#its bad enough i have to fight through it to read fics or just posts on my dash or shit for work or literally everything everywhere | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sokkigarden · 1 year

Text

dancing with our hands tied (part i)

jamie tartt x female reader // nsfw 18+ // enemies to lovers // fwb

masterlist // read on ao3

summary: wearing the jersey of your self-proclaimed enemy wasn't supposed to go like this.

word count: 2.8k

decided to post this fic to tumblr! not sure if i will be doing a taglist, but i will be tagging each part with jamie tartt x reader + jamie tartt smut so if you are following those tags religiously (like me) then you can find it lol. its also on ao3 and will likely get updated there first if you'd like to subscribe that way. big shoutout to @whimsical-roasting for drafting this in our dms in a haze one night LMAO i would not have been able to write this without her<3333

༻✧✧✧༺

“No no no, there is no way I’m wearing that.”

Opposite of you, your best friend, Laney, stood with two Richmond jerseys in her hands. One said ‘Tartt’ across the back, the other, ‘McAdoo,’ but you already knew which one she wanted to wear. She had a raging crush on Isaac, so that left only one option for you.

And there was no way you were wearing Jamie Tartt’s fucking jersey.

You would never hear the end of it. As part of the team’s physio team, you had a good rapport with most of the players. You complimented them when they had a good match and joked around while working with them through their physical therapy treatments.

You had a decent working relationship with everyone on the team.

Everyone except for Jamie Tartt.

There was no question that since his return to Richmond, he had become a changed man, but his past words had left a lingering resentment. You didn’t think you were in the wrong to simply avoid interacting with the man. He hadn’t often been seen in the treatment room, and when he had, you typically passed off his treatment to another member of the team, along with some flimsy excuse for why you couldn’t do it.

But recently, as he trained more with Coach Kent outside of the dog track, he’d needed additional treatment. And as the new lead of the physio team, you were in charge of his treatment plan.

In recent months, especially since working more closely with him, he’d started to notice the difference in behavior from you, leading to all sorts of jests and confrontations. Now, it seemed like he just got a kick out of teasing and inevitably pissing you off. You couldn’t help but fire some scathing shots back. What started out as a simple plan of avoidance had clearly backfired.

Now everytime he needed assistance with muscle cramps or pain medication, you got a conversation full of sarcasm and questions. It almost felt like sometimes he came in just to rile you up.

Just last week, Jamie came in to check on his ankle after a bad landing at training. You examined his leg and he made comments the entire time you had your hands on him.

“You know, I get waxed. Weekly. Everywhere.”

You had stumbled ever so slightly as you’d gone to grab an ice pack. You cringed inwardly, knowing this would only add more fuel to Jamie’s fire. You were tired of him getting the best of you, making you flustered. You wanted to fight back.

Turning back to him with the ice pack, you stared at him directly.

“Show me,” you challenged.

Jamie’s face held an incredulous expression.

“You mentioned it— you clearly want to,” you reasoned, shrugging your shoulders, “So show me.”

You hoped your confidence in calling his bluff worked in your favor, and his face showed that he was clearly surprised by this turn of events. You couldn’t tell what he would do next. He rolled his eyes with that smug smirk on his face before he raised his eyebrows and lifted his shirt up.

Sure enough, his chest was bare, showing off his sculpted muscles.

Jamie leisurely lounged across the treatment table, chest exposed, and you would be lying if you said your mouth didn’t water a little bit at the sight. Even after being around athletes on a daily basis, there was something about Jamie that just— hit different. His cockiness was surely annoying, but it was also incredibly arousing, as much as you hated to admit it. You felt a squeeze in your chest but you bit your tongue to keep yourself in line. There was no way that thought would ever bear fruit.

You shoved the ice pack into his lap, making sure some of it landed on the bare skin of his stomach, watching as he flinched a little bit at the abrupt action and cold temperature of the pack.

“Ice your ankle for twenty minutes, then stay off it the rest of the day,” you informed him, acting like the last few moments hadn’t happened. “You’ll be good to train tomorrow.”

Jamie scoffed at your indifference. He grasped the ice pack fully and let his shirt slide back down.

“Sure, love, I’ll do that.”

He knew you hated it when he called you by a pet name. That only made him use them more. You glanced back at him, staring into his eyes for a moment before you grabbed your bag.

The tension in the room was palpable before you’d headed out to check on the rest of the players at training. You hadn’t said anything else as you’d left.

So, yeah. There was no way Jamie Tartt would ever let you hear the end of it if you showed up in his jersey number.

“Oh, come on!” Laney pleaded. “I don’t want to wear a jersey alone.”

“Plenty of people do!”

“Yeah, but plenty of people don’t get to go behind the scenes and actually speak to the players,” she gushed. “I don’t want to meet them and look stupid all alone.”

“So instead, you want me to look stupid with you,” you gave her a flat look.

She smiled mischievously. “What? I thought it would be funny. You complain about him all the time.”

If only she fully comprehended the validity behind your complaints.

You knew there was no way you were ever going to win this fight, so you slipped on the jersey and braced for impact. You were happy to have Laney come along to a game, especially since you didn’t always attend matches and her being a big Richmond fan gave you an excuse to watch. You wanted today to be good, not just for you, but for her too. It was exciting to be able to take your best friend on a little ‘backstage’ tour during gameday.

You hoped today would be good, and that you wouldn’t have any run-ins with the man who made your blood boil.

Alas, not even twenty minutes later, as you walked into the back of the Nelson Road stadium through the employee entrance, you promptly ran into none other than Jamie Tartt.

“Well well well, I didn’t realize someone was such a big fan,” the familiar Mancunian accent taunted behind you.

You tried not to visibly cringe as you turned around to face Jamie. He was not yet in his kit, still wearing his street clothes: a monochrome denim set. It was frankly unfair how well the jeans fit him, but you refused to let your gaze linger for more than a few seconds.

“Oh my, it's the infamous Jamie Tartt,” Laney greeted him playfully. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Your jaw clenched at her words as she reached out to shake his hand. He eagerly accepted.

“Have you?” he asked with a mischievous look in your direction that made you roll your eyes.

Laney nodded emphatically. “She talks about you all the time.”

You nudged her shoulder to get her to stop talking but she just looked at you innocently. She knew exactly what she was doing, and it seemed like Jamie did too.

“Oh, does she?” Jamie questioned.

He was eating this up. His face was smug and you were sure this would haunt you for weeks to come.

“Laney, why don’t you go get some snacks? Shouldn’t be a line since we are here a bit early. I’ve got to talk to Jamie before the match,” you said. “I’ll meet you at our seats?”

You smiled sweetly at her, but underneath the nice layer, you knew your eyes held an anger that had her quickly waving goodbye and scurrying off. You were more than happy to have her accompany you to a match, but this entire interaction was reminding you of why you hadn’t invited her sooner.

For a moment, you just stared at him. It was hard to look him directly in the eye sometimes. Despite the headstrong front you kept up, you weren’t used to dealing with such interactions. You weren't stupid, you knew that this dance you two engaged in fell close to flirting (at least that’s what Laney said), and when you looked directly at him, you remembered just how fucking hot he was.

It wasn't just his physical attributes. Sure, he was in excellent physical shape, and his hair looked particularly perfect ever since he started going a bit blond, and his lips were always in a little pout, just begging to be kissed. But it was also a little more than that. Seeing him step up to lead as they began Total Football, working as a team player while also getting in extra workouts to be the best he could be. You weren't blind. You could see his internal changes on the outside, somehow. He didn't seem as cold. He didn't seem as distant and prickish. Jamie’s change in demeanor changed how everyone saw him including himself.

And he seemed to look even hotter than he used to.

Was it possible for someone to just keep getting more and more attractive?

It was part of the reason he drove you up the wall. How did he so perfectly remain just a little bit of a prick while also being a better person? And why did he have to look so pretty while doing it?

More and more people were making their way through the hallway as the dog track got ready for the match, and Jamie still stood in the middle, with an innocent, questioning look directed towards you.

You huffed before you grabbed his arm and shoved him into the treatment room. Even if he was acting oblivious to spectators, you didn’t want to put on a show when you once again ripped him a new one.

His face was still prickish as you turned to look at him. He was clearly enjoying this much more than you were.

“So you talk about me when I ain’t around, love?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“No, I don’t,” you said firmly. “And don’t call me ‘love.’”

He pursed his lips, “Seems like you do… love.”

He smiled cheekily at you and it took everything in you not to roll your eyes at him. Instead, you crossed your arms and put on what you hoped was your most serious face.

“I talk about everybody,” you defended, but he clearly wasn’t listening.

“Hmmm, and what do you say about me?” Jamie scratched his chin to mock being in deep concentration.

“Mostly, I tell people you’re a pain in my ass.”

The statement seemed to shock Jamie out of his act and he narrowed his eyes at you. You knew it wasn’t the best idea to have a sparring match with a footballer right before a game. They were pent up with nerves and adrenaline as they prepared.

After a moment of no response, you expected the conversation to be over and began to move toward the door, when he finally spoke up.

“Bend over, I’ll show you a pain in the ass.”

Now you’re the one who’s speechless. You let out a breathless laugh of shock, before rolling your eyes. You continued on your way to the door, moving to leave him in the room alone. Just as you go past him, he playfully smacks your ass. Before you have a chance to even choose your reaction, you let out what can only be described as a whimper mixed with a moan.

You whirl around to look at him, and you both seem to be shocked by the noise. You can tell your face is burning with embarrassment as you stare at each other in a momentary state of shock.

He recovers first, letting out a breath of a laugh. A smirk dances across his face.

“Liked that, did you?” he taunted.

You clearly didn’t recover as quickly, your reply coming out weaker than you’d like. “Shut up, Tartt.”

He stepped a little closer to you, and you stepped back instinctively, before you ran into the table set up next to the door.

“I liked hearin’ it,” he said, his voice coming out like a rough whisper.

It all happened so fast. One moment you were barely processing how close the two of you were. Making direct eye contact, breathing the same air. In the next moment, you had spun around, shoving your own pants down around your knees as you heard him unzipping his jeans. He gripped your waist as he spanked you again, and you didn’t even try to suppress the moan that left your lips.

He slid his dick in easily, and you were surprised at how wet you’d become from simply arguing with the man. He held you against his chest as he thrust into you, pressing a messy kiss to your neck, sucking slightly. Part of you was worried about him leaving a mark, but the thought was pushed to the back of your mind as he continued his journey along your neck. He raised your knee higher to rest against the table for a better position, and you groaned in unison as he thrust deeper inside you. You let your head fall back against his shoulder, leaning against him.

“You wanted this real bad, huh, angel?” he asked.

You nearly wept at the pet name. You made a noise of protest, but your voice came out near breathless from the intensity of it all. You felt like your knees would buckle from the sensation, so you gripped the table in an attempt to not fall.

“Fuck you— you wanted it more,” you defended, but just as you spoke, he hit deep inside you and left the end of your sentence turning to mush as you moaned.

The table wasn’t enough to grab onto, so you reached back and started to grip the strands of his hair. He groaned directly into your ear, and you felt your knees nearly give out entirely.

“Damn, you look so pretty with my name on your back and my dick inside you,” he mumbled as he ran his hand up to grip at your throat. The action wasn’t gentle, but the pressure was perfect.

You’d almost forgotten you were wearing his name across the back of your jersey. Of course he would think it was hot.

It surprised you when you realized you found it kind of hot too.

“Don’t get used to it,” you warned, “This isn’t happening again.”

Your harsh words felt like they had no meaning as you bucked against him. His own hips rose up to meet your own. Truth be told, you were getting your shit rocked and were already wondering when you could fuck him again. You felt your brain short circuiting. Your breaths were shallow as he moved his hand up to your mouth.

You bit his hand out of frustration, making him hiss and thrust his hips faster. He shoved his fingers into your mouth and you sucked instinctively, causing him to whine.

“Jamie,” you gasped around his fingers, “I-I’m close.”

“Me too, love,” he panted in reply. You didn’t have it in you to correct him over the pet name, overcome with the sensations coursing through your body.

He removed his fingers from your mouth and snaked his hand down your body to find your clit, adding extra pressure. He knows just the right way to move his fingers that has you falling apart in mere moments.

When you come, he turns your head to plant a wet, sloppy kiss on your lips as you both find your release. You find yourself kissing him back intensely, chasing his lips once he finally pulls away.

Your knees are weak at this point, fully leaning against him for support once he finally slips out of you and pulls his jeans back up. Before he has a chance to say anything between breaths, you reach for a towel off the shelves above you and clean yourself off.

You’re still out of breath as you finally look over at him. His face is shiny with sweat and you fear you look the same. You’ll have to stop by the restroom before you meet back up with Laney.

Laney.

The thought of your friend has you glancing at the clock on the wall, cursing yourself. Everything starts to come into clear view, and you wonder how you let things go this far. You just fucked Jamie Tartt. How the hell did that just happen?

You press your lips in a firm line. You try to keep your hands from visibly shaking.

“This is never happening again,” you tell him again, as you reach for the door handle to exit.

As you open the door, Jamie scoffs.

“Sure, love,” he says, sauntering through the door that you opened, “I’ll see you after the match.”

He leaves you with a wink before heading off to get ready for the match. If you thought he would be unbearable about the jersey, you had just made the entire situation so much worse.

You weren’t sure how long you stood in the treatment room before you finally left as well.

#jamie tartt x reader #jamie tartt x y/n #jamie tartt x you #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt smut #jamie tartt imagine #jamie tartt enemies to lovers #ted lasso fic #ted lasso fanfiction #ted lasso imagine #my works #dwoht fic

616 notes · View notes

thealexanderfiles · 11 months

Text

DCU from a Marvel fans limited perspective

recently i've accidently been sucked into the DCU universe, mostly Bat family, if i'm being honest, and although i've never watched a single movie/episode, this is what i have gathered from purely reading the occasional fanfiction/lots of tumblr posts

SPOILERS i guess

There are A LOT of batkids

Bruce Wayne adopts these motherfuckers like they're some kind of limited edition pokemon set

no one is actually sure how many there are but if you have black hair and blue eyes and live in gotham, Batman doesn't care if you've got parents or not. you're coming home with him

There appears to be five Robins and Batman goes though these children like a chainsmoker with a pack of cigarettes

people die a lot

Thats okay though because people come back to life a concerning amount as well

Jason Todd died and came back to life by being dumped in a pit of magical water

Damien Wayne is the only biological child of Bruce and he mentions this a lot

Dick Greyson was the first Robin and the first adoption and i think he and Bruce got in a fight and he left to become Nightwing

Jason Todd stole the Batmobile's wheels and became the second Robin. after he came back to life he became Red Hood

Tim Drake was not an orphan, he just fit Bruce's target demographic and was conveniently close (I mean come on, it's like express shipping) He is also some kind of super-genius. He was the third Robin but became Red Robin/Drake

Stephanie brown(?) was the fourth robin(?), not sure for how long. People get upset when other people forget. I think she's called Spoiler or something

Damien Wayne is the final Robin. Hes this assassins son and im pretty sure Talia dropped him off at the Wayne Manor and said, "I had him through the terrible twos, you get the teen years'

Not entirely sure if Tim runs Wayne enterprises

Brucie wayne is the funniest fucking thing i swear

He's so stupid

not sure is Tim, Dick and Jason follow Bruce's lead and become absolute airheads as well

Alfred is a butler

Alfred has guns

There's someone called Duke and Cass knocking around

The Justice League think Batman works alone

someone in the JL is allergic to the colour yellow

there is a concerning amount of Danny Phantom x DC crossover fics

sames goes for Miraculous

Tim Drake is Bi and for some reason people don't like that

internet is divided on whether of not Batman is a bad dad

#OnlyInGotham is a thing?

Gotham is like an australian NYC

the Riddler is a not funny, less aggressive version of the Joker

apparently Alcatraz and Arkham are different prisons but thats on me

there's a whole group of superheroes out there, each have strong powers and they decide to leave the most dangerous city to the member that has no powers and dresses up as an anthropomorphic bat and runs around the city causing copious amounts of property damage with his children

there is a girl called barbra? Gordon

there is a criminally small amount of content for the girls

for some reason people ship the bat kids together, ike, anytime you have to remind yourself 'its TECHNICALLY not incest is Not Good'

Clark Kent is running round acting as if his reading glasses are the only thing standing between a normal life and CHAOS and the worst thing is that he is right

i am a MCU fan and i was SO sure that Deadpool was MCU but now i'm not so sure

Fandom likes to have this troupe that Bruce wayne doesn't believe batman exists when obviously the superior troupe is that Gotham is pretty sure they are exes

teen titans and young justice are a thing but i cant figure out which robin is who.

Damien Wayne has enough animals to open a zoo

who tf in the batfam are metas?????

Batman has definetely used the Tired Dad voice on villains and the Brucie Wayne voice on the JL

Bruce Wayne has contingency plans if someone discovers his contingency plans

THERES A PLACE CALLED THE FUCKING BAT BURGER???????

it took 2 robins until batman realized that a small child running around in a vest top and speedos was not the greatest idea

Someone needs to tell me, like right now what's going on, where to start and what to read. bc rn im LIVING on chaotic fics

#bruce wayne #brucie wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #dc robin #dc comics #dc universe #someone pls tell me what DC means im actually loosing my mind here #batfam

182 notes · View notes

wangxianficfinder · 1 year

Text

In the mood for...

~*~

1. ITMF: Just finished ShanaStoryteller's "By Any Other Name" where resurrected WWX pretends to be a woman, and it's put me in the mood for fic where he is actually resurrected as a woman but, here's the key: he's hamstrung by the extremely patriarchal society he's in. The few fic I've read that have him in a woman's body usually hand wave over that but I'd love to read a fic that doesn't. Anything like that out there??? @kimboo-york

To Deserve So Much More by renysen (locked to archive) (T, 20k, wangxian, summoned by f!oc, getting together, Mojo’s post) has WWX resurrected by the youngest daughter of a non-cultivating family and deals with several issues of him being a woman as a result.

~*~

2. do you know any fics that explore what happens if yzy lives past the wen attack on lp? wwx blamed himself enough without her active vitriol so i'd love to read how her survival would impact the yunmeng trio (esp wwx) and/or the war. thank you!

