main focus, instead blending into the side of the mask in the outer corners of the mask’s eyes, which tells you exactly how big of a threat they are to this villain.

poor bitewing’s quite alarmed.

also on second thought why would you bring your puppy out like this, when you know you’re gonna end up fighting someone in the suit. a) how many grey three-legged adorable little puppies live in the bludhaven area dick? and how easy will it be to connect the doggo running around with nightwing with the doggo that dick grayson owns? and 2) is this puppers trained? does she have fighting experience? how exactly can you ensure she will survive this highly stressful situation?

dick take better care of your dog 

you know what? i was with tim on this one. why exactly is dick so optimistic and trusting about the people of bludhaven? bludhaven, which has been described as gotham’s smaller, smellier, more corrupt sister city once or twice. it’s not just the corrupt people in power, the entire system needs to change and people need to have faith and hope in order for them to come together, espcially if they’ve been living in conditions like how bludhaven has been described. from how clueless dick is about his own goddamn city, i can tell he hasn’t been here long.

it was a nice moment of hope, i’ll admit. but it was a tad unrealistic for me.

also it was in a weird place in the comic. this sort of confrontation and big get-together of the people to rejuvenate hope in each other feels like it should come near the end of a run, if not the end of an issue. certainly not in the first third of an issue. the pacing’s a bit off to me.

loyal little puppy patiently waiting for her human to wake up. i love her so much.

no it’s not. it’s bitewing.

living for this t-shirt honestly. do comics of dc characters exist in the dc universe? they must if the mug and the shirt are any indication

(now i’m imagining the first batman movie that came out in the dc universe and bruce just. being so offended at who they chose to play him.)

well, yes. but when a group of people are put through hellish conditions over and over again, they soon become desensitized to the pain and terror of their everyday lives in order to both stay sane and keep their life relatively stable, and part of that becomes ignoring or blocking out anything that isn’t directly important to you or your loved ones. having a bleeding heart will most likely get you killed in a city like bludhaven if you don’t have the same skills that vigilantes have.

and of course, people are more than capable of coming together and rallying under their city’s vigilante after seeing the good they’ve done and how they’ve helped the people, but that sort of trust takes time and effort to build. dick also had the whole ric arc and was gone for a while, which has been referenced several times in this particular issue in fact. that’s not going to make bludhaven’s citizens any more likely to trust him.

maybe i’m being a bit harsh but this comic is comic off as a bit too idealistic for the amount of change nightwing can do in a city given the present and past circumstances as well as nightwing’s own abilities. even dick grayson can’t pull off everything.

ok seriously this needs to stop this needs to stop.

right now, dick reminds me of oliver queen in the few episodes of the cw’s arrow i watched. he does the punchy-kicky-fighty and occasionally has smart insights due to the skills he gained from his past that he certainly definitely totally has but only ever exhibits once, while his team does all of the background research and information gathering and actual work.

this is dick’s city. if he has the same intelligence, worth ethic, and stubbornness in this run that he’s been shown to possess all his life, then he knows this city inside out. he’ll have meticulous notes organized in a ridiculously efficient system, he’ll have scouted out zucco long before this started, he’ll have known when anything big happened in the bludhaven political landscape in an instant.

i’m really not liking exactly how much dick’s relying on babs and tim in this series. sure, he loves them and cares for them and likes working cases with them. but he always pulls his own weight, has always been a mentor figure to tim instead of what’s weirdly becoming the other way around, and takes point on the cases in his own damn city.

what kind of weak-ass oracle is this?? redacted fbi files are child’s play. babs used to hack into the fbi for fun. this one particular picture is so out of character i want to laugh.

reading this series has unfortunately made me confront that, despite the tiny fluid acrobat dick that lives in my head 24/7, canon dick is impossibly 5′10 and muscular at that.

mmm. titties.

tim said hydrate or die-drate bitch

love how dick’s doing all this intense brooding and stuff meanwhile bitewing is curled up in a soft comfy post having the time of her life.

you don’t understand i would legitimately kill myself for her.

also the lighting in this one scene is cool. the blue tones come off so well.

they’re just. so multipurpose!! they can become a bo staff. they can cut glass. they can become a grapple hook/line. they can electrify someone. they’re a funky colour. i’m becoming really attached to these things. absolute solid choice in weaponry.

if you’re gonna write up every rookie mistake dick has made during this series to head trauma, then dick shouldn’t be out and about at all, much less in costume.

see this? this is just straight up wrong. dick most definitely should have spotted her, and would have immediately moved to take her down.

scratch that, dick would have done a full check of the building, because he knows not to break into places uninformed, especially if the owner of the apartment was raised by the maroni family. someone as highly trained, experienced, and competent as dick wouldn’t have done this.

and if you chalk it up to head injury, (which is probably true), than his ~love interest~ and his little brother should have done a much better job making sure he stays in his house.

zucco looks so awkward it’s fucking hilarious

are those shadows that mimic a domino mask, to both reflect and hide the fact that his mask is missing? are those bruises around his eyes, to show how, despite what good he’s doing, being nightwing is hurting dick right now? 

(isn’t his domino mask supposed to have an electrifying feature that keeps people from removing them?)

it’s a little odd how the three known villains of this series are all coloured in warm shades, more specifically pink. meanwhile, in earlier issues, dick’s fondest memories were in pink, memories of him and alfred in particular. why has the colour pink changed from signifying something benevolent to something malicious? idk i hope this gets explained later.

this i did like. either it’s just a display of brute force in anger, or dick slipped the ties and pulled them off once untied. both ways, it’s an unintentional display of power, and i think that’s kinda cool.

again. dick is,,,tall? sort of? weirdddd

i’m so glad most readers are unified in the notion that this was the absolute dumbest fucking thing.

i’m hoping this gets disproved or something soon. and i hope dick doesn’t fall for it, because he definitely knows better than to take something as important as this at face value.

what exactly is taylor trying to accomplish here? why is he trying to go back on what we all knew was a happy, loving childhood and throw strife and disharmony and (what i’m assuming will be) infidelity? this will not end well at all.

---

,,,,,this review got way longer than expected lol. and i realize most of it just became me ranting. i guess i didn’t realize how ticked off i was originally. fingers crossed it gets better.

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds​ @comics-observer

[asthmark]

❝ stuck ❞ l.dh

request → “Hi~ I'm absolutely in love with your work. It makes me so soft uwu. I was wondering if you could write a Haechan one similar to the roommate Jeno one you wrote. About what it's like to just live with him” —@demiwizardstay​

pairing → demon!haechan, reader, guardianangel!mark

word count → 4.5k

a/n → whoops i made this into a demon!haechan au hahaha sorry i hope this is domestic enough for u tho :D

your eyes must be playing tricks on you.

there’s no other reasonable explanation. 

on the other hand, the shadow splayed out ever so comfortably on your couch seems to be very real. it must be just as aware of your presence as you are of its but to your surprise, it isn’t telling you to put your hands where it can see them or demanding to know where all your most valuable items are. it sits there, peacefully as if it owns the place. for a split second you consider the possibility that you walked into the wrong apartment but the key in your hand reminds you that the situation you are in is not your fault in any way. 

“so... are you gonna scream or just stand there?”

the figure’s voice is unmistakably masculine and drips with sass. you know you should feel scared. your heart should be pounding as your shaky fingers dial 911 and you hysterically report an intruder to the authorities and beg them to come fast. however, it seems that this stranger’s calm aura has rubbed off on you as you respond with an equally as unbothered tone.

“well, i would appreciate it if you invited me in.” you pause. “oh wait, it’s my apartment.”

with that, you step inside and go about your regular routine with a calmness you didn’t know you possessed; especially when there was an… unwelcome visitor lounging on your sofa. despite that, you kick off your shoes and toss your jacket somewhere on the floor like you normally would. you twirl your keys around your fingers as you go to turn to flick on the light switch. it rids you of the darkness that had settled upon your apartment and the stranger is completely revealed to you.

the first thing you notice about them is their sun kissed skin that’s littered in the freckles you would compare to the most captivating constellation. although, the stranger’s flawless complexion is the least of your worries considering the two horns that peek out from underneath their tufts of brunette hair. 

you physically restrain yourself from asking for his skin routine and instead opt for yet another sarcastic comment. “all ready for halloween, i see.” your eyes lock onto the appendages, choosing to ignore how realistic they were. “was party city having a sale?”

your comment seems to get your uninvited guest out of his daze as he scoffs. “are you kidding?”

“hey, this is my place, i ask the questions,” you scold.

he ignores you, instead going to tug on his horns. “these are all real, baby.”

you force yourself to maintain eye contact with him, waiting for him burst into laughter and tell you it was all a prank. instead, his unfaltering smug gaze pierces into you. you swear you stop breathing when his eyes flash bright red for a second.

“alright, you can tell the camera crew to come on out.” you glance around hoping this really was just some sort of hidden camera–practical joke type of thing. you half expect ashton kutcher jump out and tell you that you had gotten punk'd but you’re never granted that privilege. your eyes end up back on the boy lounging on your sofa and he returns the stare, eyes narrowed and mouth curved into a smirk.

it was almost… devilish. 

“oh my god.”

“not quite.” he finally stands, stretching his limbs out without a care in the world. “wanna try again?”

you stay silent, mouth slightly agape. there was only one other explanation. 

he’s satan. and he’s also in your living room. and the worst part was how undeniably hot he is.

you regret giving him the satisfaction of your stunned silence as it seems like that was the exact reaction he wanted. he laughs at your expression and it just sounds evil. 

“alright, alright. i’ll tell you what i am. but only because you mortals are always so cute when you’re scared.”

“i’m not scared, you idiot,” you interject without a second thought. “i just didn’t know i’d be selling my soul today. it’s a total bummer. i’m so young, i still have so much to do. i never even got around to trying yoga with ryujin!”

the boy’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “your soul? did i say i wanted your soul?”

“well, you’re like, satan right? isn’t that what you do?”

he rolls his eyes. “i’m obviously a demon. satan is a loser who never leaves his fiery throne. which, by the way, isn’t as cool as it sounds. we’re not on the best terms at the moment.”

“so... you don’t want my soul?”

he shakes his head vigorously, looking disgusted at the mere idea of it. “what would i even do with it?”

