#it’s almost compelling enough that I’ll probably do it for a couple of one shot comics focusing on Antony actually. get haunted buddy

[brother-emperors]

Could I ask for your thoughts on why you say that Cassius should have been Crassus' political heir ?

so largely I’m half referencing this collection of quotes and the various attempts to fill in the space/grave with a body (like Cicero! Cicero was a contender for this!) and I’m sort of taking shots at Antony for fun and whimsy.

like in sports!! I gotta root for my man Cassius over Antony, especially because no one can actually fill the space left by Crassus after his death (literally, the political landscape makes this impossible), but Cassius assumes a command position due to everyone else (notably, Crassus) dying (so: inheriting Crassus’ leadership position) and wouldn’t be a bad follow up to Crassus in the realm of military command since they have a similar (strict, as opposed to friendly in a way is commonly associated with Antony) relationship with the men under their command.

& also bc Marcus Crassus jr seems to be disinterested in taking up space in the political spotlight on his return from the Gallic Wars otherwise I’d be advocating for him on the basis of family tragedy compounded. it’s time to fill the space/memory/grave of your father and brother, buddy!

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

It's Delicate: PART I

CHAPTER MASTERLIST

Summary: Spencer Reid finds himself at a gas station at 2:00 am, thinking he’s only leaving with a cup of crappy coffee. But something taped to the door catches his eye. Spencer leaves the gas station with more than he intended: the chance at a friend, and maybe something more along the way.

Word Count: 2.8 K

Content Warnings: Mention of NA meeting, some case talk, mild language

Author's Note: This is my first chapter fic! I've only written one shots before, so bear with me. I truly do appreciate all reblogs, likes, and comments. Thank you!!

It's Delicate

Spencer doesn’t really care for gas station coffee, but at 2:00 am it’s the only thing that’s open. He pulls into the parking spot and turns off his Volvo. The check engine light is on, he needs to get into a mechanic, but between his NA meetings and work, it’s difficult to even catch his breath.

So that’s what Spencer does. In the middle of the gas station parking lot at 2:00 am, Spencer sits in his blue Volvo and breathes. He takes deep breaths, the ones that he uses when he has to calm down victims when they’re rescued. It’s grounding, breathing like this he thinks. It’s the kind of breath that Spencer takes when his head is fuzzy from sleeplessness and the only thing that can keep his eyes from drooping is a steady stream of coffee.

He unbuckles his seat belt and gets out of his car. Shutting the door, Spencer surveys the rest of the parking lot. He sees a couple other cars in the lot, he supposes it’s the gas station attendants, but he feels his shoulders tense at the thought of trouble. The bell attached to the door rings as Spencer opens the door. It's a small convenience store, one that Spencer has been frequently at odd hours after the BAU’s jet lands. He’s grown to know the owner, Jeff, who for the past 4 years hasn’t been around all too often.

“I’ll take a regular coffee,” Spencer asks the young man behind the counter. He doesn’t say anything in return, but nods his head in understanding as Spencer hands him a $5 bill and tells him to keep the change.

“Night,” Spencer tells the man, who he’s never seen before, when he hands him his coffee. Again, the young man doesn’t answer. Spencer tries to salvage the awkward encounter by chalking up the man’s coldness by it being so late.

As Spencer pushes against the door with the sleeve covered part of his arm, a poster that’s eye level catches his eye. It’s one of those posters where you can rip off the phone number and contact the person. But instead of a 20-something looking for a roommate, it’s a book club advertisement.

Spencer, quickly for a normal person, but slowly for himself, reads over the sign. The book club is hosted at the local bookstore, Hooked on Books, that Spencer has always meant to check out. From what he can gather, the list of numbers are from people looking for what the poster refers to as “book buddies”. Spencer’s eyes scan the list. There aren't any names attached to the numbers, Spencer supposes that the idea behind that is so bias won’t come into play.

It almost seems like the perfect trap: rip off one of these little pieces of paper with a phone number and call that person with the intention of being their book buddy. It’s something that Spencer knows deep in his bones he’s meant to avoid. But it’s like there’s an invisible string pulling at him to rip the third piece of paper from the group and stuff it carefully into the safety of his wallet.

--

It’s been five days since Spencer visited the cold man at the gas station and took the number from the poster. In those five days, Spencer slept for two and was back on plane to the middle of Montana for the next three.

After a long day in the sun, Spencer relishes in the cold water from the hotel shower. Even though he had to crouch slightly, Spencer still appreciated the way the chilly water seems to wash him anew. He never sleeps well when the team is on a case, it’s like his mind can’t rest. Well, his mind can never really rest, since it’s technically always growing and changing, especially during sleep.

Spencer’s thoughts travel from his messed up circadian rhythm to the piece of paper that burns a hole in his wallet. He steps out of the shower and dresses in his pajamas. It’s cold in the hotel run, as JJ likes to sleep in the coldest temperature humanly possible. Spencer knows that she finds the weight of blankets comforting. He makes a mental note to put some of his pillows on JJ’s bed, so she can pretend it’s her boys and Will in the bed with her. Spencer can’t help but wonder what’s like to have a child or a partner that misses you. It must be so bittersweet: the promise of coming home, but the threat of having to leave them all behind at moments notice.

Letting his hair air dry, Spencer unlocks the door and enters his and JJ’s hotel room. Out of the whole team, Spencer likes sharing with JJ the best. She’s the most organized and usually, they’ll spend the night on FaceTime with the boys and Will watching a movie, depending on the time.

“You’re all good, JJ. Thanks for letting me get in first,” Spencer says, flopping down on his bed. He shuts off his light, essentially telling JJ that he doesn’t want to talk about the case, or Henry, or anything really.

“Good night, Spence,” JJ says, before shutting off the rest of the lights and heading into the bathroom.

For a couple of minutes, Spencer lays in the all consuming dark. He tries the breathing exercise that’s scientifically proven to make you fall asleep. He counts, one, two, three, four breaths in and holds for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and let's go for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

He tries it for a couple of rounds, but suspects thinking about numbers makes him think about the phone number. Spencer can’t exactly pinpoint why he’s nervous to reach out to the number. Maybe it’s his constant fear of judgement or fear of not being enough, he can’t tell.

Knowing that sleep is probably not coming anytime soon, Spencer rolls on his side so he faces the window overlooking the hotel parking lot. He can’t stop thinking about the case. The way the victim’s mother and father walk around the precinct with a lifeless look in their eyes, staying villgiant no matter how many times JJ tells them to go home and rest.

Spencer doesn’t want to think about the case, so his mind flits to another subject: Hooked on Books Book Buddies. He can’t really pinpoint why he didn’t reach out to his book buddy. But laying there in the bed, Spencer feels strongly compelled to do anything to get his mind off the case, so he climbs out of bed to reach for his phone.

It’s tucked away neatly in his go bag, unlike JJ, Spencer doesn’t have anyone that’s waiting for him at home. Sure he has his mother, but if she needed him, the home would wait until 8 am to call Spencer. He unlocks it and the blue light illuminates the room. Somehow, Garcia had convinced him to get an updated phone. Spencer hardly uses it, but does appreciate being able to get pictures of JJ’s boys and his mother.

He memorized the number in the ten seconds or so it took him to rip the little slip of paper from the poster and put it away in his wallet. Spencer punches the numbers into a new contact, but hesitates when he’s prompted to give a name. He doesn’t know the first thing about this person. Seriously, this is like FBI 101 on the do not listen, he thinks.

Spencer pushes the thoughts of serial killers, for what feels like the first time in ten years, from his mind when he hits the button to message his mysterious book buddy. He types out a message a couple of times, but ends up deleting them because he sounds so incredibly stupid.

Spencer: Hello. I do apologize for my late message. I work odd hours, but I came across your number at the gas station on the corner of Richmond Street and Connor Avenue in Woodbridge. If you are interested, perhaps we can have a conversation about Hooked on Books’ Book Club?

Spencer, realizing that the message he wrote is going to be as good as it gets, hits the little arrow for “send”. He watches as his message turns blue and the little gray delivered pops up. He doesn’t expect the person to send a message back yet. He’s all the way in Montana and they’re in Woodbridge, Virginia, presumably. If it’s 2:30 am in Montana, it’s 4:30 back at home. That’s a little too late for someone with a normal 9 to 5 to be up for work and a little too late for a person that’s joining a book club to haven’t gone to sleep yet.

Don’t profile them, Spencer.

“What’s got you glued to the phone, Reid?” JJ says, with a smirk as she walks out from the bathroom and climbs into her bed. She came in so quietly, or rather, Spencer was staring so intensely at his phone that he didn’t realize.

“Something with my mother, JJ,” he lies, and he doesn’t even know what he can’t tell her the truth.

“Okay, Spence. I just want to make sure you’re all good,” JJ says quietly, her back must be facing Spencer because her voice is muffled a little bit.

“Thanks, JJ, uh good night, now,” Spencer says, effectively ending the conversation.

JJ doesn’t say anything after that, perhaps she just understands that Spencer doesn’t want to talk. Spencer rests flat on his back and tries a couple more rounds of the breathing exercise, but nothing seems to make his brain shut off. Despite the way his eyelids droop and the way it’s almost painful to continue to think, Spencer can’t seem to fall asleep.

He thinks about his Book Buddy, whoever they might be. Spencer hopes that they are around his age. He can’t remember a time that he had a friend his age that wasn’t through work. He has people. JJ is the closest thing to a sister that he’ll ever get and he knows that Derek loves him like a brother, despite his teasing. Emily and Penelope are Spencer’s rock. And then there’s Tara, Matt, and Luke, though Spencer has really gotten a chance to know them all too well, he knows that they’re a team.

But Spencer has always dreamt of having a friend. As a little kid, he used to make up imaginary friends that would listen to his science facts and perform chemistry experiments from him. When he got to high school, his dreams were occupied by someone who’d reach for his hand after he’d been beaten down or strung to a football post. Sure he had Ethan, but that was something charged and electric that left Spencer longing for someone again.

Spencer hadn’t had dreams about a friend in a long time, but tonight he dreamt of coffee and books in a small café and a faceless stranger that would listen to him and laugh with him.

--

Even though he fell asleep relatively shortly after thinking about his Book Buddy, Spencer did not feel well rested. He turns around in his bed and notices that JJ’s bed is already neatly made. The bathroom is empty, so Spencer reckons that JJ and Emily must already be at the police station.

He wants to savor the last couple of minutes in bed, maybe chase a dream or two of strangers swapping books and making memories over expensive coffee and scones. But reality calls him back home. Spencer checks his phones for work updates (and maybe a message or two from his Book Buddy), but the only notifications on his phone is a Forbes article and a couple emails from Georgetown.

Spencer, heading to the bathroom, gets interrupted by a loud and persistent knock on his hotel room door. He opens the door, revealing an equally tired looking Luke. He waves Spencer good morning before slumping down in the desk chair in the corner of the hotel room.

“I’ve been sent by JJ to get you, she thinks you’re acting weird,” Luke says, expecting Spencer to explain himself.

Awkwardly, Spencer makes something in between a grimace and a frown. He rolls his eyes, but plays along with what he thinks Luke’s little game.

“Well I’m always weird, it would be weird if I wasn’t being weird,” Spencer says, heading into the bathroom with a pile of work clothes. He shuts the door, both literally on Luke and metaphorically on their conversation.

In the bathroom, Spencer dresses out of his pajamas and into a pair of well worn pants and a light purple button up. He forgot his contacts at his apartment, but luckily had a back up pair of glasses in his go bag. Spencer, looking in the mirror, never particularly carried for the reflection that looks back at him. It always seems like his hair is too messy, or his collar is all twisted, or his eyebags are too prominent.

At least the glasses can kind of cover up his eye bags, Spencer thinks as he shuts off the light and closes the bathroom door behind him. Luke, who still is slouched in the chair, looks at his phone.

“Waiting for Penelope to send you a picture of Sergio or something?” Spencer asks, the snark in his voice isn’t missed by Luke.

“You’re one to talk, JJ was telling me how you’re being kind of secretive for the last couple of weeks,” Luke counters.

“Yeah, that’s my work mandated therapist, Luke. You know from the time I was in jail,” Spencer shoots back a little harder than he intended. The look that Luke gives him is something akin to a hurt puppy and Spencer can’t help but feel a little bad for snapping at Luke’s teasing.

“Sorry, man,” Luke says, putting a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, “I get it, and you know I’m here for you, Reid. We might not be as close as you and Penny or you and JJ, but I’m here to listen to you,” Luke says, his hand on Spencer, who’s usually so hesitant to touch, is something Spencer never thought he would find comforting.

“Thank you,” is all Spencer can manage and somehow, Luke just gets it. They walk quietly to the parking lot where the SUVs are. The silence continues as they drive to the police station.

It’s still early, only 7:13 am. Spencer can only hope that they catch the unsub in the next couple of hours, so they can file the paperwork and be on their way to Quantico by 8:00 pm. Luke’s steady driving threatens to lull Spencer to sleep. His quiet presence, however, is interrupted with a buzz. Luke’s eyes dart to his phone that navigates them to the police station. He refuses to take direction from Spencer, who has a habit of being a terrible co-pilot.

“Check that for me,” Luke says, “it’s probably Penelope,”

Spencer raises his eyebrows and attempts to suppress a smirk at Luke’s blatant transparency.

“You know with updates about the case and whatnot,” Luke says, brushing Spencer’s teasing off and putting his attention back to the road.

“It’s not Garcia and for what it’s worth, Luke, I don’t see how she’d say no,” Spencer offers, genuinely wanting to see his two friends, who are so perfect for each other it’s almost ridiculous, get together.

Luke shuffles in his seat uncomfortably and pulls into the station. He shoots Spencer a lot, as if to say drop it. The last thing Luke wants is Tara and Matt to get wind of his excitement at Penelope texting him.

Spencer, who’s phone lights up alerting him that he has an unread message, feels a sudden surge in his heart. He’s so used to only getting messages from JJ about the cases or pictures of her boys, that a text not related to his work or his family leaves a smile to his face.

Spencer tries to not profile the message, but to just read it like a normal friend would.

Book Buddy (Y/N): Hey there😊! I can’t believe someone actually grabbed my number...I’m glad you’re interested in this. I’m Y/N and I don’t think you mentioned your name, I don’t make it a habit to meet up with strangers before not knowing their name.

Reading the message twice to make sure he can recite without any hesitation, Spencer’s face falls as he realizes that he forgot to tell them his own name. How could you be so clueless, Spencer, he thinks.

Quickly, because he knows that the rest of the team is waiting inside the police station, that is like a portal to the past, Spencer types out another message.

Spencer: My name is Spencer.

Spencer: I tend to be away for work quite often, so I do apologize for the late message. And for hiding my identity-- not that that was on purpose. Is it okay if we plan something when I get back to Virginia?

Spencer doesn’t expect a message right away, but he can tell that there’s going to be something Pavlovian about the way that little swoosh sound makes his fingers reach for his phone.

--

Thank You!! I love and appreciate all and every comments, likes, and reblogs. I love knowing what you think!!

--Taglist--

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[dinosaurtsukki]

savior | fyodor x gn!reader

pt. 2 of broken from my angstcember series

anon 1:  Hey bestie, how are you? I hope your doing well and staying safe, can I get some more Fyodor content? P.S your my fave bsd writer atm xx

anon 2: Can you make a part 2 of “broken” the angsty fyodor fic, really enjoyed that one

summary: you knew that your relationship with fyodor would one day lead to you lying on the ground and him standing over you, holding your life in his hands. except, you didn’t think he’d choose to save you

words: 1.5k words

contains: mentions of death, blood, murder, emotional manipulation, your regular fyodor fic 

a/n: i have a whole bunch of fyodor requests so i decided to put both of these in one. also haha flattered that somebody would ask for a pt. 2 of that fic. that said, i tried to write this in such a way that you could read it independently from broken. 

fyodor knows all too well just how fragile human beings are. after all, he was born with a physically weak body and as much as he wanted to dismiss that reality, it would often catch up to him in the form of his own bodily limitations. luckily, he had his own genius to more than make up for that and it only convinced fyodor that he was greater than the average human.

his subordinates came and went, some of them fyodor had intentionally disposed of to benefit a plan, such was the nature of their work. he had grown used to standing over people grasping for their last breath before fyodor himself kindly put them out of their misery with his own ability. 

he knew very well that one day, he’d be doing the same to you.

“so... this is what came of you,” he mused, looking down at your body. one of your hands was pressed to a bullet wound on your side and blood pooled beneath your body. your eyes were glassy and focused at the ceiling but fyodor could tell from the slight rise and fall of your chest that you were very much alive.

he kneeled down and gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. with a soft smile on his face, he remembered the you from a year ago: the young university student that he met in a library with the shy smile and the soft expression. ‘so innocent,’ fyodor thought, chuckling softly. and now, look where you ended up.

“tell me, did you intend to get yourself shot?” he asked. your eyes landed on his and your breath rattled as you inhaled.

“you could figure that out for yourself,” you replied. 

“since when did my dear y/n get so cheeky?” fyodor sighed, resting his chin on his hand. 

“i hope... you don’t die... anytime soon,” you struggled to say.

“hm? have you grown fond of me?” 

“no,” you chuckled, only to cough painfully on your own blood. though, it looked like you didn’t regret it. “i just want to enjoy a few years in hell before having to see you there.”

that got fyodor chuckling again. “maybe i will miss you y/n,” he said. you smirked at him.

“screw you.” 

you closed your eyes, expecting fyodor to deliver the final blow. he observed you silently for a few seconds, his hand hovering just over your wrist, only to reach into his pocket to pull out a phone.

“nikolai? i’ll need some help here.”

...

you thought those were your final words because you slipped into unconsciousness right after saying them only to wake up a day later lying on a couch in an unfamiliar room. 

“what the--” you looked around groggily and found a bandage over the bullet wound in your side and what appeared to be an IV drip injected into your arm. fuck, you were still alive. only question is, where were you?

you got your answer just a few seconds later and almost wished you hadn’t.

“oh good, you’re finally awake,” fyodor said, entering the living room. he wasn’t dressed in his usual ensemble and wore a plain sweater and pants. for a minute there, you could imagine yourself back in that library a year ago before everything happened. “well, the bullet didn’t hit any fatal areas either so you’ll be good to go in a week maybe.” you clenched your jaw.

“why the fuck did you save me?” 

“is that anything to say to your savior?” fyodor tutted and sat down on the armchair nearest you. 

“you’re not my savior. not if the only reason why you chose to save me is to just toy with me,” you seethed. 

“hmm, you make a compelling argument,” fyodor nodded contemplatively. “though, that’s not entirely the case.”

“care to tell me what it is then?” you asked in a mocking tone. you hated that no matter how much venom you put in your words, fyodor would just chuckle as if he was watching a child threaten him. but to him, you were just as threatening as a child.

he leaned back in the armchair and cocked his head while regarding you. “having you around... entertains me.”

the way he enunciated every syllable sent shivers down your spine. you know that fyodor was always good at pandering to your insecurities, making you feel as if you were his whole world when in fact you were probably just a pawn to him. no way were you going to fall for this again.

luckily, months of working for his terrorist organization sharpened your movements. with one hand, you grabbed the letter opener from the coffee table and swung it at fyodor. except, his hand grabbed your wrist in mid-air just as you were about to plunge it into his throat. the point of the letter opener was pressed against his throat but your captor was completely unharmed.

“see what i mean?” he smirked at you. “was it just last year when you were desperate enough to leave me that you got yourself caught? and now look at you,” he crooned, twirling a strand of your hair with his long index finger. “so defiant now.” 

his grip on your wrist tightened and you dropped the letter opener. “just you wait. one day i’ll--”

“you’ll what? run away and try to live a normal life? you know better than that, y/n. with everything you’ve done under me, how could you possibly live amongst mere humans?” fyodor scoffed. “and dying? my dear y/n, you never really wanted to die that day, did you?” he smiled knowingly. 

the hesitation must have been clear on your face because fyodor let go of your wrist. you felt yourself sit back down on the couch you had been lying on. “you’re one of the only people i haven’t been able to completely control and i think that in itself makes it worth having you around.” 

“and if i decide to use that against you?” you asked. 

fyodor stood up and made his way across the room to the kitchen. “that’s always up to you,” he said, feigning nonchalance. “now, how do you like your tea?”

...

you spent that entire week recovering in fyodor’s place and it was strangely incident-free. he’d be away most of the day after all and often came back in the late hours of the night, asking about your condition if he caught you awake and even offering to bring back painkillers if needed. at one point, the two of you even had dinner together. that is, if sitting at the table drinking in soup while fyodor rambled on about the next stage of his grand plan could be counted.

a year ago, before you knew of his true colors, you would have wanted something like this with fyodor. you would have wanted him to come home to you making dinner and spend the rest of the night listening to him read out from your favorite book. of course, that scenario was just a pale ghost now in comparison to your reality, but sometimes you tried a bit harder to convince yourself otherwise. 

“you’re all healed. i suppose you could leave now if you wanted,” fyodor observed. “of course, you could come and go here anytime you like.”

“thanks but, no thanks,” you said stoically.

“hmm, shame,” fyodor sighed. “i won’t even be around for the next couple of weeks.” 

“so, you’re really planning to get yourself put in jail,” you said, looking up at him. fyodor was standing in the middle of the bathroom with the door ajar, fiddling with the ends of his dark hair. 

“just for a while,” he hummed. and then, “my hair is too long again. y/n, could you cut it for me?”

the request took you aback and it took you a while to realize that fyodor was serious with his request with the way he looked at you expectantly. slowly, you got up off the couch and walked over to the bathroom where he was. 

“how short do you want it?” 

“just at my shoulder,” fyodor answered. with one hand, he reached into one of the bathroom drawers and pulled out a pair of scissors. they weren’t just the regular kind of office stationery. the scissors were made completely of metal and the blades were long and sharp at the very tip. 

when he handed the scissors to you, fyodor’s gaze lingered pointedly on yours long enough for you to understand what he was doing. the corner of his lip curled slightly upwards before he turned back around. of course, he was taunting you.

the metal was cold in your hands and carried substantial weight. with fyodor’s back turned, you could probably kill him if you wanted to; plunge the blades deep into his back or his nape and have him crumple to the floor. then, you’d be the one standing over him, waiting to see what kind of person fyodor would be in his last few moments of life.

but he knew you too well.

“lean your head a bit forward,” you whispered. fyodor obeyed and you started snipping at his hair. not once did he even look up at the mirror to check your progress, placing his complete faith in you.

it was better to be at the devil’s side than his enemy. 

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[where-theres-smoak-2]

Darkling Character Analysis

Full disclaimer, I’ve not read the books, though I have ordered the first so I am hoping to have read that soon. But just so you are aware this character analysis is based entirely on the show version of the character. Obviously there will be spoilers for all of season one. Also I just want to say that my aim with this analysis was to sort of get into The character’s head and so alot of this is just what I think the character might have been thinking, feeling and what his motivations may be, it does not mean I agree or disagree with his actions. When I am giving my view on his actions I will try to make it as clear as possible. Also this is just my interpretation of the character and my own opinions on the character, it is ok if you disagree. So obviously this is an analysis of the character The Darkling but I am also going to be talking about his relationship with Alina so I guess its also a sort of analysis of their relationship too just solely from Aleksander’s side of it. I will be using all of the names he has interchangeably because he has so many that I don’t know which one to stick with (seriously haven’t seen a character with this many different names since Jace from Shadowhunters) so sorry if that’s annoying. Fair warning this one is probably the longest analysis I have ever written and they are usually pretty long so I would suggest if you are going to read this maybe get some beverages and snacks first. I mean I think it shows how compelling and interesting a character he is that I was able to waffle on as long as have about him. But yeah its long. Of course you can also always scroll on past. But if you would like to read it then the rest is under the tag. 

Ok so first off I think the show does a really good job of building up the character in the first episode by giving us some information on The Black General before we and Alina officially meet him, they really give the character this air of mystery by giving us only a small amount of information about him but also by not letting us see his face. We get small tantalising glimpses of him, a shot of his boots in the mud, his carriage passing by, the back of him with his cloak billowing in the wind as the skiff enters the fold. It’s just enough to peak the audience’s interest. But most of what we learn in episode one is from what other character’s tell us. The very first mention we get of The General is from Mal and it’s a very small detail but I actually think it can tell you alot about The Darkling’s character. When Mal and Alina come across the Grisha practising Mal says ‘They’re always picking on us when their General’s not around.’ This seems like such a throwaway comment designed to show us how the First Army feel about Grisha and paints this picture of the Grisha thinking they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha. But it actually suggests that if they only do it when The General is not around then he does not tolerate Grisha bullying First Army. That he doesn’t think its ok for them to act like they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha and that he believes in humility even. Which I think is really interesting. This tracks with Nadia’s comment later in episode three when she says that General Kirigan insists that the Grisha eat peasant fare to keep them humble. Yet while he encourages humility he also makes sure that the Grisha have everything they need in order to flourish and he obviously cares a great deal about the Grisha, I feel like rising the Grisha up and making them strong has been pretty much his only drive and motivation over the hundreds of years since the fold was created. 

The other thing we learn which is repeated a couple of times by a few of the characters is that The General cannot bring down the Shadow Fold. In fact I think there are two conversations about it. The first between Inej, Jesper and Kaz when Jesper asks why the General hasn’t taken it down to which Inej replies ‘Have you ever put out fire by adding more fire?’ The other conversation is more flippant and is between Dubrov and Mikhael, where Mikhael sarcastically says the General is there to save the day and Dubrov asks if he’s going to tear down the fold. So on two occasions we have characters believing the General is powerful enough to fix the problem of the fold only for them to be corrected and told that he can’t. It seems like the show wants to make it very clear that the General will not be destroying the fold and I could be reaching here but this could be foreshadowing for later when we learn he doesn’t desire to bring down the fold.       

Of course even after the first episode the character of the Darkling still remains a bit of a mystery. He’s the kind of character where the more you learn about him the more questions you have. This tactic of giving us small pieces of information about him, just enough to keep you interested continues throughout the season and of course you have the twist in episode 5 where its revealed that he’s the ‘villain’. And yes I did put villain in quotation marks because I personally feel like its too simplistic a term to use for the character. I do feel like he’s more than just a two dimensional villain and there is alot of complexity to the character and his actions just for him to be considered the ‘bad guy’. 

So lets have a look at some of those actions and think about what might have been his motivations and what he might have been thinking and feeling. I want to start with one of the more controversial of his actions and as a warning this is a sensitive topic. One of the earlier things we find out about is that General Kirigan gifted Genya to the Queen. I’ll be honest when I first watched this scene I was so caught up in the new character and what was going on in the scene that I didn’t think much about Genya’s comment about being a gift to the Queen but when I thought more on it later I realised that it was a rather dark idea, that you could gift a person to another person. It becomes especially darker later when you find out what Genya suffered at the King’s hands. I kept wondering a few things, one being why the General would gift a child to the Queen in the first place, two whether he knew what the King was when he put Genya under the royal family’s care and three if he didn’t why he didn’t remove Genya when he discovered what was happening with the King. I do feel that we didn’t get enough information in the show (I don’t know if there’s more information in the books) to really answer these questions but I’ll give it my best shot. Firstly why would the General gift a child to the Queen? Well I actually think this one is easy to answer, he needed a spy within the Royal Family. We know that Aleksander has suffered and been betrayed by a king in the past. He won the Old King a war and in turn that King turned on not just Aleksander but on his people too. I feel like Aleksander was blindsided when this happened and he just didn’t see it coming and because of that his people were slaughtered. It would make sense then that the General would want to keep an eye on the royals and get a warning if they were planning on turning on Grisha again. I also think this is why they refer to Genya as a ‘gift’. That was just the wording the General used to manipulate the royals. Here’s a gift that I am granting you out of respect and to honour and please you, is going to go over a lot better than hey here’s a spy I want in your household. Genya is essentially the General’s trojan horse. As for it being Genya as oppose to someone else, like a trained adult Grisha, well I think that’s because it would be easier to get the royals to take a child into their household than an adult, even as a gift. They will be alot less suspicious of a child than they would an adult. Also they might bond with a child and therefore treat them as more of a confidante as time goes on. As well as that Genya had a very specific set of Grisha abilities that made her perfect for a vain Queen. I may be wrong on this one but thinking back to my history education I think I remember being taught it was fairly common during the time period if a young lady was discovered to have a particularly special talent, like say singing for example, they may be given as a gift to the Queen as this may gain favour for the maiden’s family if she is made a lady in waiting. So if I am right about that then whilst it might seem strange to us it may have been a fairly normal practise to the characters. I mean Alina didn’t seem shocked when Genya said she was a gift to the queen it was learning about the King that upset her. 