💖 Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing) has YZY surviving the fall of LP & has stuff about how her leadership is different from JC

Yearning for Miles by Murahi (M, 378k, WangXian, LQR/SiSi, Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Slow burn, Mutual Pining, seeing the future) has YZY surviving IIRC (it's been a while since I read it & I bailed partway through so idk how it goes) & the tags mention YZY redemption

~*~

3. hi ! in the mood for fics (canon) that feature wangxian and lan sizhui ! it doesn’t need to be about them as parents, although it definitely can, but just having them (especially lwj) act parental or acknowledged as parents or exist as a family unit would be much appreciated, kind of like “Crack me open, pour you out” by tenillypo. basically any parental canon wangxian (even just featured) would be amazing thank you !! @willesnelson

to the act of making noise by words-writ-in-starlight (WordsWritInStarlight) (G, 19k, LSZ & LWJ, LSZ & WWX, wangxian, Grief/Mourning, Father-Son Relationship, inquiry, Music, Angst, Fluff, Found Family, podfic available)

kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting Together, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Inspired by The Parent Trap (1998), Kid Fic, teen shenanigans, two a-yuans, Fluff and Angst) it's set in canon times however its def an AU storyline but you get a lot of family feels

Finding Balance Series by Zombubble (G/T, 117k, WangXian, Character Study, Canon Compliant, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of Death, Grief, But only a little, Nightmare, Canon-Typical Violence, within a nightmare, injuries, Underage Drinking, Light Angst, Happy Ending, JC Being an Asshole, but not too bad, Anxiety, Grief/Mourning, Self-Reflection, Conflict Resolution, Internal Conflict, lots of talking, Lots of Thinking, LSZ-centric, Soft LQR, Sort Of, Collective Bargaining, LSZ accidentally incites a mini off-screen rebellion, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Canon, mild panic attack) not sure if its quite what #3 is asking (most recent itmf post) but there's a post-canon sizhui-centric series about sizhui coming to terms with remembering he's a wen and stuff, and the last two in the series (esp the last one) have parental wangxian helping him work through things

~*~

4. Itmf wwx n friends as a crazy crack funny af potty mouthed wholesome group!! Modern au. Them being crack heads in a nut. Like, doing stuff like sneaking out, putting skates and running at night, sitting in shopping trolly and pushing it ahead, Fighting in Instagram comments section. Just wwx an friends. Idm relationships.

He lo I'm for #4 itmf. fic is really good, but not what I was aiming for, cuz yeah the plot was chef's kiss, but didn't had much of wy n frnds, lemme clear: wy n frnds shenanigans, doing stupid things, what the fuk moments. This time doesn't matter if it's canon, modern or alternate Universe. Thankyou

The Fifth Type of Non-Contact Force by Caixx (Not Rated, 83k, WangXian, Modern AU, High School, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Fluff and Humor, Actually Somewhat Canon, Mutual Pining, Horny Teenagers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Non-Graphic Smut) lots of shenanigans here

Carefully Orchestrated Plans (no strings attached) by Maledictius (T, 101k, WangXian, Modern AU, Chatting & Messaging, Orchestra, Fluff and Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gossip)

~*~

5. ITMF!! What’s a wangxian fic you’ve read where, as you sadly leave your last kudos on the last chapter, you think, THIS COULD BE A MOVIE 😤!

Those fast paced, edge of your seat, tight plot, spot on character fics that you’d buy a ticket to see? Or maybe a smaller lyrical fic that could totally be an art house short film?

I was rereading Hobbsy3’s Tragedy is Not the End. I always have to make myself popcorn it’s so good! So yep, that’s my movie fic!

Dear mods, please direct me to the right list if this has been asked before!! 💚

Wei Wuxian Makes a Wish series by natcat5 (M, 119k, wangxian, major character death, underage, madoka magica au, modern w/ magic, time travel, high school au, body horror, self-harm, angst w/ bittersweet ending, time loop, mental instability, suicidal thoughts) is it cheating if it's technically based on a movie? I didn't need to know anything about what this is based on besides a quick Google but if asker is looking for something that leaves them feeling breathless with all kinds of feelings this is the first one that came to mind

💖 Echo, Murmur, Dream, Here by bluerainmist (M, 51k, wangxian, canon divergence, WWX survives, sect leader WWX, yiling wei sect au, slow burn, angst w/ happy ending, getting together, pining, love confessions, reunions, mind all the tags) I just read this and the descriptions of the armor and battlefields really felt like they would suit huge movie screens. It just had that imax vibe, ya know?

Also maybe 5 should look at the “Beautiful Writing and Good Plot” Compilation | Pt. 2 comps a lot of the fics on there feel like a movie

花无百日红; the flower that withers by yiqie (M, 29k, wangxian, Time Travel Fix-It of Sorts, Case Fic, Spells & Enchantments, Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, It's about the emotional catharsis, If you have ever laughed at WWX clowning himself for the 'no one will marry you' scene, This fic is: for you) i'm not a writer so i can't describe the feelings this fic evoked in me, but this is one of those fics that is so prettily written and if it's got a movie adaptation i would definitely watch it

In Imitation of Life by travelingneuritis (E, 70k, wangxian, modern cultivation, scifi au, android WWX, tone: neon seedy, rich people are bored and terrible, post-apocalyptoc landscape, happy ending, smut, severe major characger injury, time loss) everything this author writes is like a movie tbh

symmetry by bleuett (M, 44k, WangXian, Space, Science Fiction, Happy Ending, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Holding Hands, Blow Jobs, Hand Feeding, Cultivation in Space, Yearning, Reunions, Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Injuries, Grief/Mourning, Unconventional Time Travel, Burial Mounds) I remember reading this and getting major interstellar vibes

💖 Pentimento. by orange_crushed (E, 73k, wangxian, modern, college/university au, art conservation, museums, pining, not actually unrequited love, angst w/ happy ending, misunderstandings, smut, major character injury, hospitalization, hurt/comfort, past incarceration, forgery) this is like an A24 Sundance festival winner, author writes such incredible prose

Post Mortem by Cataclysmic_Calamity (E, 78k, wangxian, modern, Psychological Horror, friends with benefits, they're both fucked up but they love each other so much, Slow Burn Mystery, Unnegotiated Kink, Dom/sub, Anal Sex, Consensual Non-Con, Stalking, Drug Addiction, Serial Killers, in Wei Ying's desire to critique the 'final girl' trope he accidentally becomes one, Angst with a Happy Ending, meta commentary on the horror and true crime genres) A horror movie!!!! Very much on the edge of your seat.

~*~

6. Huge thanks to the mods and participants for this wonderful blog! You keep my Mark for Later list going strong.

ITMF fics where someone tries to harm WWX because of LWJ. Maybe they're obsessively in love with him and want to get rid of the competition, or maybe they hate him and want to hurt him in the worst way possible by hurting the one he loves most, or whatever. Bonus points if Wangxian assume that whoever seems to be coming after WWX is coming after him because he's the Yiling Laozu instead of because he's LWJs love, and so they make wrong assumptions and mistakes. Happy for similar recs also, even if it's not a perfect fit! No Jiang Cheng bashing though plz. Thanks all! @flamingwell

this body yet survives by RoseThorne (T, 50k, WIP, WangXian, No War AU, Recovery, Trauma, Dissociation, Courting Rituals, Near Death Experiences, Attempted Murder, Eventual Happy Ending, Panic Attacks, Protective Siblings, Triggers, Protective LWJ, Protective LQR, Yúnmèng Siblings Dynamics, Bad Parent YZY, POV Third Person, POV LWJ, Depression, Good Sibling JC, Good Sibling JYL)

A Soft Storm by AvoOwO (Not rated, 47k, wangxian, modern au, hurt WWX, LWJ pov, protective LWJ, not SS friendly, car accidents, hurt/comfort, heavy angst w happy ending, sexual harrasment, stalking, crying, blood & injury & gore, major character injury, college, slut shaming, insults)

Coincidence is Another Man's Fate by TriviasFolly (M, 164k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Alpha LWJ, Omega wwx, Sexual Harassment, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, WangXian play the long game, UNTIL THEY DON'T, Getting Together, fated pairs, Eventual Attempted Sexual Assult and Recovery, Modern Setting - Office, Mpreg)

~*~

7. Hi!! Does anyone know of any fics where dual cultivation classes are part of the lectures that all the young masters attend? I’d love to see them paired up to meditate, study, duel, night hunt, perhaps even take a couple of sex magic classes. In my head I am picturing something like those Harry Potter fics where students are paired due to compatible magic and they study together regardless of house division. Thank you!

turn towards the sun by Ariaste (E, 21k, WangXian, Kushiel's Legacy Fusion, The Night Court (Kushiel's Legacy), Kink Negotiation, Courtesans, Intimacy, BDSM, Consent, Wangxian's canonical fetishes, roughly Cloud Recesses-era, Extracurricular Kissing, Impact Play, Kink Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, (aka Madam Yu being canonically willing to hit WWX)) This may not be exactly what was requested but it’s definitely school and wangxian definitely “study” together:)

~*~

8. Are there any fics where Wei Wuxian purposely tries to seduce Lan Wangji? Like he wears revealing clothes, touches him more often, moans while eating...etc? Like, Wei Wuxian knows Lan Wangji likes him and is trying to make him crack by being all flirty/seductive?

puzzle pieces by Yuisaki (T, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Roommates, Fluff, Humor, Friends to Lovers, Sharing Clothes, Getting Together, Pining)

~*~

9. Hi mods! Can I ask for the next ITMF for some fics where WWX, JFM or even LQR are angry at Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren for not being careful enough during night hunts and leaving WWX alone? Something along the lines of why they didn't have a back up plan or why didn't they leave WY in Lotus Pier or somewhere else where he would be looked after while they were busy and risking something happening to him bc they didn't tell anyone where their child was if something happened to them. Doesn't really need to be bashing but definitely some abandonment issues and not WWX just being alright with what his parents did and wanting to do the same

Thanks!! @jiangclaritybell

❤️ The One-Body Problem by metisket (T, 29k, LJY & WWX, LJY & LSZ, wangxian, possession, cohabitation, Mojo’s bookmark) Lan Jingyi (very) briefly mentions how stupid it was for WWX's parents to just leave him when they went off night hunting

~*~

10. Hii!! I hope you guys are well <3

I have a request for the next itmf, i recently read a fic where wwx is adopted by hua lian, so I was wondering if you had more fics in the same category?? The fic i read was the hearth series by eccentrick!!

Thank you in advance ❤️❤️

there's a whole tag Huā Chéng & Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú) Adopt Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn for that, but in specific

Hua Xianle by Tiffany_Guinne (Not rated, 170k, hualian, wangxian, TGCF, canon divergence, not Jiang friendly, madam lan lives, WWX adopted by hualian, WWX with different name, overprotective hualian, hurt WWX, WIP)

Narrative of Strength by MeltedIceAngel (T, 61k, WIP, WangXian, HuaLian, Canon Divergence, Adopt WWX, Found Family, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective XL, Protective HC, Adoption, Kidnapping, Attempted Kidnapping, Serious Injuries, Angst with a Happy Ending, TGCF)

~*~

11. Hello, for the next In the mood for, do you have any wangxian fan fic recs of novel canon divergence/fix it that do not feature yunmeng bros reconciliation? Thank you so much in advance!

Lay my body down by tawaen (M, 48k, WWX & WQ, WWX & WN, wangxian, WWX & JYL, canon divergence, time travel, rogue cultivator WWX, no golden core transfer, not cultivation world friendly, not JC friendly, OCs) WWX travels back in time & goes fuck the cultivation world & JC in particular

The Core Issue by Hauntcats (T, 21k, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Canon Divergence) WWX rebuilds his core while living in the Burial Mounds, JC loses his & is pissed about it

~*~

12. Can you recommend me Darkji fanfic and an oblivious weiying or a dark dark lanzhan where there's an abuse and manipulation included I don't mind🫶🏻

Obelus by Celestios (Not rated, 167k, wangxian, rape/non-con, non-con elements, NO rape, Non-Consensual Spanking, Non-Consensual Punishments, Spanking, Punishments, Dubious Morality, Dubious Consent, physical discipline, Physical Abuse, Toxic Relationships, Abusive Relationship, Kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, mention of violence, mention of drugs, Mention of alcohol, Possessive Behavior, Obsessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships, dark LWJ, Baker WWX, Bodyguard WN, Mentions of weapons, Gun mentions, Slow Burn, Long, Doctor WQ, Self Medicating, WWX has ADHD, Trauma Bonding, Psychological Manipulation, Gaslighting, Organized Crime, underground crime, Underground business, illegal business)

3-in-1 Shampoo/Conditioner/Bodywash - the Real Gateway Drug by Anonymous (E, 22k, WIP, WangXian, one sided wangxian (but for how long?), sketchy as fuck LWJ, does this count as dark! LWJ, implied bi WWX, modern au - no cultivation, Piss Marking, Come Marking, cum in food, brief cameo of food fucking, piss in food, Exhibitionism, Sloppy Seconds, Alcoholism, mention piss drinking, No Sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, sexually charged assisted pissing, accidental hold, Omorashi, freak4freak, emotional manipulation/subdrop of sorts, co-pissing, panty huffing, Degradation, dubcon blowjob, FaceFucking, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, pissing on someone who's passed out drunk, Spanking, Verbal Humiliation, Mutual Masturbation, jerking off walkthrough (with commentary), threats of edging, mutual CNC fantasies, Unreliable Narrator, I gave LWJ the LBH sized cock he deserves, Bathing, pissing in fleshlight) 3-in-1 shampoo/conditioner/bodywash - the real gateway drug for itfm 12. It’s more extremely dubious consent than actual abuse, but there is definitely a bit of gaslighting.

Kinkotber Day 4: A Shift in Perspective by Anonymous (E, 2k, WangXian, Stockholm Syndrome, Rape/Non-con Elements, there's no violence but he certainly doesn't ask for concent, Dark LWJ, Oblivious WWX, Cockwarming, Exhibitionism, bimboification (kind of), collaring (at the end), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, PWP, Almost No Dialogue) as the tags say - no actual violence but deffo non/dubcon elements

~*~

13. Hello, do you know any modern or canon au wx fics where wangxian never interacted when they were kids/students but lwj still had a quiet crush on wwx?

and having a marvelous time by varnes (E, 108k, WangXian, Yúnmèng Siblings, Sound of Music AU, (i know!!! i know. stay with me on this.), Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Family Feels, spies to lovers???, Protective Siblings, Sometimes You Just Want Your Dads To Admit They’re Your Dads, Angst with a Happy Ending)

~*~

14. this might be a weirdly specific request for itmf, but I was wondering if you know of any fics where, either through reincarnation or time travel what have you, Lan Sizhui/Wen Yuan raises Wei Ying or Lan Zhan as his child(ren)?

~*~

15. For the next ITMF, can you recommend fic where characters OTHER than wangxian take ownership of their actions prior to wwx's death? (e.g. abandoning wwx/wen civilians to their fate, the mass slaughter of innocents, stealing & profiting off his work while slandering him, etc). I'm not interested in fics where this ownership has a caveat ("it was bad, but wwx was equally bad or worse" - these are fine but it's just not what I want to read.) Thanks! @balleyboley

~*~

16. Anything with wwx with low self-steem????

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 88k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Soulmates, Self-Esteem Issues, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, Handfasting, Panic Attacks, Getting Together, First Time, Aftercare, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Scars, Chronic Pain, Golden Core Reveal, First Time, Switching, sex-related injury, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, LSZ is a Wèi, Good Sibling JC, Dissociation, Burial Mounds Settlement Days)

Welcome to the Family Series by jiejieaini (E, 237k, WangXian, Modern, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, Angst, Explicit Sex)

❤️ The One-Body Problem by metisket (T, 29k, LJY & WWX, LJY & LSZ, wangxian, possession, cohabitation, Mojo’s bookmark) (link in #9) Seeing the “low self esteem” ask in ITMF made me go: any fic ever? If you want a funny response to it, metisket’s One Body Problem has Jingyi. Enough said.

Don't Leave Me by TrippinOnSkies (E, 19k, WangXian, Modern AU, Marriage Proposal, Mental Breakdown, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Panic Attacks, But they are very mild, Overthinking, Good Sibling JC, Break Up, Gentle Sex, Gentle Kissing, Idiots in Love, Pining, Misunderstandings, Oblivious WWX, LWJ Has Feelings, LWJ is Whipped, Getting Together, NHS & WWX Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy EndingInsecure WWX, WWX Has Issues, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, Sad WWX, WWX is Bad at Communicating)

could you find a way to let me down slowly, if you're leaving baby let me down slowly by ravenditefairylights (M, 36k, WangXian, XuanLi, Past MingXian, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal, Implied/Referenced Sex, Miscommunication, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Dynamics, Hurt WWX, Mutual Pining, Unreliable Narrator, Self-Esteem Issues, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Feels, Protective Siblings, Trauma, Slightly dubious consent, courtesy of drunk sex, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Phoenix Mountain, Chronic Pain, Getting Together, Fix-It of Sorts, One Braincell Trio, PTSD)

See Me, Feel Me (Listening to You) by Ghost_Honey (T, 29k, WangXian, POV WWX, WWX Needs a Hug, WWX's Abyssmal Self-Esteem, Emotional Healing, Angst, The Juniors love their Senior Wei, Curses, WWX is an Unreliable Narrator, JC & WWX Reconciliation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling)

pastel by antebunny (G, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Soulmates, Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Self-Esteem Issues, Misunderstandings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Unrequited Love, but not actually)

to be loved by wqngji (G, 1k, WangXian, Insecure WWX, Petty LWJ, JC is So Done, Domestic Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Doubt, Hugs, Hurt WWX)

leading tone by silencemostofall (G, 32k, WangXian, Modern AU, Soulmates, with a lil twist, Eventual Happy Ending, it will not look like it until the very end but I promise there's a happy ending, lesbian wq rights, Music, Orchestra, platonic and romantic pining, wwx's serious self-worth issues, [Podfic] Leading Tone by silencemostofall by Beria1021)

~*~

17. Is there a fic in which yiling people are protective of wei ying and wants him to come back

End Racism in the OTW | The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou (E, 66k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Blood, Respiratory Illness, Major Illness, Fever, Grief/Mourning, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hunger and food scarcity, Surgery, Fix-It of Sorts) it’s mentioned briefly, I believe

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder #long post

164 notes · View notes

roopnavarro · 13 days

Text

Spotting Misogyny in the Mad Max Fandom: A Handy Guide

What IS Misogyny

Pull up any Mad Max Facebook group, the comments section on the official Furiosa marketing posts, or the comments section on any Furiosa video on YouTube. You'll find whiners screeching things like "boohoo we can't even have Max in Mad Max BECAUSE OF WOKE." You'll see them blaming the movie's modest box office returns on the fact that the movie has an "ICKY GIRL PROTAGONIST WITH COOTIES." If you get really unlucky when seeing misogynistic content, you might even find some really gross dirty AI deepfake pics of ATJ or Charlize as Furiosa.