“i don’t know. honestly i’m just going off of what i see in the movies.”

“that was your first mistake, baby.” he makes his way closer to you. “this isn’t the movies.”

“okay, back it up,” you say, attempting to put some distance between you and him.

he raises his hands in defeat as he obeys, retreating back to your couch. 

“why are you here of all places? shouldn’t you be sipping on a piña colada with satan right now?”

he crosses his legs nonchalantly. “like i said, we aren’t on speaking terms. in fact, i’m kind of… banned.”

“banned?” you echo. “from where?”

“hell? duh.” 

you scowl at his attitude. “it’s not my fault you’re on timeout.”

he pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “don’t call it that. it’s just a punishment.”

“same thing,” you say, making your way into the kitchen. you weren’t sure if leaving a demon unattended in your living room was the best idea but the initial shock had already worn off. besides, it seemed like he had been in your apartment for a while already. “what did you do anyway?”

“it’s not even that bad,” he grumbles.

“must have been if you got kicked out of hell.” you chuckle to yourself as you open up your pantry, looking for something to stuff your face with. “do you understand how bad you must be if even the devil himself can’t stand you?” 

“i’m not bad, per se,” he says, picking at his nails. “just a little annoying.”

“no kidding,” you grumble to yourself, rummaging through your pantry, in pursuit of your favorite snack. you were sure everything would make more sense once you got some food in your system. when all you find is an empty, crumpled bag where your chips had once been, you whine loudly. “did you eat all my hot cheetos?”

“they reminded me of home!”

“i can see why they kicked you out,” you retort. 

“listen, i get that this is an inconvenience—”

“that’s kind of an understatement.”

“but, this is the only place i can stay. turns out people freak out when you appear in their living rooms. you were the only one that didn’t.”

“yeah, people usually don’t take too kindly to that—hold on, did you say stay?”

he crosses his arms over his chest. “where else am i supposed to go?”

“anywhere but here.”

he gives you an unamused stare, his eyes glinting red once again. 

“i mean, don’t you have any demon friends you can stay with?”

“not here. we avoid earth at all costs. it’s trashy. that’s why this is a punishment.” 

not even you can argue with that. “understandable. well, how long are you gonna be here?” 

“don’t know.” 

you blink at him. “so… you’re planning to crash with me until satan decides to be your friend again?” 

he groans. “first of all, he’s never been my friend. second of all, yes, that was the plan i had in mind when i broke into your house.” 

“broke in?” 

“well, actually i used teleportation powered by the dark arts to get in but i don’t think your tiny human brain is ready for that conversation.” 

“and i don’t think it’d be in your best interest to insult the person you’re currently trying to move in with.” 

that seems to shut him up, as he purses his lips together and stares at you blankly. 

“listen, if we’re going to do this, there’s gotta be some ground rules, okay?” 

he stays silent so you decide to continue. 

“you have to pull your own weight around here. you might be some powerful being of the underworld but that doesn’t mean you get out of laundry day and doing dishes, got it?” 

he seems displeased, if the frustrated huff of air he lets out is anything to go by. 

“and you have to promise me that by staying here you aren’t putting me in any kind of danger.” 

“well, i can’t guarantee i won’t cause problems,” he says, raking his fingers through the hair in between his sharpened horns. “but i can protect you from whatever crap comes our way.” 

you contemplate it. you weren’t entirely sure what a demon like him was capable of but it seemed like it would be a list that was equally lengthy as it was impressive. yet, you still can’t bring yourself to agree to anything. 

as if he senses your apprehensive nature, he grabs your chin, forcing you to look into his hazelnut eyes. you only get to admire the warm tint for a split second before his eyes flash red yet again. they stay glowing longer than any of the previous times; long enough for you to notice how shiny and bright they are, reminding you of ripe cherries. 

“i promise.” 

the tone of his voice is surprisingly firm and definitely the most serious you’ve heard him the entire night. he retreats his hand from you and you find yourself leaning forward, almost craving his touch. his eyes go back to their original hue and you feel yourself regain your senses. 

“what did you just do?” you ask, leaning back from him. “what kind of dark magic was that?”

he tries to conceal his smile but ultimately fails, his pearly whites coming onto display. “that wasn’t magic, baby. i believe you just got lost in my eyes but don’t worry. i would too.” 

you let out a bitter laugh. “oh my god, you’re vain.” 

“do you mortals have to mention him every five seconds?” he chides, grimacing. 

it takes you a moment to realize who he’s referring to but when you do, you erupt in laughter. “really? that gets to you? you’re pretty sensitive for a big and bad demon.” 

“i have a name, baby.” 

“so do i.” 

his lips curve into a coy smile. “donghyuck.” 

you give him your name in response, not even bothering to think about it twice, much to your surprise. most would probably be more hesitant to introduce themself to a demon, much less invite them into their home. 

yet here you were, doing both. 

he offers you nothing more than a grin—it seemed more genuine than the last—before turning on his heel to make his way farther into your apartment. “so, where will i be sleeping? i was thinking your bed would be ideal.”

“well, i was thinking you could start with a thank you,” you suggest, trailing after him. 

he saunters down the hallway, twisting the knob of the door second to the left and peeking in. you can only imagine how much snooping around he had done before you had arrived, judging by the fact that he maneuvered your home so expertly. 

he hums as he scans the room as if it’s the first time (which you’re sure it’s not). “it looks comfortable enough for the two of us.” 

you can tell there’s no arguing with him, especially as he steps inside and sits himself on the edge of your bed, hands running over the soft fabric of your comforter. he bounces up and down a couple times, seeming satisfied enough with the mattress. 

in the blink of an eye, he’s underneath the heaps of blankets, tucked in snuggly. 

you exhale, trying to maintain patience. “i can tell this whole dark magic thing is going to be a problem for me.”

even though only his eyes peek out from beneath the polyester sheets, you’re positive he’s wearing an obnoxious smirk. his voice comes out slightly muffled when he answers, “think of it as a blessing, not a curse.”

“we’ll see.” you try to suppress a yawn but it manages to escape you, eyes squinting and your hand clamping over your mouth. “right now, i gotta sleep. hopefully i’ll wake up tomorrow and realize this was all a dream.”

“so, what you’re implying is that i’m a dream?”

“i meant to say nightmare.”

“that’s more accurate.”

as if the dazed tone of his voice didn’t give his sleepiness away, donghyuck’s drowsy eyes and horns sinking into the soft plush of your pillow certainly did. he looked the least threatening right then and there and you decide that this is the donghyuck you like best. you can’t help the sudden urge you feel to curl up in bed right next to him and doze off into blissful unconsciousness. 

“what are you waiting for? get in here.”

could demons read minds too? you can’t be bothered to think about it for another second before you take donghyuck’s very tempting offer and crawl into your bed. you don’t care that you’re not in your pajamas or that you smell like coffee beans, courtesy of the cafe you worked at.

all you can seem to focus on is the feeling of donghyuck’s soft breath against your neck and his oddly cute snores. it was ironic; a demon all cuddled up beside you, sleeping like a baby. you almost giggle at the striking comparison. 

needless to say, you fall asleep with a smile on your face.

+

“you know, it really pisses me off to come home and see you sitting in the exact same position you were in when i left.”

donghyuck rolls his eyes, an expression he’s mastered over time. “what else am i supposed to do? you made it pretty clear that you hate my demonic rituals and that’s kind of my speciality.”

you shrug as you kick your shoes off upon entering your shared apartment. “i don’t know. but binging the entire marvel movie saga can’t possibly be healthy.”

“we don’t have this in hell!” donghyuck exclaims, gesturing to the television his eyes remained glued on. 

“well, you should get used to life on earth considering you don’t know how long you’re gonna be stuck here.”

“i’m already on it. pop culture is actually really informative.”

“not what i meant. i was thinking more along the lines of a job.”

donghyuck finally tears his eyes away from the television to give you an unamused stare. “that’s really funny, y/n.”

“i’m serious! would it kill you to get off the sofa?”

“no. nothing would. i’m immortal, remember?”

you narrow your eyes. “oh yeah, almost forgot. you’re gonna be a bother to me forever and ever.”

“this isn’t the ideal situation for me either. but no need to torture me with low life mortal tasks.”

“bills gotta be paid, it’s a part of life,” you respond, taking a seat beside him. “or else we’ll both be breaking into people’s houses and begging them to move in.”

“i didn’t beg, alright? and i didn’t break in either! i simply...  appeared.”

“that’s even worse.”

“you didn’t seem to mind when you were all snuggled into me this morning.”

donghyuck’s words paired with his taunting tone cause you to feel slightly warm but you ignore it for the sake of a comeback. “you seemed comfortable yourself because when my alarm for work went off your arm was pretty tight around me.”

you swear you see him pout for a moment. “that’s not my fault! there aren’t many people open to cuddling in hell! i was just… seizing the opportunity.”

“since you’re all about opportunities, you should really look into that job. remember what we agreed on? no slacking off.”

“i’m not! just look in the kitchen!”

you know whatever it is, you’re not prepared for it. nevertheless, you tiptoe to said area, hoping your roommate had simply followed instructions and done the dishes and swept. but, of course, that itself is too much to ask as you watch the sink overflow with suds, plates and silverware scrubbing themselves clean and floating into their respective cupboards. a broom dances across the tiled floor, dust flying everywhere. you find that the mess in your kitchen resembles a train wreck; you want to look away but you just can’t. 

you call out to donghyuck, eyes still trained on the chaos before you, asking, “what did we say about rituals?”

“it’s a little more complicated than a ritual, baby!”

once you finally gather enough willpower to walk away from the kitchen and whatever is happening in it, you return to the living room, placing yourself in front of the television that donghyuck is so entranced in. 

“you’re coming with me to work tomorrow, got it?”

donghyuck groans for a second before rolling his eyes dramatically hard. “fine. now, can you move? the avengers are about to fight thanos.”

you comply, retreating to your bedroom but not before shouting back, “iron man dies!”

you shut your door, donghyuck’s frustrated screeching still coming through loud and clear.