Also I do wonder if some of the reason why he placed her with the royal family was because he believed she wouldn’t fit in with the other Grisha, she does say that she is almost as rare as Alina. I don’t know for sure but maybe the General suspected she would struggle with being different from the other Grisha and so decided the best way to help her grow and flourish was by giving a special mission of her own. 

Ok so what about question 2? Did he know what kind of person the King was when he placed Genya under his care. In my opinion I don’t think he did. I am basing this on how he always seems to want to make Grisha safe and wants them to flourish and also due to his actions with Alina when things between them became more intimate, we know that consent is something Aleksander cares about. So to me it would be out of character for him considering how much he cares about the Grisha and consent for him to knowingly put Genya under the King’s care whilst having the knowledge of what would happen to her. I feel like he would also consider it as a disrespect towards Grisha from the King for him to harm a Grisha woman like that especially as she was ‘gifted’ to them. Also when Alina herself asks a similar question in episode 7 when she says ‘did you think Genya was safe when you placed her under the King’s watch?’ To me I think the Darkling looked somewhat upset that she would think that he would knowingly put Genya in that situation. However I do think that by the time Alina was discovered and brought to the Little Palace he was aware of what was going on with Genya and the King as he makes that comment about Alina remaining at the Little Palace with him to train undisturbed. The way he said undisturbed made me think he thought the King might decide he wanted Alina and the General was warning the King away, making it clear that if he wanted the fold destroyed he would have to leave Alina alone. His actions here in protecting Alina also make me think that he didn’t know at the time of placing Genya with the Royal family what would happen to her. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with Alina that he made with Genya. 

As for number 3, why didn’t he remove Genya from the King’s care once he did find out about what the King was doing? I saw a few comments about this. All of them saying the same that because he didn’t get Genya out he was as bad as the King and was complicit in what happened to Genya. But I actually think it’s more complicated than that. For one thing technically he did remove Genya from the King’s care when he had her poison the king and then made her Corporalnik. Though obviously he didn’t do it immediately. We’ve got no timescale as to when he find out so who knows how long they were planning this. But also there was one line in episode 3 that I think answers this question best, when the General says ‘I may lead the Second Army, but the King is still the King.’ Whilst the General is powerful he still only has so much power over the King. He needed the King’s permission just  to have Alina at the Little Palace and for her to train, which is what the demonstration Alina had to go through in episode 3 was all about. I don’t think the General had the power to just walk into the Grande Palace and take back Genya. The only way he was getting Genya out of there was by killing the King. Also correct me if I am wrong but I feel like what the King was doing to Genya was a large part of the General’s motivation for poisoning the King. I mean we weren’t given much information about the King other than what he was doing to Genya, which made me think that’s why he was poisoned as we weren’t told about any other bad things the King had done that might lead to the General deciding to poison him. I think once he found out what the King was doing to Genya he allowed her to be the one to carry out the poisoning knowing that she would want revenge rather than trying to remove her right away and potentially causing tension with the royal family and also making it harder if not impossible for Genya to be the one to exact her revenge on the King. I guess what I am saying is its possible that Genya was the one who wanted to stay because she wanted to be the one to kill the King. I mean that’s the impression I got from her conversation with Alina where she says ‘I waited for years for my chance at revenge.’ For all we know General Kirigan might have offered to remove her from the Royal household and she might have told him she wanted to be the one to help him take down the King. Whatever his motivations were and however much he may or may not have known I think we can all agree that him ‘gifting’ Genya to the Queen was a mistake. I personally feel like it was more of a similar mistake to when Alina burned the maps. She had good intentions, she did it to protect someone she cared about, but in the end she caused others harm. With Alina she wanted to protect Mal and her whole unit was killed. With Kirigan I think he hoped a spy in the Royal household would protect the Grisha but in the end Genya was harmed by the King. One question I do have is whether Kirigan feels any guilt over what happened to Genya, whether he regrets his decision. I mean we did see him protect Alina from the King when he insisted she remain at the Little Palace. But was that just because it was Alina, the Sun Summoner? What if it were someone else. For example say the King came to the General and said he had taken a fancy to Marie, or Nadia or Zoya, and asked for them to be sent to the Grande Palace, would the General have agreed or would he have made some excuse as to why they couldn’t go, maybe even sent them on an assignment to protect them? There’s no way we can really know the answers to these questions as we just don’t know enough about the situation. All we know is that the General ultimately decided to get rid of the King but even then we don’t know for certain what his motivations for that were.   

I suppose you could say that him plotting against the king and conspiring with the apparat to usurp the throne was also a ‘bad guy’ move. But to be honest after telling us everything that the King did and just generally presenting the royal family in a negative light, I was surprised that Alina had such a problem with what the General did. To me it didn’t make sense for her to be upset and using that against him. I mean after learning what he did to Genya I was fully on the Darkling’s side when it came to killing the King. If they were trying to present this as a ‘villain’ move on the Darkling’s part then they did a poor job of it because I completely understood where he was coming from with that one. 

I felt a similar way with his other big ‘villain’ move when he expanded The Fold into Novokribirsk. At first I found it hard to have sympathy for them considering literally a couple of minutes before we were being shown that the soldiers were planning on murdering everyone on the skiff as soon as it docked. Couple that with the fact that Zlatan had arranged to assassinate Alina and once again I found myself on the Darkling’s side, I mean screw Zlatan and his soldiers. It was another case of it wasn’t until I rewatched it that I realised the villainous part of what the Darkling did was that there were civilians in the city that were also killed. To be honest I do wish that the show had done a better job of showing those civilians to really get across the horror of what the Darkling did. I mean on a rewatch I could see a few civilians mixed in with the soldiers but they were blended in so were hard to spot. I guess that was the purpose of Zoya having family in the city, to tell the viewer that there were innocents there but I just don’t think it made enough of an impact. I feel like if they had focussed in on actual civilians running and being swallowed by the darkness as well as the West Ravkan soldiers it would have had a bigger and more horrific impact. Instead it just kind of came across as the bad guys who had been built up as being bad throughout the season, who were rebels and who had tried to kill the main character, were finally eliminated. Lets be real if Alina had been the one to take out those soldiers we would all have been cheering. Lets talk about Game of Thrones for a moment as an example (spoiler alert for GOT here) however you felt about the way Dany’s descent into madness was written one thing the writers did right in The Bells episode was focus on the civilians that Dany was killing on the ground. They cut away from Dany completely and stayed on the ground with her victims and so you get that impact of what she has done, you see the horror in what she has done and I think this is something that would have worked well with Shadow and Bone. If they had just cut away from the skiff for a scene showing the civilians, the victims that were being effected by what the Darkling was doing then I think I would have been more shocked and effected by his actions. 

Ok so lets focus back in on the character and talk about what his motivations might have been for Novokribirsk. Why did he expand the Fold and take out the city? Well again I don’t think its hard to answer that question. We have to remember that he is a General that is fighting a war on three fronts. He’s fighting the Fjerdans on one side, the Shu Han on another and then the cherry on top is that the West Ravkans are rising up in rebellion. It’s already hard enough having to fight two enemy countries without also having to split your forces again to deal with a rebellion. The General knows that they are already overstretched without having to split their force again to deal with Zlatan. So if you look at it from his point of view striking down Zlatan now before the rebellion gets too large is a tactical military move. Also the fact that it is such a violent move will act as a deterrent for any remaining rebels who might think of trying to restart Zlatan’s movement. As well as to Fjerda and Shu Han, a this is what we do to our own people when they act against us so think about what we might do to you if you cross us, kind of deal. As for the innocent civilians that were in the city well I think the Darkling would convince himself that it was a numbers game. He might have killed hundreds of civilians but as far as he sees it he has spared thousands of lives that would have been lost if they had gone to war with West Ravka. By now the General knows the cost of war, so to him sacrificing a few hundred civilians is worth the price of saving thousands of his soldiers. Of course there is another motivation for the General, one that is less military strategy and more personal and emotionally driven. As Kaz says he was a man fuelled by vengeance. These soldiers standing on the dock had turned their back on Grisha and even worse than that they had tried to kill Alina. In the scene where The Darkling is talking to the Conductor and the Conductor admits to agreeing to assassinate Alina for a million kruge you can see how angry this makes The Darkling. This idea that someone would harm Alina for something as material as money is unforgivable to him. I said in a previous post that I wondered if the General always planned to expand the fold into Novokribirsk and I actually think the answer to that is no he didn’t. I actually think he was trying to make up his mind about what to do about Zlatan and his rebels, its possible he had a number of strategies to go with and was trying to decide which to choose, with expanding the fold being the most extreme of them. I actually think this here is the moment he decides to go with that plan. As he walks away from the Conductor and the Conductor asks ‘tell me how I can help’ The Darkling replies ‘you already have.’ I actually think what he meant here was you’ve helped me make up my mind. Them daring to harm Alina was the linchpin.         

Which brings me to the next part of this analysis, The Darkling’s manipulation and relationship with Alina. One of the great things the show did with the Darkling’s character was making him so complex and nuanced that the audience is in very much the same position as Alina when that reveal is made about Aleksander being the Black Heretic. Just like Alina (if you haven’t read the books) you are left sort of blindsided. Also just like Alina the audience is left wondering how much of it was a manipulation. Was all of it part of his manipulation? Or were there some moments that were real? Did he care at all about Alina or was he just interested in her power? 

Well I will say this, while I do think he always planned to manipulate her, I don’t think he ever planned or tried to use seduction as part of that manipulation. I think we have to remember that he was waiting for the Sun Summoner for hundreds of years and I think he spent that time creating his plan for her and her power. We also have to remember that when he was creating this plan he was expecting to find a child. I think his plan was to earn her trust as a mentor and build a confidence between them. I think he planned to bring her up with his ideals, to bring her up believing the best thing was to use the fold as a weapon, to bring her up to always want to protect the Grisha and to bring her up to embrace her power. However this whole plan had a wrench thrown in it when he does finally find Alina and she’s not a child, she’s a grown woman and one that has been taught her whole life that the Sun Summoner’s purpose is to tear down the fold. Changing the ideals and beliefs of an adult is alot harder to do than a child. On top of that I think he does develop real feelings for her. But these feelings get in the way of his plans, which makes everything all the more complicated for him.        

Lets go to the moment they first meet. I do think right from the get go he is intrigued by her and mean I think when you watch the scene you are so focused on Alina and what she must be going through and feeling, how scared she must be being dragged in front of this powerful General that she’s only ever heard stories about, that we don’t think about what this moment meant to the General. I mean he has been waiting for this woman for so long. She could be the solution to all of his problems, a fix for all of his mistakes. She has been his one glimmer of hope in the vast darkness of eternity. And now she’s here in front of him. Jessie said in an interview that Alina felt a connection to Aleksander right from the beginning, but I think he felt a connection to her too. I think you can even see the moment they make that connection and it’s when he takes her wrist in the tent.

Once he takes her wrist they never break eye contact even as he draws her sleeve up higher, their eyes are glued to each other. Then they both pause for a few beats and again just stare at each other.

The tension between them is so thick it almost makes you want to yell get a room at the screen. It’s like they both suddenly felt something click between them, a oh I know you, kind of moment. But I also feel like Aleksander is a bit surprised by this feeling, he wasn’t expecting it. They don’t break eye contact until The General cuts her arm releasing her power and causing her to look down in surprise. But almost immediately Alina brings her eyes back to his. One kind of cool little detail I did notice is that you can see the reflection of the beam of light in both their eyes.

It’s like a thread connecting them both, I don’t know why but it sort of reminds me of that red thread of fate legend. But also with them both having dark eyes the beam of light reflected in them sort of reminds me of yin and yang. The other thing of note is the General’s facial expression when he sees her power. Whilst everyone else is looking on is awe and surprise, he looks almost content, definitely happy and maybe even a bit hopeful. To me he kind of looks like he’s just had all his prayers answered. 

I think Kirigan is further intrigued by Alina in episode two when she talks back to him with that rant about maybe he hasn’t found anyone with her power because they didn’t want to be found. I think its the first time in a long while that anyone has stood up to him and not just said yes sir. I actually found it really comical how surprised he was when she said no to him. You just know he hasn’t heard that word much in recent lifetimes. But I do think this plants those first seeds of him seeing her as an equal to him. I think this is where he starts to see her as not someone to bow at his feet but someone who belongs at his side. Then when she confesses that she hid from the testers because she didn’t want to feel even more alone I think he really saw something of himself in her. I mean you can see his facial expression shift. I think this furthers his idea that she is meant to be at his side, that she is the same as him and I think even at this early stage he begins to hope that maybe she is someone who will understand him as no one else ever has. In that moment he is determined to make sure she doesn’t ever feel alone again and that is why he tells her ‘you are Grisha, you are not alone.’ You can see from the passion in his voice when he says it that this is something very personal to him. 

However despite this connection he feels to her and the care I think he has for her too, he does manipulate her. I think one of the more obvious manipulations happens in episode 4 when he takes her to the fountain. Something that is worth noting is that before setting out on their ride Aleksander takes off his Kefta. Their Keftas in the show are presented as their armour, so I think it was a very deliberate move on his part to sort of send the message to her, look I’m taking my armour off for you and I am being vulnerable and open to you. He furthers this by giving her his name to create this familiarity between them. Then he takes her to a place that is personal to him and then he really gets into his manipulation game. Here’s the thing though, I feel like most of the time when we think of manipulation we think of lies. But sometimes the best way to manipulate a person is through twisting the truth and I think this is what he does here. From their conversations so far I think he has figured out that Alina feels like an outsider and that she fears being alone and not fitting in. I definitely think he uses this information to manipulate her by telling her the story about how he used to go to the fountain as a boy after he discovered he was descended from the most hated Grisha in Ravka and wished to be anybody else. He knows that Alina will respond to this story, that it will make her feel sympathy for him and also make her feel like he is someone who understands her and therefore someone she can trust and rely on. He is also most definitely being deceitful in that he knows she thinks he is talking about being related to the Black Heretic when in fact he is the Black Heretic. However that doesn’t mean that what he said was untrue. I really do think he used to go there as a boy and wish to be someone else. As for being the descendant of the most hated Grisha in Ravka well my theory there is that he could actually be talking about Morozova. In the flashback in episode 7 Aleksander says that he and Baghra are his descendants and that means that if he created the amplifiers than Aleksander could create an army. Baghra gives the warning that Aleksander will die like Morozova. This makes me think that Morozova died in quite an unpleasant way, maybe even killed because he was feared and hated. I mean sure the Black Heretic is the most hated Grisha in all of Ravka now, but whose to say there wasn’t someone who came before him? Another Grisha who was hated like the Black Heretic is now. And maybe when Aleksander was a boy he discovered he was the descendant of Morozova and that was a burden on him, so much so that he wished he was someone else. 

I also think he was being genuine when he talked about how he is never seen as the solution only a reminder of the problem. I mean we’ve seen this ourselves in episode one its one of the first things we learn about him, that he can’t bring down the fold. I also think he’s being truthful when he says they always need someone to blame but again he’s twisting this truth. Alina thinks he means he is being unjustly blamed for not being able to fix the Fold but I think he actually is talking about how the Old King turned on him. I’m also sure over the years many people have blamed him and the Grisha for all the ills the world has suffered. But I do think he really meant it when he told her that he wouldn’t let the world make her the new Heretic. I think making sure that doesn’t happen is something he cares deeply about and I think it shows that he does have some care for her that he is so determined that she doesn’t go through what he did with the world turning on him. 

Slight diversion here but I do want to talk about whether or not this hatred the world has for him is justified, I mean he did create the fold and that fold has killed alot of people since its creation. So surely just the fact that he created the fold is enough to solidify him as the villain. Well I think that depends on why he created the fold. I mean we get three different versions of how and why the Fold was created. The first one we hear is in episode 4 when Alina tells us the story that is taught to children in school. They say that history is written by the victors, and whilst I personally don’t think there were any victors in the creation of the fold, The Black Heretic disappeared with its creation, presumed to be dead, so the Old King probably considered himself the victor and was left to decide the history. Therefore this story was most likely the Old King’s version of events. In this version of the story it talks about how the Darkling hungered for more power after being made the Kings military advisor and this made the king fear that the Darkling would try to overthrow him. So he put a bounty on his head and that of anyone who stood by him. Eventually the Heretic realised he was outnumbered and decided to create an army using forbidden science. But he failed, creating the fold and killing himself and countless others. The second version we get is from Baghra and it is similar to this one. She says that he created the Fold to use as a weapon, that he tried making an army with merzost and that he didn’t think about what that would do to the people who lived there, that it turned the men, women and children into the Volcra. That she had warned him there would be a price and that he didn’t listen. She also says that he took a noble’s name to hide after. Baghra’s version paints Aleksander as power hungry and as someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants no matter the cost. But there are somethings I think its worth noting about her version. The first is that it is very brief, sort of like the cliff notes version, as they are in a hurry and she needs to get Alina out of there pronto. She doesn’t have time to go into all the details so she tells her enough to convince her to leave. Which brings me to my second point, Baghra’s motivation here is to get Alina to flee, so logically the best way to do that is to tell her the worst parts of the story and leave out anything that might make Alina feel sympathetic towards Aleksander and therefore hesitate about leaving. Another thing to remember is that Baghra whilst she might know somethings wasn’t there for a lot of it, she didn’t see Luda killed by the soldiers just knows that she was killed and she didn’t witness the confrontation between Aleksander and the soldiers. However what she did see likely had an effect on her. There is one moment in particular during Baghra’s story where she becomes emotional and choked up, there are tears in her eyes and you just know she is reliving a bad memory and that is when she talks about the women and children who were turned into the Volcra alongside the soldiers. Think for a moment about where Baghra was when the fold was created. She was inside the sanctuary with the women and children who were hiding from the soldiers. Which means that she would have witnessed them turning into the Volcra which must have been a horrifying scene. 

Eventually we get to episode 7 and we learn what really happened when the fold was created and the story is more tragic that first told. I mean first you have the whole situation with Luda. He obviously loved her deeply and I can only imagine how painful it must have been to see her murdered right in front of him and to feel that guilt of her dying because she was protecting him. I mean the words ‘just mortal’ now make me want to burst out crying anytime I hear them. Then he gets to the sanctuary and there’s all these Grisha there that need protecting. I think he feels a responsibility for them. Then his mother reminds him that they are not fighters, they make things. Which gives him the idea of creating an army using merzost. It is worth pointing out here that when telling the tale to Alina Baghra says that she warned Aleksander that there would be a price for using merzost, but when you actually see the conversation what she says is that whilst the small science feeds them merzost feeds on them. This suggests that the price to be paid is by him. So yes he was aware there would be a price but he assumed he would be the one paying it. I think if he knew that the people inside the sanctuary would be turned into Volcra he might not have gone through with it. This is another thing that makes the story even more tragic. Aleksander was driven to create his own army by his wish to protect his people, but he lost control and ended up destroying the very people he was trying so hard to protect. Another thing I noticed when Alina is telling the story of the heretic in episode four when she gets to the part about the Heretic being killed along with countless other you can hear what sound like screams in the background, also Aleksander looks really sad and guilty. It is also right after that he says he had devoted his life to undoing the great sin aka the creation of the fold. We see this look of guilt again when Alina confronts him in episode 7 about being the one to create the fold and therefore responsible for the deaths of her friends and parents. You see him look to the floor.

 I really do think that he has alot of guilt about the fold, he sees it as a mistake.  We see both Baghra and Alina make the claim, the fold was no mistake. But in episode 7 we learn that it was, Aleksander did not deliberately set out to create the fold. It wasn't his intention. It seems to me that he wanted to bend the will of the soldiers to his, to make them his own army, but I think he lost control due to the emotional state he was in at the time. I mean right before the soldiers were threatening to murder all the people inside, including his mother, and were mocking him about Luda’s death. He was grieving, he was angry and he was fearful for his people. We were told the fold was born out of greed but lets be real it was born out of grief and out of pain and anger and fear. 

So if he considers it such a big mistake why doesn’t he want to tear it down? Well I think its two fold. On one hand he might be afraid of what he’ll see. It’s like Kaz says to Zoya ‘it’s dangerous to go looking for the dead. What you see may haunt you for the rest of your days.’ Tearing down the fold will reveal all the destruction he caused to the land and to the people who lived there, he’d have to really confront what he did to his own people. But I think another motivator is what he said about undoing the great sin. I think he thinks if he makes the fold useful then at least it would have made the ‘deaths’ of his people mean something somehow. If creating the fold cost them their lives then maybe by making it a weapon that can be used to protect Grisha will make their ‘deaths’ a worthwhile sacrifice.

Ok so diversion over, lets go back to the Darklina relationship and how much of his actions were a manipulation. We’ve already established that he was being manipulative when taking her to the fountain and was telling her twisted truths. But if we stick with episode 4 there’s the scene where she comes to visit him at night in the war room. This whole scene I actually think he was being completely genuine. I don’t think any of it was part of his manipulation of her. First off is the way they are both dressed. They are both in their nightclothes which gives this idea of them being more intimate and more exposed to each other. I said above that the Kefta is seen as the Grisha’s armour, well here neither one of them are wearing their Kefta. They have both taken off their armour and are letting each other in. When Alina first finds him he is looking over the war map and you can see that he looks troubled, which you know fair enough considering he’s fighting a war on two fronts, having to deal with getting supplies through the fold and how to deal with the rebels. I love the way he looks at Alina when she comes in though, its just so soft and I feel like he feels instantly calmer when he sees her. But then he starts talking about how he’s been fighting the war alone and lost friends, about how their own people are turning on Grisha just as their kin once did and he is clearly thinking back to when the Old King was hunting him and his people. When the shadows start creeping in I think his pain is very real, I don’t think this was an act at all and once again if you listen closely you can hear those faint screams in the background. Then Alina dispels the shadows with her light and repeats his words back to him, ‘you are not alone.’ I think in this moment he truly does feel like he’s not alone. That he has found someone who understands him and who is his equal, who is like him. So he reaches out and cups her face and tells her he’s been waiting for her a long time. But then she pulls away and says she should go. I think Aleksander is afraid at this moment that he has frightened her away or that he misinterpreted the situation and he becomes very confused. So when she lingers at the door he goes to it and contemplates calling her back, just as she struggles with whether she should go back. But then she walks away and I think he thinks that maybe he was wrong and she doesn’t feel the same as him and he is a little angry with himself for losing focus and for feeling something for her and so he locks the door between them.  

Another question I asked myself was whether he always intended to put the stag collar on her and to control her powers. In my opinion this one has a bit of a yes and a no answer. I think he kept changing his mind. He clearly knew that by killing the Stag and putting the amplifier on her he would gain control of her powers. As I said early I think his first draft of the plan, shall we say, was to find the Sun Summoner as a child, to gain her trust as her mentor and teach her that the Fold is a weapon to be used as opposed to something that needs to be torn down. If he had found her as a child he would have had a lot more control over her and could shape her into what he wanted. However when they find the Sun Summoner she’s an adult and believes that its her fate to tear down the fold so he has to do a rework of his plan. On top of that he’s got this problem that she clearly doesn’t want to be the Sun Summoner she has no interest in saving anyone and she just wants to go back to being a mapmaker in the First Army. I think it is during that speech where she talks about him transferring her power to someone else that he starts to look into whether that is possible. But as he gets to know her more I think this changes again and he starts to feel things for her and I think he starts to believe that they want the same things and that maybe taking control of her powers won’t be necessary. I think the turning point for him is in episode 5. In the breakdown video of their first kiss Jessie says Alina goes to the General’s rooms because of what happened the night before in the war room where they had a moment in episode 4. Alina wasn’t sure what that moment meant and so she was seeking out Aleksander because she was intrigued and wanted to know if there was something there. Aleksander is once again clearly happy to see her but I do feel like there is some awkwardness there because of what happened in episode 4 and because he feels like he had misinterpreted things and maybe was too intense with her. It’s an interesting dynamic because as Jessie says in that video in this moment he is the vulnerable one. One moment in particular that I think shows this vulnerability is right after she helps him into his Kefta. Again going back to the whole the Kefta is armour thing. When Alina first enters the room like in episode 4 she is wearing her dressing gown she has come to him with her armour off so to speak. He is also out of his Kefta and this early conversation is playful where they are joking about Ivan and the Volcra. But after she puts the Kefta on him is when his mood shifts a little and you see him kind of tug the Kefta tighter around himself. I feel like he was trying to protect himself because the more time he spends with her the more vulnerable and confused he feels, he’s feeling alot of feelings he hasn’t felt in a long time and I think he knows by now that he is well on his way to falling in love with her and this scares him a bit because he has lost loves in the past. Him putting the Kefta back on is like him attempting to put that armour back on. There is another way of looking at it too though. It’s worth noting that on this occasion Alina is the one helping him put the armour/Kefta on, like she is the one giving him protection. Then he turns around Alina is alot closer then he anticipated and you can actually see him struggling to even form words. Then she leans in close to him like she's about to kiss him but changes her mind and walks into the other room leaving our poor guy more confused than ever. Then Alina makes the speech about how she finally feels like she is part of something bigger and that they can offer hope to the Grisha and to Ravkans. In this moment our girl was talking straight to our boy’s heart. I think this is all he has ever wanted to hear her say, especially the ‘we can offer hope.’ I think he really means it when he says it means a lot to him and you can hear the passion in his voice when he says ‘you mean a lot.’ Of course when she looks down he once again becomes afraid he’s overstepped, gone too far and so he tries to backtrack with ‘to everyone’. And well we all know what happens next. Alina kisses him and as he says after he is surprised and not many people do surprise him. I think there is something about this woman that just makes him lose all his senses until his whole world becomes about her. I feel like throughout episode 5 Aleksander feels like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Because maybe she does feel the same way he does, maybe she wants the same things he does, maybe he has found his life partner, another immortal who will always be by his side, finally he’ll never have to feel alone again. I think the moment I decided this fool was definitely in love with Alina was the look on his face when she enters the room and he sees her in his colours for the first time. After watching her demonstration I think he does see her as his equal. He’s in complete awe of her and the only time he looks away is to look at the Monarchs to see their reaction. Basically from the moment Alina kisses him to this moment where he is seeing her take command of the room and truly showing her power, having people bow to her, Aleksander is living his best life, he’s on cloud nine. 

Then he gets word that someone has located the stag. We don’t see the scene where he gets informed of this but you can imagine he probably can’t believe his luck. Not only are things perfect between him and Alina but now someone has found the amplifier. But I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check when he discovers that Mal is the one who found the stag and he’s now here in the Little Palace. I feel like Aleksander sort of came crashing down to earth here and realised he might have a bit of a problem. Once again he’s having to do a quick, rapid, rework of his plan. Which brings us to another moment where the Darkling is being manipulative. He uses Mal to find out what Alina’s favourite flower is. I mean I suppose you could argue that he’s only doing what every other person does when they want to get a gift for their crush and don’t know what would be best, ask the best friend. But all jokes aside this move was clearly calculative on The Darkling’s part. But I couldn’t help but wonder why he decided to use the Irises. What was his motivation here. It’s clear that he has already won Alina over seeing as she was kissing him not to long ago. Well I said earlier that I think he changed his mind about using the collar on her. I do think after their conversation in episode 2 where she talks about how she didn’t want any of it and could he transfer it he thought she was going to be a problem and difficult so maybe he should look into finding a way of controlling her power. In the beginning she was focussed on her old life and I feel like she didn’t have much loyalty or care for the Grisha, it took her awhile to accept who she was and she was also struggling to use her powers. All she wanted was to go back to Mal and I think this may be why, or at least part of the reason why The General takes their letters. For one he didn’t want her to go back to him and so making her think that Mal didn’t care would encourage her stay put and discourage any ideas of leaving. I mean given her comment in episode 3 where Alina asks Genya if anyone had ever escaped the Little Palace, which the General overheard, its not that surprising that he would decide to confiscate any of her correspondence out of the Palace in case she was organising a breakout with Mal. Secondly as I said she was having trouble using her powers and I think after reading the letters maybe he figures out that its because of Mal that she is struggling, so he either stopped the letters because he wanted her to continue feeling abandoned by Mal and therefore he was hoping she would shift her dependence onto him or because he knew if she let go of Mal then she would be able to control her power more and more power for Alina means more power for him to control. This was all very manipulative on his part and obviously not the actions of someone who cares about Alina’s feelings but at this point she wasn’t Alina to him she was the Sun Summoner, a tool to be used and he was thinking as a General who had people and a whole country to protect and if that meant putting the collar on this stranger then so be it. I think he set out to win her trust to make it easier for him to put that collar on her when the time came. But then as he got to know her more, started catching feelings for her and after their conversation in episode 5, I think he decided that maybe he wouldn’t need to use the collar after all. My theory is that he got her the flowers and he took her to the war room instead of the dinner because he was planning to tell her some of the truth. I don’t think he was going to tell her about who he really was and about him being the Fold’s creator but I do think its possible that he intended to tell her about the Stag and maybe even try to convince her about using the Fold as a weapon. So I think he just wanted to put her in as good a mood as he could if that makes sense, sweeten her up before he brought it up. Also telling her about the Stag means telling her about Mal. I think he actually felt a little threatened by Mal because having read their letters he knows how she feels about Mal. So he wants her attention as much on him as possible. I think he very much felt like his dream was slipping away. As for the make out on the war table moment, that could have also been an attempt to keep her sweet on him like the irises. But as I’ve said before Aleksander seems to lose all his senses when he’s with Alina. When he’s with her the only thing he’s focused on is her, and I personally think it was just a case of he really wanted to kiss her. Some of it might also have been to reassure himself that those feelings between them were real, especially now that Mal has shown up. I mean they are both so giddy and happy when they break apart for him to answer the door that I find it difficult to believe that the whole kiss was a cold manipulation, he was grinning like a school boy. My favourite kiss between them (as steamy as their make out session was) was actually the one where he comes back to kiss her one last time. This is right after he has learnt that she was the target of an attack that happened inside of his Palace, which is the one place where his people are supposed to be safe. I think in that moment he just needed to reassure himself that she is safe, you can see his desperation in the kiss. There was just something so soft and pure about it. If I am sure about anything is that one was definitely real, I may have small doubts about the other kisses but that one kiss was 100% true.   