What is NOT Misogyny

An artist drew some characters that aren't Furiosa. AND/OR The fandom likes some male characters from Furiosa. If you feel the need to consider this misogyny, consider the following points: 1. Waffles vs. pancakes. If someone says "I love waffles!" it's absurd to read into that message and assume it carries the hidden meaning of "I hate pancakes!" If someone draws some male characters from "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," it's equally absurd to assume they're doing this as a malicious and misogynistic act against Furiosa. ALSO If you think "No Furiosa in this pic = misogyny," then do you think "No Big Jilly, Fang, or other POC character in fan art = racist"? I'm guessing no. Because that would be silly. And probably because you're just morally grandstanding and slinging bad-faith accusations as a way to justify your temper tantrum about not getting free content of your blorbo. ----- 2. Everyone making fan art for "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" is someone who saw the movie and was passionate about it, despite it being an under-marketed movie that didn't strike gold at the box office. Most of us didn't have any IRL friends that saw the movie. For those of us who followed the hype (or lack thereof) leading up to the film, there was a bunch of backlash from actual misogynists over the film just straight-up existing. (Like all those manbaby whiners on the gamergate grifter side of YouTube) . And it's not like the fandom is riding a cultural tidal wave — the people making fan art are genuinely expressing their love for the film and its universe. We're not farming internet points or drawing these "popular male characters" for some nefarious purpose. Some people just happen to attach to different characters. Does that bother you? Learn to blacklist tags. ----- 3. If you wanna go fight misogyny in the MM fandom, go over to Facebook and Reddit and get into an internet slapfight with one of the many middle-aged neckbeards screaming shit like "MAD MAX HAS GONE WOKE REEEEEEE." But nah, it's probably easier to send shitty anon asks to artists, isn't it? What do you think you're doing? Do you think you're owed an apology because someone made high-effort fan art, but without your blorbo? Do you think you're creating some kind of positive change in the world or the fandom by whinging anonymously in the ask box of an artist? ----- 4. There's plenty of content of Furiosa (the character.) Aside from there being, y'know, a whole damn movie dedicated to her, she was pretty much Tumblr's darling from 2015-2016, and remains a popular character for art and fic. Yay! That's great! Go feast on those! Every artist in this fandom is not obligated to feed you. We all have our fixations. And if you want that content so damn badly, make it yourself or pay someone to. ----- 4. Also, if you feel the need to go through someone's blog to see if they've reblogged enough Furiosa to pass your litmus test, you're being a weirdo. Stop it. Get some help. What are you, a cop? Do you think you can just pull random artists over and go through their reblogs to determine their "guilt" or "innocence," with regards to your accusations? It's as if you're a highway patrol officer checking out someone's history of traffic violations when determining whether to issue them a speeding ticket.

-----

So there you have it. TL;DR, it's some deeply terminally online clown behavior to attach moral weight to how many ATJ gifs and Furiosa drawings someone has on their blogs. Quit slinging bad-faith assumptions at fellow members of the fandom.

#mad max #furiosa #what a thing to wake up to on my dash

21 notes · View notes

alexiswritingstuff · 1 year

Text

Saved by the unexpected.

Pairing: Frank Castle x teen! reader (Gender Neutral)

Other appearances: Micro, aka David Lieberman.

Summary: Your run to the grocery store goes sideways on the way back home that leads you to being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and with a fresh gunshot wound. Upon waking up you find yourself somewhere unknown with people you had never seen... Or so you thought.

Warnings: gun fights, murder, gun shot wound, mentions of other injuries like cuts and bruises, implied parent loss.

Be aware of possible spelling mistakes or sentences that are worded wrong. I read over my writing before posting but stuff still manages to slip under my radar!

A/n: Bro I really am bad at creating titles for fics. Anyway, I watched The Punisher a few months ago, and previously finished DareDevil, and I wasn’t able to stop thinking about a certain Mr. Castle. That man in general already activated my daddy issues and then I watched season 2, and... Yeah, that was a lot, but this is what my brain created!

Like I say whenever I write for new characters, because this is my first attempt, the way portray them and the characteristics may not be a 100% accurate, so bear with me while I find my footing.

Either way, I hope you enjoy reading!

It was supposed to be a morning like any other. One that started with a bright sky and chirping birds before slowly melding into the warm afternoon.

You had just done the weekly shop, collecting everyday items, things that would give the most important nutrients, with basically the same amount in snacks and drinks.

I mean, what else could they mean by a balanced diet?

The main route you would usually take had been closed off by the time you had finished with the store, the road cracked from something unknown, meaning that you had to take a detour.

It was one that you had walked through many times before, leading you almost directly towards where your trailer was stationed without having to wind round block after block of apartments.

So, the decision to choose it was simple.

You took off down the pathway between two very large buildings that almost looked as if they could reach the sky from your angle.

This part was more commonly known as the run down area. The complexes on either side of you were empty. Most had the windows boarded up, due to the lack of repair, and the walls themselves were stained from a plethora of things.

Some parts even looked about ready to fully crack and crumble.

It was a lot harder to get funding for these buildings the further they got from the main street. The only people even coming here were probably residents from some that managed to become apartments. But the rest was pretty much just abandoned property.

You had moved under an overhang section created by the walkway above, connecting the two opposing buildings. It honestly sort of felt like a tunnel due to its width, but definitely not by length as you were quickly welcomed by the next area.

To the left, behind a wall that separated a descending pathway from the ground levelled with your own feet, was a car park.

The size of it would give the implication that there was a mass of vehicles coming in and out during the week, easy access for people working in the surrounding buildings.

Though now, it was always empty.

… Or it was supposed to be.

In the furthest corner was this very specific looking handful of cars; big and black, almost blocky in structure. A sight that should have been acknowledged as the first sign. Your first warning.

But not fast enough.

Out of nowhere, there was this echo that felt like it drilled through your ear drums. It was a violent sound, one that rung for almost a full minute through the complex to your left.

It wasn’t something you really questioned off the bat, somehow. I mean, the building was old.

It could’ve been a loose panel finally deciding to break free from the ceiling, or a cracked wall weighing in on itself. Maybe even someone trying to fix up the damn building.

In fairness, those assumptions weren’t exactly bad...

They were just the wrong ones.

The sounds repeated, and whatever it was reverberated from the broken windows in a way that properly allowed it to be heard in its entirety. It was closer this time, more full. “What the...”

It was a series of bassy pops, collectively almost imitating the blast of fireworks, but within the sounds were these clinks like something was falling on the floor right after.

And though it was a very muffled detail, that took a moment for your brain to register, it didn’t stop the cogs from making their final turn.

“Oh, shit.”

Within the same moment that you had made the decision to practically slide to the side, trying not to completely slam into the wall that you ended up behind, the doors of the building burst open with such force that it echoed.

There was a chorus of yelling, even more shots, and heavy boots that practically skidded against the concrete as they moved. Like you had just stumbled across a damn army.

You were sat on the ground, one leg stretched out from your hurried movements while the other was still bent at the knee, ready to move if necessary. The backpack was still strapped around your shoulders meaning that the further you tried to press against the brick wall, the more certain items began to stab into your back.

Your heart was hammering, chest heaving, as you continuously looked up and down the path you sat on.

It was the only thing you could see. Everything was happening on the other side of the wall, so pretty much all you could do was just sit and listen for the people that might decide to come your way.

You fought the urge to cry out when bullets skimmed the top of the wall, causing little clumps of rubble and dust to hit the top of your head. “Why me, why me, why me!” you hissed through a whisper, trying to ruffle the stuff out of your hair.

Hurried shouts were passing back and forth across the huge car park like a game of tennis, though it seemed that due to the other sounds that followed, and the panicked state of your mind, all of them were unintelligible. It sounded like they were coming from everywhere.

The multiple objects in your bag had started to make your spine ache so, at the same time as yet another shot, you leaned forward. Quick enough that the sound of items unsquashing themselves would ring at the same time as the bullet.

You reached back, making sure that your bag wasn’t going to hit any surface, and then took it off one arm at a time before the bag was finally placed in front of you.

Your fingers immediately unzipped it to begin the search. You wanted some kind of weapon, or if not that then at least some form of protection... But you had in fact just gone shopping.

I doubt a banana would be useful in a gun fight.

So, you moved onto the pockets that sat on either side of the bag. A huff of air passed through your lips while your hand shuffled through the left pocket. You felt around, following the lining of stitches for at least something, but the most found was a wrapper from some candy or gum.

So, it was on to the next.

This time, to do the same routine, was a bit more difficult as this pocket was where you kept your water bottle. A more careful process as you started to comb through the compartment.

And then, finally, you felt something.

In that moment it was hard to tell what it was. It felt long enough to at least administer some form of damage, or maybe only threaten someone from a distance, so your stressed mind just chose it. You began pulling your hand out.

But, despite what you wanted, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Right as the item had been tugged vertically, an attempt to make it easier to pull it out, the movement had caused the bone of your wrist to hit into the bottle.

Ordinarily, it was something that you wouldn’t think twice about. You were just trying to get an item out of a pocket, surely you could do that without something bad happening...

However, half of whatever you were trying to grab had been stuck under the bottle in a way that already had it tilting. And then the impact landed. Your wrist hit near the top of the bottle and that was all it needed.

It started to tip out of the pocket.

A sharp breath sucked into your lungs at the feeling, but with no ability to catch it in time, the metal cylinder simply fell to the floor from a very unfortunate height for you.

In fact, even after the sound echoed in a way that most definitely had already blown your cover, the world seemed to have other plans for you as after yet another bounce and a few more smaller ones, it was starting to roll.

You leaned to the side as fast as you could, reaching your arm out to its full extent with your hand wide open. But it was like trying to catch a fly, and soon, it just rolled right passed your fingers, moving even faster the more the water sloshed inside of it.

The only thing you could do was watch in utter horror as the bottle travelled right passed the edge of a wall for the whole world to see.

And eventually, about halfway through the path, it ran into a rock or a crack in the ground. The bottle bounced about one more time before it finally stalled. Though, at this point it didn’t really matter.

The shots had placated a bit, the only ones being fired sounding farther away, as murmurs of confusion had dispersed through men on the other side of the wall.

“What was that?

“Did you hear that?

“Where did that come from?”

Your eyes squeezed shut, teeth biting into the skin of your bottom lip as your body just purely froze no matter how much your brain was telling you to make a run for it.

“Okay, okay, all of you keep moving! Spread out more while I check it out. We’re not alone out here!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Okay, sir!”

However many people were on the other side of the wall scattered within the next beat of your heart. More shots and shouts began to ring out with the same loudness, now joined by the heavy smacking of boots as they moved further away...

But a pair of footsteps still remained.

Now, your heart was purely thumping in your ears. It was by far the most prominent thing you could hear in that moment, though the sound of those harsh shoes kicking up stones without care was an active competitor.

Especially when they started getting louder.

Your eyes flicked to the open backpack in front of you, an ache beginning to pulse through your forehead while you stared at the contents.

There was this sort of desperation, and almost disappointment, that built in your system at the thought of losing the freshly bought items. Though, what was the point in trying to save the food if you wouldn’t be alive to eat it.

Within the next second, and after a very deep breath, you propped your hands firmly against the path below on either side of your body. You pushed your strength into the unstretched leg until it was folded under you.

By now you looked like some kind of runner getting ready to do race, and honestly it was pretty much how you felt. The thought was the only thing suppressing the panic active in your chest, so you indulged.

There was this internal count down as you moved your other leg behind, even if there wasn’t that much space to do so. And then the timer went off.

You were about to push yourself onto your feet. About to get up, adopt a sort of hunched over posture so that no part of your body could peak over the wall, and run like hell.

But again. It wasn’t going to be that easy.

A movement was caught from the corner of your eye.

You had barely even started carrying out your wanted movements when a man suddenly appeared right round the corner of the wall, slow and intense.

He was pretty decked out from what your panicked mind could comprehend. There were a multitude of weapons that clung to his belt, and he was in fact holding this massive gun.

Initially, his focus was on your bottle. The barrel of the gun was pointed directly at the object of confusion, as it didn’t really look like the standard water bottle from afar, his finger hovering over the trigger. Ready to fire at any moment.

At this point you had resumed this sort of weird crouched position, stuck between wanting to stand up and staying frozen to the ground as if you could just meld into it.

Either way, it was the kind of stance that didn’t provide a sense of balance. And soon, despite how much the dread utterly pooled at the bottom of your stomach like it did on a rollercoaster, you fell. Right on your ass.

The gun, that you had pretty much only seen in movies or on the news, was pointed right in your direction before you could even blink.

You attempted to crawl backwards, winding round your backpack, eyes wide and fully open as they trained on the man who in turn had started to follow your movements. And then you stopped, knowing full and well what was coming even if you got to your feet.

Your breathing was erratic, arms moving stiff and slow as you raised them above your head with your palms open, facing the man who made no implications that he was going to put that gun down.

“Listen,” You gulped, “I didn’t see anything, I swear-- Look, there. My bag is there-- Take it. Take anything.”

“Anything you want.”

It was no use. No matter what way the words tumbled from your mouth, that finger never tried to move away from that trigger.

You closed your eyes, feeling the way your body heaved with every breath, the way your hands shook. Your ears listened out for the wind, the wildlife that had most definitely moved on from here already, or just something that wasn’t from guns.

But then a shot rung out. Right in front of you.

It was an indistinctive reaction when your body jolted at the sound as it echoed through the large area and pinged within the windows of the abandoned buildings. You had almost fallen, your arms springing down even if you thought there was no time to protect...

You could still move?

Your eyes snapped open, the ability to take in full breaths yet to come, and you looked down at yourself. You tried to scan across what you could see of your body, that was somehow still alive, and leant on a hand to further support yourself.

However, just as your brain attempted to register a lack of a gunshot wound, the sound of something hitting the ground stopped your investigation.

Your head sort of bobbed for a moment, the want to continue your search fierce in your veins, before your gaze finally tore away.

The man before you had tumbled to his knees. His hands were moving around for a few seconds, desperately trying to grab a part of his chest as if in disbelief of what just happened.

And then another shot fired.

Like before, your body had jolted in response, still having no idea which gun it was coming from.

However, when a particular part of you scrunched, the shock in your system decided to completely drain, your pain receptors activated in a way that you weren’t at all ready for.

It was hard to pin point exactly where the feeling had originated as it spread like a wildfire, but it was intense enough that the arm you were leant against almost buckled within seconds.

Sharp burning. A sensation that made it feel like you had been bitten by thousands of fire ants over and over again.

Or, when you finally managed to get yourself to look down again, it was because you had in fact gotten shot. “Oh...”

He got you.

“Oh, shit.”

There was this hurried voice that bounced through the walls. Your head attempted to snap up like it had previously done, but this time it was just unsteady. Almost like it was moving in points.

By the next blink, that practically didn’t even feel like one, another man had made his way round the corner. He also had a gun raised... but, it seemed different.

His general stance, the way he carried the weapon, the expression on his face even if you could only see half of it. It was clear that he had a lot more experience than the last guy.

They weren’t from the same group.

The man lowered himself onto one knee beside the body, head still raised cautiously to make sure to keep full awareness of his surroundings while he searched over any pockets he could see.

And then he stilled.

You didn’t have to move, or even make a sound, for this guy to spot you.

Within about a millisecond the man had the gun right back in his hands in a way that had you immediately raising your own despite the pins and needles that ached through your muscles.

The world around you was starting to spin, making it more difficult to pay attention to the mans movements. “Don’t... Don’t kill.” Your lips were heavy, the ability to even part them becoming some kind of workout.

And then, like someone just flicked a switch, it was like all the strength and power in your body decided to dissipate at once.

For the second time now, you fell. Though, in this instance, it was your back that collided with ground in a way that had your head smacking into the concrete path right afterwards.

Every inch of your skin felt hot, yet cold at the same time. You were trying to move, wanting nothing more than to get back up and go home. Just curl up in bed and forget this ever happened.

But the ability to even budge a limb had faded from your brain until you couldn’t even feel if your arms were lifted in the air or not.

So, you just laid there, eyes staring blankly up at the sky while your eyelids acted like they had forgotten their main function. “Hey!”

And right before you gave into that nagging want for them to close, something blocked whatever view you had left, “Kid? Hey, kid, are you... Oh, no-- Kid, can you hear me?”

You could feel hands on your arms, and soon, one had pressed onto the wound in a way that urged a gurgling sound from your throat.