+

your phone alerts you that it’s 6 am by playing an alarm so loud donghyuck falls out of bed. comically enough, it’s the loud thump! that comes when donghyuck makes contact with the floor that really gets your eyes to flutter open. you peek over the edge of the bed, every bit of grogginess leaving your body the second you see your roommate tangled in your sheets, limbs sprawled on the ground. 

“are you okay?” you ask, laughter lacing your words.

“doing just fine,” he mumbles in response. soon thereafter, his eyes shut once again.

“hey! no way are you going back to sleep, we have work!” 

you drag yourself out of bed over to where donghyuck lays, attempting to resume his peaceful slumber. you grab his arms, attempting to hoist him up. you’re almost positive he’s making it more difficult than it should be as he lets his body go completely limp in your grasp. when you finally get him standing upright, he smiles lazily at you, obviously still half asleep. 

“c’mon dork, you need to get ready. you’re gonna make some cash today!”

+

donghyuck makes it clear he understands nothing as the morning progresses.

he doesn’t get the importance of being on time or even working in the first place. he offers to just take out your landlord, which according to him will “solve all your problems”, more times than you count and you’re sure that if he mentions it one more time you’d actually consider it. he also claims he doesn’t understand the concept of a shower, asking you to help him out, yet the knowing smile on his face lets you know he’s more than well aware of what it entails. unfortunately, you realize this after spending more time than you’d care to admit explaining the concept of getting naked to him in a tight, confined space to him only for him to request a demonstration. 

upon leaving your apartment, more new things are revealed to donghyuck. you can’t help but admire the wonder and awe in his eyes. the adoration quickly wears off when he throws a temper tantrum at the subway station, refusing to board it and you have to physically force him on and promise that no, he won’t get trapped inside.

despite the slight bumps in the road, you arrive at your shift with time to spare. the clock tells you that you won’t have to be behind the counter for another five minutes so you grab your apron and provide donghyuck with one too. you give him quite possibly the quickest tour of the cafe ever and explain to him over five times what you were there to do (“so, we just take people’s orders? we serve them?” “and they pay for it.” “just when i thought it couldn’t possibly get dumber”). you end putting him on cleaning duty since you were well aware of his lack of social skills. he frowns when you tell him he has to do it himself, no magic allowed. the last thing you needed was someone getting nearly knocked over by a levitating broom and bringing it to your manager’s attention. speaking of—

“good morning, y/n,” greets doyoung. his hair is slicked back and his eyes shine, as always. “always a pleasure to see you on your shift.”

donghyuck watches you cautiously, observing the way you smile nervously and avoid meeting doyoung’s eyes. he assumes he has some kind of authority over you. 

“and hello there. who might you be?”

doyoung is now very aware of donghyuck’s presence, giving him a wide smile but a menacing stare. you don’t get a word out before donghyuck’s giving him a polite smile and nod of his head.

“i was just hired, y/n is showing me the ins and outs. i honestly could not be happier working under leaders like you, sir.”

doyoung hums, obviously enjoying donghyuck’s praise enough to let it blind him from the fact that you hadn’t even been hiring in the first place. “sir, huh? haven’t heard that one before.” 

donghyuck holds his breath, wondering if he had overdone it.

“i like it. you seem like a hard working fellow. glad to have you on the team.” your boss gives him a firm pat on the back before walking away, probably to go scare some other employees. 

donghyuck sticks his tongue out at him once his back is turned and you simply laugh, smile still present on your face when your first customer arrives.

+

“i’m here!”

you glance up from the cash register to catch your coworker rushing in, looking frazzled… as always.

“hey mark,” you greet, giving him a welcoming smile. “i’m so glad you’re here. there’s been this crazy demand for frappuccinos all day and you know i suck at those.”

mark chuckles as he ties on his apron. “no offense, but the only order you should be taking are the puppuccinos.”

you shoot him the most non-threatening glare possible which ends up with you bursting into a fit of laughter. “i’m not even gonna argue with that.”

“hypothetically, if i made doyoung’s coffee explode on him but made sure he didn’t know, would you be mad?”

you roll your eyes at donghyuck’s bold entrance yet you still giggle. “at this point, i say go for it. ooh, maybe we could even sneak out while he’s cleaning it up. what do you say, mark?”

where there would usually be a giddy laugh, there’s nothing but silence on your coworkers behalf. you put a pause on counting the money in the register to steal a glance at mark who’s eyes are dead set on donghyuck who also seems to be intensely focused on the blonde. 

“demon,” mark mutters.

you feel yourself freeze up; how could he possibly know? despite the panic that settles upon you, you’re sure donghyuck will find a way to handle the situation. you expect a lie, maybe even some magic if the situation called for it. when you see his lips curve upwards sinisterly, you know you’re in for an entirely different outcome.

“angel.” there’s a teasing lilt in donghyuck’s voice; it sends chills up your spine.

mark’s jaw is clenched and you know he’s equally as tense as you are. “we should go, y/n.”

“mark, he’s just—”

“now.”

the sudden desperation yet dominance in mark’s tone is even more alarming than donghyuck’s. 

“you know,” donghyuck begins, rounding the counter, dramatically. “i’ve never been a fan of the way guardian angels think they own their person.”

you swear your brain shuts down. there was no way you had come into contact with a demon and now an angel—your guardian angel. and there was definitely no way it was your closest coworker, right?

“it’s our responsibility—she is my responsibility.”

donghyuck folds his arms as he gives mark a once over. “you won’t mind if i take over, right?”

mark chuckles, begrudgingly. “you know i can’t let that happen.”

“i’m not hurting her, i’d never hurt her.” donghyuck takes his place next to you, wrapping an arm around you. he peers down at you, eyes glowing red for the first time since your first encounter. “my angel.”

you know the nickname is to piss mark off and you assume it works as you observe his hands clench into fists. although, you’re more focused on how the pet name effortlessly rolled off donghyuck’s tongue, like temptation itself. 

“don’t make this difficult for yourself,” donghyuck continues. “you know feelings are dangerous. that’s what they tell you when you first sign up. just don’t let that get you into trouble, got it?”

the tension is suffocating and you almost wish a customer would enter the currently empty cafe to save you from it. although, donghyuck makes sure that you don’t have to endure it any longer as a second later, you’re both gone, only a cloud of red smoke left behind. 

mark stands alone in the cafe.

he had gotten this job for you; to look after you. 

perhaps he had caught feelings, as well.

he assumes that was his first mistake. 

+

when donghyuck takes you back to your apartment, it seems the awkward atmosphere from the cafe has followed you home.  

“uh, can i ask what that was all about?”

“that guy, mark was it? yeah, he’s your guardian angel. i can’t stand it when those guys act like they’re in charge of the person they’re sent to look after,” he seethes. 

you watch donghyuck’s fit of frustration carefully, eyes wide. when he sees how confused you are he can’t help but sigh. 

“i’m sorry, i just… didn’t appreciate him acting like you were his. guess i don’t really like the thought of that.”

you would have to be oblivious beyond compare to not realize donghyuck was completely and utterly jealous. you prod him further, asking, “well, then who would you rather i belong to?”

he glances up at you. “whoever you want, baby.”

“you know what? i think i have somebody in mind.”

not even a second later, donghyuck takes you back in the security of your bed, under your piles of fluffy blankets. what feels most comfortable (and strangely familiar) is the feeling of donghyuck’s arm clinging to you, making you sure you’re pressed right into his chest like a puzzle piece. 

“the person you had in mind was me, right? ’cause if not, this might be awkward.”

your eyes roll back despite knowing he can’t see it. “no, it was mark.”

“not funny.”

your shoulders shake with laughter. “it’s a little funny.”

“whatever, keep laughing. just let me hold you, alright?”

“that would be heaven.” silence settles upon the both of you as you go into nearly hysterical laughter. “get it? because you’re a demon… from hell… and that’s like, the opposite—”

“yeah, i get it, baby.” he pauses. “how many more lame jokes surrounding me being a demon will i have to endure?”

“i definitely have more where that came from so my guess is...  more than you can count.”

he moans in displeasure. “you’re lucky you’re cute… for a mortal.”

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary + slightly burnt snake secondary (some kind of built secondary model)

Hi hi hi!! Hope you’re well!! So tell me, is there a way to tell whether you’re a lion or a snake secondary beyond the actual “textbook” definitions? I think I’m pretty burnt, and I’m on my way to fixing that, but it would help to know where I’m supposed to be heading lol

(Btw, I’m a Sam coded Dean girl. I don’t think it’s relevant I just thought that system was both useful and hilarious and I’m so glad you posted that)

I also really liked how that turned out.

I’m pretty sure I’m an improv secondary. I think I’m bad at it, hence the burning, but it’s what comes naturally to me and what I would feel most proud of.

I end up planning for a bunch of things, and in some cases I don’t hate it.

Damning with faint praise.

Like if I’m giving a presentation, I open a word document and write down what I’m gonna say verbatim, even the language tics and pauses and hesitations and such, so it’s like I’m actually living it. Then I repeat the whole thing multiple times, amending it whenever I change something, until I feel like I’ve sort of gone through the experience already.

That is… the weirdest way of hacking an improvisational secondary. Because that’s what’s you’re doing. Improvisational secondaries need to be “in it,” so you get as close to that as possible in the prep work.

Then I scrap the whole thing and improvise when it’s actually happening – the result is often pretty different from the word doc

of course.

but I’m a bit more in my element because I’ve done it already and I know I can do it.

This is honestly a really good strategy to make yourself more comfortable with improvising? I can tell you’re unBurning, this feels very much like… training wheels, to me. Heck, I think I would recommend your method to another burnt Improvisational secondary.

I’m not sure, but I think that sort of thing is more built than improv?

Like, kind of? I’m autism spectum, and when I was younger I built a Bird model to help me feel more confident accessing my Courtier Badger. That’s what this feels like.

But I definitely feel like it’s a model I’ve developed to deal with social anxiety and my fear of failure lol. I didn’t do stuff like that before it got bad, and if I could deal with not doing it, I would.

I hear that.

In most other situations, though, I tend to jump right in and go with the flow. I really don’t think very far ahead. I guess I can if I try, when it’s just a matter of logic, but things like my life plans, my relationships, or even more short-term things like plans with friends or what I’m gonna eat or how I’m gonna deal with a task, I really can’t project into the future. I can’t really make decisions or see a situation clearly until I’m in it. Then I tend to make decisions very quickly, kind of on instinct, or whatever feels right in the moment.