Things only get worse for Aleksander in episode 6 when he realises that Alina is missing. I think how he behaves in this episode tells us alot about how he really feels about Alina. He becomes somewhat unhinged when she goes missing and only becomes more so the longer she is gone from him. His sole focus is on her and finding her, to the point where he kind of forgets about anything else as we see when Fedyor comes to report about Nina, The General has completely forgotten there were other missions and things he was dealing with. Later when he calls Zoya to tell her to prepare a team to track down ‘Alina’s abductors’ and she puts forward the suggestion that Alina ran by herself, he doesn’t even consider it a possibility. The idea that she would willingly leave him is just too hard for him to wrap his head around because as he says to Zoya he is sure he knows exactly how she feels. He is usually the composed, unfazed General but he very much snaps at this moment and I think reveals more than he intended to Zoya, who clearly looks surprised by his outburst. He even says himself with Alina gone he’s not himself, he’s feeling unbalanced and tense without her. So when Zoya offers to help him relax he tells her that he’ll relax when he has Alina. I think its important as well that he says Alina and not the Sun Summoner. It’s not the Sun Summoner he’s lost without its Alina. When he finally catches up with Kaz and is told that Alina fled on her own you can see how shocked he is at this.

 And even then he has trouble believing it because he once again asks where she is and its not until the line ‘It was pretty clear she wasn’t interested in being a captive any more’ that it begins to set in for him and you see his shadows creep in. After you can see the heartbreak set in and then the anger.

 This anger only grows when he learns that she is with Mal and that she is going after the Stag. I think he very much feels like everything has been snatched away from him in a blink of an eye. I think he is angry that he was blindsided by it and he’s angry that he let his feelings for her cloud his judgement and distract him from his plans. Because of his feelings for her he might now have ruined all his plans and, as he would see it, risked the safety of the Grisha in doing so. Naturally its back to plan A of forcing the collar on her, because no matter how he feels about her he can’t let that distract him from his mission to protect the Grisha again. 

However no matter how angry he is at her and how hurt is is that she ran from him, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her. I see alot of arguments that he can’t have loved Alina because you can’t hurt someone you love like he did when he put the collar on her. But I’m calling BS on that one now because the people you love are the people who can hurt you the most, especially when they are hurt or angry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you it just means they are human and make mistakes. However that doesn’t mean you should tolerate those mistakes or brush them under the rug, absolutely they should be called out for them and held accountable for them and I am really glad that Alina does do this. The Darkling's anger at her is what drives him to find her and to kill the stag himself so he can collar her and I think this anger builds up whilst he is away from her, again showing how unhinged he has become without her. But I feel like some of that anger ebbs away a bit when he does find her and once she is in front of him again. That moment when he finds her and the stag and Mal is hurt and he calls out to her that she can’t save them, that as powerful as she is she does not have the power to heal. He is obviously thinking back to Luda here. Because as powerful as he was he was not powerful enough to save her, in that moment he was utterly powerless to keep her from dying. I think despite how hurt he is he cares about her too much to watch her go through the same pain and grief he did which is why he offers to heal Mal if she gives him the Stag. The similarities between the two scenes (the one with Alina, mal and the Stag and the one with Aleksander, Luda and the king’s men) are clear and I think really have an effect on Aleksander. I think when he says that Mal was only protecting Miss Starkov there are two interesting points. One is the use of the term Miss Starkov. This is a name he mostly called her when they barely knew each other and I think he is trying to distance himself from her again by making things more formal between them. The other thing is that it draws a parallel between both Mal and Luda. Both Mal and Luda were just trying to protect the people they love and Aleksander clearly doesn’t think either one of them deserved to die for it so he lets Mal live. 

Another scene I want to talk about real quick is the one right before he puts the collar on her. This scene is eerily similar to when they first meet. Once again they are back in a tent. Once again the scene starts with the Darkling’s back to her and with Alina in the hands of a guard/s. I said before that I think alot of the reason why he decides to collar her is because she doesn’t share his views and he feels like he needs to control her so he can weaponize the fold and save his people. That he was angry at himself for believing she might be his equal and share his goals. I think this scene where he talks to her shows that. The fact that he lowers himself to her level I think shows that he does see her as an equal. Then he talks about how together they could end all wars and protect their own and asks isn’t that what she wants. I think he is still clinging to that belief that he wasn’t wrong and that they did want the same things and maybe some part of him was still hoping he might not need to use the collar. But then she asks if they are going to tear down the fold and you can see the disappointment on his face because he understands now that she won’t see it his way. So instead he deflects the question and I think this is the moment that cements his choice to collar her.  

Further evidence that he does still care about Alina comes when he puts the collar on her. This is obviously a very distressing and gruesome scene. What he is doing is obviously wrong and I think deep down he knows it too. He can’t bear to look at her as it happens and so her turns away and its the second time he does as he also looks away in guilt when he threatens Mal. I don’t think he can handle her looking at him like he’s a monster and he can’t cope with seeing the betrayal and hurt in her eyes. It is also worth noting that I think part of the reason why he goes through with putting the amplifier on her is like he said to Mal, he thinks that over the years she will come to forgive him. Now this conversation where he talks about how she might take years to forgive him but he had patience also tells us that the fact that he is hoping for forgiveness shows that he knows what he is doing to her is wrong, that it is something that will require forgiveness. When he comes to see her later in her tent, can we just talk for a moment how nice that tent was, I mean he really went all out for her with lace and flowers like he somehow thought that would make up for him fusing a antler into her collar bone, but again even the fact that he gives her all these nice things shows that he wants that forgiveness and the way he approaches her as well is cautiously, like you would a wounded animal. He knows he’s hurt her and made her angry so he comes in with sweet words of compliments, telling her how special she is, and very quickly comes to know that she’s not having any of it. I mean that look she gives him when he first comes in, if looks could kill he’d be six feet under now. But I really do think he did go to her just because he wanted to talk to her, despite his words to Mal about having the patience to wait however many years it will take for her to forgive him, he wants to fix things between them now. He doesn’t want her to be angry with him and he doesn’t want her to be in pain. He’s desperate to get back what they had in episode 5. Also I think its important that we remember that until that conversation with her in the tent he didn’t know that she had discovered who he really was, so when she ran he believed that she had ran because she wanted to be with Mal which I think contributed to his anger at her and his feeling of betrayal. He couldn’t understand why she would want to be with someone who he believes never appreciated who she really was and who is mortal and will eventually just be a blip in her very long lifetime, instead of being with him who is her equal and immortal like her. This is another occasion where I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check and realises that she didn’t run because of Mal, she ran because of his own lies. So all that anger he felt at her ‘betrayal’ was unjust. But then I think he feels a different sense of betrayal in how easily she believed Baghra. I mean looking at it from his point of view she didn’t come to him and ask for his side of the story or demand an explanation she just trusted Baghra and ran. He is clearly desperate to make her understand and you can see his composure begin to fail as he stands and tells her that everything he is ever done has been to make Grisha and Ravka safer. I really do think that line was true, he really does believe that what he’s doing is the right thing for his people and his country. You can feel his frustration and desperation continuing to build throughout the scene as he pretty much pleads with her to understand and can see that she doesn’t. I think the part that really hurts him though is when she says ‘we could have had this, all of it. You could have made me your equal, instead you made me this.’ This line is so powerful and I think its at this moment that he realises just how badly he has messed up. To be told that his actions are the reason why he hasn’t got her, the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world right now. Also the line of making her his equal I think would have hit him hard because he did see her as his equal and so I think he’s surprised that she believes that he didn’t make her his equal and then when she says ‘instead you made me this’ he realises that whilst he might have seen her as his equal he wasn’t treating her as one. His need for control made her a slave to him and I really think that in this moment he is realising that, I genuinely think this dumbass got so caught up in his own dream of what the two of them together could be that he didn’t realise that whilst he thought he was protecting her and helping her grow into this saviour for their people he was taking away her choices and he was making her feel like a captive, the dummy didn’t think to ask how she felt about any of it because he assumed he already knew, it was the same as what he wanted, to protect their country and people. So his anger when he says the line ‘fine make me your villain’ isn’t just directed at her but himself too. It’s not just his hurt and anger that she doesn’t understand his reasons and that she isn’t seeing it his way, it’s also because he knows it was his own actions that lead him to that moment when the woman he loves is standing in front of him and looking at him like he is a monster. He can’t go back and he can’t undo it and worse than that he can’t seem to get her to understand why he did it. I think he feels trapped and so the only thing he can be to her now is her villain. 

It’s after this conversation that his demeanour towards her changes and you can see that he sort of stops trying to win her over. He’s not as gentle with her, I mean he ties her to the deck of the skiff and answers mockingly when she points out it’s not a good look for him with the ambassadors. I did notice though that after that conversation he seems to have trouble looking at her. When they are walking to the skiff and he tells her that Mal is being held captive and will be released if she does her part, he isn’t looking at her but straight ahead and this is something he does alot when he is threatening Mal. The moment when he takes off her cloak he does glance down at her. I seen alot of debate about that scene, as it does come across as having a bit of sexual tension in it and some people thought it was a rather sexy scene whereas others pointed out that he was holding her captive and mocking her. Me personally I actually think its both. People talk about how it has to be one or the other. But yes in that scene he is holding her captive and that part’s not sexy but there is a moment where I feel like he still feels that draw to her. Before reaching up to undo her cloak it seems to me like a hesitates for a moment. When he goes to whisper in her ear that he doubts they’ll notice her feet and I think he feels that pull and that attraction to her and he is really close to her, I don’t think he’s been that close to her since the war room in episode 5. You can see him lean slightly towards her and I think he really is struggling with the desire he feels for her which is why he steps back with the cloak rather forcefully, like he's having to force himself away from her again. It kind of reminded me of the scene where she helped him into his Kefta. So no the situation itself is not sexy but I do still think there is tension in the scene because the attraction they feel for each other didn’t just disappear despite how hurt and angry they are at each other. It’s like their words are saying one thing but their body language is saying another. 

When they are in the Fold again at first The Darkling avoids looking at her particularly when he is forcing her to use her power to create the tunnel of light. His focus is on The Fold. Again I think this shows that he is determined to not let his feelings for her get in the way for his goals, yet he knows he is taking away her free will and her choice and that’s hurting her so he can’t really stand to look at her. Its the same when she asks to tear down the fold and he answers why would they destroy the best weapon they have. Again he doesn’t look at her when he says it because he knows that he deceived her by letting her believe that was what they were going to do and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes. Again this is something he does alot and look, I love The Darkling’s character, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognise his flaws and for me I kind of saw him as a coward for this. I mean if you are going to deceive and manipulate a person and force them to do something you know they don’t want to do, then at least have the decency to look at them. He does however look at her when she tries to save Novokribirsk after he lets the fold consume it. He stops her and you can see the anger when he says they are traitors who tried to kill her and that this action was retribution. I think he hates the fact that she is trying to save the very people who tried to hurt her. But again he looks away from her when he sees the way she is looking at him and how horrified she is by what he has done. 

Their very last interaction is when she uses the dagger to cut the amplifier from his hand and shows him what she is and that she’s the one the stag chose. He sees this as her betraying their people which is interesting because at the end of the episode Alina says that Kirigan turned on his own people. So they both believe the other turned on their own people, the problem here is that I feel like Alina feels more loyalty towards the non Grisha Ravkans, she still sees them as more her people due to spending more time as just a ordinary mapmaker then as Grisha but the Darkling has more loyalty towards the Grisha. Its like how you know parents aren’t suppose to have a favourite child but we all know they do. Well I feel like the Ravkans are Alina’s favourite child and the Grisha are the Darkling’s. Of course they still care about the other but their ‘favourite’ is their priority if that makes sense. By the end of the season when we see the Darkling emerge from the fold I think he is feeling very angry and very betrayed by Alina, however I actually think the fact that she bested him has only made him look at her as even more of an equal than before. Not only is she someone who will stand up to him but now she has become someone who can match him. I do think he’s in this very complicated situation where he is on an opposite to the person he believes is essentially his soulmate. However as much as I think he does love her I still think he will put his people above her and so will continue to act in what he considers to be the best interests of his people. It also seems like he’s got some new powers and was able to create shadow soldiers which again is interesting because he basically just accomplished what he meant to do in the first place when he created the fold, he’s created his own army. 

Ok so that’s all for now to be honest I could talk about the Darkling forever but I think this is already long enough so if you have read all the way to the end thank you for your time. I am thinking of doing other character analysis posts so keep an eye for that if its something that interests you, I think I might do Alina next. I’ll also post my thoughts on the book once I’ve read it.        

[burnedbyshoto]

disconnected

— Kirishima answers a phone call that wasn’t intended for him, and of course he can’t help but be interested in the beautiful voice and soul that angrily began to rant about their day. —

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pairing: kirishima eijirou x fem!reader

warnings: fluff, lil angst (lol sorry), cursing

word count: 7,786

a/n: this was a stupid thought that slammed into my mind, and here it is!!!! now I have a calc midterm tomorrow that I did not look at because why think about double derivatives and integrals when I can think about kirishima????

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It was eleven at night when Kirishima strolled out of his bathroom, ready to go to bed. After a rather long day, he was looking forward to sleeping and not having to wake up at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow for the very first day in a very long time, he wouldn’t have to work at the local coffee shop he was hired at. It was a job he had acquired with his good friends on the promise of it being a manageable job on top of his college work, and of course, the pretty girls who would go in.

From what Kirishima had gathered from the four months working there was that there were a lot of pretty girls who entered the coffee shop — most of which were focused on the angry ash-blond friend of his — and that it was so unnecessarily stressful. 

Some days he was up at four in the morning to open at six for the morning regulars, then he’d go to his afternoon classes, only to return for a two-hour shift in the middle of rush hour, and would leave while trying to keep the peace between a certain ash-blond and two new hires. To say the least, it was hell on Earth at times. 

Regardless, he didn’t have to open tomorrow morning, so he was content! On top of not having classes tomorrow, Kirishima was excited to sleep in.

Falling on his bed with a massive sigh, Kirishima snuggled his face into his pillow, rejoicing in the way that the laundry detergent still clung to the fabric and relaxed.

Sleep sounded so—

RIIING.

RIIING.

Kirishima’s eyes slammed open, his head snapping to see his illuminating phone on his nightstand. He had no idea who the hell was calling this late. There was no way it was Bakugou; he was asleep already at this point. Sero had broken his phone two days ago during a failed stunt and wouldn’t be able to get a new phone until the weekend. Kaminari only called him when there was a bug in his apartment, but he was currently closing… maybe it was Mina? Kirishima shook his head, no, he hadn’t spoken to Mina in ages.

Grabbing the phone, he didn’t bother to look at the caller ID and answered.

“Hello—?”

“Oh my god, I am fucking raging! You can’t believe what kind of fuckery I just went through tonight!” a voice shouted into the receiver, and Kirishima flinched a bit at the loud and angry voice. “So you know how I wasn’t supposed to work today, right? Because my coworker had sex with her ex-boyfriend like an idiot, and I owed her for covering my shift three months ago, but anyways irrelevant. I’m taking the order of this one group of adults. That’s right, A-D-U-L-T-S, adults! They are completely staring at my tits the entire time, and not my face. At first, I thought maybe you know, I had spilled something on my tits earlier, no. No! NOTHING! So I call them out on it, and they say something along the lines of ‘you could be a camgirl with that body, but like not in a sex sort of way’ I’m sorry, WHAT?! Like yes, continue sexually harassing your server who is a college student and therefore has no will to live, so will gladly beat your Gucci belt wearing ass into a bloody pulp! What they gonna do? Sue me? I have one dollar to my name, fucking take it, I don’t care, I’ll find another dollar in the sewer after I beat their asses up!

“But you know, I’m saying all this in my head because I’m broke and can’t afford to be fired from this place because the tips are hella good here. But they continue saying dumb shit, and then the obvious ringleader — I know he was the ring leader because his beard looks like it was the first picture printed on a new ink cartridge and his manspread was ten times wider than all of theirs — have the fucking audacity to slip his number while only tipping TEN DOLLARS ON A TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TAB!!!!” Kirishima doesn’t know what to say, his jaw on his mattress, breathing having stopped while your voice wheezes from your lack of air. He makes a croaking noise, wanting to speak up and apologize for what had happened and for not being the person you thought it was, but it seemed that you weren’t over. “AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FUCKING KAREN!!! ‘I didn’t like the way you looked at me so I won’t be tipping you tonight!’ yeah, well maybe if you didn’t order enough FOOD TO FEED AN ARMY AND KEPT SENDING IT BACK I WOULDN’T BE LOOKING AT YOU LIKE THAT!!!”

There was a pause, and Kirishima, while feeling entirely sorry for you, finally spoke, “Fuck, that sounds... horrible.”

“Damn right, it was horri— wait, who the fuck is this?” your voice squeaked, and Kirishima almost started to laugh at the difference in the tone your voice took. Once so loud, angry, and entirely ‘fuck the world,’ had changed into a meek and embarrassed voice.

“Um, this is Kirishima. Kirishima Eijiriou?”

“This isn’t Hagakure?” you moaned into the phone. “03-9082-2395? That isn’t this number?”

“2-2-9-5,” Kirishima repeated his own number back, a small smile overcame his features knowing that you had accidentally misdialed a number.

“Fuck my fat fingers,” you cursed, and Kirishima chuckled lightly at the mutterings that were poorly picked up. “Well, um, I am so sorry for calling you and dumping that unnecessary bullshit on you—”

“No, no,” Kirishima interrupted, rolling onto his back, staring up at the dimly lit ceiling. “It’s totally okay! You seem less stressed out now too, and it really isn’t a big deal!”

“You are very kind, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, and Kirishima can’t help but imagine a figure curled up on a couch.

“Thank you!” he beamed, a hand threading through his hair, “um, but what happened with the Karen? And why were you typing in your friend’s phone number?”

“Do you really want to know?” you ask after a fit of bubbling laughter; it seemed that you were not at all convinced.

“I work at a coffee shop for one, so I totally understand the Karen situations! Secondly, all my contacts are on my phone, I don’t have a single one of them memorized!”

“Okay, okay, okay, I do not have this number memorized! Hagakure is my roommate, and she has a new number that she left posted on our fridge and because Mr. Sprinkles left in the middle of my rant, I called her to finish it!” you explain in what Kirishima could only consider being childlike glee. “And a coffee shop? Oof, Kirishima, you might have it just as bad as I do then.”

“Ever had a boiling cup of coffee thrown back at your face?”

“Shut. Up.”

“I wish I was joking!”

“The nastiest thing I’ve ever been put through is a highschool couple breaking up in the middle of the restaurant, and a bowl of cold soup and milkshake were thrown at me! And I had to work for another five hours!”

“That… that beat mine by a long shot…”

“Okay, but like, it was cold. If you hadn’t dodged, you’d be dead!”

As time passed Kirishima soon found himself sitting up on his bed, his back pressed against the headboard, a lamp on so that he wasn’t in the dark while he talked to you. Somehow conversation flowed so perfectly between the two of you, so smoothly, so naturally. You had extremely compelling energy and a pretty bright one at that as well. Your stories were exceedingly extravagant, most derailing into hundreds of side stories before making its way back to the main point, but he didn’t mind. Though there was no proof, he imagined that your arms were swinging around while you talked, a bright smile on your face, and lights shining in your eyes.

“So anyway, I had to beg my professor to let me remake this exam because, for some reason, my brain would not switch back to Japanese. I almost cried because I was only speaking in English, and I think because I am an amazing person, my professor let me do that!” you laughed after explaining an issue with being fluent in a third language. 

“My English skills deteriorated after leaving high school, I’m rather jealous you can speak three languages,” Kirishima admitted, his head falling back onto the cold wall. “My Japanese professors probably think my Japanese sucks too.”

“Just because I am amazing and can speak three languages doesn’t mean I’m perfect at it,” you laugh, obviously trying to make him feel better about himself.

“Mm, I don’t know, you’re painting yourself as a pretty perfect person,” Kirishima sighed. “Or you have an enormous ego…”

A loud scoff came from your end of the phone, and Kirishima waited for your verbal retaliation but was met with a moment of silence.

“Oh! Welcome home!” you called out, and Kirishima quickly put together that your roommate Hagakure was home. “Yeah, no, I’m talking to someone right now! ...who? Oh, um, a friend! ...no, I tried to call you when I got home but misdialed your number and got him instead! NO! You’re not going to get a pic of him! Wait, it’s what time?!”

Kirishima’s eyes fell over to his alarm clock and saw in the dim red light that it was 04:57. 

His jaw dropped.

“Well, um, Kirishima, it seems that our call is going to end,” you whisper into the phone, and Kirishima lets out a breathless chuckle, sudden sleepiness creeping into him. “It was pretty fun chatting with you stranger, thanks for putting up with that ranting in the beginning! Most normal people wouldn’t have picked up or let me rant like that!”

“It’s no problem,” Kirishima smiled softly, his fingers stretching out to turn off the light. He licked his lips, five hours on a phone call with an absolute stranger, and he didn’t have your name, and better yet, a part of him wanted to ask if it was okay to be friends. You were magnetic to him, and he wanted to know more about you, even if this was this weird modern and accidental penpal thing. “I didn’t have anything to do today, and you were fun talking to!”

“Aww, thank you!”

Silence.

Ask, he thought, his teeth biting down onto his bottom lip. Ask!

“Um, I know this is weird and all, but do you think I can keep your number?” you ask, your voice almost timid and meek.

Kirishima’s heart rate spikes at those words, he very much wanted that, but his mouth had a mind of its own it seemed. “Why?”

“Wha— well, I just had a lot of fun talking with you! It was fun, and I don’t know, you seem like a pretty chill guy!”

His fingers gripped his phone, a warmth spreading through him when he relaxed under his sheets. “On one condition.”

“Oof, if you’re going to ask to decide between Crimson Riot or All Might you’re going to be—”

“No, no,” Kirishima lets out a snort, his shoulders rolling while he imagines the curious look coming over your face. “I would like to know your name?”

“My name? Why would you want— HOLY SHIT! I never gave you—” there was a loud noise on your end of the call, and Kirishima heard you apologize profusely before returning in a hushed whisper. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t give you my name?!”

“No,” he laughed loudly, one that was pushed from his belly, spreading warmth through his body. “You never did, but I did learn every name of every person you’ve ever talked with!”

“God,” you groan, a small whine emitted from you. “I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry! Y/l/n y/n at your service!”

Y/l/n y/n, that’s a pretty name, he thought while imagining just what you could look like. 

“Well, goodnight y/l/n, I’ll save your number, and we’ll see if you still would like to be friends when you wake up?”

There was a small noise of agreement, “I’m like a drug, Kirishima, you’ll be back for more.”

“Okay, okay, goodnight…”

“Goodnight, sweet dreams!”

“Sweet dreams.”

Kirishima listened to the line ending, and he pulled his phone away from his ear and no sooner did he do that, a text came in at what he believed to be your number:

don’t let the bed bugs bite! 🕷😱‼️

He snorted and replied back before eventually letting sleep consume him.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“You’ll never believe what just happened!” you squealed into the phone, and Kirishima laughed while wiping his sweaty face with a white towel. You had called thirty minutes earlier than usual and had caught him leaving the gym.

It had been a bit over two months since your misdial, and things with you had been going pretty well for strangers. The two of you didn’t talk every day, most weeks going by with just a single call, but they were always delightful talks. You worked most nights, and he most mornings, the two of you discovered. So most calls took place the night he didn’t have to work the following morning. 

“You got a customer who complained that there was too much salt in their meal that had no salt in it?” he asked, pulling a random story of something that had happened at his own coffee shop today. You let out an amused snort, a clear indicator that he was wrong, but found his guess to be amusing at the very least.

“No, but oddly enough, someone did ask for an insane amount of salt on their food and hated it!” you sang, clearly happy with how you found their distress to be funny.

“Close enough!” Kirishima laughed, but he was straight out of guesses, so he stopped. “So, what happened?”

“I tried coffee for the first time ever today!” you squealed loudly, and Kirishima cheered happily.

Through these two months, there were some hard facts that Kirishima had learned about you. One, you were living in the same city as him. Two, you worked at a semi-classy restaurant. Three, you had two roommates named Hagakure and Jirou. Four, you were twenty, just like him. And five, you were a child who only drank hot chocolate and tea because you were afraid of coffee.

~

“Caffeine is a drug you know,” you had snarkily teased him one night when he said he was going to make a cup of coffee. “Nice to know I’m friends with an addict!”

“If drugs were as amazing as coffee, I’d be an addict!”

“You know…” your voice whispered, your voice suddenly taking a guilty approach. “I’ve never actually tried coffee…”

“WHAT?!”

~

“Wow, look at you, becoming an old woman in front of my own eyes!” Kirishima chuckled, starting his walk back home. 

His fingers pushed the headphones to be more secure over his ears, hopeful that there it wouldn’t pick up too heavily on the wind of the outside world. 

“To be honest, it wasn’t that good, your taste buds are just tarnished from drinking that bitter crap all day!” you huff and he half imagined you turning your nose up.

“Okay, okay,” Kirishima laughed, a warmth flooding in his chest at the sounds of your muffled laughter. A visible indicator that you were also amused at this. “I hated coffee until I started working at a coffee shop, and that was because I needed to know my shit.”

“Wow, you only got that job while not being a coffee addict?” you tease. “Seems like a fake barista to me.”

“It’s pretty hard to believe, I know,” Kirishima stated his tone one of fake melancholy. “I’m so sorry for deceiving you, and honestly, I am a shit barista.”

“Aww, don’t say that!” you exclaim, and it seems like you’re ready to fight him. “I bet you put all those fancy TikTok baristas to shame!”

“TikTok?” he laughed, his pace speeding up just a bit so he would get home faster. “Wow, I am honored you think that!”

The light conversation continued, nothing too deep or too intense, just chatter about today's shifts and classes. Eventually, Kirishima made it back into his apartment complex, and stumbled into his room, collapsing onto his bed. 

“Can I ask something?” you ask suddenly, and Kirishima lets out a small hum.

“Yeah, of course, what’s up?”

“What do you look like?” you asked softly as if you were curled up in bed, seconds from letting sleep consume you. “I haven’t come up with a mental image that I like, and well, I want some hints.”

“I can just send you a picture of me,” Kirishima smiles, his eyes closing. “It would be much easier than me trying to explain to you what I look like.”

“No!” you disagree, and there's a long sigh from your end of the phone. “I’m not ready for that kind of information yet, Kiri. I just… I can’t accept a pic of you without sending one back, and I’m not mentally ready for that yet…”

“Don’t tell me the big fat Gucci bougie you is shy?!” Kirishima exclaimed, humor drowning his words as he referenced you to something you had called yourself one drunken night weeks ago.

“Not shy!” you bemoan, your voice muffling out at the end of it. “I’m more scared you’ll find me ugly and ghost me…”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Kirishima interjected, his voice stable and confident.

“Which part?”