“Kid!”

~~~

It took your brain a significant amount of time to realise that you had awoken when the time eventually came.

The sensations within your body were either mild or piercingly intense. There was no in between.

Every muscle in your face was rigid, aching in a way that made the want to move diminish within seconds. You were trying to blink, your eyelids remaining heavy and ignorant no matter how many attempts were made.

It hurt to breathe. Any movement within your torso would stretch the skin closest to your armpit and immediately sent a crackle of fire spreading through it like a shock of electricity.

Your muscles flinched, almost spasming, as you slowly reached back, trying to grip onto some part of whatever lay beneath you so that you could push yourself up.

There was no attention aimed at any sound that spilt through your lips and it was only when a harsh pain erupted, engulfing your shoulder, that you had realised how loudly a sort of strained yelp had burst from your throat.

You fell back onto the pillow, the agony in your body burning so hot that it had you light headed.

If it wasn’t for your current state the sudden echo of quick footsteps would’ve registered a lot faster through your ears, and in your mind.

There was words passing across the air, some may have been aimed at you for a response, but this was the first time you had fully managed to open your eyes since you had actually woken up.

Your head slowly turned as voices continued to echo, muffled no matter how many times it rung in your ears, until your right cheek met with the pillowcase. Your eyes cast through a metal wall, more so the frame of one, which looked as if it previously had some sort of murky glass within.

The place was massive.

This dim lightly spread throughout most sections as the source above couldn’t reflect on any surface due to the fact that everything around was either a form of black or a gloomy grey. The lights themselves were also the kind of ones that aimed straight down, meaning that it would only cover what was directly beneath.

“Hey.”

In the centre of the main area was this sort of ring. There was a walkway that cut through the middle so that people could get from one side to the other, and on either side were desks that followed the rim, a plethora of monitors and electronic devices cluttering the surface.

Some you hadn’t even seen before.

“Hey, uh, kid?”

Your head snapped back into its previous position in a speed that felt like it shook your brain. You squeezes your eyes shut for a good minute before they opened again.

And after blinking a few times, your vision came back into focus.

There was this dude stood to your side. He was tall, slim in width with curled mid length hair and a beard that wasn’t connected to the moustache covering his lip.

“Oh, yeah-- Must be pretty disorienting to wake up in a place like this.” The way he sounded matched almost exactly like you had guessed. It was nice. Not harsh and not too soft.

He held your gaze in such a way that made it seem as if he could see right through you, even taking a slight step back when he noticed how wide and cautious your eyes were set on him, “It might take some time for you to believe us, but I assure you that we don’t want to harm you. You’re all good... Well, I mean, apart-- apart from your injuries.”

“Generally, you’re good-- Or like... Yeah.”

Your hand lifted from where it had previously flopped and you reached it to your left shoulder, slow and steady.

Your fingers travelled lower, gliding across the exposed skin before it reached the edge of tank top arm slot. Your movements halted in the space between the end of your shoulder bone and the beginning of your chest.

Finally, you realised where the source of pain was coming from.

Somehow, the shot taken at you had landed right above your first rib. And from the uncomfortable feeling, constantly there, from what you were guessing was another bandage on your back. It had gone all the way through.

The dude that had been previously talking cleared his throat after a moment. He was sort of shifting the weight back and forth from one foot to another, unsure of what to do or say which then ended up with him looking away.

Your attention landed back on him, your arm happily moving back to lay by your side. Though, your eyebrows then furrowed, realising that the guys eyes had settled on something, and it even looked like he was asking a question.

So, after allowing yourself to give into your curiosity, you followed the direction he was looking in.

You almost jumped out of your skin.

There, leaning against the thing you could barely call a wall, to your right was a guy stood perfectly still with his arms tight across his chest.

It was that man from earlier. The one that found you. Saved you?

His eyes were already on your own which left the questioning gaze from the other dude unanswered. At first the muscles in his face were visibly tense, crinkled eyebrows, slightly narrowed gaze, jaw clenched tightly.

And then you looked at him.

In an instant it was like everything taking over his features eased. He raised his head a single time before it lowered back to where it was usually held. A greeting.

“I’ll bet your hungry, huh?”

Your attention snapped back to the other dude once again to find that there was this gentle smile pressing into his lips once your eyes met his.

The question circled round your mind for a good few seconds before it fully processed. It had you thinking, a silence falling within the little room while the hum of electricity barely caught your ears.

In all honesty hunger had been the last thing on your mind. To solve the sudden mystery was even more difficult since you couldn’t even remember the last thing that passed through your body, other than a bullet.

Though, right before you could even try to figure out the wanted response was to be, it seemed like your stomach decided to do it for you as it suddenly rumbled through the quiet.

It may have not exactly sounded like some kind of missile, but considering the building was very echoey and your lack of answer had created a pause within the people stood in the room, it was louder than any other sound at that moment. You were horrified.

The man with his arms crossed dared to huff a quiet laugh through his nose and before you could even send him a look, or give any sort of reaction for that matter, the other guy took a step back with this expression on his face.

He was practically beaming as he clasped his hands together, “Good answer.”

Your eyebrows furrowed once again, gaze now following the man as he moved round of what you now realised was a cot underneath you and out through the doorway a moment later.

You were going to attempt to continue watching him, wanting to know where he was walking despite the context clues, but after trying to look through the empty frames in the wall, the figure of the quiet dude blocked your view.

And for the first times since your initial meeting, if you could even call it that, your eyes properly took him in.

Regardless of the position of his spine from the leaned pose, his posture was sharp. Straight like he had to practice it many times. He was tall too, though a little shorter than the other guy.

The hair on his head looked like it was just growing out from being shaved, the sides a lot shorter than the top. It looked like a marine cut.

Admittedly, he could’ve done his hair that way cause he simply wanted to. But you saw him earlier.

He knew the ins and outs, every little detail, of the gun he held strong in his arms. You saw his stance, one that could more commonly only be from having to do it 24/7.

And where was the most known place where you had to stand at attention almost every day?

Any item of clothing that covered his body was full black, including the shoes and his belt, which was a drastic contrast to any skin that was exposed. It also meant that you could spot any cut or bruise he had very easily.

There was a good few on his face. Some had become scabs already, looking like they had been there for some time, while others almost looked fresh. The most noticeable appeared like it followed his cheekbone.

Your eyes immediately snapped away upon realised that you had been looking at him for so long that he had in fact noticed it. I mean, there wasn’t really anything else to occupy his mind.

You tried to shift your body against the cot, a mixture of wanting to distract yourself and a test to see how much you could move without it hurting.

But either way, it was hard to do anything without being able to properly use a side of your body.

So, ultimately, you were stuck. Trapped under a blanket which forced you to lay flat on your back, against something that you wished had the same feeling as your bed, while sounds started to echo from what you were guessing was the kitchen.

“Hey, kid.”

The voice that hit your ears was a lot gruffer than expected, gravelly enough that it almost sounded like it was hurting his throat. The way the words passed through his lips were clear, but also hushed as if he was trying not to be loud for an unknown benefit. “What were you doing out there, hmm?”

With his stance, you half expected that whatever he wanted to say was going to come out harsh. That he was going to yell and tell you off for something. But he didn’t. He was... actually concerned?

“It’s a decent walk from the store you went to.” he then added on, and now that seemed to get your attention.

Your head rolled to the side, narrowed gaze finding him with a newfound cautiousness.

The man in turn must’ve realised the suspicion his wording caused, so he simply gestured to the side with his head, “I got your bag.”

Sure enough, as you moved your lower against the pillow, it was in fact there. The first familiar thing you had seen all day was sat on the ground beside the guy. It may have had some slight rips, some of the material had even been scuffed enough that it was visible.

But it was there. Zipped up and everything.

Your favourite backpack.

Despite your distance, the bag looked plump with some of the contents clearly poking against the sides of it. All of the items were still in it. Hell, even the water bottle was back in the same side pocket you always put it in.

“We couldn’t find your name in the system,” the man spoke again, and honestly you had forgotten that he was there regardless of the fact that he stood next to where you eyes were aimed. “Did your parents know where you were?”

You looked at him within seconds of the question catching your ears and that dread from earlier began to pool at the bottom of your stomach all over again.

I mean, you should’ve expected the question at some point.

It was common for you to forget that other people could look at you and see a child, ask the whole ‘where are you parents’ when you had to buy stuff that apparently didn’t seem normal for a child to get, even if it was just household items.

You will never forget the time you tried to buy scissors.

But the question still stung. It would make all of the memories of countless things flood right back until it was fresh in your mind, creating a wave of nostalgia that you hated at this point.

Your head slowly rolled back to its previous position, your gaze now cast up at the rotting, grey ceiling while a deep breath seeped through your nose. Your body practically deflated when it went back out.

Like before, you didn’t need to say anything for the guy to understand the situation.

Obviously, from your position, you couldn’t clearly see him as anything more than a blurred blob from the corner of your eye, but he had sort of loosened his crossed arms. Was the look of loss that clear on you?

How could he even notice it that quick?

Your body almost jolted when he cleared his throat and pain shot through your shoulder that had you biting back a grunt.

“Listen, we’re not-- We’re not going to hurt you... all right?” His tone was different this time. Lighter in a way that reduced the grumble of his voice, even if it didn’t sound unpleasant. “You’ve been here for a few days so that the, uh, big guy could fix up your shoulder.”

“That’s all.”

From the feeling of his gaze aimed in your direction, you could tell that he was doing what you had done, except he was more so trying to analyse your movement no matter how miniscule.

It made you nervous enough that your mind was trying to zone in on the sounds coming from the kitchen, fiddling with the fabric of the blanket. But that just meant that a silence had started to layer.

“Can you speak?”

Your body stiffened within a matter of seconds.

At this point there was no reason for you to remain quiet. It was unclear as to why it had even been done in the first place. Was it to conceal your voice? Hide your identity?

Even then, they had already ready seen your face and might possibly have looked through your backpack. The things they’ve could’ve known about you were unknown.

Maybe it was that thing you were told as a kid that kept you holding your tongue. You know, the whole stranger danger thing? Do not interact with people that you don’t know unless absolutely necessary.

People seemed to get stuck on specific moments in the past regardless of it directly links to a moment of stress, or trauma, if you remembered correctly what that article said. Maybe that was your thing?

Your contemplative eyes flickered over the ceiling above for another moment before they finally made the decision to move, and so did your head. Once again, it rolled to the side until your right cheek touched the pillow.

You met his eyes. His gaze anything but harsh no matter how long a silence remained.

This guys wasn’t strange.

I mean, the concept of waking up in some massive building that you didn’t recognise with two other dudes that you had never met before was in fact a little, sure.

But there was no reason given beyond that as to why you should fear either of them. Be scared of them.

After all the dude talking to you had in fact saved your life.

You sniffed, that same feeling of nervousness making a comeback the longer the eye contact was held. It had you needing to look away for a few seconds before your eyes went right back. You stiffly nodded your head.

The man straightened his back against the metal, his spine probably tired of the frame digging into it. His gaze sort of narrowed for a moment. Maybe a few questions sprung into his mind? Maybe he was judging you, or needed to sneeze? Who knows.

“You just won’t.” He nodded his head once, the look in his eyes switching to something unreadable as he got the message despite the lack of words, “That’s... No. No, I get it.”

“Well, I’m Frank. Uh,” he began, dragging out the last sound for a little bit as he tried to locate something through the wall behind you, “Dude in the kitchens name is David. I usually call him Lieberman, that’s... It’s his last name-- He’s the big guy I was talking about. Dude who fixed up your arm.”

“I tried to help too, but, uh... Not exactly my field of expertise.”

You were about to figure out some kind of gesture to make in response so that you wouldn’t leave him hanging again. And had even started to move your arm.

But then that name cycled through your head once more.

Frank... Castle.

Frank Castle.

It seemed that the cogs had made their final turn once again. His face found their link to certain memories in your mind.

Holy shit.

He was the guy on the news a while back. The dude had been deemed a vigilante as he had been running around and killing bad people-- Well, it was practically only you and a few other people that thought they were the bad guys.

Either way, after that trial thing, the man that was currently stood to the side of you had supposedly died. Killed in an explosion on some kind of boat, if you remembered correctly.

I mean, it could be that you were the one who died and this was just what came after. And honestly if you were still as delirious as you were before it might have been believable, but that pulsing burning in your shoulder said otherwise.

So, it was true. He really was here in the flesh, and all in one piece.

Frank Castle was alive.

Your expression, and maybe how intensely you had been staring at him, must’ve given away your thought pattern as he sort of tilted his head when he noticed the shift in your eyes, “You know me?” This time your gaze remained unfleeting in the line of attention.

Frank didn’t seem at all worried about the realisation of his identity. In fact the only change in his expression was done to display his curiosity to the new information.

Sure, worst comes to worst, he has the upper hand at this moment and it would probably be the same at any other. He could do whatever he needs to do to make sure that you wouldn’t blab before you blinked even once.

But from his worn out state, and the way he interacted with you, it was visible that he wasn’t going to do that. He must’ve been fighting for quite some time before he had stumbled upon you.

Why the hell was he even there? Out in the open in a place like that?

Who were those other guys?

Regardless of the want to let your mind flow down that rabbit hole, you were fronted with your previous realisation as your eyes actually focused on Frank again.

You were right. Frank Castle wasn’t the bad guy.

Without paying attention to it, there seemed to be this smile that began to curl at the corners of your mouth. You moved your head began to move back to its your previous position, your eyes wanting to find the discoloured ceiling to zone out on in a way that further made you forget about your pain--

Shoes suddenly scuffed against the hard ground in a way that stilled all over your movements. Your gaze flickered to whatever had joined you in the room as apparently you had missed the approaching footstep.

It was David, the height difference between the two guys now a lot clearer as he had stopped beside the man whose arms were yet to uncross. “Can you hold this for a second?” Until now.

Frank sort of looked at the man for a moment, eyebrows furrowed again before he complied to the request. And the moment the plate had been taken into his hands, David moved as if on autopilot. “All right,”

He wound round the foot of your cot, taking back the same position he stood in when you woke up, “Gonna need to sit up so you can actually digest this shit.”

He felt a little bad when he saw the look on your face, though he remained still while you prepared yourself, starting to fidget with his hands. He didn’t want to touch you without permission, but it appeared that your eyes were already closed.

You slowly but surely moved the arm of your injured shoulder to sling across your torso, hoping the position would stop it from moving about too much. And then you braced yourself, awaiting whatever sensations were about to come.

By the time a hand had been placed on your body, your teeth were already gritted. One was placed on your back, a way to properly bring guide you into the needed position, while the other gently cupped the back of your head so that everything would move in unison.

“Deep breath.”

The pain was immediate. It was such a thing that purely seared up a side of your body. Engulfed everything in its path.

It was impossible to see from your closed eyes, but there was a reaction from the man stood to the side when a slight whine escaped your throat. He had stepped forward, looking as if he was about to reach out if he didn’t have something in one of his hands.

It was thoughtless. A movement that he had undone the moment he had realised by pressing back against the wall. But it happened nonetheless.

David was muttering stuff of assurance, many forms of sentences letting lose into the air. You couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t catch onto a singular word.

All you could think about was the pain. How stupid it was that you made the decision to take that route. How you didn’t run back the way you came after that first shot. Or how you didn’t even end up trying run until it was too late.

Your legs bent at the knees the more your torso raised, as if trying to protect it of something, which slightly kicked up your blanket and made the heels of your feet dig into the cot below. “There you go, there you go!”

It was like a ripping of a band aid.

At first, it was the stage of holding onto the edge, trying to hype yourself to get it over and done with. And then it was off. It may give a twinge of pain that lingered more than wanted, but overall the act had been complete.

“Right on, that’s you done.”

And so had yours.

The biggest breath of relief huffed out of your mouth in a way that had David wanting to lightly pat your back, but it could accidently hurt you. So, instead, he resorted to turning his attention Frank, hurriedly gesturing towards the thing he held.

The man in question seemed to shake his head as if trying stifle his amusement, though he took a step forward to hand over the plate either way.

And then, by the next time you had blinked, it was held out in your direction. You just looked at it for a moment.

It was a sandwich. One that may have been made with the most simple ingredients, and was probably the exact replica of what you would picture in your head upon hearing the name, but for some reason your whole body yearned for it.

The plate was in your hands within seconds.

David took a step back, a slight smile reappearing on his lips at the progress. He gestured to the plate you held in the same position and then towards your mouth, seeming like he couldn’t get himself to stand still, “Eat up.”

You were.

Oh, a thousand percent, you were getting ready to chow down on something, since the last time solid food had been eaten was probably the day you had gotten shot. And even then, you had no clue as to when that was.

However, right as you were about to bring the plate onto your lap, grab onto the sandwich and consume it with the upmost excitement... You paused. Stopped right in your tracks. Eating by yourself felt a little weird.

You looked back at David.

It took him a moment to realise that your eyes were on him again. But when he did, he sort of rocked on his feet. His eyebrows furrowed as he sent a look towards Frank, “What, um... Is it-- Is it bad, or something?”

There was a mixture of confusion and almost offence tugging at certain features and it had your head shaking immediately.

Within the next minute, it was almost like a game of charades as you attempted to relay the words in your mind.

The plate remained in the hand it did before. You bent your left arm at the elbow, trying to avoid any movement that would attack the area surrounding your wound, and you gestured.

The first time you pointed your index finger at him and then at the plate, but he merely blinked. So, you then did it in reverse, directing the line of attention to the plate and then him.

Frank even seemed confused as he watched with narrowed eyes, apparently unable to deduced the situation himself which still left David with nothing. “Kid, I don’t... I can’t understand what you’re trying to say, are you-- are you allergic to something?”

“Are you asking me what’s in it? If I made it, what--”

Biting back the biggest sigh of your life, and in the fastest way that you could in that moment, you restored to just holding out the whole plate towards him. Even repeated the previous gesture one final time to make your point.

“Oh,” David dragged out the sound as he began to nod. Finally, he understood, “Yeah, man, I’m boutta make my own.”

He remained for only a moment more, watching as your plate slowly lowered to your lap so that it wouldn’t drop. And then he started walking again, moving back around the edge of the cot before making his way through the doorway.

Franks eyes were already on your own by the time your head turned in his direction, as if he expected it to happen.

This time without accompanying the movement with gestures, you simply held out the plated food towards him. Franks head shook instantly, he even waved a hand, “It’s for you, kid. Need to get that strength back.”

His eyes directed towards the kitchen almost immediately after. He was either counting on David possibly making him one or waiting for him to leave the kitchen so that he could do it himself.

Thing is though, he only gave you a reason as to why you should keep the sandwich held for yourself.

He didn’t say no.

The plate was brought back to your legs, flat against your thighs, and then you began looking around. Your eyes scanned across any close surface for something that could be used as a cloth, something to wipe your hands with, but there was no luck.

You resorted to just scrubbing your palms, and more importantly your finger tips, against the cleanest clothing you had under the blanket. And then you grabbed the sandwich.

Despite what Frank thought was going to happen by the time his attention was once again redirected towards you, when the sandwich was held horizontally in your grasp, instead of bring it to your mouth and taking a bite. You began... pulling at it each side?

It started to rip.

“What are you doing?” he questioned pretty much immediately, his face and voice both riddle with confusion. And maybe even a little disturbance. But that didn’t stop your movements at all.

In fact the only time you had stopped was when the entire thing had been torn through the middle, completely halved. However, even after that, you reached for one of the parts. You took it from the plate, stuffing it into the hand of your unmoving arm.

And then you held out the plate all over again to the man with very furrowed eyebrows.

He just looked at the poorly halved sandwich for a moment, a part of it being more of the contents that the bread, and then his eyes found yours. There was an unreadable expression within them.

When he still didn’t take it, and due to the fact that your arm was starting to get tired, you redid your act of holding it out towards him.

And this time he couldn’t withhold a response.

Frank scoffed, shaking his head in the same amusement from earlier while he stared at the plate calling his name, “You’re very persistent, aren’t ya.”

Despite his point still standing, the consistent want for you to get the nutrients needed to fully recover, it was like he couldn’t say no to you. At least to your face. So. Frank took the plate.

The next few minutes were spent by the two of you choosing the perfect side of the sandwich and then going to town, chowing down on it like it was the first one either of you had ever had.

And man, that David could sure make a meal, even if it was just slapping ingredients between slices of bread.

“Damn!”

Seemed like someone else agreed with you.

“So, this is what you’ve been doing all this time, huh, Lieberman? Cookin’” Franks words were incredibly muffled despite his constant chewing, but either way the sound still echoed. A laugh soon followed while something poured, “What else would I do, man? Wasn’t just gonna do nothing.”

“Well, you can add cooking to your... I don’t know, list of talents or something.” Every time that man spoke, his head lowered right back down so that he could see the plate, taking another massive bite that you were just waiting for him to start choke on.

“Why did you... Why did you say it like that?” David's voice was more monotonous than usual, either playing fake offence or he was too preoccupied with arranging the order of his sandwich ingredients.

You took another bite, a piece of lettuce almost falling onto the blanket without you knowing. Frank turned towards the kitchen again, speaking midway through putting a part of the sandwich in his mouth, “Like what?” A plethora of crumbs fell onto the plate in a way that made your nose crinkle.

“Like... Are you lying to me? Lying isn’t very nice, Frank.”

“Nah, come on, man, I wouldn’t-- I wouldn’t say that If I didn’t mean it, you know that-- You could put these in a-- a-- a sandwich shop--”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,” David practically grumbled at this point, placing down what sounded like a butter knife on the counter before he sniffed, “That at least mean that our little friend likes it too?”

Frank turned to you, placing the little chunk of sandwich he had left onto his plate before he rubbed the fingers that touched it together.

You swallowed down your bites, the act proving to be a little harder to from the lack of eating solid food, and noted the fact that he was awaiting some form of answer to relay to David.

Your sandwich was finished by now. It wasn’t a contest but it was almost wild how fast it had been consumed. And now you sat there, wiping your hand against your trousers while attempting to get any food stuck between your teeth.

And then you cleared your throat, your nose scrunching for a second when the action ended up shaking your chest a little too much, “Y/n.”

Frank had turned his towards the kitchen moments prior. He had parted his lips, even slightly leaned back against the wall to get a proper view of the man awaiting an answer through the empty frames.

Now his head snapped in your direction, eyebrows raising more than you had even seen, “What was that?”

You may have made the ultimate decision to use your voice in the first place, however, having that gaze of his on you once again caused this overwhelming feeling to surge through your body.

Your spine had straightened, this time managing to ignore the shock of pain that hit your system, while your eyes widened just a smidge.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

The echo of David's voice had caused you to turn to where he stood in the kitchen, still busied with making another one of his masterpieces. It was something done half out of anxiousness and just wanting to distract yourself.

And then it made you think.

Surrounding you was this big, more empty than full, abandoned building. The only other people there was Frank, a man who was supposed to be dead, and David... who you presumed was also most likely to be the same due to their team up.

If they were going to kill you, or hurt you, they would have done so already.

But even then, when you woke up this morning you hadn’t been restrained or anything. There was nothing keeping you there other than the fact that they wanted to treat your wounds.

A deep breath filtered through your nose as your eyes slowly met with Franks again.

His expression was practically the same as it was before you had looked away, giving you a patience no one ever had. The gaze he held was warm. Encouraging.

Thus, you swallowed once again.

“My... name.” Your voice was hoarse from waking up not that long ago, but also from it’s lack of use. There was always this feeling in your throat as if something was stuck in it, and you coughed, the urge to squeeze your eyes shut presenting itself yet again when it shifted your shoulder.

But you composed yourself, sucking in another breath and rubbing your hands against your legs while David was still left with no answer, “It’s Y/n.”

Franks head had already been nodding before you had finished saying your set of words. He pursed his lips, finally swallowing down the bite he had previously taken.

Frank sniffed, turning his head towards the kitchen yet again. Though this time it seemed like he did so to conceal the change of his facial expression more than to get David's attention. “You hear that, Lieberman?”

Regardless of his attempts to hide his reaction, the smile was clear on his lips. Such a one that it had even reached the skin around his eyes as they started to crinkle.

He looked back at you. There was this emotion on his face that remained unchanging. It seemed like a fondness, but at the same time he almost looked... proud?

“Y/n likes it.”

#frank castle #the punisher #teen!reader #mcu #mcu x teen!reader #marvel x teen!reader #frank castle x reader #frank castle x gender neutral reader #david lieberman #micro

196 notes · View notes

lxvemaze · 1 month

Text

彡why can't i hate you?

pairing' young k x reader

genre' angst

warnings' good relationship gone bad, reminiscing about past relationship, reader is still in love with younghyun, flashbacks written in italics, based off of "i loved you" by day6

wc' 1.6k

a/n' i listened to "i loved you" at least forty times back-to-back yesterday, so i decided to write a fic about my bias based on the lyrics 🙏 is anyone gonna read this? ofc not. am i still gonna post it? yes ofc