You’re definitely an improvisational secondary.

(Actually maybe that’s a primary thing? I’m a snake primary, but I do have a very prominent lion model, and a bit of badger as well.)

Nah, that’s definitely an Improvisational secondary thing. I am curious about your primary though, because you say you don’t have too much in the way of life plans… and *that* is more where a primary would come in. You feel like a safe Snake to me (that is, a Snake whose people are safe) so there is a little bit of… what now? What is the Lion+Badger model you wear over the top interested in?

Point is, I prefer being spontaneous, even if it’s something important. Making plans and having to stick to them makes me feel trapped. I’m not the most constant person, and I like that about me. I want to have room to grow and change, even for the smallest things.

Completely, entirely fair.

Anyway, I feel like I’ve talked more about limitations and things I don’t want so far, but I guess that’s a burnt thing.

I mean, sure you’re a little underconfident, but you seem pretty far along to me.

I’ve seen you mention what’s really useful in determining a secondary is what you actually enjoy, so here goes. I like being in the moment, and I like being able to come up with ideas and solutions on the fly, by taking in the situation and using it to my advantage.

That’s very Snake secondary sounding language.

I think there’s a bit of a separation in my mind between “people things” and “being clever things.”

For “being clever things” (like… I don’t know, an escape room, a problem with an administration, a paper I have to write, video games, some kind of mystery…) I like to rely on being observant and quick-thinking, and if I can find loopholes or outsmart whoever I’m facing to win in an unexpected way, that’s even better (but really more for my ego than anything else, I guess finding the “normal” solution is okay, as long as you get there, it’s just less fun).

Hilarious. Yeah, you sound like a *confident* Snake secondary to me.

For “people things” (drama with family or friends, or if someone is being an ass, or if someone comes to me for advice on interpersonal things), I prioritize being straightforward and honest. If I have time to plan or if I’m giving advice, I might come up with something more sneaky and elaborate, but if I’m in the moment, I’m most likely to be really confrontational, stubborn and unyielding, even if it makes things more difficult for me.

Hmm. I am reading this as a Snake who likes being Neutral - especially those words “stubborn” and “unyielding.” There’s a reason Neutral Snakes are called “the unmovable object.”

If I catch myself, I try to avoid it, but that just means staying silent and removing myself from the situation – I can’t bring myself to make compromises if it feels like I’m betraying myself.

Okay, now that’s sounding more Lion.

To be clear, that’s almost exclusively with people I’m close to, or who are supposed to “know me”.

Oh okay. This is your secondary interacting with your primary. Actively lying to and misrepresenting yourself to Your People would be immoral to a Snake Primary.

With friends who aren’t in my inner circle, or acquaintances, or complete strangers, or authority figures, I might get upset internally if I’m perceiving a slight or injustice, but I can keep up the mask I need no problem. That being said, I don’t have a lot of patience for drama, so if whatever it is can’t be quickly resolved with a convenient lie or saying what works for me in a way they won’t mind hearing, I just stick to what I’m actually thinking and/or my neutral state (I’m not sure it’s accurate to use snake language here, but it feels like it and it’s convenient).

I think it’s highly appropriate and accurate. All that is reading very Snake.

I’ve seen a bunch of people say lion and snake secondaries are sort of at odds with each other, but I don’t really get the contradiction between them yet (as in, I don’t see why people can’t be both those “contradictory” things at the same time). I do mask a lot, and I enjoy it – I think it’s rewarding, and honestly it just makes sense – it’s what works best in that moment, and it feels natural to shift that way. I just don’t feel it’s a misrepresentation. The whole “it’s not cheating, it’s being clever” thing just feels a little too dishonest. Cheating is cheating, no need to be so smug about it. It’s not wrong, though, at least not always. If it’s hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it, then it’s wrong (might still do it if the alternative is worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly an ethical choice to make, it just means I’m okay with being immoral in that instance).

All that being said, I don’t think masking is being dishonest about yourself. I don’t think anything that comes out of my mind is “not me”, it just doesn’t work that way. The personas I have with different groups or people in my life are all genuine, it’s just that different sides of me are brought up. And if I’m acting in a way that’s actually not genuine, that mask is still my creation – if someone else were to come up with a mask for that same situation, it would be different, because their mind works differently. Everything you do is a reflection of yourself, and even if you were to try your best to be honest all the time, you’d never be able to show your true and complete self to someone else. You can’t even see that yourself.

Oh man. This is why I love writing these, and this is what I mean about Lion and Snake being so incomprehensible to each other. Because Lions fundamentally do not think this way, every word here is dripping with Snake.

It might be helpful to think of Lions as static. That’s how Shakespeare (who definitely seems like a Snake secondary…) writes about them, and he sees them as sort of tragic. Lions really do have a “core” persona that feels more true than all the others, and they really do exist in it as much as they possibly can. And feel good and moral about doing that.

And a mask’s point may be to deceive or to gain something, but being blunt and straightforward can be used in that way too.

You are literally thinking of “common Lion secondary presentation” as another useful mask, and it’s so Snake, and so fantastic.

I’m thinking this sounds more snake than anything else, so I’ll focus on why I thought I might be a lion too now. I guess the reason I’m on the fence is because these two are presented as “either you think the only way is through, or you’re looking for a way around it”, and I’m not comfortable saying I favor either.

That is *a* way to think about the two secondaries. But those are symptoms, not causes. The reason a Lion secondary feels that the only way out is though is because a Lion secondary must be themselves, or die.

My first thought was to say that I get more satisfaction from finding ways around a problem because it makes me feel cleverer and it’s more fun, but that’s because I’m zeroing in on certain types of situations (people giving me some intellectual challenge, debates, or video games). But there were also a lot of times where I stuck it out and kept going with pigheaded stubbornness, and got a lot more satisfaction out of that (physical challenges like obstacle courses, disagreements with my parents, winning over certain people).

Here’s where I think the confusion is. You’re a Snake secondary, and one of your masks looks very Lion. Note how you talk about using this “pigheadedness” with certain people, who you know will respond well to it.

In fact, I remember my father telling me one day “yeah, you’re never here to compromise, you just make decisions and inform us, and keep going while you wait for us to accept reality,“ and I actually can’t describe how proud and smug I was about that. Kind of insufferable, but I just get so euphoric when people see right through me and show they get me, even if it’s about the more annoying or bad parts of me.

I think that’s just a human thing. The mortifying ideal of being known is how you feel loved.

I remember a conversation I had with my ex after we broke up where she cut right through all my bullshit and discarded my whole mask to get right to my inner self and the core of certain issues, and even though I was still mad and upset, and kind of embarrassed that she could see me being vulnerable, I couldn’t help but be happy about it, because I felt known.

Yeah. <3

I don’t interact much with people outside of my inner circle, so I can’t tell if it’s entirely specific to them, but I really vibe with the “honesty is their strength” part of being a lion. That’s why my people trust me and rely on me so much, because even though they know how sneaky I can get and how fun I think tricking people is, they also know I default to telling the truth and saying what’s on my mind more often than not, because they’re my people.

I think that, as a Snake primary who mostly only interacts with Your People, you’re in a kind of unusual position. I know that the presentation of a Snake who feels safe can be blunter, can be more Lion-y. My experience with Snakes is… yeah, sometimes I know I’m being manipulated, or having my buttons pushed in a specific way. But I’m fine with it, because I’m one of their people, and I know they would never hurt me. That’s where the certainty is coming from.

Then again, I also have a “it’s not lying unless they’re entitled to the truth” attitude with basically everyone else. I just don’t think some people deserve to know me that way.

snaaaake

(lions are going to take the truth and PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE with it, and if you can’t deal that’s YOUR PROBLEM)

And “ideally”, as in, if I didn’t have anxiety and a bunch of other issues, I still don’t think I’d just be neutral all the time. Sounds boring. And inconvenient.

Snake secondaries are great.

Ahhh, should I even post this? I feel like my whole thought process before this moment of introspection was “so I really vibe with snake, but I’m also hotheaded and a bit of a bitch, so I MUST be a lion, right” lmao. I just think I’m a straight up double snake at this point.

Yep.

Oof, a long way from my original lion bird sorting back when I first discovered SHC hahaha

Yeah, I used to think I was a Badger Bird.

(For the record, I’m writing this in a word doc, and it’s almost 2k now. I haven’t checked how long these normally are, so I’m really sorry if this is too long!!! I’m like physically incapable of being concise I’m so sorry)

Sometimes I edit or re-arrange these slightly for a cleaning reading experience, but I’m having fun. I was engaged all the way though.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for doing these!! They’re super interesting and I’m sure it helps people a lot, and also it’s really cool to see how different people think. I’m a socially-challenged writer, so it’s useful to have that bit of insight into other people’s minds. Love ya <3 <3 <3

[mi6-cafe]

THE DRABBLES ARE IN! COME READ THEM AND VOTE!

GUYS, WE HAVE 15 AWESOME DRABBLES FOR YOU!

Our writers did an excellent job. All of them wrote 100-word drabbles  based on this picture:

READ THEM ALL BELOW THE LINE AND WHEN YOU’VE PICKED YOUR TOP THREE FAVOURITES COME >>VOTE HERE<<

But how do?

anyone can vote (read the fics, pick your top 3 favourites and put that in the google form)

yes, even the writers can vote (they should, however, vote for someone other than themselves)

please, while you vote: also give anonymous feedback to the drabbles. we will send this to the writers after voting ends

why you should give feedback to the writers: we and they will love you forever but it won’t be creepy because you’ll be anonymous

READ&VOTE UNTIL SUNDAY 11.59PM Eastern, 4:59AM UTC!

Now, here are the drabbles!

#1

Title: Arson Author: artsytarts / Misha Warnings: None

Summary: If there is one talent James Bond has, it’s to give his Quartermaster a headache.

“Can I ask you a question, 007?”

“Not like you’d respect my wishes if I said no, Q. Go ahead.”

“Why is it that you always, without fail, find some way to cause an explosion? I’m starting to believe you have an arsonist streak.”