“Both parts.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know what I look like…”

“...call it… Kirishima’s intuition,” Kirishima slowly stated, his eyebrows furrowing. “I find your voice and your personality to be attractive on their own, so I would never ghost you. And of course, appearance isn’t anything; plus, there’s no way you’re not gorgeous.”

He says these words with honest truth, and a part of him fears he overstepped and made you wildly uncomfortable with the amount of silence that is heard from your end of the line. But finally, as Kirishima is ready to apologize to you, a soft exhale is heard.

“You’re a dork,” you whisper, and a soft grin spreads on his own face. “Anyways, I’ll ask questions, you answer them first, and then I’ll do the same.”

“Sounds good!”

“Hair color?”

“Black, but I dye it red.”

“Mm, edgy teenager, I like it, and also knew that because you complained about your stained sheets! Eye color?”

“Red.”

“Oh, am I sensing a theme? How tall are you?”

“I’m… a bit over six feet?”

The list went on, most questions becoming more of a joke than anything else, but he was glad that you were asking these things because now he had an insight on how you looked too. You had told him your eye color, your hair color, how tall you were, and a whole bunch of trivial things he would have never thought to ask about to begin with.

“Okay, last question!” you cheered, happy to have finally included Kirishima into your inside joke that revolved around your eyebrows. “Do you have any distinguishing features?”

“Well, I don’t actually...” Kirishima admitted, his fingers brushing against the scar on his eye, and then it hit him. That was one! “Oh, wait—” CRASH. A loud crashing noise emitted from your side of the call.

“Shit, hold on!” you curse and Kirishima can only remain silent while he hears you yelling in the background, it was too far away for him to quite understand, but it was enough to know that it didn’t sound okay. 

Kirishima sat on his side of the call, the phone pressed to his ear while he tried to strip his gross and sweaty shirt from his body. His teeth bit into his lip, his canine pressing into the permanent indent of his lip, an indicator of how anxious he used to be. 

“Fuck, Kiri?” your voice suddenly snapped back onto the call, your tone frantic and quick.

“Everything okay?”

“No, Hagakure showed up drunker than… a drunken drunk, I don’t know expressions, ANYWAYS I know tonight is our unofficial official call night, but anyway I can get a rain check?”

There was guilt that swallowed your voice, a pang of guilt that made Kirishima warm a bit because it showed that you valued these calls, just like him. 

“Of course, I don’t have class or work Friday morning this time around, so Thursday night?”

“That works perfectly,” you sigh, gratitude. “I owe you, text you later if you don’t fall asleep! Goodnight, sweet dreams, love ya!”

Kirishima couldn’t repeat the whole statement before you hastily hung up, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face the entire time he showered. The shower didn’t take too long, and by the time he emerged from the shower, towel around his neck and his waist, he had a text message. 

sero - hey bro!!! i can’t pick up my morning shift tomorrow i know you have tonight to speak w y/n but todoroki and bakugou can’t cover it!

Kirishima sighed, he definitely didn’t have anything tomorrow anyways, he could manage with going in for an extra shift to help a friend.

kirishima - yeah sure what time?

sero - youre a life saver T-T im covering 8 am - 3 pm!!!

Kirishima sent a simple affirmative emoji before finishing up his nightly routine. 

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Kirishima looked at his apron while he was assembling himself in the backroom. The aroma of roasted coffee beans and pastries was almost pungent in the back, and he was eager to get out of there. As per employee regulations, he was to wear a black apron, a name tag, and something to hold his hair because it was a bit too long, for that, he wore a white bandana around his forehead.

“Wait, where’s my name tag?” Kirishima called out, his eyebrows furrowing when he turned out to Kaminari, who was currently in the back with him.

The blond froze and scratched the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly, “About that…”

So Kirishima was in the front of the store with a shiny silver name tag that read Hanta Sero. Because Kaminari was the best barista they had on hand currently, he was busy teaching Midoriya — their newest hire — around the bar. For now, Todoroki was nowhere to be found, and Kirishima was handling the cash register. 

Today was a slow morning, most people had their day off today, so morning coffee rush wasn’t in existence. Sure, there were a few outliers, but it was never chaotic. 

The gentle bell of the front door rang, and Kirishima automatically called out.

“Welcome!”

You had walked into the store, your eyebrows furrowed while you prayed that this was the coffee shop your roommates had been raving about. You’d never been here before, but it was the closest coffee shop available that wasn’t something generic and basic like Starbucks. You looked up from your phone at the voice, a thank you automatically being repeated while you neared the register.

You froze when you saw the red hair and the red eyes of the handsome man at the register. A careless thought entered your mind, Kirishima said he had red hair and red eyes… but he said he didn’t work today… 

A kind smile sat on his face, his eyes taking you in, waiting for you to approach him. 

This couldn’t be him, right?

The last time you had assumed a redhead working in a coffee shop was Kirishima, it had ended embarrassingly. 

“Um, hi,” you drawled out, your eyes reading the board to figure out your own order. 

Kirishima couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, you were exactly what you had described to him, but he wouldn’t ask until he was sure. He would ask you for your name after collecting your order for either tea or hot chocolate, and if it was you, he’d reveal that he was Kirishima. But he didn’t want to be wrong; he didn’t want to pin any other person as you, after all.

“I’ve never been here before,” you confess, your hand rubbing the back of your head. You were transfixed on the caramel macchiato that was spelled in the prettiest font, though, plus Hagakure promised all their coffee was good. 

“Oh, well, welcome! If you need any recommendations or have anything else to order, I can put those through while you look?”

His smile was kind, and you felt blood rush to your face, something you desperately tried to fight off by thinking of anything you didn’t like. 

“Oh! I do have two orders, though! There’s going to be one chai tea latte with three pumps of vanilla, and a lavender tea with a splash of oat milk.”

Kirishima nodded his head, “Will this be for here, or to go?”

His voice sounds so similar to Kirishima, you hoped, studying his face. While you answered that it was to go, you saw a distinctive scar on his right eye. Kirishima had said he didn’t have any distinguishing features… 

“What are your favorites here?” you ask, your eyebrows scrunched in confusion, your thoughts very evident in your face.

Kirishima couldn’t help but find hope bubbling up in his chest, there was always the possibility that you two lived in the same city-based off the same area code, and with what seemed like an incomplete knowledge in coffee, maybe…

Kirishima rambled off about the different seasonal drinks right now, his recommendations leaning towards the teas and non-coffee things primarily after his general and basic list. You seemed to take every word out of his lip like gospel, agreeing and nodding when appropriate, and his lips stretched into a grin when you bluntly exclaimed your ill knowledge of this all.

“To be honest, I only step into coffee shops to take a cute pic and then leave,” you laugh, pressing your hands against your lips and screaming a bit in your throat. 

Kirishima laughed, more confidence blooming through his body over the hope that this was you. It had to be you.

Your eyes then found the nametag on his apron, and like a sinking ship, you read Sero.

Not Kirishima.

“And for you?”

“I’ll have the caramel macchiato,” you decide, a grateful smile on your face while he looks down and writes the orders.

“A name?”

“Penny,” came your automatic response.

You never used your real name in coffee shops.

Kirishima suppressed the way that his mouth wanted to drop into a sad smile, and like two rejected teenagers, the money was exchanged. Before Kirishima could attempt to calm his disappointed soul, you walked out of the shop with the coffees and tea in hand.

“What was that about?” Kaminari asked, his eyes wide. “There was so much flirting and then poof, gone from both sides. Come on, dude, it’s my job to fail at flirting, not yours!”

Kirishima laughed, ignoring the way that his three friends looked at him with concern and curiosity. “Nothing, I just… the customer looked like how y/n described herself to be…”

“Oh… sorry, bro.”

“Nah, it’s all good,” Kirishima waved it off, and without so much as another slap on the back, he went back to work.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“What the hell are you doing?”

Kirishima looked up from his phone, his fingers mid-type pausing only for a millisecond before continuing to text blindly. 

“Oh, hey, Bakubro, what’s up?” he cheerfully spoke, ignorant to the controller in the ash blond’s hand. 

“It’s your turn, shitty hair, pay fucking attention!” Bakugou barked, tossing the plastic controller into his chest. Kirishima grunted, the feeling of the plastic slamming against his chest was less than ideal, but the smile on his face didn’t waiver while he offered his best friend the controller back.

“It’s all good, you can have another turn, I can handle being out this round!”

“Kiri, that’s six rounds in a row,” Kaminari spoke up, his face in a teasing smirk.

It was then that Kirishima’s face turned approximately the same color as his hair. “I didn’t—”

“Awww, Eijirou has a little crush on y/n!!!” Kaminari sang, resulting in agreeing with noises from Sero and Midoriya. Only Bakugou and Todoroki remained silent. 

Kirishima only laughed, he knew he couldn’t deny that fact, but he wouldn’t say it aloud — especially because Bakugou seemed to hate you. It had been now four months since the two of you had ‘meet,’ and while he still had no face to imagine you with, things had taken a slightly flirty route between the two of you.

Calls were much more frequent, nearly all nights the two of you would speak, even if it was just a measly summary of the day and a ‘sweet dreams’ and a ‘goodnight’ and an ‘I love you.’ It always happened nowadays.

Tonight was an exception, of course, because he was out with his friends, and apparently, you were doing the same. 

“You can’t be fucking serious?” Bakugou spat, a laugh spluttering from his lips, but it was cold and held no humor. “You caught feelings for a person who’s too much of a fucking coward to reveal a picture of themselves?”

“That’s not fair; besides, it's not about physical appearance!” Kirishima waved him off, pressing send to his text message.

have fun tonight! text me when u get back home if ur able to!

“Just how naive can you be?” Bakugou sneered, his hand taking the phone from Kirishima's side. “Six months of talking every week, texting every day, and this y/n still hasn’t trusted you with a single picture of them? I know you said that she told you how she looked, and all that shit, but let's be real, it’s so easy to lie about how you look like when you don’t have to provide a picture. What y/n say? Big tits? Big ass? Small waist? What about her did she say that made you so fucking insane over her?”

“N-Nothing! We didn’t talk about our body types!” Kirishima’s eyes widened significantly, the once comfortable atmosphere of the room wholly gone while Bakugou’s vermillion eyes seethed silently. “None of that matters! I told you the truth! I like y/n because of her personality, she’s manly, and I like that a lot! It’s not about her appearance, how pessimistic can you get, bro! I promise you, she’s trustworthy!”

“Is she really?”

“What?”

“How can you be in love with someone who you trust entirely, but doesn’t trust you at all? You said that y/n won’t show you a picture of herself because she’s scared you won’t like her? How is that trusting you? How is that fucking fair? To me, that sounds like some fucked up catfishing thing.”

“We talk on the phone, dude,” Kirishima said softly, but those thoughts were invading his mind. Did you not trust him? He knew he wasn’t the best option in the world, and he had accepted that in time and by improving on what he thought he was best at. But did you, after all this time, really not believe him when he claimed nothing would change when he saw you? “Catfishes don’t even do that… besides, the first call was by accident, why would someone—”

“Dunce face, what’s that one fucking idiotic thing you do for fun?” Bakugou snapped at the blond, not even bothering to look at him.

“Well, there’s a lot of things I do that you—” Kaminari laughed awkwardly, his smile tight and awkward.

“Kaminari.”

“I call… random numbers… pretending to have a big issue to see how they react…” he admitted, and Kirishima’s stomach clenched.

“And?” Bakugou snarled.

“I pretend to be a girl…”

“Don’t be stupid, Bakugou, this is more than one time!” Kirishima groaned.

“It's a voice that you can’t attach a face to, who knows if this is a person you can trust! People with voice acting exist in this world, how the hell do you possibly know that they’re not one of them?! Be fucking real, if ‘y/n’ trusted you, if that’s even their name, they wouldn’t be hiding their face from you.”

Kirishima didn’t say anything else, the acid piling in his throat was too much for him to even look at his friend. The night didn’t really recover from that conversation, and Kirishima eventually found himself back home.

He sat at the edge of his bed, his phone in his hands, waiting for a message from you. He couldn’t sleep, and even though he had work tomorrow morning, he found himself wide awake, unable to let sleep consume.

It was three in the morning when you sent a text, his eyes still wide awake, and with shaky fingers, he read the message.

i just got home can you believe that i drank three cups of wine and didnt get tipsy??????? thats on being a raging alcoholic ;D

Kirishima wanted to laugh; on god, he would’ve found this beyond delightful to read because he knew you couldn’t handle your liquor, but that bitter stream of acid destroyed the humor in his thoughts.

Were you really telling the truth? Was this all a lie?

He didn’t text back; instead, his finger pressed the call button, and he held his breath.

“Helloooo?” a voice picked up on the second ring, but it wasn’t your voice. It was a voice he didn’t recognize at all.

‘Voice actors,’ Bakugou’s voice reentered his thoughts, and the phone in his hand nearly dropped.

“Sorry, hello?” the voice he knew as you finally came through, and Kirishima let out a shallow breath, one so small, so mediocrely weak it burned his lungs.

“Do you trust me?” he asked softly, maybe too softly because you asked with a strained laugh for him to repeat his words. “Do you trust me, y/n?”

There was a pause on your end, too long a beat for Kirishima to be comfortable with.

“Of course I trust you, Ei, are you okay?”

“Do you actually trust me, or are you lying?”

“Woah there,” you said a small laugh on your tongue, but there was only confusion in it, not your contagious sound. “Did you drink? It’s a work night, you never do that!”

“Answer the question,” Kirishima spoke with finality, his shoulders tense, tears pushing past his eyes while he struggled to maintain composure.

Prove Bakugou wrong, please, prove Bakugou wrong.

“Of course I do,” you spoke with genuine clarity, but still, Kirishima was rattled, his confidence blown. “What’s going on?”

Did he want to confess to his insecurities? Was it worth it? His breathing became frantic, almost as if he was going insane just thinking about where his thoughts were. But Kirishima was never good at hiding things, no he was as open as a book.

“Why won’t you let me see you… we’ve been friends for six months, and the only thing I know about you is your eye color and your hair color. It’s so insanely generic that I can’t… I can’t do this.”

“What are you trying to say?” you ask, your voice small, almost a whisper of all the energy one could have at this time of night.

“I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t trust me, who’s using me,” he spoke with perfect clarity that hid away his insecurities about this all. “For all, I know nothing about you is real, that this is all just some ploy to hurt me in the end. Six months and you can’t trust me with a single meet up or even a picture? I just… has this been a game for you, y/n? Or is that even your name.”

The call ended and a single message held on his screen, this call has been dropped, but you didn’t seem to want to call him back.

Kirishima didn’t sleep a wink that night, his words coming back to bite him in the throat each and every time he thought he was close enough to sleep. Insecurities riled up in him, consuming him entirely.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

He tried to call back.

For fourteen straight days, Kirishima attempted to call you back.

Every time he called you, he would always hang up before he could take back his words. But each call, after he had prematurely hung up, he would recant his mean words to the unresponsive phone. He did trust you, he was weak, he was unmanly to assume those things. You could take, however long it took to finally trust him again because he would wait for you no matter what. He apologized again and again until the very last one he broke down into silent tears, a single message of ‘I hope one day you’ll forgive me’ hung weakly on his voice and put his phone away. 

It was sixteen days since he had spoken those cruel words to you, and in that time, he didn’t regret finally talking about his ill feelings towards wanting to reveal yourself to him. But he did regret the way it came out; instead of it being a deep and personal conversation, it came out as bitter and one-sided. The two of you were disconnected, and he felt empty.

But he couldn’t focus on it, not today, after all, it was Bakugou’s birthday, and everyone was gathering at the local fancy restaurant to celebrate. 

Kirishima dressed up presentable, wearing a navy blue button-up, and dark slacks. He walked towards the entrance of the restaurant where Kaminari, Sero, and Midoriya were eagerly leading the group of them into the building. Typically Kirishima would’ve been with them in terms of spirit, but he felt energyless at the moment.

With the moon high in the sky, Kirishima stilled when Bakugou called out his name.

He stared at his best friend, the ash blond’s lip curled into a sneer while he huffed, “Listen, Kirishima, I’m sorry for what I said that night.”

“What? Oh, no, it’s okay, Bakugou!” Kirishima laughed, his hand slapping to the back of his neck. “You weren’t wrong.”

“I never said I was wrong,” Bakugou grunted, his eyes locked on Kirishima’s while he shoved his hands into his pockets. Kirishima stilled, unsure as to where this would be leading. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I know that Mina hurt you badly, and you’re too big of an idiot to not see when things arise. Maybe y/n is genuine, but if you aren’t fucking honest with her about your own feelings about how she’s so secretive, it’s not going to work.”

Kirishima smiled softly, a weak shrug moving through him, “I know, thanks, man.”

Bakugou nodded, and without a word, he continued on ahead where Midoriya was yelling at them to hurry up and come so they could be seated. 

Kirishima sighed, rolling out his shoulders before following afterward.

Kirishima followed after the hostess, smiling at her gratefully when she sat the group into their own private room and left. 

“Bakugou’s paying, right?” Kaminari stage whispered to Midoriya while staring at the prices on the menu.

“Eat shit, dunce face, learn how to save up your fucking money the next time you offer to come to this fucking place!” Bakugou roared, hearing the whisper.

“I’ll be covering the bill,” Todoroki informed with a smirk on his face. Kirishima laughed, looking at the prices and indeed agreeing with Kaminari’s statement. Having a wealthy friend was very convenient at times like this.

“Hi, welcome to Eiko, I’ll be your waitress today!” a voice chirped from the entrance of the room, and Kirishima froze, he recognized that voice and face.

It was the person he had mistaken for you all those months ago.

By the smile on your face, it seemed that you recognized them all too.

“And what is your name,” Sero winked, his eyes captivated by you.

“Oh, haha, sorry, my name is y/n,” you smiled, moving the menus you held in your hand to show the silver nametag on your uniform.

“Oh, like Kirishima’s y/n,” Kaminari laughed, pointing a finger at Kirishima, not at all being as quiet as he probably thought himself to be. But it seemed that he wasn’t the only one who thought that because while Kirishima was staring at your face, embarrassingly taking you in, you followed Kaminari’s finger.

Your sight sat on the redhead in the middle whose name was Kirishima, and you straightened up in what felt like panic. 

“You’re Kirishima?” you asked quietly, your finger grasping the menus so tightly, your knuckles turned white. “Kirishima Eijirou.”

“The one and only,” Kaminari voiced for him, his arm thrown over Kirishima’s shoulder while he nodded like a scholar. “And why do you ask?”

“Shut the fuck up, dunce face.” Bakugou hissed.

Kirishima continued to stare at you, a million words running through his head, yet not a single one being translated on his tongue. You were beautiful.

What should he say?

What could he say?

Your lips pursed, and you shook your head, a smile of disbelief spreading across your face, “Unbelievable.”

“Y/n—”

“Be quiet,” you snap, your tone angry, but your eyes beyond hurt. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

Dinner wasn’t exactly a pleasant time, you came in and left faster than anyone could blink, and yet none of their drinks went empty, nor did they really have a problem. Much quicker than Kirishima would’ve liked, they were done and were soon piling out of the restaurant after Kirishima decided to leave a very, very generous tip.

“I’m going to stay until I can speak to y/n,” Kirishima said, waving off his friends who were expecting him to follow. But he couldn’t, not when he felt like the world's biggest ass for what he did to you.

“Good luck,” they all wished him well before eventually leaving, knowing better than to stick around.

So there at the outside bench, Kirishima waited.

Two hours he sat there until you emerged from the front door, your hair was no longer put back, you held your apron in your hand, and your purse on your shoulder.

“Y/n!” he called out, his feet no longer cemented into place; he strode after you.

You didn’t seem to pick up the pace, nor did you slow down. You were focused on your car that sat at the edge of the parking lot, and you ignored his calls.

It wasn’t until his hand touched your shoulder, and he appeared before you did Kirishima freeze again. Angry hot tears slid down your face, your face screwed up, your shoulders stiff.

“What do you want, Kirishima?” you spat, but there was only exhaustion in your voice, nothing bitter, nothing at all what Kirishima deserved from you.

“I want to apologize,” Kirishima whispered, his hands struggling to reach out and wipe your tears away. You were crying because of him, he did this to you. “I was a dick, I was… beyond unmanly to you, and I’m so sorry! I just let Bakugou get into my head, and I’ve never been a secure person because, well, I’m just… fuck, I don’t even know, but all I know is that you didn’t deserve this. And I like you so much, but I didn’t — I don’t know what to do?!”

Your eyes stared up at him, they were bright with tears, wounded beyond anything Kirishima could hope to fix.

“That night, you said if I didn’t trust you, but I did trust you! I’ve always trusted you—” your finger jabbed his chest— “but it was you who didn’t trust me! I get that it’s hard to not have a picture of someone you care about after a long length of time, but we were always fine for a while! It was going to happen, but while I trusted you, I didn’t trust myself, okay?! I couldn’t trust myself to see that if you were so much more handsome than me that I couldn’t be confident enough to let myself be friends with you! I constantly fuck up relationships when I have crushes on people because… I don’t know, I just do! But you were someone with no risk and the highest risk, and I wanted to be sure in my own feelings before giving you a picture of me! But… fuck, Kirishima, you didn’t trust me!”

Kirishima’s throat tightened, the tears on your face a guilty reminder that this was because of him. But how could he fix this?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his hands grabbing onto your arms just above the elbow, and his head hung by your forehead, not quite touching you, but just enough that his spiked hair teased the atoms between you. You were taller than he expected, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with, no, not at all. “You’re right, I didn’t trust you, and you didn’t deserve that. I don’t think there’s anything that I can say, or do for that matter, to change your mind, and I’m sorry. I just panicked because who gets into this type of situation, how do I tell my phone friend that I have feelings for her? I was weak, and I am so fucking pathetic, and I just want to make things better. If you’ll let me be your friend again…”

He slowly looked back up at you, and you were frozen in your place, tears falling down your face still.

“I don’t think we can be friends,” you confessed, and Kirishima’s heart broke in two, his hands dropping from your arms in his embarrassment and humiliation.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry still, um… maybe I’ll see you again?” Kirishima smiled despite it all, he kept smiling despite the crack in his chest and his soul.

“You will,” you murmured, and before Kirishima could blink, your fists wrapped in his collar, and you brought him down for an ardent kiss that he was not quick to respond to. It took three seconds for him to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you in, kissing you again and again and again.

It didn’t seem to matter to either one of you that you were both now kissing without a care in the world in the middle of a parking lot, because you both had your emotions exposed to the other, and you didn’t want to be friends. At least not when the man who held your heart confessed that you held his in yours. 

The two of you weren’t truly disconnected, it was just a little lost moment in your call.

[juniorgman187]

Daddy Issues (Spencer Reid Imagine)

*NOT MY GIF IF ANYONE KNOWS THE OWNER PLZ LET ME KNOW SO I CAN GIVE CREDIT*

Summary: While tending to Reid’s wound he obtained in a bar brawl, Reader finds out about his true feelings but not without the hurtful mentioning of Reader’s daddy issues. 

Category: Angst Couple: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: Mentions of a violent bar fight, allusions to abandonment, self-destructive/sabotaging tendencies  Word Count: 2.6K

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

“Naughty boy.” 

You put your thumb on the dimple of his chin and your index finger under his chin to turn his head to the side gently. Reid let his head turn without resistance so you’d have a better view of the large laceration on his cheek. It was bloody beyond belief. “God, what’d you do?”

“What do you mean ‘What’d I do?’ He was the maniac that punched me.” Because of Reid’s little bar fight, you were all kicked out of the club and forced to come back to Spencer’s apartment to clean him up. While the rest of the team was in the living room, you were in the bathroom, kindly helping him. But he rejected your help when he wrapped his large hand around your wrist to pull it off his face so he could hop off the sink and push past you and out the door. 

“Reid, get back here! You of all people know how much worse that cut will be if I don’t clean it soon.”

Apparently, reminding him that he might develop an infection was enough to convince him to drop the tough guy act and come back. He walked with his tail between his legs when he had to pass you in the doorway to sit back on the sink. You brought out the emergency kit, while Spencer looked over his shoulder to check out his wound in the mirror. 

“Yes, you look cool. Now stop looking at yourself in the mirror and look at me so I can disinfect it.” Reid almost looked embarrassed when you said this, but you both knew it was true. He did look pretty badass. 

After you pulled out all your supplies, Reid shyly spoke up. 

“Do . . . do you really think I look cool?” 

This coming from a man that had been shot twice, survived an anthrax attack, been in a handful of hostage situations, and got out of prison. He was so strong, but he didn’t even know it. How was he so oblivious to his own strength? You had to laugh.

“Why are you laughing at me? What’s so funny?” Reid sounded genuinely hurt. If his previous question didn’t radiate ‘sad puppy dog energy,’ that question sure did. It was as if he had reverted to his shy 24 year old self that still asked for validation. 

“You do not need to get punched to prove how tough you are, okay? You’re plenty strong as it is.” To him, he thought you were just saying that, but you didn’t mean it. “Hey - look at me,” You demanded, making him meet your eyes. “You are so fucking cool. You hear me? I mean it, Reid. It takes one to know one after all.” He tried to fight a smile at your playful joke, but he failed. You always knew what to say to cheer him up, and tonight was no different. 

Reid’s shoulders finally deflated as he settled down. You stood between his legs while you tended to the cut. While you were between Reid’s legs, you felt his finger playing with the belt loop of your jeans. It was such a small gesture you didn’t notice it at first, maybe even because he’d probably done small gestures like this a million times before. He wasn’t even doing it on purpose, but he was fulfilling some subconscious need to be touching you, even if it was simply playing with your belt loop. 

“You know, if you don’t tell me what happened, Morgan will. Do you really want that?” You threatened. Knowing Morgan - he'd be more than happy to recount the incident to you.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Alright. If you say so,” You stared directly into Spencer’s eyes. “MORGAN!” You yelled loud enough for him to hear you. 

Spencer immediately clapped his hand over your mouth. “SHH! Fine, fine I’ll tell you.”

See? Worked like a charm. 

When it came to Reid, you played dirty, and without fail, he’d give you what you wanted. Even if it took a while - he’d always give in. 

Always. 

“Remember that guy you were -” Reid gulped back the lump in his throat. “dancing with?”

After pausing to recall the night, a faint memory resurfaced. “You mean Owen? What about him?” 

“After you danced, you went to the bathroom with Garcia, remember?” You nodded again. “He watched you the entire time. Emily tried to tell me it was nothing - but then I saw some guy come up to him and give him a handshake, with a twenty in his palm. So I gave Owen a piece of my mind.”

You tried to contain your laughter at his choice of words. “Guys make stupid bets like that all the time, Reid.” He only huffed as a response. “Hey,” You softly said, turning his head to look at you. “Thank you.” You finally said after a moment of staring at Reid. “Thank you for defending me when I wasn’t around.” 

Reid pouted a little and shook his head. “Why do you go after guys like him?” His voice was so quiet that a whisper would’ve been loud in comparison.

“What?” You didn’t ask because you didn’t hear him, but because you didn’t understand him. 

“Seriously, Y/N, it’s like you have this obsession with douchebags. Are they the guys you think you deserve?”

“What are you saying?” Your voice had a hint of anger behind it.

“I’ve tried to understand why you do what you do, but it just makes me more confused. I know you like guys that give you attention your father never did -”

“Whoa, back up. You did not just say that.” You were actually in disbelief. 

“Am I wrong? Your father left in your formative years, so your love map -”

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Hearing him say that as if you were some damaged unsub that he was trying to empathize with made your blood boil.

“Face it, Y/N. You’re always telling the girls that you want a nice guy, but then you dance on some asshole because you’d rather screw up a relationship with a jerk than mess up a relationship with someone you actually deserve. But if you opened your eyes for once, then you’d realize that if they actually were deserving of you - they wouldn’t abandon you like your father did.” 

As soon as the words left his lips, Spencer received a second bruise that night. The sound of your palm hitting his other cheek echoed through the bathroom. It was enough to call the team’s attention to you two. 

“Fuck you!” You shrieked, leaving the bathroom and pushing past the team that was doing they’re best to stop you.

You stormed out of Spencer’s flat and felt seven pairs of eyes following you as you ran down the stairwell. 

. . . 

“She couldn’t have gotten very far.” Hotch reasoned as he looked into the distance. 

All of us were looking for Y/N, who wasn’t returning any of our calls. Everyone was worried about her, including me. Especially me. It was my fault after all, which the team had no problem reminding me.

“What were you thinking, man? Bringing up her dad like that? That was messed up and you know it.” Morgan added right after Y/N walked out.

“You could’ve been more gentle, Spence.” JJ sighed while ringing Y/N for the fifth time. 