You hated him. God, you hated him. If your mother had heard you say that, she would’ve scoffed and told you, “Hate is a strong word.” But you thought it wasn’t strong enough. Scrolling through the Google drive he had sent you on your last anniversary that was filled with all the old pictures and videos he'd taken of the two of you on his stupid vintage film camera, you could only think of all the things about him that you hated. You hated his stupid hair that you used to run your fingers through at night, his pointy nose that you used to kiss in the mornings before you left for work, his calloused hands that used to hold you with such warmth, his pretty lips that once told you that he couldn’t imagine living without you, that he would love you till the day he died. The same lips that told you he didn’t love you anymore.

“I just…can’t do this anymore.”

You stood still in the kitchen of your apartment, your hands frozen as they still held the potato you were peeling as you prepared dinner for yourself and your boyfriend of six years. It was Friday night, which meant that Younghyun had come over for dinner, as he had nearly every Friday for the past six years- barring the times he’s been on tour. When he’d arrived at your apartment, you could tell that something was off. You’d just assumed that he’d had a bad day, or was just tired. You never would have thought that he’d be telling you this. Not after you’d discussed engagement rings just last week.

“What are you trying to say? You’re just breaking up with me? Did I do something? Did I say something?”

He shook his head with his face in his hands as you rambled on, questioning what could’ve possibly made him say these things to you. He looked up at you, both of you looked a wreck, tears in your eyes and noses running.

“It’s not that. You…You didn’t do anything.”

“Then why? What happened? Why now?”He took a deep breath as he took in your disheveled state. The tears from your face had fallen onto your pretty powder blue sweater, and he fought the urge to smile at the thought that even after all the years you’d been together, all the fights you’d had, all the times you’d seen each other at your worst, you still tried to look pretty for him. But as sweet as that thought was, it still couldn’t change how he felt.

“I don’t know. I just…I don’t know how else to say it. But I just…” He took another breath to steady his shaking voice, “I just…Don’t love you anymore.”

You hated how he never gave you a reason. Even after crying and begging, he couldn’t tell you. And maybe you said some things that you shouldn’t have, maybe telling him to leave, that you never wanted to see him again was going too far. And maybe it was a lie.

After he left, you found that he’d blocked your number, your socials, everything. Just like that, he erased you from his life. You resented him for that. After he left, you went numb for a few weeks. It was like your whole world had ended, like everything had lost all its meaning. Your mom came by almost every day to check on you, and of course to tell you that she never really liked Younghyun, that she just wanted you to be happy, and you’d be better off without him anyway. You hated how she talked about him.

After a while, you decided to pick yourself up and go about life as if he never existed. You threw out all the things he’d left at your apartment over the years, including the plant he’d given you as a housewarming gift when you first moved in. You tried to forget him, forget the time you spent with him, the trips you went on, everything. It was hard when your coworkers and friends would ask about him, when your cousin asked if you were bringing him to the upcoming family reunion, when the little old lady that lived in the apartment next to yours knocked on your door to ask if he could carry her new coffee table up to her apartment.

You were doing well at forgetting his existence. It had been almost three months, and your apartment had been scrubbed clean of any trace of him, all his photos had been deleted from your camera roll. But while you were sitting on your computer in your home office, scrolling through your Google drive to try and find an old work project that you needed to reference in a new report, you came across his last anniversary present to you. You couldn’t stop yourself before you clicked on it. Looking through all the old photos and videos of the past six years, you felt nothing but resentment as you saw his smiling face in the thumbnails.

You must have been scrolling for at least half an hour before you stopped at a certain video, the thumbnail bringing up a particularly harsh memory. You hesitantly clicked on the video, and the sound of your own laughter flooded from your speakers.

He’d really outdone himself this time. When he’d asked you a month ago what the number one place to go on your bucket list was, you immediately told him “Vienna”. You’d wanted to go ever since you were a little kid and you’d heard the BIlly Joel song of the same name coming from your dad’s record player. Little did you know that he’d take you there as a surprise for your fourth anniversary.

You giggled in glee as you looked out across the beautiful river that you’d always longed to see. You turned to see Younghyun pointing his camera at you, grinning as he observed your reaction.

“Are you filming me?”

“How could I not?” He laughed as you playfully swatted at the camera, pulling the neck of your sweater over your face so he couldn’t film it. “You’re just so beautiful, I can’t help it.”

You stilled and smiled as he reached one hand out to grab your own and drag it away from your face, the neck of your sweater falling back into place at your collarbone. He pressed your knuckles to his lips before turning the camera so the both of you were in the frame. You wrapped your arms around each other, his arm that was not holding the camera coming to rest across your shoulders. You reached one hand up to grab his hand that rested on your shoulder, while your other hand went to the back of his neck, your fingers lazily playing with the soft brown hair that you loved so much.

The two of you smiled at the camera for a moment, listening to the river lazily flowing as the sun set behind you and the crisp autumn air blew through your hair. Younghyun turned to look at you, his eyes scanning over your features, smiling lazily as you turned to meet his gaze.

“What?”

“Nothin’. I just love you.”

You grinned as you bounced on your tippy toes to leave a quick gentle kiss on the tip of his nose. “Really?”

He shifted his arm that rested across your shoulders downwards so it wrapped around your waist, his hand playing with a loose string at the bottom of your sweater. “Yeah…You know, I can’t imagine living without you.”

You blushed and buried your face into his shoulder, his hand tightening around your waist. “Younghyun, you can’t just say things like that.”

He grinned and pressed his lips to the top of your head, “It’s true, though. I’m gonna love you till the day I die.”

You pulled away briefly to look up at his face, which was smiling warmly down at you, his eyes filled with nothing but fondness as they met your own. You narrowed your eyes at him, looking up at the camera and back to him.

“...You’re not about to propose to me are you?”

He let out a laugh before bringing you in closer, pressing another kiss to the top of your head before burying his face into your hair. “No, not yet. It’s coming, though.”

You looked up at him again, the look of love on his face told you that he was telling the truth. “I’ll be waiting.”

You didn’t feel the tears that had been cascading down your cheeks until the video had ended. You hated him. You resented him. You never wanted to see him again. So why were you crying? Was it because you wasted six years of your life? Was it because you felt lied to? Why were you wasting your time crying over a man that didn’t love you? Over a relationship that was never meant to be? Why did it hurt so much?

You hated him. You hated him. You hated him.

But as your tears started falling harder and soft sobs escaped your mouth, you knew the truth. You didn’t hate him. You never hated him. You loved him. You knew deep in your heart, that you really did love him. You loved him so badly, it made you hate him all that much more. No matter how many times you tried to erase him from your memory, or how many times you tried to forget the love that he gave, or the time you spent with him, you knew you never could. Because you loved him. And deep down, you always would.

24 notes · View notes

hoxooster · 6 months

Text

On the DesBea situation:

I would've added my thoughts to the original post, but as I am not a part of their Discord server, I didn't think that that was any bit appropriate. However, I wanted to share some of my own personal experiences with her, so that y'all can see that her behavior in their server is a continuing pattern--I don't have pictures of what she said as proof, sadly, but I will explain why.

I'm also gonna slap this under a Read More. I apologize for its length, but the original callout post should be enough of an explanation as to why this post needs to be as long as it is.

And, as a quick aside, if any of you wish to completely block DesBea, NOT HARASS HER OR FEED INTO HER BEHAVIOR IN ANY WAY, be aware that her usernames are:

commence-screaming

des-paa-cee-toeee

pd3thoughts

If any of you know of any more, please tell me, and I will update this post. I don't want to be around her anymore than most people who've also interacted with her do.

About 2 years ago, I was invited to lilspacewolfie's server, Red's Ramblers, and I very quickly became a moderator there. Over time some people joined and a few left, but Ramblers remained stable through it all. DesBea joined later on into the server's lifespan, was around for awhile, said some nasty things, was given a warning (in the general), and just left without saying anything one day. After reading the screenshots in the callout post, I'm actually quite surprised by how much of a fit she threw in her efforts to make you guys apologize to her. Much like in the original post, with her gone from the server, things improved for everyone else, but the whole ordeal was rather confusing for all of us, in the aftermath.

See, DesBea was trying to be just as harmful in Ramblers, but it never really went anywhere.

Her hateful and self-pitying tendencies were the same around us as it was in their server. She really loved to talk shit about Yadoking and her writing--she would do this both in passing on random posts in the server, and while some of us were in-call when we'd play Payday 2 together as a group. It never smacked of genuine criticism for Yado's writing ability or style, as she only ever used childish language when doing it, and she would always do it right before she would try to push her own ideas and fics onto any of us who were online at the time. She was even trying to bully lilspacewolfie--which I will go more into later--over the tiniest of things. DesBea, in all of her posts, was either pushing someone else down, trying to make us all read about her rather disturbing fic ideas or headcanons, or trying to make herself look like the victim by claiming that she 'had bad experiences with abuse in the past' and that her 'PTSD was triggered over something someone in Ramblers had said' when we were trying to halt her bullshit.

It was all very aggravating to deal with, to say the least, but it also didn't have very much staying power, since most of us were just ignoring her in the server. And I do mean that, as most of the users in the Ramblers Discord server refused to interact with her posts over time, and people usually ignored her whenever she tried to insert herself into their conversations. It's probably why she left without much of a fight when lilspacewolfie posted "If you're being an asshole in this server, you better stop that shit right now" in the general chat. (That's not what she said, but y'all get the jist.)

Now, as for her bullying behavior in the server, I can't say for certain if she was targeting anyone besides lilspacewolfie (and badmouthing Yado from time to time, who wasn't even in the server), as I'm not a very outgoing or talkative individual. Despite the length of this post, I'm naturally quite taciturn, and even though I was a moderator in Ramblers, nobody in the server ever messaged me about any issues that they were having with anyone. But, I can say with accuracy that DesBea would go out of her way to harass lilspacewolfie--the creator and owner of the Red's Ramblers Discord server. Whenever she would join calls while we were playing together (but she was just watching from the server), she would only ever type in the voice chat channel, where she would wax poetic about her own fics and get rather offended that 'lilspacewolfie was intentionally ignoring her'. If we were playing a game of Payday 2 with her, DesBea would intentionally follow lilspacewolfie around as a character that she didn't particularly care for and spam callouts to scare and irritate her. And, when another user in the server was having an issue that caused them a lot of distress and made them go quiet for awhile (which had nothing to do with anyone or anything in Ramblers, when they were asked about it), DesBea tried to blame lilspacewolfie for it based on a lighthearted joke that she had made that dogged on Houston. So, not only was she trying to harass lilspacewolfie, but she was actively trying to turn others in the server against the owner of the Discord, as if she could muscle her out by making her out to be a villain.

Over a joke about a FICTIONAL character.

Because she started insinuating that lilspacewolfie had caused another user to 'go into a depressive spiral, and chased them away from the server with her insensitive comments about Houston', I got involved to shut that shit down. DesBea was always weirdly attached to me, because she had DM'd me a few times on Tumblr in the past. I can only guess that she thought that these few smatterings of messages made me her friend, and since, apparently, some people here think of me as being "Mr. John Payday", she figured that she could use me as an intimidating wall to hide behind whenever she was called out on her bullshit.

She was wrong.

After a while of still trying to get others in the server to hate lilspacewolfie for 'being mean to one of the other users in the server'--who ended up coming back once their mental health had improved, by the way--she finally left after the "Stop being a dick" post, and it took us a couple days to notice. So, all-in-all, it was a very weird and irritating experience, but, in this context, it shows a worrying trend of behavior that she ended up spreading to other servers.

Now, like I kind of glossed over earlier, I WAS a moderator in Red's Ramblers. (I ended up leaving the server last month due to personal reasons that're not germane to this situation, and I have no desire to talk about it on this forum.) As I was still a mod before I left, I took the time to delete every post and reaction made by people who were no longer in the server--this amounted to 7 people, DesBea included. So, all of her posts that I could've screencapped as evidence are gone, and even if they were still there, I wouldn't have access to them anymore, anyway. In fact, the only thing that I have left is this picture I took of my response to her whole "You're a bad person for hating Houston" spiel that she was going on and on about:

(I censored this to give some privacy to the person who DesBea tried to use as a cudgel to smack lilspacewolfie with blame for their condition at the time. Even though most people here probably won't recognize them from their in-server nickname, I didn't want to take any chances.)

But, anyway, as you have read from the callout post and these personal anecdotes that I have provided, her behavior in their server was an unsurprising, but also a very worrying trend that has effected at least 2 Discord servers and a good chunk of some of the people who were or still are in the Payday fandom.

If anything that y'all have read over these posts has angered any of y'all to the point of harassing her, PLEASE DON'T. Don't send her hate--anonymously or not. Don't engage with her. Just block her and make sure that others in the fandom are aware of her behavior, so they can avoid her if they wish to as well.

And, again, please tell me if she's operating under any usernames other than the ones I've listed. I was tired of her bullshit a long time ago, and I have no desire to entertain her further under yet another pseudonym.

#PAYDAY 2 #PD2 #PAYDAY 3 #PD3 #fandom drama #long post warning

38 notes · View notes

asirensrage · 1 year

Note

“IF THEY TOUCH YOU, ILL KILL THEM. ITS THAT SIMPLE.” FOR MY ANGEL BABY BOY DABI.

OKAY! Um...fair warning, I've only written like him having one convo so far with Sayuri in her fic. This was much longer ahahah. I don't think he is, but if he's out of character, I'm sorry lol.

Rating: Mature

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Dabi x Unnamed/Undescribed Female OC

Warnings: Violence. Arson. Stalking. Attempted murder. Threats. Obsession. Dark!fic. Unbeta'd

Notes: My first real foray into writing Dabi. At least one that I'm sharing for now lol. Please let me know what you think! I listened to Gorgeous Nightmare by Escape the Fate while I wrote this. Also, I wrote this tonight and posted it after reading it over like...once or twice. So...fair warning I guess. HEED THE WARNINGS.

It happened fast.

One moment she was buying a coffee, half dreading the night shift that awaited her at the city call centre, and the next…the windows shattered and she was being shoved back behind a counter praying that whoever was fighting wasn’t going to take down the building she was in.

The staff were hunkered down, looking unimpressed and resigned to the fate that awaited them. She peeked over the counter, hearing laughter and feeling the heat as flames seemed to flash down the street in front of them. She paused there for a moment before she shook her head. “Nope, we have to get out of here.” She looked over at the staff, “Is there a back exit? Even if they don’t knock the place down, it’s already starting to catch on fire. Let’s go.”

She doesn’t get far.

She’s not a hero, but most of the staff in the place with her are teens and the manager is nowhere in sight so she makes sure they get out first. “Just go home,” she tells them. “No point in staying here.”

They don’t need to be told twice. Still, that leaves her in an alley alone as she tries to figure out how she’s going to get home. The way she usually takes is blocked by whatever is going on. She briefly considers trying to get to the roof and see if she can jump enough of them to get her some space from the fighting.

The ground shakes and she looks towards the street. A figure in black walks into her view, she can’t make out what he says, but his voice is a bit rough and he sounds like he’s having a good time despite the destruction. He looks down the alley. Her gaze meets his. It’s enough of a warning that she takes her chance with the roof. Her quirk makes her just fast enough to avoid the blue fire that comes barrelling towards her. She doesn’t stick around to find out what happens next.

Being an operator in City Services pays well, but it’s not uncommon for people to call and act like it’s a sex hotline. Especially on the night shift. She’s had a lot of strange people over the year that she’s been here and while some are automatically flagged and blocked, some get through. It’s usually not too bad, people are just lonely. Mostly the elderly.

“Thank you for calling, how can I direct your call?”

There’s a moment of silence but occasionally there are lags in the connection so she waits.

“Yeah,” the voice says. It doesn’t sound elderly but it is a male voice and she distracts herself slightly by playing her usual game of trying to guess what they’re calling about. “There’s a villain attack. Someone set a fire.”

“What area are you calling from?” She pulls up the list of contacts for emergency services and heroes.

More silence. “You really want to know?”

She frowns slightly. “I need to know the area of concern so I can connect you to the right people.”

“And if I want to talk to you?”

She sighs. “Sir, if you have the time to flirt, then it’s not an emergency and I can direct your call to a sex line instead.”

He laughs at that. It’s weirdly familiar and the hair on the back of her neck prickles at the sound. “North of the river. If they hurry, they’ll see it.”

It’s not a lot of information, but unless someone is complaining about a neighbour or a pothole, she doesn’t usually get a lot. She sends the request through, hoping that emergency services will have received more calls to pinpoint the location. “Sir, next time there’s an emergency, call the emergency line, okay?”

“Is this not?”

“No, this is the City Services.”

“And if I’m in need of a service?”

She’s heard that line before. “Goodbye, sir.” She redirects the call to the nearest sex hotline and closes it. She sighs and tries to crack her back as she stretches. “Got my first sex call of the night,” she says, leaning to look at her coworker.

“Already?”

She shrugs. “Maybe it’s a full moon.”

He keeps calling.

Sometimes it’s to tell her of a fire, sometimes it’s something as innocuous as a broken window or streetlamp. She’s not entirely sure why he keeps calling and she’s starting to suspect that he’s causing some of the issues he calls about. She still can’t place why he sounds familiar but she ignores it. Until her coworker tells her that he’s on hold. For her.

“Why can’t you take the call?”

“He refuses,” her coworker says. “Only wants to talk to you.”

That’s a bad sign. The two of them share a look. “I’ll tell security,” they say before placing themselves on standby and leaving their desk.

It’s just her and the red flashing light signalling a call on hold. She adjusts her headset, takes a deep breath and tries to squash her nerves down before pressing it.

“City Services, how can I direct your call?”

“There you are,” his voice sounds in her ears. “You hiding from me?”

“Sir, I already told you, this is dispatch. If you want the sex line, you should know the number by now.”

“I know who I’m calling.” Fear sits heavy in her stomach at his words. He means the number. That’s all.

“Any one of my colleagues can help you. What’s the matter now?”

“Don’t want to talk to them, I want to talk to you.”

She bites back the desire to ask why. “Are you destroying more property?”

“What makes you think it’s me?” She can hear the grin in his voice.

“A wild guess,” she says dryly. “If you have nothing to report, this conversation is done.”

“I have something to report,” he cuts in. “You’ll want to hear it.” He pauses and she waits for him to continue. When he doesn’t say anything, she rolls her eyes and starts trying to connect the call to emergency services so they can trace it. “That coffee shop you like to go to is on fire. Or it will be. Want to stop it?”

Her heart stops. “What?”

“Don’t you want to play hero?”

She hangs up. As soon as she does, she knows it was a bad idea. They can’t trace anything but the call is recorded and she sends off a warning to the closest hero agency and emergency services. Her coworker arrives with security in tow. They stop at the sight of her.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I think…” she swallows tightly. “We have a problem.”

She’s put on leave.

The coffee shop is destroyed and she knows it’s because she hung up on him. City Services sent her with paid time off, compensation for the fact that she’s accumulated a stalker because of the job. It leaves her with far too much time on her hands. Too much time to think about how it all happened.

She’s nothing special. She doesn’t have a fancy or expressive quirk. Her voice isn’t cute. She works at a glorified call centre. There’s no real reason for some delinquent to want to follow her. It leaves her unsettled, even in her curiosity.

Nothing happens for a week and then two. It eases the tension and the fact that she’s started searching for a new job helps. She doesn’t think she wants to go back to City Services, no matter how well it pays.

When she puts in her notice, her friends drag her out to celebrate. She doesn’t know what the man who called her looks like and despite the fact that she hasn’t heard anything in weeks, she can’t help but look at the men in the bar. Her friends stay at her side until the night continues, the drinks keep flowing and eventually, she finds herself at the bar alone as her friends dance.

She considers going home but before she can signal to her friends that she’s leaving, someone appears next to her. She stiffens as they lean close.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Something relaxes at the sound of his voice. It’s higher than the man who would call her.

“Sure,” she says. “Excuse me.” She moves to walk away and a hand grabs her wrist.

“I gave you a compliment.”

“And?” She frowns. “Let go of me.”

“We’re just talking.”

A hand grabs his wrist and she can see it tighten and smoke. “She said let go.” The man screams, yanking his hand back and looking at the newcomer in fear. He scrambled backward, knocking others over as he runs.

She looks at the man. His hair is dark and she can make out the scars on his face. She’s not sure if he’s covered in piercings that glint in the light or if it’s something else. He grins as her eyes meet his.

“Thanks,” she says.

“You’re welcome, princess.” He leans in towards her. “Missed me?”

Her stomach drops. “No,” she shakes her head, taking a step back.

He grabs her hand before she can retreat. “Come on, I’m being nice. You want me to be mean instead?” He holds up his other hand. Blue flames flicker on his fingers and she’s suddenly pulled back to that coffee shop and alleyway. He nearly killed her.

“What–”

He doesn’t give her a chance to continue, turning for the door and pulling her to follow. She glances back at her friends. One of them notices and grabs the other but she waves them back. She knows the destruction he’s capable of. She won’t have them be a casualty.

They stop when they’re finally outside and he ushers her into the alley next to the bar. It’s not exactly clean but she’s more concerned with the man who moves her until her back is against the wall. His hand is still on her wrist but his other one cups her jaw, thumb brushing against her cheek.

“Why are you doing this?”

His eyes meet hers and for a moment she’s surprised at how blue they are, even in the dark. They weren’t piercings. There were staples on the border of clear skin and scar tissue. She could see it now. “I was always going to find you,” he tells her. “It was inevitable since the alley.”

“You almost killed me,” she shoves him back.

He grins. “Any slower and I would have. There’s not many who can outrun my fire.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t torch the innocent,” she snarls back. His grip tightens before his lips are suddenly on hers. It’s unlike any other kiss she’s had. The difference in texture between his lips is all she can focus on until he bites at her bottom lip. He takes advantage of her gasp and deepens the kiss. It’s hard and demanding and all she can think about. His hand leaves her wrist, curling around her back to press her closer to him.

“Fucking love that attitude,” he mutters against her lips. She’s not sure if she was supposed to hear it. He kisses her again.

She breaks it, pulling her mouth from his. He doesn’t stop, laying kisses against her cheek and her throat before they turn into his teeth dragging against her skin before he sucks a mark into it.

“Wait,” she says, trying to push him off. He complies, just enough to look at her. His body is still pressing hers against the wall. “I don’t understand. Why are you stalking me?”

He looks at her from under the hair that falls in his eyes. “Because you’re mine,” he says with complete confidence. It’s enough to remind her that the man in front of her is insane, no matter how well he kisses.

She shakes her head. “No, that’s not…you can’t just decide that.”

“You still haven’t realized it, have you?”

“What?”

“I’m a villain, princess.” He bends his head, lips brushing against her cheek. She wonders if he can hear the way her heart feels like it’s going to beat out of her chest. “I get what I want.”

“Is that what you did in there?” she asks, nodding back the way they came. “With the guy.” Heat flares around them and disappears just as quickly.

“I was making a point.”

“Yeah? What point is that?”

“A warning sign to everyone else. If they touch you, I’ll kill them. It’s that simple.”

He will too. He could have killed her in an alleyway and she was a bystander. It’s not like he isn’t completely focused on achieving what he wants. She learned that from how he found her at her work, how he kept calling to talk to her until she left. He must have known. Otherwise, why would he be here tonight?

“What…what does that mean for me?”

“Princess, we’re forever. I’m taking you with me.” He kisses her again, it’s almost chaste in comparison to the previous ones. “Don’t worry, I can make it worth your while.”

“I don’t get a choice?”

“Sure,” he shrugs and steps back. “You can have a choice. You can leave, go back to your friends and your empty life or you can come with me.” He presses a hand against the wall near her head. “Might not like what happens after though if you go.” Flames dance from his hand against the brick. “I’ll have to find a way to entertain myself.”

Her eyes narrow. “That’s not a choice.”

“It is, just not a fair one. Not to you.” He points at himself with his free hand. “Villain, remember?” He grins at her and pulls his hand away from the wall. “So what’s it gonna be?”

There isn’t a choice. Not one that doesn’t end in destruction and mass casualties… Fine. “I’ll go with you.”

He grins at her like he already knows what she’s thinking. “Smart choice.” He throws an arm over her shoulders and leads her out of the alley.

She can play this game if she has to. At least long enough to get him away from the city. Afterwards, well…he’s already admitted she’s faster than he expected. She’ll see if he’ll be able to keep up. She doubts it.

prompt from Obsession Prompts

taglist: @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @veetlegeuse @chickensarentcheap @residentdormouse @endless-oc-creations @stanshollaand @wordspin-shares @chrissymunson

and @burnincrown 😉

#oneshot #prompts #dabi x oc #dabi x reader #except not really #dark!fic #mha oneshot #dabi oneshot

85 notes · View notes

yuri-is-online · 1 year

Text

Cat Got Your Tongue? (MMO AU: Leona Kingscholar x Reader)

Master Post for AU: (x) please read for overview and links to other parts.

a/n: Sure Leona says he doesn't like video games but this is my blog and I choose the au. I ended up having to re-write this because the original premise wasn't working but this fits Leona's vibe a bit better. Side note, but I am thinking I'll probably write a sort of part 2 for each of these once I am finished with each of the main "routes" since there was some stuff I wanted to include in this fic but cut because it didn't flow.

notes: They/Them pronouns used for Yuu, loosely inspired by Love is Hard for Otaku and crappy otome games, Leona is a junior and Yuu is a freshman in American college years, some mild Ruggie slander? (he's hustlin and bustlin) Not a lot of gaming in this one sorry.

Sometimes Leona really hates having a functioning brain. Maybe if he had been born comatose his family would have taken time to understand him. Hell maybe he would have understood them. And maybe, maybe if he’d been a bit more stupid, a bit more happy, a bit more inspiring and a bit less morose, someone would have looked his way.

Someone. His bright green eyes settle on a desk strategically chosen in the furthest shadows of the classroom where someone sits. They’re tired, fighting against the eight am death sentence of a class to stay awake and take notes. Nose always at the grindstone with so little in the way of reward, just like always. Sometimes he wonders if they’ve ever noticed his gaze, it’s been on them for a long time creating a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he’d gladly brush off as disgust to Ruggie when pushed. Not that Ruggie ever pushed hard over something he wasn’t getting paid for and he had enough sense not to laugh at Leona to his face. They both knew it was worry. It was written all over his face and twitching through his tail, they look up to meet his heavy gaze and twitch. A smile works its way to his face involuntarily as he closes his eyes.

He is getting tired of waiting.