“I don’t do it on purpose, it just… happens.”

“You do know that you’re supposed to keep things quiet, right? ‘Secret’. It’s in the job description.”

“Not my fault their base lay beneath a firework factory.”

“Wouldn’t have been a problem if you didn’t blow it up!”

“Debatable.”

“I’m sure you mean ‘yes, Q’.”

“Yes, Q.”

#2

Title: Occupational Hazards Author: storm-of-sharp-things Warnings: none Summary: Q would willingly pay extra for the option to have a boring vacation…

Q sat back against James in the little rowboat and stared across the lake as bright jets of sparks shot up from the island. The fiery glow amid the trees was beautiful in the reflection of the dark water. James settled the blanket more comfortably around them, keeping the chill off their bare skin.

“I liked that cabin,” Q finally said.

James sighed. “What’s the probability that our rental cabin would be a hidden entrance to a secret arsenal of explosives?”

With a splash, Alec finally surfaced next to the boat, grinning wickedly.

Q scowled. “One hundred percent, I’d say.”

#3

Title: Postcard Author: sunaddicted Warnings: none Summary: Bond stops in the middle of a mission for a view Q shouldn’t absolutely miss.

“Bond, stop dallying”

“Look, Q”

He sighed, squinting at the screen broadcasting the grainy images coming from the small camera that he had managed to disguise as a lapel pin “What exactly am I looking at?”

“Wait for it”

“Bond, need I to remind you that you’re on- Oh”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Q was enraptured in the blue fire shooting up towards the dark of night: he couldn’t remember the last time he had looked up at the sky, eyes full of awe “Yes, it really is” he admitted “Thank you, James. Move along now: your contact is waiting”

“Yessir”

#4

Title:Flare Author: Hexiva Warnings: Angst Summary: Alec and James on a stakeout. One moment of hope.

What James remembers from that night in Canada is the fireworks. Fireworks reflecting off the lake as he sat in the dark waiting for morning when their target would walk by. Fireworks reflecting in Alec’s eyes, a manic gleam as he leaned in to adjust Bond’s hand on his rifle. And in the darkness between displays, they looked at each other, the instruments of their bloody work forgotten.

Years later, after everything, after the betrayal, James doesn’t remember who reached out first. All he remembers is the sound of fireworks as they kissed, clinging to each other in the darkness.

#5

Title: Rest & Relaxation Author: SouffleGirl91 Warnings: None Summary: James and Q kiss goodbye to yet another security deposit.

“This was fun. We should do it more often.”

James watched an explosion illuminate the sky, showering white sparks on the carnage below.

“Did you hit your head?”

“What?” Q frowned. “No! Why?”

“You want to do this-” James gestured at the flames, “more often?”

Another loud crack, and the cabin roof collapsed, sending up a plume of smoke.

“Well, maybe not the part where your ex-boyfriend tries to burn us to death in our sleep…”

“So just the murder, then?”

“Pillock.”

James laughed. “If this is what holidays with you are like, I’d love to do it more often.”

#6

Title: Efficiency Author: Anyawen Warnings: None Summary: Bond appreciates competence, whatever it wears.

James ignores the cold of the Canadian spring night, attention focused on the far side of the lake.

“I can get closer,” he offers quietly over comms.

“Stay where you are, Bond. I’ve got this,” Q answers.

Q’s frenzied typing stills, and James hears satisfaction in the silence a moment before an explosion rocks the lodge. He watches, bemused, as stray fireworks streak into the sky.

“The security on their firework storage facility needs work,” Q remarks dryly before utterly failing to stifle a yawn.

Another firework explodes, illuminating James’ fond smile.

“Not bad for a man in his pyjamas.”

#7

Title: Isle of Bond Author: Warnings: none Summary: No man is an island.

They say, “no man is an island,” and they’re right.

Bond would disagree; would claim the title for himself.

He would say that he is a man for himself, as he trusts his life in the hands of friends. He would build a fortress of solitude, only to fly from it in a blaze of glory. He would fence his heart with spikes, spark, smirks, and sex. Until someone is unafraid to get stung.

Bond would lay life, death, heart, and gun at the feet of true love.

“They say, no man is an island, and they’re right,” Bond says.

#8

Title: forget the past Author: scarytheory Warnings: none Summary: In the woods, in the middle of the night, two friends are trying to make peace with everything.

“This is ridiculous,” says Q, looking at Moneypenny. “It’s not New Year’s. Also, do you know how harmful it is to animals?”

She gives him the side-eye: “Your complaining already scared everything within ten miles of here. And it’s symbolic, actually. Because he’s not coming back, not to me, not to you. We need to start over, with a bang. Help me set this off.”

With a sigh, he does.

And here they are, watching fireworks in the middle of March, both feeling lost.

But as she slips her hand in his, he thinks that maybe they will be alright.

#9

Title: Inferno Author: oldestcharm Warnings: fire Summary: Q appreciates the scenery. Bond isn’t pleased.

Q’s eyes are glued to the live feed from the helicopter. “This is very scenic,” he comments. Bond huffs. “Are you talking about the forest fire, the flare guns, or the volcano that’s about to burst now that I obliterated this guy’s lair?” Q hums, considering. “All of the above.” “I’m pleased to know you care so much for my safety.” “You’re just fine, 007,” Q assures him. “I’m standing in the middle of burning debris,” Bond points out. “There is a lake right beside you. Grab a bucket.” “You didn’t equip me with a bucket.” “Maybe next time then.”

#10

Title: Birthday Celebration Author: Nana-41175 Warnings: n/a Summary: Q is gifted with spectacular fireworks for his birthday by Bond

Q was sure he would dislike camping. He did not feel kindly toward the idea of a million insects descending upon him while they roughed it out in the woods. Plus, no internet. Hideous.

But he liked fireworks at dusk, especially when viewed over water. He was touched that Bond wanted him to see this: the lake, the dark circle of trees surrounding the warm, cheery glow of a campfire, the slender strands of bright light as they shot up toward the night sky.

Most of all he adored being in Bond’s arms as his boyfriend whispered, “Happy birthday, darling.”

#11

Title: In the End Author: Venstar Warnings: none Summary: One last goodbye.

Bond stared as the island of Mr. White burned away in a final fiery glow. So many things had been set in place there. Thoughts of Vesper slid through his mind, like a dark oil slick on water. Never to truly be erased. He felt something slide into his hand. A weapon. Something strong and flexible. He squeezed and felt bones move. Q. Something else that had been set in place. A gift, from one madman to another. Silva’s little cogwheel in the bigger scheme of things had inadvertently delivered Q to MI6…and James. He kissed those fingers. His weapon.

#12

Title: Miscalculation Author: Merc/moon_of_mercury Warnings: none Summary: Bond makes a strategic mistake. Q improvises to save the day.

“Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

“No, not really. They’re an unnecessary waste of money, spread heavy metals and other contaminants in the environment, cause noise pollution, not to mention the stress to animals and people who don’t like them–”

“Alright! Fine. I should have asked you first.”

“Or used your head for once. I told you; the cats and I are a package deal. If you plan for me you plan for them. I’m not having fun when my darlings are terrified.”

Before the mood sours, Q pulls James into a kiss.

“But we can always stay in. I’ll show you fireworks.”

#13

Title: How Does He Do That? Author: IrishWitch58 Warnings: Things blowing up, Canon typical violence, 006 and explody stuff Summary: Bond and Q watching the end of a 006 mission

Bond watched intently as Q focused on the terse commentary from the extraction team. Trust 006 to find one of the few primary forests left in Europe to play hide and seek with terrorists. Injured, bleeding but in possession of valued intel he’d been sent after, Trevelyan was being sought by both sides. One of the drone cameras blazed with light, flaring streamers rising from a central explosion. Q blinked, eyes watering before the screen dimmed.

“How does he do that every bloody time? I never issued him any explosives.”

Bond just shrugged, grinning. “When has that ever stopped Alec?”

#14

Title: Beacon Author: solarmorrigan Warnings: None Summary: Q is very good at reading even the smallest signs.

“Come on,” Q murmured.

Images flashed by on his screens: satellite feeds, CCTV stills, personal security system hacks, social media posts – anything he could think of. Windows overlapped, flashed, jockeyed for space and called for attention as new information poured in. Then, at last, a filter-covered photograph from one website or another, a tiny island lit up by a few explosive columns of light, drew Q’s notice.

Unexpected fireworks off the coast, the caption read.

Q checked the location. He checked the time. He smiled.

“There you are,” he sighed, and began the work of piecing together Bond’s trail.

#15

Title: We Don’t Need Fireworks Author: MrKsan / starrboned Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence Summary: Bond makes things explode. Q watches from afar.

The skies were ablaze with stardust and fire. It could’ve been beautiful, Q thought, had it not been his job to clean up the mess after.

Damn Bond and his dramatics.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Q couldn’t help but smile as an arm looped around his waist.

“007,” Gareth sighed. Q snorted, leaning into the warmth. Something exploded in the distance.

“Wish you could join him?” Gareth asked. “Share the action?”

Q turned his head, watching the fireworks reflect in his eyes.

“I got all the fire I need right here,” Q smiled, and leaned in for a kiss.

Go vote!

[wienerbarnes]

Much Ado About Nothing (5/6)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2,747

Warnings: none! wedding stuff? 

A/N: happy new year yall hope everyone had a safe one! das all imma say tho im keeping my mouth shut about 2021 i aint risking shit anyway enjoy this chapter :P

MAIN MASTERLIST | MUCH ADO MASTERLIST

For being given a week, the ballroom looks immaculate. Satin drapes and tablecloths of cream and white cover the room, gold and olive green accents strewn throughout. The handful of tables in the room have large centerpieces of small white flowers, thin branches, and delicate leaves, as well as a lace trim around the vase they rest in. A warm toned light makes the room look bigger than it is and the dancefloor welcoming for everyone.

The wedding guests include the team, of course, some of Sharon’s family that were able to make it in such short notice, and anyone’s dates were welcomed. Sam brought a date himself, Sharon extended the invitation to some agents she’d been training over the last few months, and she told you invite those who worked in the lab with you.

She insisted, in fact.