“Just give her some time.” Prentiss advised. “Yeah, I’m sure you two will be back to cracking Star Trek jokes in no time.” Garcia added. 

I hadn’t even realized what I was saying when I was saying, nor had I thought through the repercussions of my words. 

It was a known rule that we should never profile one another, but I couldn’t help it. It was all too easy to distinguish the source of Y/N’s poor taste in men. Although, I had to admit, who was I to judge her based on her father’s absence? What with my own father leaving me and my mom. 

“Hey, Boy Genius,” Rossi called out to me. “You know her better than the rest of us. Where would she go?” Everyone’s eyes looked at me. 

It was true. If anyone knew where she was - it would be me, but I was too flustered from the argument to think clearly. 

“I don’t know! She goes home when she’s tired. Goes to the cafe when she’s working. Goes to work when she needs a distraction. Goes to my apartment when she’s sad . . .” My voice faded when I realized I probably screwed that up, too. I loved her late night visits. They were a reminder that she needed me. That I was valuable. 

That’s when a memory from years ago resurfaced. 

“I know where she is.” 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

“You’re back already? I thought Hotch told you to take some time off.” 

She wordlessly nodded. “Yeah, he did, but I’m fine. Plus, I’m already behind in paperwork.” Whenever she tried avoiding her problems, she’d bury herself in her work to distract her from her underlying pain. It killed me to see Y/N like this.

“Where’d you go last night?” I felt compelled to ask since as soon as the jet landed, Y/N practically disappeared. She didn’t even call me, which was weird. 

“Nowhere, why?” She hadn’t met my eyes when she answered my question, instead keeping her gaze locked on the surroundings below her while she took her seat at her desk. 

“I just . . . I could tell you were upset about the case.” 

Cases weren’t easy to begin with, but Y/N was especially sensitive to yesterday’s. A young woman named Hanna was killing older white, affluent men as surrogates until she got to the real source of her rage - her father. He’d abandoned her in her early years which imprinted on her. She’d grow up to find out that her father left her and her mom for his wealthy mistress. They went on to raise two daughters. It was a shock that Hanna never tried to hurt her half sisters or their mother, but that only meant she was going to inflict that much more pain onto her dad. 

When we finally found Hanna, she’d already killed her father, but it wasn’t too late to save Hanna. 

Y/N was the one talking. 

“Hanna, think about your mom. She loves you so much. Your father leaving devastated her, but you being there made all the difference. You gave her purpose. Don’t let your mom lose you, too. She needs you. Just put down the poison for your mom.” Y/N pleaded while lowering her gun into her holster. 

But as Y/N came closer to her, Hanna reacted quickly by downing the poisonous concoction. Y/N ran right up to her and stuck her fingers down her throat to force her to throw up what she’d just drank, but it was no use. Soon Hanna fell to the floor with Y/N clutching her body as it violently convulsed. 

“Y/N! Y/N!” Hotch yelled, trying to pull her off of Hanna, but she refused to give up. 

I’d never seen her as disturbed as she was on the plane ride back. Her eyes never left the window. I wanted so badly to ask her how she was or offer my help, but I knew she’d rather be left alone. I didn’t blame her. Losing someone you’re trying to save is devastating, but it’s worse when you relate to the unsub. When you very well could have been them. Y/N saw herself as a reflection of Hanna because of how similar their childhoods were - how closely they paralleled. Not to mention, the likeness in age and appearance only served to haunt Y/N as she imagined herself being in Hanna’s shoes. Y/N would’ve wanted someone to save her, so she tried to save Hanna, but she couldn’t. 

It took Y/N a moment after she told me that she went ‘nowhere’ to say something again. “I’m sorry, Reid. I don’t want to lie to you.” 

“Then don’t. Tell me what’s going on so I can help you.” It hurt me to see her like this and I was willing to do whatever it took to be there for her. 

“Promise me you won’t laugh,” She began. I promised her I wouldn’t. “I went to the park. Like with a playground. And . . . I just sat on the swings. For like a really long time.” 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

“I see her!” Garcia shouted, waving around her pointer finger. The entire team was about to jump out of the car when I stopped them. 

“Could you guys just wait here? I think I should go alone.” 

Amicably, they all agreed to wait inside the car, while I trudged to the swing set. 

“We were worried about you.” I softly said, creeping up behind her. 

She didn’t even flinch at my voice or turn around when I spoke. “I knew you’d find me anyway.” She replied. I recognized her voice. She’d been crying. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry for what I said back there,” No response. “I wasn’t thinking.” 

Another short period passed before she actually said something back. “I’m sorry I slapped you.”

“I’m just glad you did it on the other cheek.” I joked, trying to say something that would make her smile.

Come on, Y/N. Smile for me, please. 

I slowly took a seat in the swing next to her, wrapping my hands around the chains. A familiar squeak noise rang out when I adjusted my full weight. That’s when I looked down at her feet and noticed they weren’t even touching the wood chips. How cute.

“Why do you care?” Her voice surprised me. “Why do you care if I go after the wrong guys?” 

“You’re my best friend, Y/N. I don’t want to see you get hurt by someone that didn’t deserve you to begin with.” This was only half true.

“No, no it’s more than that. Like, why did you punch Owen? Morgan was there, too. But he didn’t start a fight with him and let’s be honest - between the two of you, he’s more likely to use his fists, but he didn’t - you did. Why?” I was rendered speechless. I just couldn’t come up with the right words to say what I wanted to say. “Say it, Spencer . . . please.” 

It took me a moment. I couldn’t even meet her eyes at first, but slowly, I lifted my head to look at her through teary eyes. “Y/N, how can you say you want a nice guy when, after all these years, you’ve never looked twice at me?” Her eyes broke away from mine. “Why won’t you let me love you?”

“You know why. You said it yourself.” 

‘You’d rather screw up a relationship with a jerk than mess up a relationship with someone you actually deserve.’

We didn’t say anything more for a painfully long time. 

“I can’t be with you, Reid.” She finally spoke.

And even though a large part of me wanted to protest, object, and disagree, I stayed quiet. That was an answer I had to accept. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over you.” I admitted, halfway laughing at myself for sounding so childish. If I looked up a millisecond later than I did, I probably wouldn’t have caught the small smile that formed on her face after hearing me profess this. 

“You know, I’m not even sure I know what love is, honestly,” She lightheartedly confessed. “But if it’s anything like how I feel for you, then you should know that I love you. I love you so much. I love you more than I love myself, and I truly want you to be happy. I want to see you smile harder than you’ve ever smiled before. I want you to laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed before. I want you to love harder than you’ve ever loved before . . . but not with me.”

And though, she didn’t say it out loud - her eyes told me. 

‘This is the most I can love you in this life. Let that be enough.’ 

And with my eyes, I told her:

‘It’s enough.’

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

A/N: So this might ruin the vibes of the story, but I felt like I just had to explain the ending. 

Reader does want to be with Spencer! She wants nothing more than to be the reason he smiles, laughs, and loves, but as Spencer pointed out, she self-sabotages and has destructive behavior, and she knew that long before Spencer told her that, and for that very reason - she can’t be with Spencer. 

She loves him more than she loves herself, so as much as she wants to make herself happy by being with him - she wants his happiness more. And he wouldn’t be happy with her long term because of how Reader is in relationships. 

The line: This is the most I can love you in this life. Let that be enough. means ‘I’m loving you as much as I possibly can without hurting you. I know it’s not the kind of love we think we want, but please let it be enough.’

I hope that clears things up. 

[hazzoranstories]

Damon Salvatore x Reader One Shot | Katerina’s Sabotage Part 1

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Includes: Violence, slight tvd spoilers, mentions of blood, a little bit of smut-ish at the beginning, and triggering

________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: This is NOT a Katherine x Damon one-shot. Also, I might make this plot into a story once I finish Tvd. If I don't do that, then I might make a story about Klaus' sister and Damon.

Third Person's POV:

*Mystic Falls, Virginia; 1864*

"Damon! Oh my god! Stop!" Y/N exclaimed to the human, who continued to tickle her mercilessly. Damon smiled at just the sight of the girl in his arms as they rolled around his bed. The vampire finally had enough and pinned her lover to the bed, straddling his hips. They smiled at each other before Y/N leaned down to kiss his lips. The Pierce sister got slightly rougher as their kiss deepened, and she ran a hand down Damon's bare chest. Damon placed his hand in her black wavy hair and started messaging her scalp as Y/N moved her lips to his neck, leaving some love bites, getting hungrier by the minute.

She latched onto Damon's own curly hair and sunk her teeth into his pale skin. The Salvatore groaned in pain and bliss. He knew what the two foreigners from Atlanta were, and he was fine with it, unlike his father, who was on a mission to kill every last one of them. Even Stefan had a hard time digesting the fact that the girl he loved and her sister were Vampires. It was so bad that Katherine had to compel him, but only Y/N knew of her sister's manipulative antics. But, since Damon loved Y/N either way, no matter what she was, Y/N never had to control his mind once. Damon was even okay with her feeding on him once in a while.

The couple then heard a loud thump come from Stefan's bedroom, and Y/N stopped feeding immediately. "Katherine!" Stefan screamed, and it was almost like his voice was ringing through her heightened ears. She lunged off Damon, wiped her mouth of his blood, and ran out of the room. She slammed the door so hard it broke. Y/N saw her sister sprawled across the floor choking on something, but she couldn't tell what. Damon tried to race after her, but the door wouldn't open.

"Katerina!" the vampire screeched and started running towards her sister when Giuseppe shot her in the chest with a wooden bullet laced with vervain. Y/N groaned and collapsed onto the rug of the hallway. Damon began banging his whole weight against the door, but it wouldn't budge.

"Go get the sheriff. Tell him we have two vampires," Giuseppe told Stefan who's eyes widened.

"What? No!" Stefan yelled.

"Do as I say, son! Nothing that you feel for them is real. They're vampires! Monsters!" the father scolded and continued, "I fed you vervain hoping that it would expose them."

"How did you know?" Stefan questioned, suddenly getting suspicious.

"Your sympathy for their plight. I didn't raise my sons to be so weak! The sheriff, now. Go quickly! Now, son!" Giuseppe pressured his youngest son, chucking a shirt at him to cover up his half-naked chest. Stefan hesitated, still trying to process all the information before running out of the house to find the sheriff.

The sheriff and three other men soon followed Stefan to the Salvatore mansion and saw the two Pierce sisters passed out on the ground. They firmly put muzzles over their mouths, and two men picked up Katherine while the other two lifted Y/N.

After much effort and slamming against the door with as much strength as possible, Damon finally burst the door open. He saw the two sisters being carried out and ran after them.

"Stop! No! Don't take her!" He roared and tried to grab at Y/N when Giuseppe slammed him against the wall, preventing him from helping.

"Do you know what they'll do to you? If you're branded a sympathizer? You'll be killed along with them!" Giuseppe warned, and Damon watched with tears in his eyes as he watched the vampires be dragged out.

He was struggling under his father's grip on him and grabbed the collar of his shirt, "just let me be killed!"

~:*:~

Outside of the mansion, there were dozens of men searching for other vampires. Y/N slightly woke up from her unconscious state but was still weak. She looked over to her sister through heavy eyes and mumbled her name before being thrown into a cart where the town's other vampires were.

"Damon! Damon! Stop, stop. I'll help you. We'll get them back," Stefan called to his brother, who tried to reach the wagon.

"Help me?! Don't you think you've done enough? You promised you wouldn't tell him!" the soldier barked.

"I didn't think this would happen," Stefan pleaded to his brother. They heard clattering and snapped their heads to the carriage, which started to move away from the Salvatore house.

"You did this. This is your fault," Damon hissed before running off.

~:*:~

"Over here! There's another one! Quick! Help me!" Stefan yelled to the group of hunters near the wagon. Everyone ran after the Salvatore, who was really distracting them so Damon could get Katherine and Y/N. One man stayed there to guard the cart, but Damon easily took him out and grabbed the keys.

"We don't have long," Stefan whispered to his brother, who was fiddling with the keys to open the door. Once they got it open, they started looking for the sisters.

"Y/N? Katherine?" Damon murmured and saw the familiar dresses of the girls. With all the strength she had left, Katherine pushed Y/N deeper into the wagon as Damon and Stefan grabbed her.

Stefan took off the muzzle and began untying the ropes as Damon tried to find Y/N again. "Y/N! Y/N, where are you?!"

"We're gonna get you two out of here," Stefan told Katherine, who didn't look too happy but kept her real emotions at bay. Damon got so desperate that he started shoving the bodies of other vampires out of the way.

They heard the faint noise of horses and yelling, so Stefan picked up his pace. "Damon, hurry. Hurry," Stefan hissed and finished untying Katherine.

"Damon," Y/N groaned from the front of the carriage.

"Y/N! Y/N, come here! I got you, love," the boy let out a sigh of relief as Y/N's delicate hand emerged from the bodies of people. He was inches away from reaching her when a gun was fired, and he fell to the ground.

"Damon," Y/N breathed, feeling tears come to her eyes as her hand fell back down in exhaustion.

"I think we got another one!" John Gilbert howled in joy as they saw the brothers. Stefan was begging for Damon to wake up, but he suddenly got filled with rage when he exhaled his last breath.

He picked up the gun the guard was carrying and tried to aim at the shooter, but they beat him to it, and a bullet hit him square in the chest. He fell to the ground with a loud grunt, and it took longer than Damon for the coldness of death to spread through him. The hunters threw Katherine back inside the wagon, which was the last the Salvatore brothers saw of the Pierce sisters.

You probably noticed by now that this imagine has more of a story, so there will be multiple parts.

[winterscaptain]

when you wake up.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

a/n: i’m a sucker for protective aaron, alright? sue me. i have checked and double checked, but if i’ve messed up any gender-neutralisms, please let me know! i’d like to thank snow, the academy, and my welbutrin for their spiritual aid as i write these fics at an alarming rate rating/words: teen / 2642 warnings: canon-typical injury, swearing, kissing 

AO3 | Masterlist | Requests Open!

+++

“You know –“ you gasped, grimacing through the pain, “blood is a bitch to get out of a wool blend.”

Aaron pressed his lips together, his forearms flexing as he staunched the bleeding from the gunshot wound in your shoulder with his gorgeous navy pinstripe blazer.

That one was my favorite, you thought with a pout.

He had you propped against a wall, his shirt splattered with your blood. He had torn the collar of your shirt for better access to your wound, and your vest was entirely forgotten on the floor beside you. Emily called the paramedics about seven minutes prior, but the backroads of Montana were not conducive to prompt medical service.

The pain wasn’t unbearable, and surely you’d been through worse.

Shock is a hell of a drug.

Nevertheless, his concern was touching. It had been a while since either one of you were injured – long before you realized you had feelings for each other and did absolutely nothing about it.

It all happened so fast – you had your gun trained on the unsub, who was using the sixth almost-victim as a shield. As soon as Derek and Aaron threw the back door open, he’d shoved the frightened young woman toward Derek and moved really quickly.

Bang. Ouch. Fuck.

“Aaron.”

He didn’t respond and was dutifully ignoring your eyes, focused entirely on the blood gushing through his fingers under your shoulder blade. The hand attached to your injured arm wrapped around his bicep, your fingers clinging to the fabric of his sleeve.

“I’m fine,” you continued. “It’s through and through. Six weeks tops I’ll be back to my old tricks.” 

You brought your other hand to his hair, and he leaned into your touch almost unconsciously. Your thumb smoothed over the hair at his temple, where tiny silver streaks rested in the inky black. You were just teasing him about his greys last week.

“They make you look distinguished!” You insisted. You were behind him as he sat at his dining room table, helping Jack set the table for dinner while Aaron tried (in vain) to review a consult.

“They make me look old,” he retorted in a deadpan.

You raked your fingers through the hair at his temples, massaging his scalp all the way to the crown of his head. He leaned back, his hand relaxing around his pen. With a final pat to the top of his head, you stepped away and returned to the pasta sauce.

“No old man would cook as badly as you do.”

His withering glare made his son laugh out loud, and the look only grew darker as you offered Jack a high-five.

“You’re still losing a lot of blood.” His voice was low and tense, his jaw tight.

Derek hovered nearby, though Aaron had shooed him away minutes earlier. He was talking into the comm, likely getting status updates from EMS.

Offering Derek a weak smile, you let your hand drop to Hotch’s wrist. Your eyes were heavy, but you fought to keep them open. Falling unconscious now would only worry him more.

“Aaron, you need to breathe.”

He huffs, and it’s almost a laugh but there’s no humor in it. “You’re telling me to breathe?”

“I’m breathing just fine.” And you were, focused only on the feel of his hands on your skin and the slow, deep breaths you took to keep your oxygen levels high as your blood pressure dropped. “Breathe with me, please. It’ll make me feel better.” That was a low blow, but you were pulling every card you had to keep him from breaking his teeth with that clenched jaw.

God, you were just so tired.

Aaron’s brown eyes flickered up to yours and softened. He leaned forward, shifting his weight and wrapping an arm around you as sirens faintly wailed some distance away. “Lean into me. It’s okay. You can sleep. I’ve got you.”

You were cheek-to-cheek when you finally passed out, succumbing to the heaviness.

+++

When you woke up, your shoulder ached, and the lights were way too bright.

There was a weight dipping the mattress on your left side and a dark shadow on your right.

You lifted your head slightly to see Aaron fast asleep, his head resting on his arms. You smiled and redirected your attention to your right. The dark shadow was Emily, watching you with a soft smile.

“Hey, champ.”

“Hey Em.”

She gestured to Aaron with her chin. “He hasn’t left once.” There was an implication behind her words, something not-quite suggestive, but understanding.

You ignored it for now. “How long was I out?” You brought your hand to Aaron’s tense shoulder, relaxing there, your thumb tracing back and forth over his baby blue button-down. Your IV line pulled a little, and you retracted your hand to his bicep.

“About two days. Surgery went really well – they just had to patch up a couple of ligaments and set a few pins in your clavicle. Nothing shattered, and no fragments. All things considered, really clean shot.”

Not as bad as I thought.

“He’s been here the whole time? Are we still in Montana? What day is it?”

Emily laughed, smiling broadly. “So many questions!” She counted off on her fingers. “His ass has only left that chair to chase down your doctor and go to the bathroom like...twice. We are still in Montana. It’s Tuesday. We’ll be on our way home as soon as you’re discharged. We wouldn’t leave without you.”

You sighed, adjusting your position on the bed. “Thanks.”

She winked. 

Hotch stirred, and Emily stood.

“I’ll leave you two for now. We’re all out in the waiting room if you want to see anyone.” She kissed your forehead and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

You could see the exact moment he registered your hand on his shoulder. He startled, straightening faster than you could blink. His eyes still bleary from sleep, you watched as he took stock of your entire person, finally meeting your eyes.

“Hi, Hotch.”

“Hi.” He reached for your hand with both of his, careful of the IV in your forearm. He brought your linked hands to his lips - warm, relieved breath washing over your fingers.

You squeezed once, feeling the stress and worry in his grip. “I’m okay.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I got shot.” Your voice was soft, but the humor behind it was unmistakable.

He huffed a laugh against your hands. “I should be mad at you.”

“You aren’t?”

Just then, a twinge in your shoulder made you wince. Your face crinkled up before you could hide it.

Hotch immediately reached for the call button, his body arcing gracefully over yours, pressing it twice. He looked down at you from under his arm. “No, I’m not.”

The nurse came in, said something about how nice it was to see you awake, and administered some more pain medication. She worked around Hotch, who never let go of your hand.

You had your eyes on him the whole time. His hawkish brown eyes tracked everything – the dosage, the IV drip – until the nurse left the room.

Right away, you started feeling heavy, your eyes slipping closed. “I don’t - I don’t wanna sleep,” you mumbled.

The back of Hotch’s hand traced the line of your cheek in a gentle caress. Your eyes fluttered closed, and you felt his touch fall down your good arm and wind your fingers together. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“You should get s’m sleep.”

You weren’t sure if it was the haze of meds or not, but you could swear you felt kisses to each one of your fingertips before you slipped into unconsciousness once more.

+++

When you woke again, he was still there. He was kicked back in the recliner this time, a book in his lap and reading glasses perched on his nose. It was dark outside, and you surmised you’d been asleep for a couple of hours.

“Since when do you wear reading glasses?” Your voice was rough with sleep.

Hotch snatched the glasses in question off his nose and folded them into his collar. “I don’t, usually, but the fluorescents are hard on my eyes after a while.”

You nodded sagely before breaking out into a smile. He offered you one back, one of those sweet, crooked, closed-mouth tip-ups.

Those might be my favorite.

You shifted, scooting over in the hospital bed and raising the head with the remote so you could sit up with more ease. Hotch stood, and you could tell he was trying to give you space as you independently adjusted your surroundings.

You patted the bed next to your hip, and he gingerly sat beside you, crossing his ankle over his opposite knee. He probably didn’t realize, but his entire body was bowed toward you, from his toes to his shoulders. You had always been tuned to each other, like finely-made instruments.

There was so much to say, so much unsaid. This injury was pretty far from a near-death experience, but it was enough to screw your head on straight a little bit.

“Aaron, I --“ You stopped, not sure where to begin. You rested a hand on the knee within your reach, tracing absentminded circles on the grain of his jeans.

Almost three days in the hospital and he’s still wearing jeans.

Well...at least it’s not a suit.

“Why did you stay?” Your words left you without your permission, but maybe it was better that way.

His brow lowered. “It’s my job.”

Your lips tipped up in a small, wry smile. “Bullshit.”

He heaved a sigh. “Fine. I felt...compelled to make sure you were alright.” His eyes were cast down toward the heavy white blanket beneath him. “Every time I got up to leave, I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave you knowing you could wake up and I wouldn’t be there.”

You were acutely aware of the dopey grin on your face.

He looked up at you. “It doesn’t make any sense I know –“

“Aaron.” You stopped him with four fingers pressed to his mouth. It was the first time you’d actually instigated contact with his mouth. You felt the stubble that was rapidly turning into a proper beard, but you were focused on the softness of his mouth. You softened, letting your hand relax against him. “It makes sense to me.”

There was silence for a moment. You just stared at each other, your hand still over his mouth. You were glad your heart rate stayed steady, as the beeping was one of the only sounds in the room.

“Hey, Aaron?” Your fingers weren’t really tracing his lips, but they weren’t...not doing that either.

He smiled and spoke from behind your fingers. “Yeah?”

“The spot between my shoulders is insanely itchy.”

He shook his head, exasperated, and pulled your fingers from his mouth. “Lean up for a second.”

You did, and he pulled a pillow from behind you and put it in your lap. You wrapped your good arm around it and ducked your head down. His fingers massaged across your good shoulder and neck, releasing some of the tension there.

He laughed aloud when you made a (frankly) obscene noise when he hit a particularly sore spot.

“You’re giving my physical therapist a run for his money, Aaron.”

“Good.”

He moved down underneath the sling strap, gently running his nails back and forth over the skin peeking through your hospital gown. It was heaven.

“Okay, you can’t ever stop doing that.”

He continued, scratching lightly up and down your spine “I’m here as long as you want me here, sweetheart.”

The endearment made your heart feel all fuzzy, and you relaxed further into the pillow, your body relaxing as the tension melted out of your back.

He stopped after a few minutes, just smoothing his hand back and forth along the left side of your back. “Feeling better?”

“Much, thank you,” you said, leaning back against the pillows.

He brushed some hair away from your face and hesitated there for a moment. Your jaw fit a little too neatly in his hand. You licked your lips, finding your mouth suddenly dry.

“Y/N...” he said, still quiet.

You shook your head and leaned forward at the same time he did. You met halfway, and he captured your lips with a relieved sigh. He was so careful with you, considering your injury, one hand reaching from your jaw to the side of your head, the other resting on your thigh on top of the thin hospital blanket.

The faded smell of his cologne or deodorant or something very masculine swirled around you. It was a smell you could identify anywhere – something spicy and earthy and Aaron.

Your noses slid against each other as you pulled apart to grin at each other. He pulled you back toward him and your lips met again. Your breath caught as his tongue traced your lower lip. You granted him access, ignoring the embarrassing spike in your heart rate that sent the monitors into a frenzy.

A part of you absolutely wanted to jump him then and there, but between your shoulder and the big window facing out into the hallway, that was a no-go.

You settled for devouring him from where you were instead, taking his lips between your teeth until he was groaning into your mouth. His hands knotted in your hair and you twisted his shirt in your hand. You didn’t think too much about the fact you’d been asleep for two days and therefore had two days of morning breath. The only thing on your mind was the taste of coffee on Aaron’s tongue, the hand planted firmly on your thigh, and the surprising softness of his lips.

It’s not that you thought he’d be a bad kisser, but fuck he was good at it. Almost too good. You craved more and damned your shoulder (again) for keeping you tethered to this bed and unable to wrap him in your arms.

“God,” he whispered into your mouth. “I was so scared I was going to lose you.”

You laughed into him, nipping at his lip again. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

There was a desperate edge to his touch as he took your face between his hands and pulled back to look at you. He kissed you once. Twice. So gently you almost couldn’t feel it. “I’m never getting rid of you,” he said. “Not now, not ever.”

It took you a couple of seconds to open your eyes again. When you did, the warm brown of Aaron’s eyes sank into you, and you almost forgot you’d been shot less than 72 hours prior. “Am I nuts to tell you how much I love you when I’m hopped up on pain meds?”

He shook his head, a thousand-gigawatt smile eating up his whole face. You cupped his jaw in your hand, pressing your thumb into one of his dimples. He tenderly covered your hand with his and turned to press an achingly gentle kiss your palm. “Only a little,” he said. He guided you back onto the pillows, arranging them around you so you could sleep without jostling your shoulder.

The nurse bustled back in and asked after your pain level. You said seven (it was a lie, you’d give it a nine and a half if you weren’t trying to be a hero), and she administered another round of meds. She swept out of the room and your eyes started to close again.

“Aaron...” you whispered, clinging to the last dregs of consciousness.

A kiss to your forehead. Warm breath over your fingers.

If safety had a texture, it would be somewhere between the callouses on his hands and the cool cotton of his dress shirts.

“I’m here.” A pause. “Hey.”

You cracked an eyelid.

“I love you too, by the way.”

+++

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @hurricanejjareau @fics-ilike @octothorpetopus @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @saintd0lce @good-heavens-chris-evans

[jokertrap-ran]

(光与夜之恋 Light and Night) Main Story Chapter 3-3: 海水与火焰 Seawater & Flames Translation

“Secretly snapping shots of me again? What, was last time not enough?"

*Light and Night Master-list *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Join the Light & Night Discord (＾▽＾)~ ♪ *Main story tag will be #For Light and Night

The original plan for Lin Yao’s fitting session was postponed by her agency at the very last minute. After busying for a couple more days, the weekends were here in a blink of an eye.

Following Evan’s suggestion, I’d selected a new apartment that was small, but pretty good in every other aspect, and moved in without a hitch.

It was coincidentally sundown by the time I’d finished decorating my new home. The setting sun was lazily snuggled up high amongst the clouds that touched the building. Guangqi City was dyed in a beautiful pinkish-purple, assimilating into the very glow of the sunset itself.

I was nestled up comfortably on my sofa, admiring the beautiful scenery and enjoying the rare moment of peace.

Ding-dong!

The doorbell rang.

Delivery Man: Hello. Fresh flowers for you.

MC: ?

An’an had sent me a huge bouquet of baby's breath. It had a card attached to it, wishing me a smooth move into my new apartment.

❖☆———————————★❖

An'an: Got the flowers yet?

MC: Yeah! They're especially pretty~

An'an: You're welcome! But, seeing as you've already received them… I have a teeny-tiny request~

MC: Why do I have a bad feeling about this already…?

An'an: Aw, come on, man. Didn't I tell you that I was going to be interviewing my idol's race team next week?

An'an: It’s their test run tomorrow and it’s also a Sunday, so I’m asking you to come and check them out with me!

An'an: Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? You know I love you best, baby!

MC: ...Fine.

An'an: I’ll send you the location later and see you at their training location at 10 AM tomorrow! Be there, or be square!

❖☆———————————★❖

Hence, I woke up early the next day due to the location being somewhere out in the outskirts of the city.

MC: Turn left at 998 Sunset Street and go straight till the end…

MC: Then you’ll see the Glitter Bullet race team's name… Oh, here it is.

A real race track was much more of a spectacular sight to behold compared to what I’d seen on television.

The long and winding race track was akin to that of a python’s body; so long that it seemed never-ending, surrounding a square plot of grass. The dark red tented fabric canopy bearing the team’s name stood right in the centre of the racetrack like an open umbrella.

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: What a spectacle…

Everything about the racetrack marvelled me, almost as if I’d accidentally stepped into a whole new world.