~~~

[FC] <Tempura Kun> I STG IM GONNA KERMIT A FELONY

[FC] <Granny Smith> fr?

[FC] <Granny Smith> where we pullin up?

[FC] <Tempura Kun> whatever hole my Algebra TA crawled out of this morning

[FC] <Granny Smith> we pullin out (´×ω×`)

[FC] <Tempura Kun> （πーπ）

[FC] <Tempura Kun> real brave

[FC] <Tempura Kun> ur such a big man

[FC] <Granny Smith> HEY

[FC] <Granny Smith> I thirst for the glory of combat not suicide

[FC] <Gloomy Samurai> whisper or get in a linkshell if you’re just going to bitch and braid each other’s hair

You smother your screams with a pillow as your discord lights up with a call from Epel, which you answer quickly enough it barely gets a chance to ring.

“Just not yer day, huh?” Epel sighs sympathetically, but you know he’s making that stupid smug face of his. “Whatcha do this time?”

“I accidentally gave Dr. Crewel some paperwork dad had me working on and when I tried to explain that to Leona, he laughed at me before I got it all out.” Epel whistles.

“Did you get the papers back?”

“Yeah.” You glare at your monitor as you settle into your desk chair. “Would have been nice to keep my dignity though.” Epel has enough sense to not to tease you more, just inviting you to a party and shooting a message to the guild to see if anyone is up for running a few dungeons while you stew in your frustrations, squishing your pillow and try to avoid reflecting on your day. Realistically speaking it wasn’t that bad. You’ve been pretty lucky in life compared to some people, as your adoptive father is so keen to remind you, he is very generous. He’s paying for you to go to a good school (that he works for so he’s actually just paying for books), he let you keep Grim when pretty much every other foster family you were placed with tried to get rid of him, and you have a pretty solid group of friends left over from highschool. But still, you like to think you have a right to complain about things, what sort of father makes his kid go through zoning laws under the guise of “father child bonding time”? And what sort of teacher’s assistant says that’s not his problem and snarks about taking off points of your actual homework?

Leona Kingscholar apparently, it’s his idea of a joke. By the day after tomorrow he’ll be back to his lazy self, slapping a half assed grade on your homework with a bunch of snarky commentary that’s surprisingly helpful when you go to amend your notes. Assuming he doesn’t hijack your table in the library to take a nap first. He’s a pain in your ass, and the worst part is you really don’t know why. Leona’s a junior, you think anyway, and outside of his job as a teacher’s assistant you don’t have any shared classes. Epel plays on the Spelldrive team, talks him up pretty much every chance he gets, so you guess he’s pretty good at that if nothing else. Maybe he’s mad at you on Epel’s behalf? He invites you to their games sometimes, but you never go because you’re too afraid of the crowds. The thought makes you huff in frustration as Rex and Snake join your party and begin bickering about what to que for; that’s between you and Epel, what’s his captain got to say about any of that? What does he want to do, show off?

[FC] <Snake Whisper> Tempura you still good to heal? Gran said you were stressed.

[FC] <Tempura Kun> I’ll stress more if I make you heal lol

[FC] <Tempura Kun> Thanks for asking <3

[FC] <Snake Whisper> σ(^○^)

[FC] <Snake Whisper> You’re good

You stretch and do your best to pop your neck.

Vivat Rex >> You shouldn’t stress about making him heal if you’re tired. It’s ok to take a break.

Tempura Kun >> lol I like heals I’ll be good promise

Tempura Kun >> ty for worrying tho <3 <3

Vivat Rex >> <3 ofc can’t have our only competent heals falling over dead

Tempura Kun >> HA i’m telling Nautilus u said that

Vivat Rex >> (^_~) punk ass bitch deserves it

The instance cuts off your reply and you settle into your chair determined to enjoy the hour and a half you set aside for yourself today before you have to go back to being an overworked unpaid student. Before you have to go back to trying to convince your friend Ruggie that you have a friend named Rex who is real and not a figment of your imagination that lives in your computer caused by dehydra- wait. Your eye twitches settling on the date and time mocking you from the lower right of your second monitor.

“Epel.”

“Hm?”

“I need you to go wall to wall or I’m gonna be late for work.”

~~~

“Finally.” Ruggie gives an exaggerated stretch as he yawns. You sigh to yourself in relief that he isn’t too upset that you’re a few minutes late, you know Ruggie’s a busy guy from the few closing shifts you’ve worked together. He’s one of the few people you feel actually respects your situation, if the side hustles he kicks your way are anything to go by anyway. You’d hate for him to think you’re ungrateful for his help. “I’m practically dead on my feet here, took you long enou-” You pause in tying your apron, unsure of why he’s staring into you so disapprovingly you almost swear he’s been replaced by Leona. Almost. His signature laugh is too unique.

“Stuff it.” You scowl and his laughter gets louder and it’s a wonder his tail doesn’t knock any of the cigarettes off the back counter shelves.

“Oh you look disgusting.” He fishes his phone out of his back pocket as he clocks out, checking it just out of your view as you try to salvage your pride and settle into your seat.

“You don’t look so hot yourself either.”

“Yeah at least I don’t look like a truck hit me and backed up to make sure it finished the job.” He looks somewhat serious for a brief second. “When was the last time you actually ate food?”

“Before I came here?”

“Instant noodles don't count.” Your silence is speaking volumes you don’t have the strength to combat and Ruggie sighs.

“I know I’m one to talk, but you should really get some rest.” His lips quirk into a grin for half a second, quick enough to have missed if you had blinked as if he remembered something amusing. “Unless you’re angling for someone to force you.”

“Like a health professional? You know the old crow will just look for a second opinion.” Ruggie lightly flicks your shoulder while he continues to focus on his phone on the way out the door.

“You mean thirty-second.” He doesn’t even look up to say goodbye. “Well I’m out! Try not to scare off the customers.” If you had to regularly interact with customers you would not have taken this shift. Epel had given you a hard time about that, something about personal safety being more important than sanity.

[FC] <Granny Smith> not what I said

[FC] <Granny Smith> u should at least have someone visit when ur alone on shift

And you did sometimes. Ace likes to drop by after practice, and Epel hadn’t said that with the intention of not showing up himself. Jack and Deuce probably would have visited even if you were on a daylight shift, not that Jack would ever admit to checking up on you outloud. But it was still very much only a sometimes thing, not that they didn’t care or worry they just had lives. Most of your time at the convenience store was spent alone scrolling through magicam on your phone, only looking up to ring up a hoard of energy drinks for whoever was just as tired as you were. Though maybe not today, Rex had tried to convince you to just call out. He always does, complaining about how he’d have to run things with Nautilus now, but he might have had a point today. The chair you and Ruggie snuck behind the counter is not remotely comfortable but you swear it feels like a cloud. You tried to focus on your magicam feed, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to care about the fan art Gloomurai posted of the First Fantasia Knight Commander. If anything it just made you sleepier, like he was personally inviting you to take a nap on his lap or something. Your eyes shut and your phone drops out of your hand. When you finally wake up you swear it has only been a minute at most but the smug look of your customer suggests otherwise.

“Morning sunshine.” Leona looks painfully out of place in this shitty college convenience store. The dingey, twitching light barely bounces off his hair and you swear his clothes have to cost more than all the electronic equipment in the place combined, maybe even more than your computer back home. An odd thought to have, he’s literally just wearing the same kind of athleisure wear you had been wearing almost twenty minutes ago while gaming, but you recognize the branding on that shirt from a rant Ruggie went on a month ago. Something about wondering why anyone would pay that much money to leave the house looking stupid in cheetah print. “Are you even listening to me?” Leona drawls, lazy and the slightest bit disappointed, he has been talking to you since you woke up you belatedly realize and completely fail to hide the fact. Leona sighs, tail thrashing in annoyance as he moves to join you behind the counter. “Whatever, just move over.” You almost fall off your chair.

“What? No no no this is an employee only zone you cannot take a nap back here.” You have no idea how Leona is expecting to fall asleep, even if you’ve tripped over him on the campus lawn before you’re sure the green has to be more comfortable than this questionably sourced tile. And yet he seems happy enough, bracing his back against the concrete wall as you turn your confusion back to the counter and notice a thermos that you don’t recognize next to you.

“That’s yours.” Your head whips back around but the fucker’s eyes are closed and he looks so incredibly unbothered your loud retort dies in your throat. He doesn’t bother to meet your piercing gaze no matter how long you stare at him, you get more of a response from the thermos when you accidentally elbow it trying to get more comfortable at the counter. It’s a nice thermos, one of those expensive insulated things that cost a ridiculous amount of money, in a bright yellow that nicely compliments the royal looking lion sticker stuck to it. There are a few other stickers, the NRC logo, a Spelldrive team logo, and a reaper job icon. The last sticker makes you smile, you’re pretty sure you linked a similar looking sticker to Rex in the guild discord a month ago, the design included a silhouette of the cowboy hat from the class armor set behind the icon just like this sticker. Exactly like this sticker, you realize as your tired eyes settle on the artist’s signature. The shop bell rings you to attention, a significantly less interesting customer enters the store and you try to shove your rising panic to the back of your mind and try to focus on doing your job.

Leona’s annoyed sigh goes completely unnoticed.