Sharon banished you and Nat to the ballroom, while she finished getting ready, wanting to have a few minutes by herself before the wedding started. You assume Steve felt similarly when you see Sam and Bucky enter the ballroom and merge together with the rest of the team. You linger by the bar, hoping to get a bit of liquid courage before the party starts, but to your dismay, the bar doesn’t open until after the ceremony.

You also don’t want to take a seat because you’ll be one of Sharon’s bridesmaids, along with Nat. You and her wear matching warm brown dresses with a slit on the side, tying in with the neutral and woodsy tones going on throughout the rest of the wedding. Sam and Bucky wear brown bow ties and you assume they’re taking the role of Steve’s groomsmen. You pray you don’t have to walk with Bucky.

As more and more people take their seats, you find Nat and meet the other boys at the back of the room.

“Sam already claimed me.” She tells you cheekily as she loops her arm through Sam’s bent elbow.

Of course he did. You sigh and begrudgingly loop your own arm through Bucky’s as he smirks. While the group of you wait for the music to start to indicate your time to begin walking, you take in the man standing next to you.

He smells crisp and clean, his cologne smelling fresh and flooding your senses with lavender, rosemary, and cedarwood. His bicep is ginormous in your hand and you can feel the warmth radiating off of him through his suit jacket that he wears. He cleans up really nicely. Not that you’ll tell him, but you’ll definitely be thinking about it for the rest of the night.

Bucky’s mind goes through a similar thought process. Your skin is shiny and smooth, and he imagines you applied lotion while getting ready with the other girls. Maybe there hints of glitter in whatever cream you use, because to him, it looks like you’re glowing. You smell like the sweetest of roses and juiciest of fruits, and you look good enough for him to take a bite. He won’t give you the satisfaction of a compliment - God knows the argument that would lead to - but he imprints this vision of you in his mind to remember.

Finally, Steve enters the ballroom and makes his way towards the front of the room and any few people left standing take their seats. As people settle, Steve adjusts his jacket and glances over the room to take in all of his loved ones in one room. He glances over to where John sits alongside Leila and Kennedy, the two other lab interns that work under you, he’s come to learn about. He briefly wonders what John is thinking about, if he thinks his plan worked, if he thinks Steve is going to cause a huge scene in front of everyone, accusing Sharon of cheating in some big explosion. He wonders what John’s reaction will be when he witnesses him marry the most beautiful woman in the world, kissing her to solidify their love.

He can’t wait.

Soon enough the music starts and Nat and Sam begin down the aisle, you and Bucky following after. For someone that has hated the idea of love for so long, walking down the aisle like this feels really great. You’re not sure if it's the anticipation for the bride, or the decorations, or the huge hunk of handsome soldier guiding you down to the front of the room, but it makes you feel tingly all over. Almost makes you want a wedding of your own. Almost.

As Bucky makes his way down the aisle with you on his arm, he meets Steve’s eye, who gives him a smirk that looks a lot like I told you so. He ignores it, though. He knows he’ll get picked on later, but for now, he enjoys having you so close to him. You’re close to him outside of the lab, outside of a mission, outside of an argument. You’re close to him, holding onto his arm like you’re his girl in a sweet silence. He can almost get used to this. Almost.

Once everyone’s in their place, the rest of the guests rise as the music changes and Sharon enters the ballroom. Her dress is beautiful; a lacy brassiere top to connect the flowing train, all of the silk following her walk, making her elegant and glowing. Her hair is lightly curled and there are a few white flowers pinned around the back of her head, matching the rest of the room.

The officiant reads everything they have to and Steve and Sharon share their vows, causing everyone in the room to shed a tear or two. Nat and Sam find it particularly amusing to see you and Bucky wipe a few tears as well, seeming to get foggy eyed in spite of their hatred for love. They’re too busy silently teasing their friends to notice the fume coming from John’s ears, realizing his plan didn’t work the way he wanted it to.

There’s still time, he thinks. Maybe Steve didn’t want to make a big, public fuss. Yeah, once everything is over, he’ll take her upstairs and they’ll talk and soon enough they’ll announce that they’re marriage is over! Shorter than the Kardashians.

Finally, Steve and Sharon kiss to seal their marriage, sharing their official first kiss as husband and wife. Cheers and clapping erupt in the room as the couple makes their way back down the aisle, Nat, Sam, you, and Bucky following after. The lights dim a bit and the bar opens as the music changes to encourage people to mingle and dance until the couple emerges once more.

“What’s the matter, don’t like weddings?” You tease John, coming up behind him, your voice making him jump from leaning against the bar the way he was.

“Uh - No, not really.” He says, turning to face you, feeling awkward as he talks to his boss after trying to sabotage her best friend’s wedding.

“They grow on you.” Bucky’s deep voice makes him jump once more as it comes behind him, forcing him to turn away from you and face him, staring at his towering stance.

“Uhm -” John stumbles as he realizes he’s cornered against the bar by you and Bucky.

“Did you really think you’d get away with it? I mean, you’re surrounded by spies and an artificial intelligence system that records everything in the tower.” Bucky tells him.

John’s eyes widen as they glance between you and Bucky, realizing where he went wrong in his plan. I should’ve figured out a way to hack F.R.I.D.A.Y.! Or at least get rid of any footage of what I did!

“Not to mention the fact that Steve and Sharon are too disgustingly in love with each other to even fall for the kind of charade you put on. In my lab, nonetheless,” You add, “Some kind of unfunny joke by an ex-lab intern.”

“Ex?” John confirms.

“Oh, yea. Leila and Kennedy, too. I don’t want to waste my time training and giving experience and advice to the kind of people that lie, play around, and cause mischief in a lab and in a tower where some of the most important and delicate information in the world is handled. If I wanted that, I’d have Barnes, here, as an intern.” You tell him.

“Hey, I thought we were on the same team here -” Bucky tries to interject, but you smack his arm to get him back into the focus of their conversation with John.

“Anyway,” Bucky continues, “Why don’t you do us the favor of getting out of here? We’ll tell Steve and Sharon that you’re sorry you weren’t feelin’ well and had to head out early. Unless, you’d like for me to get them and bring ‘em over here?” He slings an arm over John’s shoulder, leading him over to one of the exit doors, as John nods his head in agreement, accepting his defeat.

Once John has left and the wedding is officially safe again, Bucky meets you back at where you wait at the bar.

“Nice job, McGeek.” He tells you, leaning on the bar next to you as you turn to face him better.

“Could say the same to you. He looked real scared there at the end.” You giggle.

“He should be, he almost got Steve’s ass kicked by me when Sharon first told us the whole situation.” Bucky tells you, leaning just a bit closer to you.

The bartender comes over to them asking what they’d like to drink. “Whiskey, neat, please. How bout you, Geeky?” Bucky says.

“Vodka cran.” You order.

“Really? That’s your drink of choice?” Bucky teases.

“What? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, I thought you’d pick a drink that’s actually good, is all.”

“And here I was revelling in the fact that this was the longest conversation we’ve had where we’re not at each other’s throats.” You tell him.

“Well -” Bucky’s cut off by the dimming of the lights and change in music as Sharon and Steve enter the room again to share their first dance.

His words are forgotten as he watches his best friend dance with his bride, the two of them looking happier than Bucky’s ever seen. Bucky feels a smile bloom on his own face as he watches on; he’s so happy for Steve. He knows this is all he’s ever wanted. The girl, the marriage, the house together, the kids in the future. The happy ending. And he’s happy that despite things - or people - trying to get in the way of that, Steve still got the happy ending he deserves.

He peeks over to see you have a similar smile, admiring the love shared between your best friend and his. He gets lost staring at you as the DJ is heard inviting anyone else to join the newlyweds on the dancefloor.

He asks before his brain can filter his mouth, “Do you want to dance?”

Your head snaps over at him, a surprised expression on your face, and Bucky prepares for you to make fun of him.

“Sure.” You tell him.

He doesn’t risk saying anything that might change your mind, only grabbing your hand softly and leading you to the dancefloor where other couples have begun to fill in. The slow music continues as his hands find their place on the curve of your waist and yours rest on the tops of his shoulders. He feels warmth and tingles flow from the placement of your hands through his suit jacket, down his arms, and through his entire body. He looks at you and how close your face is to his, quite enjoying having you so close in his arms like this.

“Do you remember what we were talking about last night?” She finally breaks the silence.

He hums in indication that he does and for her to continue, “So, you really don’t hate me or anything?” You ask.

“No. I don’t. Actually,” He chuckles humorlessly, “I know you like me.” He confesses.

Tension floods your body. How does he know?! “No, I don't! Not anymore than reasonable, I mean.” You deny.

Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, his body still swaying with yours with the music, “Oh. Well, you have Steve and Sam fooled, then, because they, uh, had me convinced.” He tells you, trying to play off his incorrect assumption.

“Do you like me?” You ask, drawing yourself just a bit closer to him, his arms moving from your waist to the small of your back.

“Uh, no, no more than a friend, I mean.” Bucky lies.

“Oh. Well, you have Sharon and Nat fooled, as well.” You tell him.

The two of you chuckle softly with each other at the whole situation, an attempt to hide the disappointment in each of your chests at the thought of unrequited feelings. Bucky glances back up to meet your eyes once more, eyes flickering down to look at your lips, in time to see you take your bottom lip into your mouth with your teeth. He looks back up at your eyes to catch you staring at his own lips. When your eyes meet his again, it's as though the two of you have a silent understanding. An understanding that you were both lying, and an understanding that you both really want to kiss each other right now.

So he does. Bucky leans in seemingly at the same time you do and presses his lips against yours in a sweet yet fiery kiss. His hands push a little harder into your back to bring you closer and your hands move to touch his neck and cheek, ensuring that his face won’t leave yours anytime soon. Everyone in the room has since disappeared; there are no wedding guests, there are no decorations, there is no music, only you and Bucky.

His lips are soft, softer than you were expecting, and he tastes of peppermint and the sip of whiskey he had, all mixed with a taste that’s so him. His taste and his smell and the feel of his hands on your back and his chest against yours makes you want to melt to the ground in a puddle of mush. You can’t believe you waited so long to kiss him.