Training racecars raced past me, roaring as they went. The visceral heat and the deafening roars of the engines as they zipped past were so exciting that they made everyone's heart race.

I walked to the auditorium, finding a shaded area to sit.

Down at the tracks was what was probably a mock competition. The roaring of the racecars that zipped past was sometimes high-pitched, and sometimes low.

❖☆———————————★❖

The one at the head of them all was a red racecar that was both steady and equally speedy. After a couple of laps, it had firmly locked its place as No.1 on the racetrack.

I stared at the skull pattern on it. It looked really familiar…

I whipped out my phone and zoomed in on it using the camera and confirmed it. My eyes weren’t fooling me after all.

MC: The pattern on it looks exactly just like the pendant Osborn wears!

❖☆———————————★❖

Is that his racecar? As the thought flashed past my mind, I was compelled to raise my phone and press the button on the shutter.

Suddenly, a sharp sound rang out in the chaos of noise.

The yellow racecar that had been snapping at the red one’s heels the entire time had suddenly started accelerating, just like a lion that had just woken up, radiating an unstoppable and unrelenting aura as it went. It swerved with astonishing speed and a sharp screech of its tires, perfectly bypassing the bend in the road before swiftly overtaking the red racecar!

It was like a dash of gold light in the middle of a group, making everything in the surroundings lose out in comparison.

In a blink of an eye, that racecar put a huge distance between itself and the others.

MC: The red racecar got overtaken!

Only the last lap remained before this competition was over. I couldn't help gripping tightly to the railings as I silently rooted for the red racecar.

However, it was the yellow racecar that had been first to cross the finish line in the end.

MC: He still lost out…

I sighed, growing increasingly curious about just which godly being was behind the wheel of the yellow racecar.

MC: ...Osborn's so good at this; I wonder who won against him?

A tall and big figure came out of the yellow racecar, removing his helmet and reaching a hand up to somewhat fix his helmet-mussed hair.

MC: ...Osborn!? That red racecar isn't being driven by him!?

❖☆———————————★❖

It was at that moment that my phone vibrated to life.

An'an: I needa tell you something very important… Please don't smack me!

An'an: A last-minute issue cropped up with the latest issue of the magazine I'm on, so I've got to rush back to the publishing company right now...

MC: I'm… already here, though…

An'an: I'm so, so, sorry for making you go there for nothing…

MC: Don't worry about it. I don't have any plans for today anyway. Besides, I just saw their test run.

An'an: For real!? Did you snap any pics of my idol? Can you send them to me!?

MC: Sure thing. I snapped one aplenty…

Suddenly, I recalled the big, horrid, and terrible screw-up that had transpired earlier. My voice had never died that quickly right then and there. Not only did I fail to get a single shot of her idol, but I'd also taken pictures of EVERYTHING but him.

MC: ...Err, I'll snap a couple more and send them all to you later.

An'an: You're really the bestest bestie! Gotta go, the editor-in-chief's after my arse. Bye bye~

After hanging up, I immediately fell into a moment of depression as I stared at the stream of pictures of the red racecar in the gallery. Is there a second mock competition, by any chance? Otherwise, how am I going to explain this to her…?

??: And whose fangirl is this? What are you squatting here for?

MC: !

The sudden voice that came out of nowhere startled me. I shot up immediately only to meet a pair of eyes that had been half-narrowed into a smile.

I didn't know when he came here, but Osborn was now standing by my side. There he stood under the dazzling sunlight with both hands in his pockets, leaning lazily against the railings with his eyebrows raised.

I felt a little light-headed. Perhaps it was because I had my head down for too long and had gotten up way too quickly, but I abruptly stumbled two steps backwards.

He grabbed onto my arm with a small chuckle.

MC: ...Thanks.

Osborn: Secretly snapping shots of me again? What, was last time not enough?

He leaned down, his gaze landing on the camera interface that was still open on my phone, the smile playing at his lips never once falling.

MC: As if! I’m helping my friend take some pictures. She needs to use it for her interviews!

Osborn: Oh? So what did you take?

MC: Uh, well…

MC: I just casually snapped a couple of pictures of things like your racecar and… the red one… and all…

Osborn: Really? Then what do you think of my driving?

MC: Amazing! Never thought that you'd clinch first in the end like that!

MC: You drove fast and furious during the last lap, but you were also very steady at the wheel! And the part where you finally overtook your opponent at the very last moment was also way too brilliant!

Osborn: Then why'd you only take photos of one who came in 2nd?

I froze. That was when it finally hit me that he'd already seen the camera interface that had been on my phone display earlier.

Osborn causally folded his arms, awaiting my answer with a playful look on his face.

I could only look to the side ever so awkwardly, softly muttering in response.

MC: Because they were leading at the start, so I thought…

MC: Plus, the skull pattern that was on it was just like your pendant, so that's why I...

Osborn was stunned for a while before he let out a laugh.

Osborn: That was the pattern for the last season.

Osborn: I never knew that you'd done your research on me that well.

There was an obvious teasing lilt to his voice. I flushed red, immediately snapping in denial.

MC: I only take extra notice when it comes to patterns! I blame my work habits!

MC: Who told you to be so slow at the start…

Utterly amused, Osborn narrowed his eyes into a smile, leaning down towards me.

Osborn: Do you know that you should never say "slow" to a racer?

MC: ……

I subconsciously shook my head. Osborn nodded moments after he'd leaned in closer.

Osborn: Boy, you sure are easy to intimidate.

Moments after he backed away, he casually placed his hands into his pockets, his smile growing bigger.

Osborn: Come on.

MC:

...Where to?

Osborn: Don't you wanna snap some shots? I'll lead the way.

❖☆————— ⊹ For Light & Night⊹ —————★❖

Previous Part: (Chapter 3-1) | Next Part: (Chapter 3-5)

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

What a Time to be Alive - Diego Hargreeves x reader

Chapter 5- Valhalla

Summary: The gala was fun and all, a mild exception being when you almost got choked out by one of the Swedes. For the time being, you and Diego get a surprise visit by the rest of the Hargreeves.

If you want tagged just hit me up. Tagged: @white-wolf-buckaroo @fandomoverlord221 @la-vie-en-amour1 @2cuteforyourlies @thatfandombitcch

“You know, I’m starting to get the feeling Dads avoiding us.” Five says frustrated, looking on as the cars continue to hastily leave the ruined party.

“Yeah, no shit.” You mumble back at him, fixing your dress, as you happen to notice how it now has a nice clean rip where the shoulder seam should be together. In the face of danger all accessories are temporarily forgotten, oh well, you didn’t even like the dress anyways, to constricting.

“Hate to be the boring one, guys, but, uh, it’s time to get the hell out of here.” Says Lila as she walks into view from behind some bushes and a brick wall, continuing to walk past all of you until she reaches the pavement, stopping to turn around and usher you three to follow.

“When you say “we,” who exactly are you referring to?” Challenges Five.

“Not a lot of ambiguity in that sentence.” Replies Lila, shrugging him off.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but whatever it is, I’d advise you return posthaste.” Five says, using that pushy tone of his again, done with Lila’s falsities.

“She’s right Five we gotta get outta here.” Mutters Diego, looking around slightly nervously.

“I just saved your life, you kinder-shit. If I hadn’t stepped in, all that would be left of you is a blazer and some bloody socks.” She snaps back.

“That’s the problem. You’re too good. You ask too many questions. You know too much. And you fight like you know what you’re doing.” Five says making a compelling point. You eye her up suspiciously.

“He’s not wrong.” You tell her, equally as conflicted as to who or what she truly is.

“So I know how to handle myself. And that makes me the bad guy?” She questions calmly like what we’re saying is absolutely ridiculous.

“Whoever you are, you’re in my way. If I see you again, I will kill you.” States Five seriously, with restrained anger flashing in his eyes as he gives her a last dirty look before walking away back to Elliot’s house.

Looking to you and Diego in disbelief, she turns to go walking a couple of feet before turning back to the both of you. “Guys come on we have to go.” She urges.

“I was getting my ass handed to me back there. You helped Five, not me.” He questions walking in closer to here accusingly.

“Because he’s a kid and you’re a man. Bloody act like one for god sakes, Y/N didn’t appear to need any help. If I remember correctly.” She says in defense, trying to get her point across without giving herself away.

Nodding Diego walks past her. You look up at her pleading eyes and look down for a second thinking of what to do. Making up your mind, you purse your lips together, walking past her as well.

“Y/N, really?” She pleads, knowing she’s losing the battle. You turn to her.

“I liked you Lila, you were fun to hang around with for awhile, I’ll admit. But we know nothing about you, and shits gotten weirder then ever. And right now I can sense that your lying to us, I wouldn’t even have to look at you to know that, I can practically smell it.” You explain to her without much remorse, you knew something was up after all, and nothing is getting in the way of your family’s safety. If she happens to be with the wrong people, that is.

You stare at her for a second more before turning around and following Diego. Tired of all the crazy shit you’d endured at the party.

“Oh, come on. Y/N? Diego? Really? You’re just gonna walk away?” She yells, as Diego starts to make a beeline for the woods. You ignore her calls as you jump over the thigh high stone wall and into the woods you go.

——

The next morning you and Diego get a surprise visit from Luther, someone whom you haven’t seen in a year and a half. After greetings are said, he walks in hungry as ever. So now here you are in Elliot’s kitchen as Luther makes himself a ridiculously large amount of scrambled eggs. You, Diego, Five, and Luther in the midst of a discussion on everything that’s happened up until now.

Smelling the delicious scent of scrambled eggs you sit on the kitchen table with your boots on the chair, looking between Diego and Luther who’s currently cooking said eggs at the moment. Watching as Diego paces back and forth heated about the ass kicking you, Five, and himself received last night.

“No, no, no, I don’t understand. They keep following me and Y/N. Those Dutch fuckers.” Diego points out, attempting to explain his thoughts to Five.

Wait, who?” Wonders Luther, trying to keep up with what’s going on.

“Some Swedish sociopaths.” You answer bluntly.

“Precisely Y/N, atleast one of you is paying attention.” Turning to Diego he continues, “They’re hired guns paid to eradicate us before we do anymore damage to the timeline.”

“Yeah, but why now? I mean I’m fine for three months until you showed up.” Diego growls, snapping his fingers angrily at Five’s unflinching form.

“Yeah, I was here for a year and no one messed with me.” Luther adds, focusing on the eggs he’s still cooking.

Pointing to Five you reply, “Luther’s got a point. I was here for almost two years and I haven’t been randomly hunted down by anyone. Then you show up and I get put in a choke-hold.” You say raising an eyebrow at him.

“Even if it was my fault, which it isn’t, we only have six days before the end of the world, and the closest anyone’s gotten to Dad was that driveway at the consulate.” Comments Five, glancing between the three of you.

Quietly Luther speaks up, “Well that’s not exactly true.” He says with a sigh, looking at the wall before turning to your guys’ confused faces.

“What do you mean?” Asks Five, stepping in closer.

“You didn’t?” He looks away from your prying gaze, he did.

“I saw him.” Luther says, looking nervously at you three, like a child getting caught with a frog in his pocket. He then proceeded to go on a long and boring story about how he traveled back to the Umbrella Academy, talked with Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself, only to get shot down and sternly told to leave. Of course that’s what was going to happen, idiot, he doesn’t even know who you are.

Sitting to Luther’s right and Diego to his left with Five in a chair to your back left. You slouch leaning your arms against the table, propping your head up with your right arm, as you lean against the wall. Listening to the two converse about his misfortunes.

“That’s pathetic.” Diego tells Luther bluntly.

“Yeah, well at least he didn’t shank my ass.” He mumbles, mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“No, bro, he shanked your heart.” Diego says in the most sincere voice you’ve heard in awhile.

Snorting with amusement from your side of the table, you add bluntly, “Well it wouldn’t be the first time.” Gaining a chuckle from Diego and an eye roll from Five.

“Mhm, hilarious.” Luther replies sarcastically, continuing to scarf down more eggs.

Walking into the doorway to the kitchen, Elliot stops, looking confused at Luther. “Is that my bathrobe?” Staring up at him like a deer in the headlights he says innocently, “No”

“Look, who cares what he shanked? He knows something about time travel.” Interrupts Five, talking to the three of you.

“Uh, wait, why don’t we just do your thing and, uh, time travel us out?” Wonders Elliot.

Standing up visibly frustrated, not really caring enough to explain himself anymore, Five asks the three of you sitting down. “Anyone care to explain?”

Luther looks up at Elliot ready to clarify why, “First time he tried, he got lost in the apocalypse.” Diego adding, “Second time, he ended up without hair on his balls.”

“Last time I tried it, I scattered my family across three years in Dallas, Texas, possibly triggering a doomsday.” Five says, while making himself a cup of coffee. “Anymore questions, Elliot?”

“Uh, no.” Studders Elliot, finally getting the point.

“You’re all missing the big picture. Dad is the ringleader of a sinister cabal that’s planning to kill the president.” Diego says sternly.

“A cabal?” Luther asks, confused again.

“Ignore him” You tell Luther, earning a glare from Diego, you smile at him innocently.

“Look, the way I see it, we only have one option.” States Five.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Questions Luther, half sarcastically.

“It’s time to get the Umbrella Academy back together.” Five says in all seriousness.

“Hell yeah, family meeting.” Diego grins, looking at you, you lift an arm up in reply.

“Why not?”

——

Sitting in the upstairs area near the balcony are Diego, Luther, Vanya, and Elliot, who’s trying to explain the workings and history of jello to everyone. No one really caring enough to listen to his rambling about how it’s made. Meanwhile, you stand looking down at the doors in excited anticipation for your long lost friends.

You listen as they bicker from behind you, Diego still salty about getting the life sucked out of him by Vanya’s energy tentacles, finally they make their peace and you smile to yourself. Proud that he’s matured a bit since then, knowing old Diego probably wouldn’t even be talking to her right now. Hearing the sound of a bell ring, you look up to the doors and spot Five, Allison, and Klaus making their way inside. Shouting their own greetings not catching sight of the rest of you just yet. Now finally looking up, they spot the four of you and shock instantly arrives on their faces, everyone looking at each other with dumbfounded smiles.

“Oh, wow. I know this is impossible, but, did we all get sexier?” Klaus wonders his eyes landing on each of you. You smile at him, missing his stupid humor.

The four of you walk quickly down the steps, grateful to have the whole family back together again. You rush up to Klaus, engulfing him a bear huge. “I missed my partner in crime.” You tell him smiling like an idiot. Breaking away, still holding onto your arms he adds, “Ah my dear, how I’ve missed our Friday night margarita parties.” Smiling at you, Diego then comes in for a brotherly greeting himself. “Oh, you are drunk.”

“Yeah. No, just a little...just a few.” He says glancing at you for a second. You grin shaking your head at him, typical Klaus. He then turns to participate in a group hug with Vanya and Allison. You speed walk over, stretching your arms along with him, engaging in the friendly hug as well. Collecting yourselves together again, you stand back grateful for everyone still being alive and well.

“Klaus. Is Ben here?” Five questions, gathering the attention of everyone.

Putting a hand on his hip he casually says, “Oh, uh...no. No, unfortunately, ghosts can’t time travel.” He says, as he looks around to all of you, avoiding your gaze. You then hear an oddly aggravated whisper as the air pricks with static. Only you notice it, turning to the empty chairs you smirk. You know Ben’s here. Even though you can’t see the dead like Klaus can, whenever he’s around you and as long as he’s not to intoxicated, are you able feel the presence of the ghosts that follow him.

“Y/N is this true?” Five asks you, not completely believing him.

Winking at the chair you turn back to Five, glancing at Klaus for a second. As he rolls his eyes at you. “Everyone’s accounted for. Alive. And dead.” You state.

“All right, then. Let’s get down to business.” Five ends with, starting to walk up the stairs. Never one to mess around for too long, huh.

——

Everyone stares at Five as he begins to apologize for stranding us all here in the 60′s. Then he goes on to confirm about this new apocalypse and whatnot. Surprising Klaus, evidently leading to the discovery of his cult that he apparently somehow started, not that you’re that stunned, if we’re being honest.

Five then shows the picture of Sir Reginald standing on the grassy knoll, Diego fully believing him to be the cause of Kennedy’s death, and Five saying it could be something else entirely. You agreeing with the the more probable explanation of Fives. He does express the fact that no one really knows shit about anything quit yet either, so how could we know it’s actually Reginald on the grassy knoll.

Diego then starts rambling about how the assassination and the apocalypse have to do with their dad, yet again. Five cutting in with his own calculated approach.

“But we know something changes the timeline, we have to make this right.”

“Yeah, but how, if we don’t know what’s broken?” Adds Allison, who’s sitting next to Vanya on the couches large plushy armrest. Klaus sipping a glass of beer or something of the like behind them.

“Come on, do the math. We know Dad’s having shady-ass meetings with some shady-ass people. We know he’s on the grassy knoll in three days to kill the president.” He says looking at everyone, trying to convince them. “So I think we know what we have to do.” He says, walking over to Five after delivering that dramatic line.

Both of them speak at the same time.

“Find Dad.” Says Five.

“Kill Dad.” Says Diego, with slight aggression, your eyebrows raise in surprise.

Everyone looks up at him, confusion clearly written on every single one of your faces. You honestly weren’t expecting Diego to throw the whole ship out to sea. He wants to kill the old fart huh, yeah that’s not gonna fuck up the timeline or anything.

“None of us are supposed to be here, right? I mean, what if it’s us? Has anyone here done anything to screw up the timeline?” Questions Vanya who gets nothing but  nervous glances from mostly everyone. You included.

“Diego and Y/N, have been stalking Lee Harvey Oswald.” Blurts out Luther.

“I was an unwilling accomplice.” You retort, sneering at him.

“And you’re working for Jack Ruby.” Diego cuts in defensively.

Klaus speaks up adding, “Allison has been very involved in local politics.” He says, while laying comfortably on the couch.

“Okay, you started a cult.” She snaps back.

“And I’m a nanny on a farm. I don’t have anything to do with all of that.” Vanya says calmly.

“Well, maybe you do, we just don’t know yet.” Allison adds.

Diego whistles bringing the attention of everyone back to him. “Listen to yourselves. Everything in our new lives is connected to Kennedy. That can’t be a coincidence. Luther works for Ruby, Allison is protesting the government, Dad is on the grassy knoll, Klaus is...” he pauses for a second. “Doing something weird and pervy but probably related. See, clearly we were all sent back here for one special reason: saving John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” Diego rambles completely serious about his mindset on Kennedy and the real reason why you are all here. I’m in love with an idiot, you think. Opening your mouth to state your opinion, the rest of them doing the same. Five sits back in thought, sick of all his siblings and yours nonsense.

Sitting up quickly, Five interrupts sadly, “Guys, you all die. Even Y/N. I was there. I saw it. And I wanna forget it, but I can’t.” Everyone shuts up listening to him talk about the end of the world. “I saw Russian nukes vaporize the world with all of you in it...in a war that never happened until we brought it here. And Hazel gave his life to save us, so you may need to shut up and just listen to me.” Everyone looks on concerned and nervous, letting the hard truth about the future set in. “I don’t know if things we’ve experienced here are all connected. I don’t know if there’s a reason for everything. But Dad will. We need to talk to him before everyone and everything we know is dead.”

Pondering the words Five just said to everyone, Luther suddenly gets up. “Okay, I’m out.”

Frustrated Five raises his voice, “Did you even hear me, Luther?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. I heard a 58-year-old man who still wants his daddy to come and fix everything. Well you can count me out. It’s time we all grew the hell up.” Grumbles Luther, frustrated with everyone and the idiotic idea of going to Sir Reginald for help.

Standing behind the opposite couch of Allison and Vanya, you turn to Five vexed by what he just told you, raising your voice slightly. “Did you get knocked on your head as a child, I mean all of you, seriously? When has Sir Reginald-stick-up-his-ass-Hargreeves ever legitimately helped us do anything?” You pushed, trying to make a point. “Even though I thought I’d never say this actual sentence in my entire life, I’m with Luther. Fuck that old monocle wearing dipshit. I’m out.” You huff pissed off. How could they all actually agree to meeting up with him, like he’s gonna talk it out and everyone’s gonna be A-Okay again, no way. You lived in the Umbrella Academy for seven years. It wasn’t what one would call, a walk in the park.

Everyone’s eyes are on you by the time you’ve finished your passionate rant, all looking very perplexed by your outburst. Your opinionated eruptions aren’t anything new, as you’ve always stood up for yourself and what you believe in, but. You sadly understood that even as grown up as they all are, they still seek guidance in the old man. Luther’s right, it’s time they’ve all gotten their shit together.

“Alright then.” Luther adds turning to walk towards the stairs, you hot on his tail. Hearing the calls from everyone else for you two to come back, you ignore them. Even when Diego gets up, questioning the both of you.

“Don’t.” You glare at him darkly, not wanting to hear any more bullshit about JFK or Reginald.

In a flash, Five teleports directly in front of Luther, blocking your exit down the steps.

“No one leaves until we figure this out.” Five says, a stern expression on his determined face.

Sighing, Luther grabs his uniform, picking him up and throwing him off the staircase. Where Five teleports somewhere before he can hit the hard, tiled floor below.

——

Walking down the side street, next to Luther you keep your eyes forward not wanting to hear anything Diego tries to tell you. Taking the hint, Diego decides to talk to Luther instead. “What’s going on with you, big boy?”

“Ugh, leave me alone, Diego.” Grunts Luther, keeping his eyes forward and locked onto the street ahead of him.

“Huh? So, what, you’re just gonna sucker punch Five and haul ass, huh.” Looking to you, he continues not being able to stop himself. “And don’t even get me started on you, I mean really, you follow me around and then decide to throw in the towel.” He questions dangerously, honestly a bit annoyed that this whole time you were never really on board for saving the president.

You roll your eyes, about to let him have it. “I’m not stepping anywhere near that old fuck. We could handle ourselves, if the rest of you weren’t complete fucking idiots.” You snap.

Grumbling something incomprehensible, he turns to Luther. “You got a legitimate reason for walking out on us?”

“Look, maybe trying to stop doomsday is exactly what starts it. Did you ever think of that?” 

“Oh, so we do nothing? Since when are you a quitter?” Challenges Diego.

“Since the last time I destroyed the world by overestimating my own importance.” Luther exclaims, defensively.

“So this is about you never living up to the old man’s expectations bullshit, huh?” Says Diego, trying to keep up with the two of you who are walking quit briskly down the side street.

Luther scoffs, “Maybe. I don’t know, I mean we’re all crazy where Dad’s concerned.”

“Oh, I’m not.” Adds Diego smiling. Yeah okay hot stuff keep telling yourself that, you think, forcing yourself to hold it in. “He’s an asshole. I’m awesome, and Y/N would agree with me too, if she wasn’t so moody. It’s all very simple. You have to understand that, okay?” Diego says smartly, so damn sure of himself.

Stopping at the sidewalk you cross your arms turning to Diego. “So why can’t you leave JFK alone then, hmm?” You look up expectantly, raising an eyebrow as wait for the truth.

He pauses for a moment, “I’m a hero. Heroes stop crime.” He tells you earnestly, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Shaking your head at him you take a deep breath, Luther coming to your aid. “No, no, no. No, Dad told you you’re a hero. Right? He told all of us. But what if he lied? What if we’re just a bunch of freaks who have no business changing the world.” Shouts Luther.

“No, everyone changes the world, Luther. Everyone. And it’s scary, but that’s kinda the deal. You know, your so goddamn big, sometimes I forget what a sensitive bastard you are.” Making eye contact with you he continues, “It’s all gonna work out. We’re on the right path.”

“You sound like a religious cat poster.”

“Oh, yeah? How do you know?” Asks Luther confused and frustrated.

Deciding to draw their attentions to something more important, you state an unseen but obvious fact, one that you’ve been silently tracking since the three of you left Elliot’s place. “Hey dipshit’s, there’s a long black car that’s been following us since we left Elliot’s.” They look at you confused for a second. “Six o’clock.”

Luther turns around as a mysterious black vehicle rolls up to you three. The driver getting out and pulling a piece of paper from his inner suite pocket. Handing it to Diego, who takes it cautiously.

Cutting it open with one of his knifes, he begins to read it aloud, “To my pursuers: I, Reginald Hargreeves...request the pleasure of your company for a light supper on the 20th of November, 1963, half past seven o’clock, 1624 Magnolia Street.” He finishes, looking up at the two of you.

“A light supper?” Luther wonders.

Luther and Diego then turn to you, Diego with a dumb smirk plastered across his face, you roll your eyes and hang your head back in defeat. “Goddammit.” You deadpan.

“Anyone hungry?” Luther randomly asks, you guessing it’s his attempt at lighting up the mood.

[my-arlington-academia]

Cliffany part 2

O-kay, and that’s it! I don’t know if I’ll write a continuation tbh since it was just a silly little idea that came out of nowhere. (Although I did have some ideas for more!) I haven’t really been active on my fanblog lately so it’s not like it’ll make much of a difference though haha. By the way, I’m thinking about making my blog more "Dulcet-oriented" rather than just SE. I hope you guys don’t mind? Recently, I’ve been getting more and more into Black Tarot! So expect my blog to change a lil 🔮🕯🌌

--------------------

It had been a couple of days now since Tiffany’s last interaction with Claire, and while she was still ignoring her like before, Tiffany’s efforts in doing so had increased. The moment she spotted her in the corner of her eye, she would move at a faster pace, as if running away. Was it guilt after all? No, she just didn’t have the energy to deal with Claire’s annoying and unnecessary empathy. The empathy that she knew she didn’t deserve which made her feel even more frustrated towards Claire.

All she should be worried about right now is getting more followers on Instaglam, not avoiding a nobody like the plague. On that note, spring was coming soon, the flowers started to blossom and the days were getting longer which meant... that the "cottagecore" tag on insta would go trending soon, no doubt! And of course, living on the Arlington campus as one of its students, this gave Tiffany the access to its beautiful garden. Although honestly, she only ever went there to take pictures and this time wasn’t any different. She had prepared some tea sets and dresses for the occasion, all of which she would throw away once spring went away along with its "trends."

Carried by her confident footsteps, she walked to the garden. That confidence was only a facade though. She knew exactly what kind of people and who in particular went to take strolls quite often in this goddamn garden. But hey, it was 7pm and the sun would soon start to set. Knowing that Claire always arrives 15 minutes in advance to any meeting and most likely always wakes up at 6am, there was nothing to be worried about. Chances are, she was either doing her homework before going to bed like a goody-two-shoes or watering her weird-ass plants. Tiffany always had the horror of seeing these at Raquel’s parties. It just didn’t fit at all with the rest of what was going on in the room and ruined the whole "party" vibe.

In any case, there she was, searching for a good spot to take pictures and set up a fake picnic. That basket filled with different colored blankets, tea sets, biscuits, tea and a pie was way heavier than Tiffany had initially thought. Maybe she really should’ve asked for collab pictures with Trisha from the fine arts department. She didn’t really like her but when it came to follower count they were surprisingly close, although Tiffany was still number one of course. Still, if she had asked for a collab they could’ve carried those heavy props together.

After finding a good spot next to the pond, Tiffany set everything up in an aesthetically pleasing manner and got down to taking the pictures. She was taking different shots to post them one by one throughout the week and give out the illusion that she was taking those the same day she posted them. She was ready to upload the first one, call it a day and go back to the dorms without touching any of the tea or cakes. It’s all just useless calories anyways. As she was putting the tags on the picture, she started wondering what were the names of those flowers in the background.

"Ugh, fuck. What are those orange shits called again?"

"Marigolds."

"Ah right, thank y-"

Tiffany immediately snapped her head back. This annoyingly gentle voice could only belong to one person.

"...What the fuck, Claire. Where did you pop out from?!"

There’s no was she was there the whole time, right? It’s true that Tiffany could get lost in what she was doing once she was focused but it wasn’t to the point where she became completely unaware of her surroundings.

"I came by a few minutes ago... Y-you looked so invested in what you were doing that I didn’t want to bother you! I didn’t mean to pry."

Well, Tiffany could always upload those damn pictures from her room. Claire’s arrival just meant that it was time for her to leave. However, seeing that Tiffany started packing up her things, Claire panicked thinking that it’s her fault. Which was in fact, her fault... in a way.

"O-oh! You’re not going to finish your picnic? I’m so sorry, I’ll just leave! Throwing all of this good food away would be such a waste-"

"Are you fucking dumb?"

Did she not get that this was all only a set-up for taking pictures? It was obvious that Tiffany didn’t have any intention of eating or drinking any of that. Not to mention that after everything that happened the other day, she was still not scared of approaching her?