~~~

“You aren’t going to tell Crowley I slept through most of my shift right?” You have to be pushing things, Leona hates repeating himself and this is the third time you’ve asked him. Leona had insisted on staying with you until the end of your shift, you had insisted he had better ways to spend his night but admitted, when he had explicitly asked, that no you weren’t uncomfortable with his presence just didn’t want to be an inconvenience. That made him laugh, not unlike the little exchange you’d had this morning, but this time he had actually entertained your attempts at talking to him. Until the time came to leave and he offered to walk you home. Leona seeing you asleep at your shitty job was bad enough, the thought of that ramshackle house made your stomach tie up in all sorts of knots. “I know you probably don’t see it as a big deal-”

“Because it’s not.” He snorts. “Really who do you think you’re trying to impress?” You wince, Leona swings the thermos with that taunting sticker just out of view, as you huddle into yourself and he sighs stopping under a street light and turns you to face him. “No seriously, just who are you trying to impress? You’re always working to the point you’ve practically stopped being yourself. It’s annoying.”

“Well what’s it to you?” You huff and Leona doesn’t bother to immediately answer. Your eyes drift back to the sticker on his thermos.

“Maybe I like playing games with you.” His voice and face are uncharacteristically soft, but still unnervingly intense. He doesn’t bother specifying what he means, almost like he’s daring you to ask first so he can make fun of you for thinking Rex was anyone other than him this whole time. “Maybe I like Yuu enough that I want to spend just a little more time with them and not this weird zombie who doesn’t know the way back to their own house.”

“Oh please-” you roll your eyes and turn back to the road only for your retort to die in your throat. You are not, in fact, headed towards the haunted mansion. This road, this stupid street light, is next to a diner you know the college sports teams like to go to after games. Leona, gently, tugs you by the sleeve of your jacket towards the door. “Hey, I can’t afford-”

“Oh don’t misunderstand we ain’t here for you, I was just feeling a bit hungry.” The smug bastard doesn’t even pretend to hear your protests as he pushes his way into the diner and doesn’t wait to be seated. He just drags you towards the back of the diner shooting you a truly catlike smirk over his shoulder. “Of course if I have something left over, we can share. Maybe if you play nice you can get your own straw.” He spins you into the booth across from him, and despite what he literally just said shoves the plastic menu back into your hands when you try to hand it back to the clearly amused waitress.

“How long have you known I was...” You feel stupid even trying to broach the topic, there’s a pretty clear line you don’t cross when making online friends. It’s even in the guild rules, you’re pretty sure “don’t ask for anyone’s IRL info” is probably Gloomurai’s life motto. But Leona doesn’t seem to care, which you suppose is in line with what you know about Rex. His laid back attitude was what had made him the most approachable out of all your guildmates, not that you would ever have thought to apply such a description to Leona. If anything he seems confused why you’re so shy about talking, like he’s known who you are the whole time and that’s why he spent so much time pinging you in game or why he decided to spend his night keeping you company.

“Maybe I like playing games with you.” Something starts curling up in your stomach at the thought that he just might have, if Leona notices you loosening your jacket to release some steam he pretends not to notice.

“Epel mentioned he was gonna try to get you into the guild.” Well that’s news to you, looks like someone is going to get yelled at later tonight. “I didn’t expect you to be so excited about healing, but I ain’t complaining, it was cute and now I don’t have to take Naut’s shit outside of raids.” Cute. You intake a sharp breath and Leona definitely notices your nerves, clearly planning to press the point unless you can cut him off from the chase.

“W-what exactly do you have against Nautilus anyway?” With the way Leona’s face wrinkles you idly wonder if he knows who Nautilus actually is too, or if he’s just displeased that the focus is no longer on him. “He’s not bad at his role.”

“Naut pays too much attention to pointless shit. Sure he’s good but it’s not like he does world firsts or anything.” Neither does Rex but that does seem to be besides the point when he’s paying for your dinner, especially now that it’s in front of you. Diner food might not be the healthiest but Ruggie really was right about instant noodle not counting as a meal. “You know he and Snake used to bitch at each other while they were supposed to be doing callouts? Had whole ass arguments over cooking instead of calling out shackle timing. Gloom and Musclered never stopped ‘em either since it was ‘funny.’” They still do, just in discord and not while you run things. It’s hard to picture someone as professional as Nautilus doing something like that, but then again you know that Rex has known him longer. “So just in case you thought I was just being nice earlier, you are the better heals. If I could get the cards I want with just you, Epel, and Ruggie I would.” It’s disturbing how clear the picture is in your mind: your lala, Epel’s roe, and Leona’s cowboy coded catman being joined by some hyper pink catgirl in the mini game bunny suit that you can easily see Ruggie using to scam some tech worker out of his monthly salary in Pirate’s Port wiping to an EX rank trial because Leona decided his logs weren’t orange enough. It sounds like a good time, and you can’t keep yourself from blurting out:

“We should try to run something sometime anyway, it’d be fun.” And before you can retreat back into your shell, Leona smiles, smiles and burns away any sort of shyness you wanted to have over talking video games with someone as “normal” as him.

“If you can think of something just text me.” You fish out your phone and can’t even bring yourself to cringe at the time with just how happy that suggestion makes you feel.

And Ace said playing MMOs would get you zero bitches.

~~~

This was a mistake. It was hard to keep that thought from drumming away at your nerves the longer you stood in the station square; Leona had been the one to invite you out, not the other way around, so if he really ended up not liking this then that was his fault not yours. You even took into account that Leona was a lazy bitch and suggested you meet up later in the day instead, but then again… You try to resist drowning in a wave of self flagellation over the clothes you picked out as you somehow manage to sink further into the park bench you have decided to camp out on. For someone who had been so insistent they were not going out on a date when their generous adoptive father asked where they were going during such prime father child bonding hours, you felt insanely self conscious. That was normal right, people who actually went out with their friends to do stuff other than pal around the local big box store put thought into their appearance. Not that there was anything wrong with that. If this goes south you know you already confirmed you can have Jack over here in two shakes of his tail and that’s probably exactly what you would end up doing. But when Mannon posted in the guild discord about a First Fantasia themed pop up cafe that was going to be A) running for a limited time within walking distance from your house and B) giving out a code for an in game pet-

Well admittedly your first thought had been to invite Epel, but Leona had texted you almost immediately after Mannon dropped the link.

[irl catboy] ruggie said you aren’t working this saturday

[irl catboy] come with me to the stupid cafe i never know what to order at those places

With such a gentlemanly request how could you possibly refuse? And now here you were fifteen minutes early trying to keep yourself from going stir crazy, or from jumping out of your skin when an increasingly familiar deep voice whispers a sleepy “hey” into your ear.

“Seven’s Leona!” You’re half ready to hit him with your backpack but your indignation and fright are almost entirely wiped away by the sheer figure Leona cuts against the setting autumn sun. Someone, Ruggie you decide, because there’s no way Leona decided to dress up to come see you himself, forced your upperclassman into a knit black turtleneck with golden claw-like trim on the neck and rolled up cuffs. He’s kept his usual tan slacks, but the ugly woven sandals have been swapped out for a more weather appropriate pair of ugly slip ons with similar gold claws to the turtleneck. His hair’s still tied up like he’s been at spelldrive practice, not that you fully know what he looks like outside of Epel’s descriptions and your own imagination.

“What, did I scare you?” you drawls, clearly eating up the attention you’re lavishing on his appearance. Before you can collect yourself enough to stand up he leans down to cow you back into the bench. “Maybe I should scare you some more? The mousey look really suits you.”

“Oh shut up!” You huff and stand, trying your best to avoid cracking your head off of Leona’s stupidly broad frame as you both go to head towards the cafe. “Did you look up the menu online or are you just planning on winging it?”

“You really like to put effort into things don’t you?” Leona doesn’t look or sound too upset but there’s a strange wistfulness to his look you do not really like, but it’s gone before you can pick at it too much. “Nah I figured I’d just let you pick.”

“Are you sure?” You try your best not to sound excited, you swear the only thing you admire about Ruggie is his work ethic, not his grift. “I could just take advantage of you and force you to get a bunch of stuff only I’d like.” As if he’s reading your mind, Leona's green eyes twinkle with mischief you know will bite you in the ass later.

“Oh no you would never do that. I know for a fact that you are just too nice for that.” The “unlike someone else" goes unsaid as Leona decides to really double down on the gentleman act when you reach the cafe, holding the door and not even pretending to look at the menu until you prompt him.

“Do you want to get the reaper soda?” Leona shrugs.

“Does it sound like it will taste good to you?” It does but that’s sort of besides the point, you’re much more interested in the white mage one.

“I just thought you might want the coaster.” You murmur and he smiles.

“I’d lose something like that real fast, you can just keep it.” Your eyes have to pop halfway out of your head with how hard he laughs, other patrons shoot a confused look at your table as you try to resist the urge to self combust. “Let me guess, they’re worth somethin right? In that case all the more reason for you to keep em.” The look in his eyes is practically daring you to ask if he’s really sure, but knowing Leona he wants an excuse to tease so for now you swallow your insecurities and point your awkward smile up at the server who comes to take your order.

“Um can we get one reaper soda, one white mage soda…” your voice trails off and Leona pipes up with the name of a burger you don’t remember reading out to him but they apparently serve anyway with how quickly she notes it down.

“And is the check separate or together?” She sweetly asks and before you can so much as breathe Leona cuts you off.

“Bill goes to me.” You glare at him, well try to really Leona’s a hard person to stare down. “Didn’t I say you could get whatever?” Not literally, it was more implied along with the trouble that you weren’t expecting to catch up to you this quickly. His smile widens, not quite wolfishly, more like a lion staring down a particularly foolish gazelle that’s stumbled weak kneed into his territory. “Go on, tell the nice lady what else you want, she won’t bite you, that's my job.” Flames aren’t enough anymore. You need to turn into a particularly fine paste or particle dust to relive how fast your heart is beating. Luckily for you the server seems amused, letting out a good natured laugh as she shoots you a wink.

“You heard your man, what can we get for you?” You take back every judgment you have ever passed Ruggie’s way. With just how proud Leona seems like now he really is asking for it.

~~~

“You don’t really do things like this much do ya?” Leona kept his teasing to a minimum after the bite comment thank god and kept his word about letting you keep the coasters. Pretty much everything at the cafe seemed to have some sort of First Fantasia themed knick knack you were allowed if not encouraged to take back with you. Leona had offered to walk you home once you both saw how dark it was, promising that would be your only stop this time much to your relief. You weren’t sure how much more of his teasing you could take.

“I mean I’ve got Epel, but Ace, Deuce, and Jack don’t really like mmos.” You aren’t sure if it has ever actually been established if you are friends with Sebek, but unless someone teaches Malleus how to use a mouse you doubt he’s going to be logging into anything other than a literal tree anytime soon. “Sometimes Epel will send me links to merch he thinks I’d like, but he’s more into the…” You pause to try and find the words for what it is you want to say, knowing your friend will kill you if you make him look lame. “Sense of pride and accomplishment you get from beating high end content.”

“That sounds like him.” Leona says proudly. “He’s like that with anything mildly competitive. One of his better qualities, just don’t go telling him I said that. Wouldn’t want it goin to his head.” There’s no way you’ll be able to keep his mild praise a secret from Epel forever, but what Leona doesn’t know won’t hurt him too much. “But that’s not really what I was asking.” Your pace slows as Leona lapses back into silence and you wrack your brain for what he actually could have meant. “Do you like going out to cafe’s?”

“I… don’t really know.” You liked tonight. Talking to Leona, when he was awake enough to participate, was always fun. Even when you were trading jabs back and forth in class. “I used to dream about finally finding someone who I could do stuff like this with, but I kind of gave up after my last date said-” you freeze in your train of thought and walk. This had not been a date in any way shape or form. Sure, Leona played a video game with you, and sure he’s been going out of his way to talk to you in real life more regularly since he came to visit your work. But it’s not like he did that for any reason other than- “said it was just too weird. Said I was just too weird and I guess I just sort of got tired of not being able to talk about things that interested me so I gave up trying.”

“Then why not just date me?” Leona’s eyes are a really strange shade of green now that you’re staring straight into them. It’s like he’s got two neon lights shining a spotlight directly on you every time he speaks, judging and picking apart whoever he is looking at. And right now he is looking pointedly at you, making it clear this isn’t a conversation he is going to let you run from. “I told you before, didn't I? I like playing games with you. I want to spend time with you; I want to hear about your day every day, from what annoyed you to funny things you and your friends did. I want to see you happy and know I made that happen, because you make my life a happier one just by being in it. The only thing I have ever not liked about you is that you work too hard, and that’s not unfixable. You just need to let me be a bad influence on you.” It’s a confession you never really expected to receive, but somehow so very much him. It’s insulting, honest, and just a touch demanding but it reaches into that small shrunken part of your heart that you’ve been burying most of your feelings in for who knows how long now and fills it with warmth.

“Would you-” It feels like a silly question but with how intently Leona is hanging on your every word you feel a rush of power going straight to your head. “If we were going out would you stop wiping things on purpose?” He blinks, if he’s surprised by the request or shocked he got this far you don’t quite know, but he quickly recovers, moving into your space to offer his hand.

“If you ask nicely.” You gladly take the offered arm and influence, squeezing his much larger hand with a soft smile.

“Then it’s a dea-” Leona cuts you off with a kiss, swallowing your mouselike squeak along with most of your air with a speed you didn’t know he possessed.

“Don’t use that punks line.” He practically growls and you can’t hold in your happy laughter any longer. It could just be the streetlights, but you don’t think Leona looks all that mad. Quite the opposite really, not that you expect him to voice it out loud. Instead he leans in for another kiss in a gruff effort to show just how much he means what he has been trying to say all along.

I’m happiest when I am doing things with you.

*if you are curious about Leona's outfit, I based it off of Lion King clothing items in Disney Dreamlight Valley (black and gold claw shoes, tan sunny slacks, and the gray claw top for those looking for specifics)

#twisted wonderland x reader #leona kingsholar x reader #leona x yuu #leona kingscholar #twst x reader #twst au

88 notes · View notes

justallihere · 7 months

Note

AHHHHHHHHH

Before I get into my thoughts(I freaking LOVED this chapter): I hope you find this amusing. I took a post-work nap and was super excited to hopefully wake up to the new update... I then had a very strange dream involving me reading the new chapter but it took a very strange and morbid turn where a lot of people ended up dying in your fic? 💀 I was very confused 😭 bc at some point it wasn't even FW-related anymore, it just had the characters and they were all dying and then i was fighting for my life trying not to die???? I blame the mix of caffeine I had before my nap and my chronic pain. Safe to say i woke up sweating and very confused BUT i grabbed my phone and was very happy to see the notifications for the update.

Moving onto my thoughts (Alli, the way i was LITERALLY screaming throughout the entire chapter) Strap in for a LENGTHY ask. I just love you and this fic so much can you tell my parasocial relationship might be getting out of hand

Xaden woke up and was like "Where is my wife and why isn't she here and in bed with me so I can secretly cuddle and admire her beautiful face and hair 😞", man is whipped

Violet being very grouchy and uncomfortable bc she is in pain and probably didnt sleep well? Honestly so relatable bc i was like, same girlie same. I love how you continue to highlight how Violet deals with chronic pain and how people around her are stunned by how she continues to function (i.e Garrick) It's so realistic and I love it (looking at you RY, some days ppl can't just push through and put it inside a box all the damn time) Xaden is so in tune with her needs, he's frothing at the mouth for the chance to take care of her

“It’s called taking care of you. My sincerest apologies if you’re unfamiliar with the concept.” I FREAKING SCREECHED. The fact that Xaden verbalized this to Violet's face, it just shows how he is already starting to try to re-write the narrative between the two and their relationship

Even though you already gave us the snippet of the divorce convo, I still ate it up, I can't get enough of these two!!!!

Big brother Brennan coming in clutch and telling everyone that she can only stomach fruit so Violet doesn't have to do it herself!!!! wonderful detail and it shows Violet that Brennan cares and remembers. He's trying Violet!!!! But Violet still hasn't forgiven him and I am living for it. Make him suffer girlie

I am so honored that my comment has now contributed to this fic 😭. This will be my Roman Empire for a HOT second. Of course, Xaden was able to deduct that she's good with poisons, its only right 😌. I imagine this is the progression of Garrick's face during this (🤨🤯😧😳) and Brennan has the biggest internal grin 😭 I am a sucker for older siblings being proud of their baby siblings

DON'T PANIC, THE BOOK OF FABLES WAS MENTIONED. WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE REVEAL!!!!!!! Brennan is stirring the pot whether he knows it or not. I'm cackling manically for the havoc that is about to be unleashed on their poor souls.

Did Xaden want to wring Brennan's neck for talking about the wyvern? Or he is secretly happy that he didn't have to do it himself. I remember there was an ask about how in the contract Tyrrendor wasn't allowed to disclose that information to Violet?

freaking frack... Xaden taking care of Violet will always make me weak. The fact that Violet lets him???? Girlie deserves to be pampered after the absolute shit she has and will go through

“Have you ever considered that I like putting my hands on you?” Xaden asked. -- I would fold so fast, Violet is so strong 🫡. Xaden is so in tune with her nonverbal cues. She doesn't have to say a word and he's ready to be at her service. Man is down BAD for his wife and I am fully supportive of men being absolute simps for their hot wives

the fact that we get the backstory to how Xaden learned to braid and how Sloane MADE him redo it until it was good???? *chefs kiss* Of course Brennan would do Sloane's hair. He needed it as much as Sloane needed someone to do it for her. I am SOBBING. How do you keep making me feel things Alli??? I DON'T DO FEELINGS!!!!!