Your lips are plump and soft. Your lipstick is fruity but he can taste the sweetness of cranberry behind it and a sweetness that’s all you. You’re the rarest candy he’s ever tried and he’s not sure he’ll ever get enough of it. A part of his mind wants to ignore that they’re still in public, though it certainly doesn’t feel like it, and just kiss you silly for the rest of time.

The two of you finally pull away after what feels like forever and you both can’t help but lick at your own lips, savoring the taste of each other. Before either of you can say anything to follow what just happened, another voice interrupts, “About time.”

You both turn to see Tony and Pepper, her with an admiring smile and Tony with a shit-eating grin. The two of you feel warm as you realize the rest of your friends that occupy the dancefloor are also staring at the both of you. Nat smirks from her place in Bruce’s arms, Sam winks at Bucky over the shoulder of his date, and Sharon and Steve are almost on the verge of happy tears at the sight of their best friends finally getting to be happy with each other. Even Clint and his wife smile at the two of you.

“What are you guys looking at, huh? Never seen a guy and gal dance together?” Bucky barks, Brooklyn accent slipping out as he chooses to pretend none of them saw the kiss that you and him shared.

“Not you two.” Steve says.

“Oh, whatever! What are you guys, five years old?” Bucky asks only to be met with his friends giggling.

“Whatever. Make fun of us all you want. I don’t care.” You speak up, curling your hands around the back of Bucky’s neck.

He looks back at you to meet your kind eyes with a gentle smile. Their friends continue to tease on, but you and Bucky only have eyes for each other. He ignores them and chooses to kiss you again, already craving the taste of your lips on his and the feel of your body in his arms.

[maybedefinitely404]

For You Became My Lighthouse

Genre: angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort

Pairing: romantic Prinxiety

Content: food/wine, Patton and Logan offscreen, anxiety attacks, argument, crying, fear of breakup.

Word count: 4k

Note: Not proofread. We die like men. Also part two is coming soon~

5:24

It definitely wasn’t every day that Virgil spent the early evening dancing around the kitchen while making dinner. But today was no ordinary day, and he was just too damn excited to stay still.

Figaro sat on the floor in the bedroom doorway, licking his paws and glaring disdainfully at the speaker system that had disrupted his nap. Virgil spotted the dark cat and grinned, dancing over to scoop him up. He hummed along to the music, bopping the disgruntled cat to the beat (much to his chagrin). Once upon a dream, Figaro might have fought tooth and nail at being used as a dance partner, but living with Roman for years had worn down his resolve. And after Virgil had entered their lives, he’d completely given up fighting their excuses for attention. Instead, the cat just yawned and went limp.

“Aw, did I wake you up, Figgy?”

The cat did not answer. 

Virgil let him hop from his arms onto his scratching tower and went back to slicing spinach on the counter, humming along to the music. He wanted it louder, loud enough that it numbed the excited tremble in his hands and drowned out his internal butterflies, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with noise complaints. Again. 

Instead, he opened the drawer in front of him and ran his fingers over the small box he’d placed in there hours ago. As he’d done countless times since, he opened the lid to make sure that the ring inside was still there, still perfectly centered and shining as brightly as it had been when he’d picked it up earlier that morning. 

Roman would never expect him to propose. Ask anyone who knew them and they’d agree that the romantic, outgoing, type-to-propose in their relationship wasn’t Virgil. Plus, he’d dropped no hints. Any time he met with Logan to plan, or went to the jewelers, and the million other things he’d had to do before this, he’d chalked it up to ‘having a bad day’ or ‘needing time alone’. 

He felt… a little bad, knowing in the recent months many of Roman’s attempts at dates had been turned down, only half the time due to actual bad days. But it would all be worth it in the end. The plan was to start with dinner; the meal they’d had on their first real date, followed by Virgil suggesting a walk. As they put on their jackets, he’d sneak the ring box into his pocket, and innocently lead them past a cafe for dessert, “coincidentally” the spot where Roman had asked Virgil to move in with him. Finally, the park, strung up with fairy lights and electric candles Logan and Patton had set up just before. It was their perfect mix of solitude and ‘extra’. Virgil would propose, and Roman would hopefully say yes, and everything would be perfect and amazing and-    

The oven timer beeped. There was fifteen minutes left for the dough to set; time to make the filling for the ravioli. But he’d barely started cooking the spinach when his phone chimed, alerting him of a text.

Hey V, dinner and a movie tonight? You can choose.

Virgil bit his lip and sighed, thumbs hovering over the keyboard for a second. As old as the excuse was getting, he needed to side step Roman’s plans one more time. Just one last time.

not feeling well. anxietys been all over the place. sry. 

He laid the phone back on the counter and returned his attention to the frying pan, flipping the greens and watching them wilt slowly. One eye on that, he pulled out his other ingredients from the fridge. He’d rather be ahead of schedule than behind. 

Ding ding.

Yeah, shocker. What else is new.

Virgil felt his heart drop. That wasn’t… at all in character for his boyfriend. Yeah, he’d used the excuse more often lately, but was it that much? He stared at his phone, hardly breathing, trying to think of some way to answer that, when a burnt smell reached his nose. 

“Shit,” He hissed, trading his phone for a spatula and turning the spinach once more. It was just on the brink of being overdone, just the edges turning a tad too dark, but nothing he couldn’t save. He scraped the pan’s contents into a bowl to cool and dumped it in the sink. The hiss and steam of the hot pan in water made him wince (he’d been told a million times it was bad, but he couldn’t recall why), but he left it on the bottom of the sink to fill and soak. Scrubbing dried spinach off it tomorrow would really put a damper on the ‘recently engaged’ mood.

“Mrow?”

Virgil shut off the water and turned to the trill, cursing when he realized Figaro had abandoned his tower in favor of sniffing the food on the counter.

“Figgy, no! Get down!” He plucked him away from the bowl just as he looked ready to pounce inside, much to the cat’s annoyance. “You would just spit it out, you big baby. Don’t look at me like that.” It probably wasn’t safe to keep cooking with the cat around anyways, so he went to their room and left him on their bed with a soft order to behave. Figaro blinked once at him with indignation before the door was closed, and Virgil hurriedly pulled out his phone.

Real mature, not answering. 

Virgil took a deep breath to push down the rising anxiety. He’s… probably just playing around, right? It’s probably meant in a lighthearted way but he was just misinterpreting the text harshly. It’s not malicious. Right?

sry, put figgy away

He paused for a moment, before shooting another quick text.

ur not actually mad right?

The typing bubble appeared.

And went away.

And popped up again.

And vanished.

That was enough confirmation to get Virgil’s heart pounding, all hope that Roman was just fooling around out the window. He was typing again, and this bubble was staying for longer, but now it was too long to be a simple affirmation.

I don’t know, Virgil. You used to actually contribute to this relationship, and now I’m the only one really trying. We barely ever go out, for like a couple months now. You always dodge my plans. I miss the old you, because right now I feel like I barely know you. I’m getting sick of it. 

Now Virgil properly couldn’t breathe. That sounded like the beginning, if not the entirety, of a breakup if he ever heard one. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck his stupid ideas, his stupid plans, fuck all of it. This is his fault, and Roman’s about to dump him, because he took his overdramatic proposal too far and it was about to end their relationship.

I’ll be home late. 

Okay, that wasn’t… a breakup? Unless, of course, he was going to do it in person, and needed time to plan how it was going to go. 

Cognitive distortions, is that what Logan had called them? Magnifying? Is that what was happening right now? There was a solid chance that Logan would agree with him, say that he wasn’t actually sure what Roman planned, and it would probably be okay, but it was very hard to be objective when he was in the middle of it.

how late?

Another deep breath. He placed the phone next to his mixing bowl, screen up so he would be sure to see the notification, and absentmindedly added in the ingredients he’d pulled from the fridge earlier. Shit, did they have thyme? 

Of course they did, he’d gone shopping for all the ingredients like two days ago. He needed to get out of his own head. 

The final timer went off, signaling the dough was ready to be used. Before he unwrapped the ball and got his hands covered in the stuff, he checked the lock screen on his phone. Nothing. 

It was fine, it was fine. 

Rolling out the pasta into one thin sheet took far more effort than he would have thought, and it took embarrassingly long before he was able to lay it out on the big ice cube tray he was using in place of an actual ravioli mold. He checked his phone. Nothing. 

Once he got the hang of filling the molds without making a huge mess, it was actually an easy process. He finished three and a half trays-worth before running out of dough and filling simultaneously, but that’s more than enough for the two of them. No answer yet. 

ro?

He set a pot on the stove full of water but didn’t turn it on; it would just be one less thing to do when he was ready to cook the ravioli. For now, he placed the pasta in the fridge so it didn’t dry up. Roman generally got home from work at six, which he had prepared for, except on late rehearsal days when he was held back an extra hour. That’s what Virgil consciously chose to believe; he meant he’d be home late because it was a longer day. He wasn’t answering now because he was on stage. Technically it all made sense, but it wasn’t enough to relieve the icy grip around Virgil’s lungs. 

romans gonna be late. push back an hour?

Logan sent back a thumbs up followed by his ‘-Logan’ sign off. Virgil sent a quick apology but didn’t bother to check the response when his phone lit up, focusing back on his plate of raw ravioli.

So, at five to seven, he’d boil the pasta and warm up the tomato sauce. It had been finished that morning and had been waiting in the fridge all day, because Virgil was a firm believer that it would taste better having had time to sit. Plus, he’d been excited, and had needed something to do with his hands. 

But now he needs something to do with his hands again, but instead of excitement, it’s a tingling discomfort spreading through his limbs and curling in his stomach. Convinced that there was nothing else in the kitchen he could do, he untied the apron and pulled it over his head, pleased at the stark black button up he’d successfully kept flour-free. The satisfaction doesn’t last for long.

Now that he’d acknowledged his shirt, it was impossible to ignore the way it wrapped far too tight around his neck. It’s fine, he thought as he unbuttoned the top button, I still look okay.

He may as well set the table. Patton, similar to Roman in regards to going above and beyond, had insisted Virgil go all out for the dinner. Stark white table cloth, silverware set perfectly next to the plates, and a tall, white candle as the centrepiece. Virgil had cringed a bit at the idea, but after being assured that Roman would love it, he’d reluctantly agreed. It wasn’t his style but, well, the night wasn’t supposed to be about him, no really. 