"I don’t give a damn about the food, it was just for my social media accounts you dumb bit- ... dimwit. I was already done anyway so you don’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m leaving."

"I see! T-then maybe I can help?!"

Help? What did Claire even know about- Actually, on second thought. This whole "cottagecore" shtick was a great fit for Claire. She probably already had all of the things Tiffany bought last week for those pictures, even better and more authentic-looking ones probably. This was maybe the one and only time Tiffany would let Claire "help" her. But from her point of view, she was mostly just using her.

"Hm. Is that so? How can you help me then... Claire."

"Wait just a second! I’ll be back right away!!!"

She ran immediately towards the dorms. Well, she'll probably bring a bunch of random stuff. In the end, Tiffany was really torn between the idea of staying and waiting for who knows how long and the idea of leaving right now. Surely, Claire would make a hilarious expression when she’d realize that she was played with and abandoned. While trying to laugh it off, Tiffany accidentally remembered what happened a few days ago, along with Claire’s crying face. Damn... Okay, fine. She’ll wait for her but only because it would be annoying if she bawled again like a damn toddler.

And so she waited until, from the corner of her eyes, she saw a girl with a pink dress running towards her. That girl, of course, being Claire. She carried a picnic basket with her too, but much bigger and more practical. For half a second, Tiffany thought that Claire actually looked maybe, just maybe, a little bit pretty. She erased the thought in a hurry, covering it with harsh words as usual.

"Wh-why did you change your clothes? You think I’m gonna take pictures of you?"

"Ah, no, well..."

Claire looked at the beautiful picnic set-up and the cyan dress Tiffany was wearing.

"I just wanted to fit in with the rest of what you put up, I guess. Also, don’t you think that we kinda match? I brought some of the cookies I baked and my favorite teas and tea set. I think mine will look better with your picnic blanket! Uh- N-not to say that yours looks bad!!!"

She was trying so hard to make herself likable that it was painful to see... and kinda cute. God, Tiffany was really hating her thoughts today. She was just going soft because of Claire’s aura or something. Again, this was definitely the first and last time she was letting Claire help her with anything. I’d be bad if she turns completely brain-dead and clueless like her.

"...Whatever. Show me what you got. I’ll decide if it’s good enough."

Claire was pulling everything out of the basket one by one. Everytime, better and better items were pulled out after the other. Her cakes and cookies gave off a "homey" feeling which was more fitting with the aesthetic rather than Tiffany’s store bought patisseries. Claire was staring at her, wide-eyed and excited.

"W-what do you think, Tiffany? It looks good, doesn’t it?!"

"Uh. Yeah, it’s fine, I guess. I’ll take a few pics."

That was a lie. This looked so much better than the try-hard bullshit Tiffany had done. She was good at riding on the "trend wave" but Claire was a natural when it came to this one specific thing. Tiffany was trying to look as poker-faced as she could so as to not show her satisfaction, but clearly, her apparent enthusiasm for each shot was  betraying her. Sometimes, she would accidentally take one with Claire in the shot and ask her to move.

"Hey. You’re ruining the picture with your ugly fac- dress. Move to the right."

Before Tiffany could even do anything about it, Claire was already pouring some tea into 2 cups.

"Woah woah woah, put the teapot down. I didn’t agree to this."

"But...This is a kettle, Tiffany. Not a teapot."

"Oh, shut it!"

Claire gave off such a dejected face that Tiffany, once again, felt like she was kicking a poor puppy to the ground. She held back on going off on a rant.

"But we’re already here and the weather is so nice! It would be such a shame not to use any of this at all..."

Claire looked around, observing this beautiful setting, not to mention, the sun was finally starting to set. Going home right now would be like an insult to the utter beauty of this scene, it almost looked like it came right out of a fairy tale picture book. Without mulling it over any further, Tiffany took a sip out of her cup.

"I’m only doing this because I feel compelled to, got it?"

Claire’s eyes lit up nonetheless.

"Alright! Please try out my cookies too!"

Tiffany contemplated them for a second... is it true that home-made stuff is more healthy? Surely, that’s just a myth, right? A cake from the store and a home-made cake will have about the same amount of sugar in them regardless of who made them and how. Well, she did see Claire share her food from time to time with her friends and while she would never admit it, it is true that she was a bit curious about trying them herself. What was the last time she had eaten anything "home-made"? Or did it ever even happen?

"...Okay, whatever. I bet they taste shitty."

Tiffany reluctantly took a bite... It was surprisingly really delicious!

"It’s bad."

"R-really?"

As much as she wanted to lie about it, she couldn’t after seeing Claire make that dejected face again.

"Uhhh. No, um. Hmm... On second thought, it’s pretty average. It’s okay-ish."

Tiffany really hated herself right now. Being mean has never been this hard before. She couldn’t wait for the moment where they would be done with this ridiculous play-pretend and go back to her room. She tried drinking and eating as fast as she could without making it look like she was in a hurry to run away from this awkward situation. And God, it was so fucking hard...

Unsurprisingly, they were both pretty silent the whole time. Well, it wasn’t like they had anything to converse about or things in common. Right as Tiffany was about to get up and pack up her belongings, for real this time, Claire spoke up. Nervously fiddling with the hem of her dress.

"Um. So you know, I have something to confess to you, Tiffany."

Oh God, not now. As much as Tiffany found this timing annoying, she couldn’t help but poke fun at that poor choice of words.

"Confess? Oh my, so you like me in that way, huh? That explains everything."

"Wha- N-no! That’s not it! I mean, realistically speaking, t-that would never even happen!"

Was she implying that she could never like someone like Tiffany? Well, Tiffany herself was the one who brought this up but she was a bit offended at that statement. Regardless though, the way she was trying to deny it so hard was kinda cute. No. Not cute at all! If this went on, Tiffany would really become crazy before the end of this day.

"Last time, you said that I was only being kind towards others to profit off of them and I didn’t say anything but... that wasn’t true at all! I always wanted to help you because I thought that you needed it, I swear. Not to satisfy myself! ... Well. Except maybe..."

"Except...?"

"T-today. I admit that I kind of had ulterior motives."

Now that piqued Tiffany’s curiousness right away. Suddenly, she didn’t want to leave as much anymore if it meant that Claire would finally admit that she did some things for her own benefit. Why was it? Did she want to post a picture of herself on Tiffany’s Instaglam to fish for compliments, knowing that she had a lot of followers? Claire hid her face behind her hands and muttered a few words.

"I... wanted you to warm up to me."

"...Huh?"

That’s it? That was it? Claire’s ulterior motive was for Tiffany to "warm up to her."?

"So like, you want us to be friends or some shit?"

"Oh no! Not necessarily that far, just... good acquaintances!"

Is she stupid? There’s no way that she genuinely thinks those "motives" are bad. Tiffany sighed in exasperation.

"Listen. I’m just really tired right now, I don’t have the energy to assimilate all the shit you’re saying. I’m packing all of this up and going back to the dorms."

In complete silence, they gathered all of their belongings and walked to the dorms while keeping a fair distance between the 2 of them. As if to say, "we’ve got nothing to do with each other." Surprisingly, Claire didn’t try anything anymore. Didn’t even wish for a "good night" or a "good evening" which was weird to say the least. Tiffany tried to ignore it and when she got back and unpacked all of the props, she noticed something that didn’t belong to her. One of Claire’s lunch boxes with cookies in them and... a note?

Here’s my number just in case ;3 Please give me my lunchbox back once you’re done eating the cookies!♡

"...Your note makes me wanna barf."

So that’s why she didn’t try anything. That sneaky little... she must've slid that into the basket when they were packing. She already knew that Tiffany would eventually be forced to talk to her again... as if! Who says she’ll return it? She can just throw all the cookies away along with the box... Or so she thought. Tempted, she took a bite, then another one. And another one. Her diet was ruined for sure now. Damn you Claire and your stupidly great cooking skills, as if you needed another skill to be better and more perfect than you already are. Tiffany put the box away, trying to forget the delicious taste and smell. Back to Instaglam she goes. Uploading the picture while adding the "marigold" tag on it. Going through the pictures again, she noticed that some of them had Claire in the corner. She was thinking of deleting them but... well whatever. She can just crop her out later if needed. Her dress looks pretty so it’s fine even if she does appear in the pictures. All we see is a bit of her hair, as long as her face isn’t visible, it’s okay. Yup. It was totally not because Tiffany was slowly starting to feel something towards the girl she was trying so hard not to get involved with.

[ncisfranchise-source]

Let the good times roll one more time!

NCIS: New Orleans signed off after seven seasons with a finale that mostly wraps up some lingering threads. Special Agent Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) marries Rita Devereaux (Chelsea Field), with Dr. Loretta Wade (CCH Pounder) officiating. In attendance for the intimate ceremony are his team — Tammy Gregorio (Vanessa Ferlito), Hannah Khoury (Necar Zadegan), Sebastian Lund (Rob Kerkovich), Patton Plame (Daryl “Chill” Mitchell), and Quentin Carter (Charles Michael Davis) — and his family — mother Mena (Joanna Cassidy), brother Jimmy (Jason Alan Carvell), and son Connor (Drew Scheid).

And while Connor’s mother Sasha (Callie Thorne) plans to take him into witness protection with her, when she sees him having fun at the wedding, she instead skips out on the marshals … and leaves him to stay with his dad.

TV Insider caught up with executive producers Jan Nash and Christopher Silber to find out what would’ve happened next.

The series ends on a positive note. Was that always the plan for the end of Season 7 or did anything change after you learned you weren’t coming back?

Christopher Silber: We would’ve probably ended with a bit of a cliffhanger or at least an open-ended idea that there is more trouble to come for our characters. When we found out that this was going to be the series finale, it was Jan who felt like, “Let’s have it have a positive ending without it making it feel like it’s an ending for our character, just an ending for the series. They will continue even if we don’t get to see them on their adventures. But let’s give them a win, let’s end on a high note.”

Would it have been more of a cliffhanger than Sasha being followed? An additional mystery?

Jan Nash: Sasha being followed probably would have been the end. I think we would have done a lot of the same elements, but we would have ended telling a story in that episode that would have leaned in a little bit more to her being in danger and when she pulled away, she was being followed. We would have had a sense that Season 8 would have opened with either her having already been harmed or seeing her be harmed perhaps. That investigation would have defined the beginning of Season 8.

It’s also fitting that the series ends with the Second Line. So was that part of the plan for the series finale whenever it was going to happen?

Christopher Silber: Not to be overly optimistic, but we knew that there would be a series finale, but we never had a plan in the seven seasons I was on the show for how we would end it. It felt right in a moment, that’s for sure.

At the end of the series, the team’s all staying put professionally. Is this a team you imagine continuing to work together for years or do you see any of them moving on?

Silber: I would say that they would work together for a while, but you never know where they might end up and that isn’t meant to be coy.

You really did a deep dive into family with Pride in these final episodes and it’s been so wonderful to see him getting his time with his mom, marrying Rita, getting to know his brother over the years, and having those moments with the son he didn’t know about. So what did you want to do there this season?

Silber: We’ve done so much with the man and put him through his paces throughout the years. We’ve shot him. He had an overwrought relationship with his father who was a criminal. He had to witness his father die. What we wanted when we delved into a new chapter of his family was to show how he evolved, how he didn’t have to be surrounded by so much chaos. By connecting with Rita and finally finding some grounding there and spending more time with his mother and then introducing the son character, we really gave him a full spectrum. When we met Pride in the original crossover with NCIS, he was recently separated, heading into a divorce, his daughter was going to college, and here we can end with Pride remarried, with a son, so it’s really full circle for him.

It seems like we got to see the acceptance that Pride and Jimmy had for who their father was through their conversations with Connor about who Sasha is.

Silber: Absolutely. That was another thing. Not to get too heavy about it, but as we as adults reach the place where our parents were when we were kids, we look at them and say, “Look at how you’re messing up.” For Pride, it’s realizing that it can get complicated even with the best of intentions. For him and Jimmy, they recognize that. Even in dealing with Sasha, someone who tries to kill him multiple times, he was able to see that she also contained multitudes.

Did you accomplish everything you wanted with Pride and Rita’s wedding — the actual ceremony, the celebration, and the lead-up to it?

Silber: Under the circumstances, meaning the COVID of it all, meaning that we were given a little bit of lead time, which we were grateful for, to know that this was the series finale, I am extremely proud and satisfied with how we did it. If we had more lead time or if we thought we were going to keep going, maybe it would have been grander, but I think it was appropriate to the show for sure.

Nash: I’m not sure it would’ve been bigger. We’ve never talked about this, but I felt like the intimacy of it was really beautiful and that the Second Line was really celebratory, particularly to people in New Orleans, who did all of that because they had to move it around a lot because there were some storms coming in. They did a magnificent job.

One of the most pleasant surprises of this final season was how much I enjoyed Hannah and Carter’s developing relationship. What did you like about exploring that? Do you think they could make it work or might him staying weigh on them a bit?

Nash: It was clear to us when we put them together procedurally earlier after Charles joined the show, they had a real chemistry. We started talking about that earlier and then decided we were going to just let everybody else see what was happening almost more before they saw what was happening. We had set Carter up as being a character who did not put down roots. He was not somebody who is interested in making connections, particularly in his work environment. That gave us an opportunity to bring in his mother and let him explore some of the things that might have gotten him to the place where he was that kind of person. And it really just made, I think, the journey of Season 7 really compelling for both of them. I’m going to believe — because the show in my mind continues — that they are gonna make it work and they’re going to be charming and adorable and happy for a very long time.

Tammy found a home in New Orleans with and away from the team, which she never would have imagined when she first arrived. Where did you want to leave her?

Silber: For all of our characters, we wanted to see them grow and change and evolve — certainly with the team as their family, but also in finding their home and finding their roots in New Orleans. For Tammy, when she arrived, she was someone who was thinking about finding her way out and unsure about the team and to be able to see her finally mark her own territory, own who she is and own what she wants to be, that was special for us.

Sebastian’s had quite the professional journey these past seven seasons, but he hasn’t been lucky in love. Is that something you would have changed if you had more time to wrap up the series?

Silber: Oh, I think so. He was a great example for us in that when the show started, he was the lab rat. He was someone who you wouldn’t expect to scout in the field and to be able to take that character, show his growth in an arc over the series into a very confident field agent who still remained interesting and funny, the adjustment didn’t change his character. It just matured him. But yes, I think if we’d had more time, we were always talking about finding him love. It just didn’t work out for him, but I’m sure in the future he will find the right woman.

We really got to see just how much Loretta does, for the city and for the team in these episodes. What did you want to showcase with her this season?

Nash: Obviously CCH is such an amazing actress and such an amazing presence that we just felt like the things that we wanted to talk about were stories that could very much be told through her character. We just realized that not only would she be able to do the things she’s always done on this show so effectively but also to explore her emotional life in a way that allowed us to take advantage of all the many gifts that CCH has. When we started the season, we knew we were going to lean into that character and the gifts of that actor. At the end of the day, it was all we could have hoped for and more.

Can you say anything about what else you would have liked to have explored if there was another season?

Silber: Certainly we would have wanted to explore and we were excited about exploring Pride’s relationship with his son and digging deep into that and seeing what that means to discover that you have a son who is nearly fully grown and to try to build a relationship and try to build those ties. It would be challenging for sure. We thought that the young man who played Connor was fantastic and there was great chemistry with Pride and with Jimmy as well. As well as solve incredibly interesting and fun Navy crimes.

You have NCIS Hawai’i coming up. Is there any chance we’ll hear more about the New Orleans team on there or do you know for sure that you won’t address it?

Silber: Never say never. … I’ll be a hundred percent honest with you. We are happy for all crossovers. It’s fun. I was fortunate enough to be involved in the NOLA and mothership crossovers the couple of times we did it. I know the shows like it, the writers like it, the actors like it, and the audiences like it.

[hold-your-applause]

Since I'm a dumbass who just woke up: 4 and Ryuji please :")

Strange as a dream

Real as the sea

If you can hear me now

Come set me free

Odd Couple

If he made it out of this in one piece, he was going to strangle Ren.

It was one thing to make him wait outside the bar so they wouldn't get caught being underage, but to throw him to the wolves trying to "show him the ropes" of drag?

He was going to kill him for sure.

He didn't slow down as he rounded the corner down an alley, breathing labored from all the sprinting to lose track of them. Now that he managed to give them the slip, he'd be damned if he let himself get caught again.

But his lungs were screaming.

He stopped, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He wasn't sure how far behind him they were, and he was afraid to take long enough to find out. He looked up, taking in his surroundings to see where he could go next.

The alley stretched in a straight line and seemed to lead to a sharp left. If they saw him come down this way, they'd be able to tell where he was going, which could make it that much easier to find him. Besides, his leg was starting to hurt from lack of proper stretching, so that plan was probably going to end in failure.

All that left him with was hiding.

Other than the several bags of garbage to his right, perhaps about 20 feet ahead of him were two large dumpsters that would have plenty of room for him to hole up in.

Was he really desperate enough to hide in the garbage?

Yes. Yes he was.

He jogged over to the closest container, lifting the corner of the lid with one hand and holding his nose with the other, steeling himself to climb inside.

Until the lid snapped itself shut again, startling him.

"The hell?!"

"Occupied."

The sweetness of your voice gave him more whiplash than the fact that the dumpster was talking to him in the first place.

"W-What in the--"

"If you're trying to hide I'd suggest the next one over. And I'd be quick about it."

He swore under his breath and took your advice, quickly maneuvering the lid up and slipping inside before settling it back in its spot.

Lady Luck decided to be kind in his moment of need, it seemed, because there was almost no trash inside, so he wasn't forced to sit in anything questionable. He sat down, rubbing at his aching leg.

He was about to ask you what you were doing when he heard footsteps, effectively shutting him up.

"He went down this way, didn't he?"

"I'm positive he did. Which means he only had one way to go."

"This loops back around to the main street. We can catch him in no time and show him he has nothing to be nervous about."

He swallowed the lump in his throat as he heard them move past his hiding spot, and didn't release the breath he was holding until their hurried steps were long gone.

He was saved from further humiliation.

"Those didn't sound like the cops. What were they after you for?"

He choked.

Spoke too soon.

"I don't really wanna talk about it."

Apparently this was the right answer, because the lilt of your laugh made his heart stop.

"That's fair, I guess."

He swallowed again, feeling nervous again even though the immediate danger had passed. He wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on the fabric of his school pants before clearing his throat.

"What-What about you? What are you doing here?"

You hummed in thought.

"My friend dragged me out here to check out the bar down the street. Crossroads? But when an officer figured out we were high school students he started to chase us and we split up. I hopped in here to hide from him but now I'm too nervous to climb out and try to make a break for the station." You nervously chuckled. "Kind of lame, huh?"

"N-No, no way. That actually happened to me and my buddy earlier. I haven't had a ton of luck tonight." He rested the back of his head against the wall of the dumpster, suddenly finding himself more comfortable with his predicament.

"Really? Imagine that. Great minds think alike, I guess. Although maybe I shouldn't be saying that from a dumpster."

You chuckled again, and he felt himself wanting to find ways to keep making you laugh. It was relaxing him, and he felt compelled to keep you talking for as long as possible.

Staying here all night didn't sound like such a bad idea.

"What school do you go to?"

"I go to Shujin Academy. What about you?"

He huffed out a surprised laugh.

"For real? Me too."

"Hey, small world! Look at that. Maybe we've seen each other and don't even know it. I'm in my second year. What about you?"

"Me too!"

You quickly shushed him, and he felt embarrassed for his excited outburst. He shrank in on himself.

"Shit, sorry."

You chuckled again.

"It's fine. I just don't want to get caught when I'm having so much fun."

He perked up again, feeling his face grow warm. As much as he wanted to get a peek of what you looked like, he was grateful you couldn't see the stupid grin on his face.

"Yeah. Me too."

You hummed again, and the telltale sign of a phone vibrating interrupted the two of you. Since his was on silent, it could only be yours.

"Aw, man, it looks like I have to bail on our little tete-a-tete, though. My friend is looking for me."

He didn't know what the hell a tete-a-tete was, but he was bummed it was over, too.

"The coast is probably clear for you, but they're probably still looking for me. You should make a run for it while you can." He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I feel bad just leaving you here. This turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected it to be before you showed up."

It was like you were trying to give him a heart attack.

"W-Well, maybe we can meet up at Shujin and hang out for real."

Was he really shooting his shot from a dumpster?

"I'd like that."

Was it actually working?!

"Front gates at lunch work for you?"

"Y-Yeah. Perfect."

You chuckled, and he heard a creak come from your direction. He assumed you lifted the lid to take a look outside.

"Alright then. I'll see you then, I guess."

He heard you climb out and put the lid back down, followed by light rapping on top of his.

"Good luck, Trash Man."

He heard you walking away, and even though he now had to fend for himself, he couldn't help feeling some excitement for the next school day.

He couldn't wait to put a face to that kind voice.

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 15]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-7 and what I have of Chapter 8 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

This thing is going to be 1K words with the semester I’m having. :P The plan is to do a lot of work today. I even have my dinner in a crock-pot. I’m giving a presentation on October 13th and want to basically knock out the prep today so I don’t have to have it hanging over my head. Not sure if I will achieve that, but that’s the plan! I have big goals! Wish me luck! :D

Chapter 3

Janus and Remus both appeared at the same moment a couple of feet apart in what looked like the inside of a garden shed. There was already a man waiting for them a few feet away. “Sup babes,” Remy said, just like he always did. The T-Agent looked their costumes up and down and whistled. “Now that,” he said, “almost makes me want to be one of you time jockeys.”

“They wouldn’t let me have a gun or a canister of moonshine,” Remus pouted.

Remy snorted. “Sorry, babes, but that makes my job a lot easier. If I’ve gotta fish you outta the 1920s criminal justice system, I’d rather it not be because you shot someone on accident ‘cause you don’t know how to use the safety.”

 Remus groaned dramatically. “Everyone is lame.”

Remy just shook his head. “Meet back here when you’ve got the necklace,” he said. “Don’t make a move until after 11:05pm and before 11:17. That’s your window.”

“We know,” Janus said. “See you then.”

“Have fun at the party boys,” Remy said and then lowered his shades to look at Remus, “but not too much fun.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Remus, already towing Janus out of the garden shed. The way had been specifically cleared for them, so they met no other people before they’d rounded the house the party was taking place and had gotten onto the driveway in front of the house.

 Without missing a beat, they strolled up to the front of the house, just as a car pulled into the end of the driveway. Janus rang the doorbell, and a few moments later, a man who was clearly the butler answered the door. They handed over their invitation, and the man immediately let them in.

The party had already started when they slipped into the medium sized ballroom that had been decked out in streamers and other decorations. Janus’s nose immediately wanted to scrunch as the smell of sweat from all the dancing already going on as well as the too strong perfume meant to cover that stench wafted over him. It was by far not the worst smelling time period, but he was pretty sure some people still weren’t aware deodorant had been recently invented.

 He checked his time piece which had been disguised as a fancy wristwatch for this trip. “Okay,” he said. “We have about two hours before we need to make our move. We should…”

Remus’s attention was already being dragged away by a young man who seemed to be providing guests with food. “I’m going to go ‘mingle’,” he said, winking.

“No!” Janus hissed. “Re- Richard! No!”

Yet, he was already disappearing into the horde of stinky bodies, likely to go scandalize a bunch of rich folks, and leaving Janus alone. Janus mumbled a curse under his breath that he was sure no one around him would understand even if they could make it out.

 Unsure what to do with himself, he wandered over towards where the live musicians were playing jazz music, being sure to keep out of the way of the dancers. He was edging around the makeshift dancefloor, when one of said dancers must have misstepped and knocked into another one. The second man stumbled right towards Janus, arms pinwheeling. Janus reached out on instinct to catch the man as he fell.

There was a moment where the two of them just stared at each other, surprise evident on the other man’s face. He was wearing a mask that just covered the area around his eyes and the top of his nose, revealing a smattering of freckles across his cheeks that Janus imagined extended to his nose.

 The mask was a light blue velvet with a flower stuck on the side near his right ear, and a trail of curled golden ribbon bobbed down around his chin. The party continued on around them, a blur of movement and sound.

“Are you alright?” Janus asked.

The man blinked up at him and then tilted his head slightly to the side as though confused, before a smile slowly grew on his face. “Oh, I’m fine Dove.”

“Dove?” Janus asked.

He giggled. “You have dove feathers on your mask,” he explained, reaching up a hand to touch one. His finger brushed the tip of Janus’s ear, “and I don’t know what else I am supposed to call you.”

 “My name is Lee,” he automatically lied.

“Is it?” he asked, sounding amused. “Doesn’t seem to fit you well. I like Dove better.”

“Oh?” asked Janus. “And what’s your name so I can not call you that?”

The man chuckled. “Call me Pat.”

“Hello Pat,” Janus said.

“I thought you didn’t want to call me by my name.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Hmmm,” Pat said, finger tracing idly across Janus’s forearm which was when Janus realized with a start that he was still holding the man in his arms. He quickly went to release him, which Pat allowed with clear amusement.

 Yet, instead of completely stepping away, Pat grabbed Janus’s arm. “What are you doing all the way over here by the way?” he asked. “Don’t you want to dance.”

“Oh,” Janus hesitated. “I don’t really dance.” Or at least not in the way the people around him were. He’d had basic training for this style, but it had been a while and he was a bit rusty.

“Everyone dances Dove,” Pat claimed. “At least if they know the steps and have the right partner.”

“But I don’t know the steps,” Janus said with an eyebrow raise.

He hummed. “Well, I know the dance pretty well by this point,” Pat said. “Why don’t I teach you how it goes.”

 He was agreeing with the soft beseeching tone before he even realized it. Pat pulled him into the middle of the throng of people. He seemed to think, bopping his head to the music playing for a moment, before looking back at Janus. “Heard of James Johnson?”

Janus inclined his head.

“Well, have you heard his new song? Because there’s a dance that goes with it.”

He took a few steps away from Janus and started to dance. Despite his claim to know the steps, he wasn’t particularly good, but he made up for any loss of rhythm with pure enthusiasm.

 Janus found himself smiling at the man, and after a few moments, joined in with the dance. Despite his lack of practice, he ended up having a better natural rhythm than Pat. Pat didn’t seem to mind that he was being outperformed, however. On the contrary, he giggled at himself the couple of times he stumbled.

When he fell into Janus’s arms for the second time that night, Janus decided he’d probably had enough dancing for the moment and pulled him off to the side to get something to drink and cool down a bit.

He watched the man take a snack and some punch from one of servers and thank him happily before turning back to Janus. Pat was easily able to keep Janus’s attention as they chatted. He was bubbly and soft, and Janus found himself enchanted as they talked.

 He was explaining the steps of a different dance, a couples one. “Knowing how to perform the tango will entrance any girl you want,” Pat said, something mischievous sparkling in his eyes. “Assuming you’re that type of fella.”

“As opposed to what?” Janus asked.

Pat leaned in a bit closer. Not too much, but enough that he was definitely in Janus’s space. “A different type of fella,” he said simply, before smiling and leaning back.

Janus let out a shaky exhale and took a sip of punch. He glanced over at Pat. “Tell me about yourself, Pat,” he said.

Pat hummed in contemplation. “Well, I went to France recently.”

 “You did?”

“Oui, c'était amusant, mais j'ai eu des ennuis”

“What kind of trouble?” Janus asked curiously.

“Oh, the kind with a pretty boy and crepes that were way too sweet. Anyway,” he continued. “Other than that, I mostly help out my friend. He’s an inventor.”

“And how do you help him.”

He shrugged, “Running errands mostly, and making sure he gets enough sleep, because otherwise he gets distracted and forgets. And you?”

“I’m a banker,” he said, remembering his cover, but felt compelled to add, “but I like to travel as well.”

“You do look the type?”

“And how is that?”

   Pat shrugged. “I can always tell a wandering spirt from the masses, and you are easy to spot.” Pat looked at him then with a secret smile on his face, and Janus felt suddenly known, like the man in front of him had known him for years even though they’d only just met. Looking at him then, he wanted suddenly for that to be fact and not a flight of fancy.

He was brought firmly back to reality in the next moment. “Lee,” a pointed and familiar voice said. Janus’s head snapped up to see Remus, staring at him. He tapped his wrist. Janus glanced at his own wrist: 10:58pm. He just barely managed not to curse.

 “I,” he said looking up at Pat. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“That’s okay,” Pat said easily. “It is getting rather late.”

“Yes,” Janus agreed. “Well… goodbye.”

Pat, titled his head, a half smile on his face. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

Janus nodded, and turned away from him towards Remus. He didn’t look back as they excited the ballroom. They snuck into a small side closet for coats that wasn’t being used as it was summer.