Watching TV did nothing to relieve the knot of uneasiness in his stomach, even when he unrolled his weighted blanket from the side basket and huddled into it. It brought a calm familiarity with it, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could pretend that someone was holding him. Patton’s soothing words, or Logan’s gravity, or Roman’s warmth or Roman’s safety or Roman’s gentleness or Roman-

6:53

Time to throw in the ravioli. He shut off the television, he hadn’t been watching it anyways, and turned the water on to boil. As it heated, he scuttled back to the table, some of his excitement returning. Sure, things had been tense on the phone, but Roman would be home any minute, and the rest of the night could go as planned. He pulls a small crinkle out of the white fabric and recenters the candle, stepping back to admire his work. It’s okay. If Roman had done it, it would probably look better, but who cared. It was fine. 

7:01

Virgil sighed, looking over his final creation once again. A part of him was cringing with the cheesiness of it all; the lit candle, food already plated, a bottle of wine fresh from the fridge. Getting a new wine may have been too much of a giveaway, so the feature was a half finished bottle from their last date… a few months ago. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if it would pair well. He didn’t even like wine. But it was Roman’s favorite, so it would have to do. 

He’d bitten three nails down to the nub by the time he figured he could add the tomato sauce over top. Roman was never later than seven, so the pasta wouldn’t even have the time to get soggy. 

In a combination of unfortunate events unlike any Virgil had experienced before, the tomato sauce bubbled the moment he grabbed the handle, dozens of pinpricks of heat burning his hands. He yelped and dropped the saucepan in favor of grabbing his scalded hand, jumping back as the pot hit the side of the counter and sent tomato sauce flying directly into the open drawer next to it. In his search for a match to light the candle, he’d left open the drawer containing the ring box, and in moments, the velvety exterior was coated in a fresh layer of marinara. 

“Fuck!” Virgil shouted. 

Heat be damned, he grabbed the box from the steaming puddle around it and rushed it to the sink. Running it under water would just be asking for the situation to be worse so he tried to scrape off the mess with a dishcloth. Was this even salvageable? 

No, it turned out. The white velvet had stained a shitty orange in a way he definitely couldn’t play off as the original color, and even though the interior (or god forbid the ring) hadn’t been touched, he found himself trying to fight off tears. This wasn’t fucking going well, and now… 

7:28

Roman was never this late, not without telling him. Virgil checked his phone and, nope, only the previous message from Logan and a newer one, asking if they could set up yet. He sent a quick:

no, hes not home yet

Panicking was not a move he wanted to make right now, despite how his brain was trying to convince him otherwise. Roman was probably stuck in traffic, right? And Virgil was always getting on him for texting and driving, so that could be why he hadn’t said anything. Sure, the route from the theatre to their house was barely ever busy, and yeah, it was way too late for there to be real holdups, but there was a first time for everything.  

He made quick work of cleaning up the disaster of marinara sauce, surprised that a decent amount was salvageable. Apparently in his panic he’d righted the pot before it had all spilled, so there was maybe just enough for the meals. The inside of the drawer was a stained, orange, mess, and the area under the burners was caked in dried sauce, and that was just too much work for right now. He slammed the drawer shut and threw a towel over the element. Out of sight, out of… well, not out of mind, but maybe it would take a backseat on ‘worries for the night’.

Might as well get a head start on dishes, he thought, since the thought of texting Roman is daunting and his whole body is aching for something to do. One second more of standing still and he may very well have combusted. He couldn’t even summon up the will to turn on music, the mood from before totally vanquished. If he could just get that burnt pan done, perhaps the tension in his chest would ease up a bit. 

But he cleaned the pan, and the rest of the dishes, and scrubbed the sink, and Roman still wasn’t home. At some point when he’d decided to just finish all of the dirty cookware he’d rolled up his sleeves, which he quickly lowered and rebuttoned around his wrists. The dishes were drying; nothing left to do there. 

He swallowed thickly. How was the shirt still too tight around his throat?

Virgil unbuttoned the next one down, hoping to ease the ball of fear in his throat. It didn’t help.

The food was lukewarm, at that point. It was still edible. It was microwaveable. It was fine. Again, the thought crossed his mind to text Roman, but what if he was driving? He might check it and get pulled over, and that would not help the uneasiness in their relationship right now. What if the phone’s light distracted him and he got into a car accident? He couldn’t lose Roman, not when their last words had been so strained, and it would be his fault on top? Not a chance. He’d be home any second now. He had to be. 

Virgil quickly found himself under his weighted blanket once more, watching whatever sitcom was on with dissociated interest, arms wrapped around his waist in a vice grip and feet bouncing under the covers. This time, though, the television worked less as a distraction and more as grating noise in his skull and he muted it, but that didn't stop the sudden stream of noise. Water was running through the pipes under him, some of his neighbors were shouting, and the fridge was humming and the lights overhead were buzzing and it’s all so loud-

His sound blocking headphones were also in the basket next to the couch and he shoved them over his ears. The world went quiet except for the sounds of his shaky breathing; breathe in, and out, and in, and out…

8:07

With the thick padding over his ears, the only sound he could hear was his breathing. It was somewhat reminiscent of Darth Vader’s, seeming far too loud, but also a steady foundation for him to ground on. Without the outside distraction, it was far easier to focus on his breaths, to slow them down, to get into a rhythm of long inhales and longer exhales. Bit by bit, the swarm of butterflies that had clasped around his heart gave way, allowing the anxiety to morph into numb sadness.

If Roman had come home on time, would they be in the park already? Would they be engaged? Maybe they’d already be back home, sharing the news to their families. Roman would probably already be gushing about wedding ideas as Virgil nodded along in amusement. They probably could have convinced Patton and Logan to come home too, and they could have had a great rest of the evening, finishing the bottle of wine and reliving the past and…

Were they even going to get engaged at this point?

He fumbled for his phone and sent a text to Logan.

plans off. sry

The headphones were overly effective in silencing the world, now amplifying his thoughts too much, so he slid them off. He took a deep breath, the sound now camouflaged in the rest of the apartment’s noise. A lump formed in his throat as he took in the arrangement of the dining room, and the more he pushed it down, the harder it was to stem the tears that were steadily filling his eyes. 

Virgil didn’t like feeling helpless, but that was all he felt at that moment.

Fuck.

Without forethought, he rubbed at his eyes, and instantly froze.

He drooped his head with a sigh that bordered on a groan, reluctantly lowering his hands from his face. Mixed in with his intercepted tears were the smudged remains of his makeup smeared across the web of his hands. 

Might as well; everything else went to shit anyways.

Usually, Virgil didn’t spend more than a minute removing his makeup. But that day, he spent an inordinate amount of time scraping off every streak of color until his face felt raw, watching his hard work be erased. He’d spent forever getting it perfect.

Even after he finished, he couldn’t get himself to move. That familiar weight of anxiety was settling again into the pit of his stomach as rushes of adrenaline, but he found it impossible to tear his eyes away from the mirror. As he stared into his own eyes, he vaguely remembered reading somewhere that looking at yourself in low lighting could trick one’s brain, causing the face to morph into something totally different, oftentimes not human; monstrous. Something about the brain trying to find faces everywhere, and creating them where it can’t see one properly. 

This didn’t happen to Virgil.

All he saw in the mirror was someone who had messed up his hope for a future. 

Huh. So maybe a ‘monster’ wasn’t too far off.

He laughed humorlessly and finally flicked off the bathroom switch, reentering the living room. The candle was still burning strong on the table, a good half way down. Virgil blew it out.

9:12

The state of apathy Virgil had sunken into was violently replaced with sharp anxiety when he finally bothered to check his phone, realizing it was past nine o’clock. Once more he considered asking Roman if everything was okay (heh, as if anything was okay) but he was quickly reminded why he hadn’t in the first place. Light distracts a driving Roman, bad things happen, it’s all his fault… 

Instead, he replied to Logan’s response.

Why? Virgil, what happened?

-Logan

we had a fight

His feet led him by their own will, pulling him to the wall so he could flip off the lights, dousing the apartment in darkness. Using the light from his phone screen, he stumbled to their room- or was it just Roman’s now? Would he have to move out? Oh god… where was he going to live?- ignoring Figaro’s mewls for pets. 

What did this fight regard? 

-Logan

idk. a bunch of stuff.

He stripped out of his formal shirt, hands shaking so bad he could barely undo the buttons, and exchanged it for his favorite hoodie. It may be too hot to sleep in, but he felt the need for comfort more than he was concerned about heat. 

Virgil dropped onto the bed next to the clothes, finally relenting to Figaro’s complaining and stroking down his back. In the stillness of a silent apartment, it was suddenly harder than ever to not completely break down. At least he wiped off his makeup.

This was over dinner?

-Logan

no. over text. he never came home.

He allowed the first tears to fall.

Maybe this had all been building up for a while and Virgil had just been too dumb to see the signs. Was this the night he lost everything? Would the one person he never grew tired of, the only person he had truly loved, leave him? He didn’t know what he’d do without Roman and somehow, he didn’t think he’d have a hope of ever finding someone like him again.

The tremors and blurry vision made it difficult to type.

i think romans going to break up with me

It took barely half a second after it sent for his phone to start ringing, Logan’s name showing up on the caller ID. 

Later, Virgil wouldn’t even remember pressing the answer button. The moment he heard Logan’s voice over the phone, his unusually concerned voice overlapping with Patton’s questions, the dam broke. He sobbed his way through an explanation the night, the text messages they’d swapped, and his snowball of anxiety.

To no surprise, the two on the other line immediately offered to come over, but Virgil declined. There was still the tiniest part of him, the littlest hope, that Roman was still going to walk through that door any second. If (when, when, when) he came home, they would need to talk, and it would complicate matters if Logan and Patton were there. 

When he eventually yawned in the middle of a sentence, he was encouraged to go to bed. He really didn’t need to be convinced; he was more than ready for this evening to be over. After promises that he’ll update them first thing in the morning, and multiple reminders that Patton loved him, he was left alone in the apartment once again. 

He curled into a ball on his side of the bed and cried himself to sleep.

Part two HERE!