“So,” Remus said when the door closed behind them.

“Don’t,” warned Janus.

“I’m not one to judge,” Remus said.

“Shut up.” He glanced at his watch. It was 11:02. “We’ll go in 5.”

 “I have to give it to you. He was very cute.”

“We’re not talking about it.”

Remus just laughed joyfully, and Janus did his best to halt the blood rushing to his cheeks.

At 11:07, well into their window, they slipped back out of the closet, and towards the stairs as the party raged on.

Despite how Remus usually never shut up, he was able to be quiet when it counted. They snuck to the master bedroom of the home’s owners in silence. The door was already wide open by the time they got there, and Janus didn’t think anything of it. At least, he didn’t until they entered the bedroom, and there was someone already there.

 He turned from the dresser he’d been standing in front of to face them, sending Janus the same smile he had down in the ballroom. Janus and Remus both froze. “Sorry, sweetie,” Pat said. “Were you here for this too?” he held up the necklace they’d been sent for. He closed his fist around the charm made out of time travel tech.

“What?” Janus said.

Pat giggled and winked. “Unfortunately, I need it a bit more than you at the moment. So, I’m gonna have to go.” Janus stepped forward, not really sure what he was intending to do, but Pat just smiled. “See you some other time, my Turtle Dove.” With a snap of his fingers and loud crack, he disappeared. The mask he’d been wearing fluttered to the ground.

  Arc I: Finding Cinderella

Chapter 4

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away, the mask.

Which was why he ended up getting arrested.

 Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

 “Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

 “Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

 He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

 “I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to cultural outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

 “Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you and asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

 “But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

 After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

 He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

 He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen he’d gestured to sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.”

 Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

 “It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

 “I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet. I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

 Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

 Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

 Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

 The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

 Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

 “It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

 “My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

 “Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

 He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

 Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

 He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

 The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

 He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

 “I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

 “I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

 Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

10264

“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

[technoskittles]

Catradora fic rec list

I mentioned making one of these awhile ago and I’m finally sitting down and compiling some of my all-time favorite fics. I’ve read a lot (like, a LOT), but I feel like a few of those really deserve an extra shout out.

I’ll separate them between multi-chap and one shots, but other than that they won’t be in any particular order. I’ll also try my best to tag the authors here on tumblr if I can find them, but if not, just lemme know if you see your fic and I can edit this later.

I’ll also be including ratings/word count/trigger warnings/etc

(I’ll mostly be including common tw’s so please make sure you also read the tags for anything that may affect you personally! Also, if I miss any, please keep in mind that it’s been awhile since I’ve read some of these so I may not remember all of them!)

Key:

[E] - Explicit 

[M] - Mature

[T] - Teen & Up Audiences

[G] - General Audiences

And for the multi-chap fics:

(O) - Ongoing

(F) - Finished

(?) - Not finished and they haven’t updated in awhile so the author probably died

So let’s get started! (Get ready for a long post obviously)

Multi-chap fics:

1. upper west side by ceruleanstorm (F) [T] ~190,000 words

TW: past child abuse, alcohol abuse

@princessofgayskull

I feel like this is definitely one of the top must-reads for all Catradora fanfics. I know I’ve seen this on a couple different lists but I’m including it on mine as well because it really is just that good.

The chapters are lengthy (but in a good way!) and the story really takes its time to flesh itself out. The character development of the characters as individuals is beautifully done and wonderfully realistic. The pacing of the development of Catra and Adora’s relationship is also sweetly slow, a steady slowburn that invokes that deep-rooted yearning feeling mirrored by the characters themselves.

It’s a really clever premise that takes place in the modern world but implements the canon universe in the form of the book that Adora’s writing that ties back to her and Catra’s shared childhood. The way that aspects of the show were revamped into this fic are so creative and I just....ugh. LOVE.

This fic also has a oneshot compilation that takes place after the events of the final chapter which is currently ongoing and I HIGHLY suggest checking that out as well once you’ve finished this. 

The sister fic for those interested: she’s god (and I found her) (O) [T] ~40,000 words

2. The Devil Is In (The Details) by SeasInkarnadine (O) [M] ~58,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, child abuse, emotional abuse, use of recreational drugs, Major Character Death

@seasinkarnadine

This is a really great fic where Adora is an undercover cop who sidles her way into one of the largest gang syndicates to bust whoever killed Hordak, a big gang leader and drug trafficker, whose death was originally ruled as an accidental overdose. Her and Catra (one of the gang members) both know foul play was involved and work together to figure out the truth.

The dynamics between these two is so casual and hilarious but still has those gut-wrenching moments that really ground you and realize that their relationship is dysfunctional on a few levels. The exploration of Adora’s conflicting feelings towards Catra hurt in such a good way as she realizes that she does genuinely care for Catra, but also is aware that what she’s doing will eventually screw her over and land her in jail. It’s the best kind of underlying angst and I highly recommend it.

Another really great selling point that I particularly love is that Adora is deaf in this AU and the author really shows this in such a realistic and natural way that shows she really knows what she’s talking about. It makes the dynamic between the two even more interesting considering that Catra also knows sign language which give the two a lot of moments of mutual understanding that doesn’t extend to the other characters. It’s something that the two of them have that’s sort of just for them to be on that level of understanding and it’s so great.

Also, Morgan is just a great writer in general and I highly suggest checking out more of her stuff (her art too!). She’s one of the writers I’ve looked up to since my beginning days in the fandom and it’s still amazing seeing all the great stuff she puts out.

3. Skinny Love by Maychup (O) [M] ~100,000 words

TW: past child abuse

@maychup

Another staple of big fics in the catradora fandom but for good reason. This fic is a wonderful exploration of events taking place after S1 illustrating Catra & Adora’s relationship in a different path that the rest of the show takes. It focuses heavily on their past experiences with each other and how that affects their current situation being on opposite sides of the war. 

This fic is older, published just after S1, so canon divergence is an important aspect of its build. But the way the story is written is so beautiful and grounded that it’s still interesting even now knowing what really happens in the show. 

Their dynamic is kind of back-and-forth, with Catra figuring out what Adora means to her and vice versa and where the two of them want to go from that point. It has so many sweet moments and steamy ones as well (btw, there’s a lot of smut) and the exploration into each of the character’s pysches is so compelling and intriguing.

4. Faded With Feelings by yesimgay (F) [T] ~24,000 words

TW: recreational drug use

This was such a cute, short multi-chap fic. It’s a bit older but I think it’s still one of my top faves. 

A modern au, Catra & Adora are roommates post-college and trying to make their way in the adulting world. Catra has ADHD and smokes weed to help with that. One day Adora accidentally eats a couple of her edibles and cute shenanigans ensue. And that’s just the first two chapters.

The rest of the fic goes on to the girls figuring out their feelings for each other, especially Adora who, in this case, isn’t really sure of her sexuality. All-in-all, a really cute fic that’s a nice break from all the angst that typically saturates the fandom.

5. Chasing the Spotlight by holymountain (?) [T] ~20,000 words

This is an AU where Adora is hired to be Catra’s, a pop singer, bodyguard. There’s so many cute moments in this, though admittedly it’s been about 6 months since it’s last updated so be sure to keep that in mind.

6. we’ve been making shades of purple out of red and blue by darklady21 (?) [t] ~24,000 words

An “and they were ROOMMATES” au. In this one though, Catra and Adora don’t actually know each other and really only get to know each other over time. It’s cute and has a lot of interesting interactions between the two, but it hasn’t updated in about 7 months.

7. Tuning Out by FaiaHae (?) [T] ~2500 words

I actually really loved the whole concept of this fic but it hasn’t updated in like, an entire year so...only read if you’re okay with the fact that it probably won’t ever be finished haha

8. burnt sugar by jeserai (O) [G] ~11,000 words

@jeserai

Oh god YES this fic. The classic “fake dating” au except Catra is a rich kid inheriting a business who essentially hires Adora, a broke college student, to go on a date with her to this big business function. There’s not a lot to say about it other than that without giving too much away, but the fic is about halfway done at this point so it’s a pretty short read as of now.

Just be warned, it’s currently on a MASSIVE cliffhanger so if you wanna wait until it updates I totally understand lol

9. still waters by summerson (O) [M] ~28,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, self harm

A “The Last of Us” AU. Personally, I’m not super familiar with TLOU because I could never get into the game myself, but this fic is so well done and the writing style is so interesting and well-executed that I still love this fic to bits. But obviously, for those of you who are aware of TLOU, you already know that this fic is going to contain quite the fair share of angst so be ready.

10. Whispering Dreams by dragonesdepapel (F) [T] ~7500 words

It’s been awhile since I’ve read this one so I don’t remember everything, but I do remember really enjoying the writing style and the construction of this fic. It’s a short read, but it’s totally worth it

11. please could you be tender by erce3 (F) [G] ~40,000 words

@figbian

please please PLEASE go read this fic. I’m actually begging y’all to go read this one I loved it so much it’s still one of my top 10 faves out there.

This fic is set in a modern setting where Adora & Catra were childhood friends and are in college and god it’s just SO. GOOD. The writing style and composition of the flashbacks with the present events is so beautifully done and organized and I really cannot hype this fic up enough GO READ IT

12. buried a hatchet (it’s coming up lavendar) by erce3 (O) [G] ~12,000 words

on the note of that last rec, I highly rec their other work which is currently in progress. It takes place after S3 but it’s an exploration on if Catra and Adora got trapped in the portal instead of Angella and FUCK this person is genuinely amazing go read their stuff

13. Senior Year by SimplyAbsolute (O) [E] ~98,000 words

@simplyabsolute

This is a really cute fic about Adora and Catra in their final year of college and I guess for me personally it really just hits hard because I’m also in my final year of college lol. But really, it’s a great fic and I suggest checking it out. It’s actually only got one more chapter left too so it’s almost done!

14. Assassinating Adora by Wicked42 (F) [T] ~13,000 words

@wicked-42

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Jeez this fic was a real rollercoaster of emotions. I loved every bit of it. 

Basically, some people try to assassinate Adora and Catra stops one of them, but both girls are still inflicted by the poison and....it just gets crazier from there. Don’t wanna spoil it too much but this is a must-read for sure.

And this one may seem like cheating but I’m gonna plug one of my own multi-chap fics here

15. Pure Feeling (O) [T] ~30,000 words

TW: brief mention of sexual assault in Ch 5

This is a modern AU set after all the kids have been out of college for a few years. 

Adora and Catra were childhood friends but ended up drifting apart and falling out during their college years. Fast forward about 6 years and they run into each other again, except now Adora has a daughter and is struggling to balance her life as a single mother. Overtime the two girls work on rebuilding their friendship and somewhere along the way might even realize that they’re feelings for each other never really went away. But of course, like all things in life, this isn’t an easy process and they run into more than a few complications - internal and external.

One Shots:

(there’s so many of these I’ve loved so I’m really going to try and narrow it down to about 10. If yours didn’t make it, no offense! I just have WAY too many to include and this post is already so long haha)

1. The Interlude That Never Ends by FMLClexa [M] ~2500 words

TW: Major Character Death, brief mention of sexual assault

Okay I’m gonna be honest: If you ignore all the other fics on this list, READ THIS ONE. This is absolutely my #1 favorite without a doubt. It’s a soulmate/reincarnation au and it’s so wonderfully executed that I honestly cannot even begin to tell y’all how much I love this one. It’s old and one of the first fics I ever read, but it’s so timeless and excellent and I promise you won’t regret reading it. I know I’ve read this about a million times over.

It’s been a whole year and this has held my #1 fave position the entire time. READ. IT.

2. after party by summerson [M] ~2000 words

TW: recreational drug use

God this fic was so great I read it last night and I’m still in awe in how well it was written and the emotions it managed to invoke in me. My favorite scene is the part where Catra tells Adora “I love you” because it’s so raw and desperate and I vibed with it so hard. It’s really difficult trying to tell someone how much you love them with just a few simple words because they really just don’t convey how much you love them and it’s so frustrating and GAH this fic was fucking great please read it.

3. jigsaw by jeserai [G] ~2500 words

@jeserai

This fic is so great and I felt so warm inside reading it. Definitely read if you want sweet, slow friends to lovers burn.

4. Vicious by SeasInkarnadine [M] ~3500 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

I really highly recommend this one if you can get past the trigger warnings. It was so well written and very suspenseful with the juxtaposition of the timeline between current events and snippets of what had happened just hours before. But the ending is really sweet and the way that Catra cares for Adora after the whole thing squeezed my heart to pieces.

This is one I’ve read a few times over because of how much I love it. Def in my top 3.

5. Basement by spookyscaryskeletons [G] ~2800 words

This was such a great rendition of “Adora and Catra are forced to talk” and the emotions were raw and bleeding and I love the character portrayals. 

6. Coming Apart by Whorls [E] ~13,000 words (or ~6,000 words each chap)

@crazy-pages

Okay this fic technically has two chapters but I’m including it here in the oneshots because the chapters are identical in the sense of story but the only difference is that in chapter one Catra is a cis woman and in chapter two she’s a trans woman pre-op. Other than that the chapters are identical so it’s mostly based off which experience you would rather have while reading.

This fic was. So. Fucking. Good. Sen did such a fantastic job with both aspects of this story and I love it to bits and pieces. The smut in the beginning is delicious as can be, but then towards the latter half it absolutely sucker punches you with feelings but in a good way. I really, really fucking love this fic and I think it needs more attention than it initially got so I’m imploring you all to please go read this fic. It’s fantastic.

7. Seconds That I Cannot Replace by Mogatrat [M] ~7800 words

TW: child abuse, underage(?)

This is a really heartbreaking fic set before canon. It’s about all the times that Catra and Adora started a romantic relationship only for Shadow Weaver to come in and ruin everything by constantly erasing and resetting Adora’s memory. I still think about this fic from time to time. Give it a go.

8. Come morning light by dragonesdepapel [T] ~1800 words

TW: Major Character Death

Another one that’s technically two chapters but it’s the same events, just covers the perspective of each girl. Adora’s dying and asks Catra to stay with her.

Basically this fic ripped my heart out and I still think about it sometimes.

9. someone you like by caela [T] ~5100 words

oh fuck me yes this fic. A modern au where Catra sorta stalks Adora on instagram and accidentally likes an old picture. Fluffiness galore.

10. When You Came Calling by ActuallyMe [E] ~5200 words

TW: Major Character Death

A 1940′s Mob AU where Catra is a private eye and Adora married high-ranking mob boss Hordak...who’s just been murdered.

Really great one shot. Personally I would’ve loved to see more come of this but it’s great on its own.

And once again, this is cheating but here’s a couple oneshots of my own that I wanna plug real quick

11. hang tight (all you) [T] ~9200 words

Modern AU fic set when Catra and Adora are in high school. Adora struggles to come to terms with her sexuality in an discouraging environment as well as the fact that she’s had a crush on her best friend since middle school. Personally I think this was one of my best works and a lot of other people seem to have liked it too so yeah!

12. as my World d[ivides] [E] ~2500 words

TW: Rape/Non-Con, Underage

One of my darker fics, but still one I’m pretty proud of. Without giving too much away, Adora suffers from a trauma and engages in unhealthy coping mechanisms and Catra enables her because no one’s taught them any different.

[oreoambitions]

A companion to this piece for @liapetros and @jellybabykid

Lena is still standing over Lex with a smoking gun in her hand when she calls Jess. Her brother's blood is seeping across the floor, and her best friend is a liar, and she doesn't know what else to do. So when  Jess picks up the phone, she says, "Lex is dead. I shot him."

And Jess replies, "Don't worry, Ms. Luthor. I'm on my way."

Lena isn't sure what compels her to add, "Kara Danvers is Supergirl."

There's a long silence on the line. Lena can hear the vague background noise of Jess getting ready to come to her rescue. "I know," Jess says at last. "She didn't tell me; it was the way she looks at you that gave it away."

Lena hangs up . The room feels empty and crowded all at once, and she's just committed a crime, and she's just said goodbye to her brother for the last time, and there's been so much betrayal, and she feels like she can't breathe. She cries and she hates herself for it. She doesn't even know which part of it all she's crying about.

She's barely made it back to her apartment when Alex calls. She looks at the cellphone ringing on the kitchen counter and she considers turning the ringer off - honestly, fuck anyone with the last name 'Danvers' right now - but she thinks better of it. Maybe Kara's been hurt. Maybe she needs help. There is nothing, not even a betrayal like this, that will keep Lena from coming to Kara's aid when it really matters. Not a damn thing. She lets the phone go to voice mail anyway, and she pours the drink she's been too upset to touch down the sink before she calls Alex back.

Alex does need help, but not with Kara. She leads Lena down into the basement of the DEO, deeper than Lena has ever been before, to a medbay Lena has never seen. It makes her wonder what other secrets the DEO might have been keeping all this time. The figure on the bed is so still that Lena might have thought she were dead if it weren't for the rasping sound of her breathing, shallow and fast, and the sickly green light flickering through her veins. Lena looks at Red Daughter and sees Kara and almost cries out in spite of herself. Not Kara, she tells herself. Not Kara, not Kara, not Kara.

"Red Daughter," she says out loud. She still has to swallow down the tears that are threatening an encore but here, trembling in the doorway of a top secret government medical facility, is not the place. And this is not the time.

"She's not getting better," Alex says.

"Kryptonite poisoning?" Not that Lena really needs to ask. She pulls a box from her pocket. A suit meant for Supergirl, but then, Supergirl is Kara is Red Daughter in a way, so what does it matter? As the suit unfolds over Red Daughter's body, Lena thinks to herself that in an odd way she is all that's left of Lex. His Kryptonian pet. His legacy.

"How did this happen?"

"Supergirl was down; Lex had a Kryptonite cannon. Red Daughter threw herself in front of the blast."

Lena thinks of Lex's mocking laughter, of gun metal hot in her hand, of the smell of blood. "She's going to live," she says. It's more of a wish than a declaration, but Alex doesn't need to know that. "She'll need a transfusion."

Alex nods. "I'll get Supergirl. Now?"

"Tomorrow. They both need to rest."

Lena sits in that dark room all night holding Red Daughter's hand while the suit filters kryptonite out of her blood bit by bit. Fast enough to keep her alive. Not fast enough to make her better. Only Supergirl can do that, and it chafes at Lena's pride, but there it is. Lex was right about one thing: humanity is only worth so much in the company of gods. Still, here is one god who would be dead now if it weren't for Lena. That's not nothing.

Alex arrives in the morning looking cowed and leading a stonefaced Jess, who has come bearing food, a change of clothes, and Lena's laptop. She tells Lena that she "took care of it" and Lena nods but doesn't bother to answer the unspoken question on Alex's lips. So that's that. Lex is gone and gone and gone. But it's not important now, because Red Daughter is very much alive, and until she's stable that's all that matters. Jess looks at the vitals on the monitor without comment.

"Will that be all, Ms. Luthor?" she asks.

"Can you clear my schedule for the next few days?"

"It's already done."

Thank the fucking Lord for Jess.

Supergirl appears in the doorway later that same morning, perfectly still for once in her life, tears in her eyes, not quite meeting Lena's gaze. She kneels next to Red Daughter's bed and squeezes her arm and whispers something in Krpytonian which Lena isn't sure Red Daughter can even hear through the helmet, let alone understand, but then again, she isn't sure she can't. Then Supergirl rolls up her sleeve and pulls up a chair.

"How long will this take?"

It takes four hours, and it's awful. Kara shudders as the first of the Krpytonite hits her system and Lena wants to look away and she wants to tell Kara that she knows it's her and she can't do either of those things. She watches that eerie green glow creep through Kara's veins and feels sick. What if this doesn't work? What if they both die by Lena's hand?

Red Daughter stirs an hour in, groans, coughs, calls for Alex. Alex shoots Kara a puzzled look but she takes Red Daughter's other hand anyway. "I'm here," she says, and Red Daughter stills. Half an hour later they have to bring in a bed for Kara when she can't hold herself up in the chair anymore. An hour after that Red Daughter's vitals start to improve.

Kara is in the kryptonite suit for three days. So is Red Daughter. Lena spends every waking moment perched on a chair between their beds, ostensibly working, but mostly crying. They're both unconscious most of the time, so it's not like there's anyone but the DEO's security camera to see her moments of weakness. She prays a lot, but she couldn't say who it is she's praying to. God? Rao? The man in the moon? She prays in silence because she's never sure when Kara is and isn't awake. Red Daughter doesn't wake at all.

On the fourth day, Alex moves Supergirl upstairs.

On the fifth day, Sam calls.

"Everyone is talking about what happened," she says. "I keep thinking that I should have been there to help." And then, "I crushed the handle on the car door today. I wasn't even mad, I was just trying to open it. I told Ruby it was a hit and run but she's not stupid; she's going to figure this out."

Lena listens to Red Daughter's rhythmic breathing and considers telling Sam that there's another Kryptonian in the world. Instead she says, "You're going to be okay. Did you enroll in that meditation class you were talking about?"

On the sixth day, Red Daughter wakes up.

It's the sixth night, really. They've finally taken Red Daughter out of her kryptonite suit and have brought in the sun lamps. Lena, used to sleeping in a dark room, is tossing and turning on Kara's vacated hospital bed but too stubborn to leave. What if something happens in the night? What if Red Daughter gets worse and Lena isn't there to help?

So she's on her feet in an instant when she hears whimpering from across the room, and she's already there to gently push Red Daughter back against the bed when she starts to thrash against the wires and the needles connected to her body. Two blue eyes meet hers, and the struggling stops.

"Can you tell me your name?" Lena asks. She tells herself she's asking because she wants to better understand the mental state of the patient. In truth she just wants to avoid another secret.

"Alex?"

"She went home for the night, but she'll be here to see you in the morning." Probably Alex would be here in half an hour tops if Lena were to call her right now, but Lena doesn't see the point.

"No," Red Daughter says. "Alex. Your brother."

Lena takes a breath to speak, but no words come out. Red Daughter's gaze is flickering back and forth between her eyes, and one hand has found Lena's.

"He's dead," Lena manages at last. And then, because the avoidance of secrets goes both ways, she adds, "I killed him. After his fight with Supergirl."

Surprise, grief, anger, and relief cross Red Daughter's face in succession. All she says is, "Good. And Supergirl?"

"She's okay. She was here a couple of days ago. Gave her blood to save your life."

"Then we are even."

"I suppose you are."

They stare at one another. Lena is suddenly aware of how close she is, one hand still on Red Daughter's shoulder, the other in her grasp, their thighs touching where Lena is perched on the edge of the bed. The sun lamps are too warm for her comfort.

"Can you tell me your name?" Lena asks again.

Another succession of feelings: confusion, grief, anger, sadness. "Alex called me Linda."

"Do you want me to call you something else?"

"I don't have anything else."

The first time Linda tries to walk, she falls down and then sits on the floor crying. When she finally pulls herself together, it's to ask how long she has until she has to leave.

Lena and Alex look at one another and then at Linda.

"What do you mean, leave?" Alex asks.

"If I don't have my powers, I'm worthless to you."

Lena has to get out of the room because otherwise she's going to lose her temper in front of Linda, and Linda will think it's her fault and not Lex's. She paces in the hallway with her hands balled into fists so tight her muscles twitch, and then she puts her head up against the wall and she lets out a long frustrated growl.

"I think we should move her upstairs," she tells Alex. "I think it will be good for her to see people."

When Linda can finally walk on her own again, Alex agrees.

Lena goes back to work. Kara texts once in a while, but Lena doesn't answer often or at length and Supergirl doesn't stop by. Lena wonders whether Kara knows that she knows, or whether she's just picking up on the unspoken tension. She tells Kara that she's just so busy with work that she can't spare the time to hang out, but of course Kara is aware that she's spending every free minute with Linda. Lena justifies it by telling herself that Linda doesn't really have anyone else.

Linda says she misses reading, and so Lena begins to bring her books. A trickle at first, but she goes through them so fast that by the end of the week Lena is bringing her a stack every day. History and romance, biology and social theory. It takes her two days to finish all seven volumes of Harry Potter. She does His Dark Materials in an afternoon. Alex gives her a copy of Bridge to Terabithia; Lena bans her from providing books after that.

Ruby is suspended for shattering another student's rib cage. She swears it was an accident; she doesn't know how it happened. Her school enrolls her in anger management classes, and Ruby says she doesn't need them but she can't say it without getting angry, and so the classes stay. Sam is inconsolable over the phone.

"She doesn't know what's happening to her," she says. "I don't even know what's happening to her."

Lena wants to say, It's the same thing that's happening to you. Instead she says, "Have you considered talking to Supergirl about it?"

Sam says, "I'm sorry Lena, I have to go."

Linda starts attending physical fitness classes in the gym with the DEO recruits. She doesn't speak to them, and they don't speak to her, but Lena hopes it's good for everyone involved. Once in a while Supergirl lingers in the doorway, watching Linda's progress, but she makes the human recruits too nervous to visit with any frequency. When Linda is in the medbay, she doesn't visit at all.

And then one day Lena gets a text message from Alex: Linda left in the middle of class. She seemed upset. Lena walks out in the middle of a meeting and trusts that Jess will make it somehow okay.

She finds Linda leaning against the wall in the medbay bathroom. Her tears have dried, but her eyes are still puffy and red, and she's still wringing her hands. She looks at Lena warily, as though she expects to be in trouble. Lena supposes that if Lex were here, she would be.

"They said I wasn't real," Linda whispers. "I'm just a copy. And it's- It's true, isn't it? I'm nothing. I'm never going to fly again. On the ground, I can’t even keep up."

Lena feels something old and painful inside of her shift. It feels like childhood, and not in a sunshine and butterflies kind of way. It feels like cowering under Lilian's gaze. It feels like Lex throwing her work in the dirt. You'll have to do better than that if you ever want to be a real Luthor.

Lena reaches out a tentative hand to stroke Linda's cheek, and when she doesn't pull away, she brings the second hand up to cup her chin.

"You feel real to me," Lena says.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise when Linda kisses her, but it is. She steps into Lena's space and before Lena can register that she should perhaps step away Linda's mouth is on hers and it's... good. Linda tastes like sweat and tears and something Lena can't define. She brushes her tongue over Linda's bottom lip and her breath hitches when Linda moans and slips an arm around her waist.

It's like that cliche: it feels like a puzzle piece slipping into place. Only Lena knows the edges don't quite line up, and the colors aren't right, and she's only going to make more work for herself in the long run if she leaves this piece here, this imperfect fit. She knows it when Linda deepens the kiss and Lena has to keep from gasping Kara's name into her mouth. She knows it, but she doesn't walk away.

Sam agrees to come to National City. "I can't take this anymore. I have to do something."

Lena promises to talk to Supergirl for her, and it's probably the most uncomfortable promise she's ever made. "Next week?"

"The week after; we have a thing with Ruby's school next week. Will that work?"

"I'll make it happen."

Lena opens a blank message to Kara's personal phone and considers asking her right then and there if she would be willing to talk Sam through understanding and controlling her powers. But that would mean admitting that she knows who Kara is, and it would be a petty way to break the ice, and Lena has marks on her neck from last night when Linda discovered that she could make Lena squirm by sucking just so, and all of this is just wrong. She closes the messaging app.

Two days later she falls down the stairs in the DEO. It's these damn heels. A Luthor should be allowed to wear practical shoes. She steps just wrong and falls backwards, has only an instant to acknowledge that she's probably about to break her neck when Linda catches her.

"You have to be careful," Linda admonishes.

Lena laughs. She laughs because Linda was at the bottom of the stairs talking with Alex when she fell. She laughs because there's no way Linda could have gotten to her in time.

"Congratulations," Alex says, patting Linda's shoulder as she walks by. "You've just graduated from medbay."

They agree that even though Linda is recovering her powers, she should stay in the DEO, at least for the time being. The night she moves into her new room she asks if Lena will stay with her. Lena agrees without hesitation. They share a bed for the first time, but they've agreed in advance not to go any further than that. Linda's arms are so gentle around Lena in the night, her fingers absently rubbing circles across Lena's hip, her breath hot on the back of Lena's neck, and the whole thing is driving Lena absolutely mad. She has that wrong-piece feeling when she turns to kiss Linda's mouth.

"Are you ready to fly tomorrow?" she asks, mostly to distract herself from the heat pooling between her legs and from the thought of Kara holding her like this, pressing kisses to her jaw, slipping a thumb under the waistband of her shorts.

"I'm ready if that's what you need me to be," Linda replies.

"I don't need you to be anything," she says.

Linda smiles at her sadly in the half light. "Of course you do," she says. "You need me to be her."

Lena doesn't ask who 'her' is. She doesn't have to.