Deigh feels like a pseudo uncle or older brother to Andarana and I am LIVING for it. Andarana's like "Mom and dad need to bone so I'll make Deigh hang out with me" 😭

Of course, Violet comes up with a new way to implement runes. THATS MY GIRL! You are a genius for thinking that!!! (unless that's canon then please ignore me. I think I've reached a point where fanfics almost become canon for FW and I can't differentiate them rn)

"Disappointment washed over him, entirely illogical; he liked the sight of her wearing something that belonged to him." You poor soul Xaden. Its only downhill from here. Emotions are never logical smh

"For that alone, Xaden didn’t complain when he took the gloves, and Liam just grinned like he knew it." I bet Xaden would murder her brother if he wasn't important if it would ensure her laugh and smile like that

geez. if you read through all of this and still answer me, thank you 🖤🖤🖤🖤 (I'm re-reading this and realized I actually wrote an essay....) I hope you can rest up this weekend and take it easy!!!!

I also took a bomb nap before posting this chapter yesterday, I love that we were on the same page about it 🫶🏻 (also it’s not parasocial if it’s reciprocated, we’re besties now)

So many beautiful thoughts here thank you!!!!! Xaden is a simp and he and Brennan are NOT prepared for Violet to find out secrets and start demanding answers from them. They should be more scared than they are

I like to let Garrick learn some new scary fun fact about Violet every so often, it keeps him humble. He deserves to be scared of this woman half his size (and as soon as he figures out that keeping her happy means Xaden will do anything, he’ll take so much advantage of it. So will Mira when she starts spending more time with them).

Deigh has been roped into this strange little family and he’s like “okay this is fine I guess” because he respects Tairn and Sgaeyl and also likes Andarna but is a little scared of her at the same time

Honestly the runes in the book confuse the fuck out of me, I tried my best, I don’t think it’s canon but Violet strikes me as the type to have all these extravagant ideas about how to use them except she’s not good enough with them yet to do it herself so she asks Xaden who will do literally anything for her

#storm in the quiet

17 notes · View notes

liaromancewriter · 1 year

Text

Picta Problems

Premise: Cassie and Ethan clash over a Pictagram post.

Book: Open Heart (post series) Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Angsty Fluff. Format: Prose + Text & Pic Fic Words: 1,100

A/N: I started with the intent of making fluffy edits; that's it. And then this fic took a life of its own. Submission for @choiceschallenge-may2023 prompt "photographs" and @choicesjunechallenge "stories". I'm using @choicesflashfics week 35, prompt 3.

Part 1: Picta Memories

Part 2: The Backlash

Part 3: The Confrontation

Cassie Valentine was having a good day until she wasn’t. Everyone knew her to be easygoing, often with a smile on her lips, but serious about her work. Her friends and foes agreed on one thing: she had a long fuse, and it took a lot for her to lose that sunny disposition.

Of course, she wasn’t a saint, and medicine wasn’t a career for eternal optimists. But she found a way to keep her balance despite everything fate threw at her.

That’s why many people milling about on the seventh floor of Boston’s Edenbrook Hospital were surprised to see her angry expression as she furiously tapped on her cell phone. Sensing her distraction, they stayed out of her way.

But the rumors spread. Dr. Valentine was in a bad mood. Best to wait until it evened out. She might be slow to anger, but she was also quick to diffuse.

The traveling nurse assigned to that floor asked his colleagues if the young doctor might just be hangry. Perhaps a cookie could turn the tide.

“She’s partial to cupcakes,” one of them commented.

“And coffee,” another piped in, having witnessed Dr. Valentine and Dr. Ramsey returning from their daily coffee run for years.

“Could she have had a fight with Dr. Ramsey?” one recently hired nurse wondered.

The idea was so preposterous that everyone around the nurses’ station laughed. They were still wiping tears from their eyes when Ethan Ramsey stepped off the elevator and marched determinedly down the hallway to his former office.

Everyone held their breath and pretended to be busy as he paused midway to stare at them. He quirked one eyebrow, a perplexed frown forming on his lips and then he shook his head and continued walking.

Still puzzling over the bizarre behavior at the nurses’ station, Ethan absently swiped his access card on the reader outside the diagnostic team’s office and strode through the sliding glass doors.

“Any idea what’s happening outside?” he called out.

Cassie was staring at scans on the digital board and didn’t respond. Not giving it another thought, Ethan joined her and shoved his hands in his pant pockets as he stared at what appeared to be a patient’s brain. The shadows told their own story about the individual’s condition.

“Hmm,” he mused and rocked back on his heels. “See that—”

“I know how to read a scan, Ethan,” Cassie said curtly, throwing him an annoyed look. “Believe it or not, I am adult enough to do my job without anyone watching over my shoulder.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m pissed off at you!”

Taken aback by her vehemence, Ethan started to reach for her, only for Cassie to evade his touch. She walked around him and took her place behind the desk, putting physical and emotional distance between them.

“Is this about my text message earlier?” Ethan asked, mentally tracking their interactions during the day.

“Partially,” she said. “It’s about you not trusting me enough to know when to draw the line about publicizing our relationship. I barely post about you. If people didn’t already know about us, they’d think I was single. But that isn’t good enough for you, is it?”

Ethan wondered how his day had gone from breakfast in bed with his lover to her looking at him as if he was a stranger. He didn’t think their text exchange had been that serious, but clearly, Cassie disagreed.

“I already apologized,” he said, sighing deeply, unable to hide his irritation.

“Until the next time,” Cassie bit out. “I can’t be in a relationship where I’m constantly walking on eggshells. I ask for very little, Ethan, but I demand your trust in this. I’ve earned it.”

She was right, thought Ethan. She’d had enough experience with tabloids to be a fiend about her privacy. And as someone intimately familiar with her Pictagram feed, he knew his presence was an exception, not the rule.

Of all the things she could be upset about, he found it hilarious that it was over this. He admitted his first reaction was annoyance at seeing a private moment shared on social media and having her friends comment. But there hadn’t been malicious intent involved.

Like it or not, he was involved with Cassie, and she had earned his trust. Not just for this, but for all other things too.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Cassie asked suspiciously, her green eyes narrowing to slits.

Instead of answering, he walked around the desk, turned her chair and placed his hands on either side of her chair, effectively caging her. He leaned in, his blue eyes intent as they locked on hers.

“I.” He kissed her forehead. “Am.” Then the tip of her nose. “Sorry.” He brushed his lips across hers. “I overreacted. Forgive me?”

He didn’t think she’d respond, but she seemed to deflate before his eyes, losing the tightness in her body as her anger left.

“Fine,” she said somewhat graciously. “But we should set some ground rules because I’m not ashamed of our relationship. I might not want to end up on HSTea, but that doesn’t mean I want to hide away completely.”

She pushed against his arms until he moved back to let her stand.

“There are obligations to who I am, Ethan,” Cassie said, deadly serious as she crossed her arms across her chest. “If we’re going to go the distance, you need to accept that being with a Valentine comes with social responsibilities and prurient interest from strangers.”

She continued, staring at him carefully. “My family tries their best to keep the limelight away from me, but they cannot make it disappear completely. It will shine on you too, and you have to be okay with it even if you don’t like it.”

“I see,” he said cautiously for lack of anything else to say.

The shrill sound of his pager cut through the uncomfortable silence. Ethan cursed and glanced at the tiny screen.

“I have to go, but I do want to discuss this, Cassie,” he said. “Meet me for dinner tonight. We can talk without interruption.”

She nodded rigidly, and Ethan exhaled. He touched her hand, needing that connection before they went their separate ways. He took comfort when she hooked her pinky around his and smiled softly.

As he walked back to his office in the administrative wing, Ethan thought it would likely be the most important dinner of his life. But there was no decision to make. He’d already decided to fall in love with Cassie. Everything started from there.

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

All Fics & Edits: @annfg8 @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @doriopenheart @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @takemyopenheart @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @hopelessromantic1352 @mrs-ramsey

#open heart #open heart choices #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #choices open heart #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #short story #writers on tumblr #playchoices #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

72 notes · View notes

phantomskeep · 1 year

Text

Editing to add (again): This is using the bastardized wendigo from popculture. It's not using the wendigo in the context of the spirit, more in the context of the Hannibal "Ravenstag" or even Antlers' wendigo. Check the Anon link near the end of the post for more information regarding my thoughts on the subject :) I didn't mention the deer-like qualities until the tags, which I understand some people don't fully read. That's my bad, so here I am with the full context ahead of time. This is not the Algonquian version of the wendigo spirit. i really want to write a DCxDP fic where Danny gets trapped in a different form (like either true form or just gets cursed, something like that) and can't get out of it. That form? A wendigo. Somehow he ends up in the DC universe - either through already living there or Ghost Zone shenanigans.

Being a wendigo, Danny feels the need to eat flesh. Preferably human, but even in his screwed-up state he knows that's wrong of him to do. So he takes to killing the bare minimum amount of wildlife he can to sustain himself. Eventually he realizes that "oh wait, what if I just raided a store?" So he stumbles out of the woods and into the nearest grocery store after they had closed. He ends up eating enough to settle his stomach before going off to hide to wait for this whatever to wear off.

However, this catches the attention of [insert local hero]. [Insert local hero] goes to the Justice League about this - maybe this creature is a new villain's scheme? Or just a new villain? Members of the JL + Justice League Dark then go out to [insert town Danny was spotted in] to do some investigating. Batman being one of these people, plus Robin because Damian would not let Bruce go without him. A wendigo could be like a shark after all, just a big ol' puppy.

They get to [insert town here] and start cracking down. They compare the old footage to the location, tracking where the wendigo went. Finally Batman, Robin and [insert characters here] are able to get to the wendigo's den... only to find out the wendigo is a lot more ghost-like than they thought it would be.

There's a big fight because Wendigo-Brain!Danny thought these random dudes were the GIW coming for his undead ass that ends with Danny taking off. Unknowingly to Danny, Damian has grabbed onto him and is basically riding his soon-to-be pet into the sunset.

... I just want to 1) see Danny suffer and being confused 2) Damian trying to get a new dangerous pet and 3) get Damian trying to tame a feral Wendigo!Danny like any normal person would try to befriend that feral orange cat living in the dumpster.

Adding this just to cover my own butt about this haha, here's a link that contains a post which covers the research I have done on the topic of the wendigo: Anon Ask Post Here. I am not trying to culturally appropriate, offend, or harm anyone with a prompt post about Danny taking the form of a wendigo. It's a cool concept to me as I believe it is a bit ironic. The wendigo, as seen in the culture it originates from, is a symbol of greed and a harsh winter and are often a sign of cannibalism. They have hearts of ice and an "unseasonable chill might precede its approach".

I think this is ironic because 1 - Danny is a sweet little bean and being stuck with cannibalistic cravings is a Hannibal Fic trope that will forever rot in my brain + Ghost King!Danny having to eat Pariah Dark's core is a headcanon I adore, 2 - the chill preceding a wendigo's approach reminds me of Danny's ghost sense, 3 - Danny is the LEAST greedy person I can think of in the entirety of DP (even if he does have his selfish moments at the worst times ever), and 4 - wendigos possess human beings. In Native legend a wendigo is a "malevolent spirit" which possesses humans - technically if you are going to stick with the general wendigo legends then it does not have antlers, horns, or is even a beast. It's just a giant human. Which, if using the correct/original version of a wendigo, makes this 10x funnier to me, because Damian that is clearly a giant person what the fUCK ARE YOU DOING--

Anyways, long story short if you have issues with me using a wendigo for a "haha funny" prompt please DM me with any sort of articles, legends, documentaries, ect. on why using a wendigo is a Bad Thing. Like I said in the linked post, I'm always willing to learn and adjust my behavior. I just want proof that the changes I'm going to make are the correct ones to be making, as my years on the internet have ALWAYS told me to fact check anything :)

65 notes · View notes

lavendarlily · 1 year

Text

ectoberhaunt day 6: tabletop @ectoberhaunt

due rent

words: 798

relationships: pitch pearl

read it on ao3

rent is due and danny can't afford it.

(based on an instagram post - linked at end of fic!)

Danny filtered through his money again. Then again. Then a third time, just to make sure. All his cash sat in from him, and it stared back with its reluctance to budge.

Still $600 short.

He’d cut it close before in the past, but this time it was looking grim. There was a high probability Danny wouldn’t be coming out of this one. Shame gripped at him - he’d never let it get this bad before. What Danny would give for Clockwork to reverse time so he could prevent this.

“Danny, it’s okay,” Phantom comforted from across the table with a soft smile, his tone gentle. Seeing Danny like this, frustrated and anxious, was difficult for him. He noticed every time Danny’s face scrunched up in agitation and his nostrils flared, or when his fingers tapped against the tabletop as he counted again and again; Phantom could literally feel the stress rolling off his human. He knew it was in Danny’s nature to never back down from a challenge, almost to a fault. But he had to face the facts. And Phantom couldn’t help but worry if this would come between them.

Danny shook his head, only half listening, and took inventory of his non-monetary assets. There were things he could sell, but would it even be worth it? Would it be enough? Even if he made this payment, what about the next one? He placed his head in his hands. He just needed to think of a plan, he always had a plan. That’s how he and Phantom operated - he was the brains and Phantom was the brawn (not to say Phantom wasn’t smart - he absolutely was - they’d just accepted these roles in their day-to-day lives to make Danny feel better). But Phantom couldn’t help him with this.

“Danny…,” Phantom prodded again.

A glare was all he got in response. Then a sigh, and an apology. “Sorry. Just let me think.”

“Don’t stress so much about this. It’s not a big deal.”

“Easy for you to say!” Danny huffed, trying not to let his emotions take control, but it wasn’t easy. Phantom had much more patience with these things, handled obstacles with grace. Danny did not.

Phantom didn’t let Danny’s anger bother him. “Why don’t we take a five minute break? I know how you get about these things. Best to let your mind take a breather.”

Danny rubbed his temple and sighed. “This is just so embarrassing.” Losing any battle was a hard pill to swallow; he’d had his fair share of those back when he and Phantom were a single body, back when he was fighting ghosts every night. The stakes were different then, but it instilled an expectation in Danny that he was never allowed to accept defeat.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about love.”

The familiar pet name sent a tingle down Danny’s spine. He made eye contact with his partner, searching his face for any sign that Phantom’s words weren’t genuine. All he found were pure intentions. Of course he was honest, Phantom was never anything else. But Danny? He didn’t mind cheating every once in a while to get his way, and with Phantom calling him “love” like that…

An idea came to Danny.

“I don’t have enough money for rent,” he finally admitted. Phantom’s green eyes flared…

With excitement.

Before the ghost could speak, Danny added, “But…there are other assets I can use.”

He stood and reached across the table, swatting aside the Monopoly board, pieces flying every which way, letting the game hit the ground with an underwhelming thud. Fake money flitted in the air like falling leaves.

Phantom jumped from his seat. “Hey! I was about to win for the first time! Are you serious-”

The rest of Phantom’s words were lost to Danny’s mouth. The ghost momentarily forgot his anger as he moaned into his partner, the warmth of Danny’s lips bringing a similar heat to his chest. Danny had crawled onto the table where the game had previously been to reach his boyfriend, and began pulling Phantom closer, feeling up his torso, embracing him with warm hands that felt like fire against his chilled body.

Danny briefly pulled away to whisper in his lover’s ear. “Do we have a deal?”

Phantom smirked. “I think you’re still a little short,” he goaded. Danny raised his eyebrows and pulled off his t-shirt before rejoining their lips. Yeah, Danny never backed down from a challenge.

“Oh my god guys, it’s fucking Monopoly!” Sam groaned from her side of the table. “Do we have to end every game night like this?”

“Let’s leave them to it. Again,” Tucker sighed, and followed Sam out of the apartment, tossing his friends an annoyed look.

The two boys hardly noticed.

LINK TO POST

#ectoberhaunt23 #eh23 #tabletop #day 6 #fluff #pitch pearl #pitchpearl #danny phantom #lavswordvomit

43 notes · View notes

red-flagging · 5 months

Note

⭐ would love to hear any director commentary on consider the hairpin turn and/or that one post quali sewis tumblr flashfic you did this year!!

(director's commentary ask meme)

some consider the hairpin turn for you! commentary on seb's first time blowing lewis under the cut:

Vettel’s legs have barely stopped shaking before he’s shoving himself up onto his knees, almost tripping over the console as he crawls over to Lewis. “Fuck,” he breathes. “Your turn,” and then before Lewis can react, is unbuttoning Lewis’s pants and dragging them down past his hips. Lewis jerks his eyes away, but not before he sees the wet stain on his own stomach, the way his own legs are shaking; how he’s so hard that it’s poking out of the waistband of his boxers, flushed dark and heavy. one trick that i like to use for getting into a character’s headspace is to give myself somewhat arbitrary restrictions about certain words that they can’t use in their dialogue/internal narration. for this fic specifically i decided early on that i didn’t want lewis to use any explicit sexual language (cock, come, etc.) - so in the earlier scene where he’s blowing seb he never actually references any of seb’s genitals, and the closest that he gets here is describing himself as hard (which imo was like. toeing the line but i truly could not think of a different way to talk around it). i really like it as a technique because not being able to use certain words not only forces me to talk around the idea (and in doing so almost draw more attention to its purposeful absence than it would if i just wrote the word), but also pushes me to hone in on the details of what lewis’s body is actually experiencing in the moment, instead of being able to just use “he’s hard” as a shorthand for him being turned on.

Vettel’s hands are on his legs, pulling his pants down to his knees, spreading them open. There’s a hot puff of air over his skin. Lewis’s breath catches in his throat. Wait, he wants to say, to grab Vettel by the shoulders and say wait, this wasn’t supposed to happen tonight. to be clear - lewis's plan for the night was to go out and purposefully have a really bad sexual experience with a stranger, in order to essentially try to condition himself out of wanting to have sex with men. the main reason this prompt hooked me was because i remember reading it and being like “2005 lewis would NOT say that (be secure enough in this own sexuality to have sex with a mostly-random man in his car),” which then immediately made me ask – well, what would it take to make him say that? and i am quite proud of the little subversion of the usual “young lewis being too closeted to even look at a man let alone think about him sexually” storyline (although to be clear i LOVE AND CHERISH all deeply homophobic lewis stories so much lol. and have written many myself! it was just fun to challenge myself to do a different take that is antithetical to how i typically view early lewis characterization) His hands feel numb; he can’t remember how to move them–

Heat floods through him. Feeling rushes back into his body like blood, so fast it almost hurts. He barely clamps down on the sob before it slips past his teeth. Vettel’s elbow is digging into his thigh. He makes a frustrated noise, leaning harder against it as he pulls himself further forward towards Lewis, and the terrible hunger roars back, snapping at his heels and tugging him down into the pit in his stomach. lots of switching back and forth between active and passive voice in lewis’s internal narration throughout the fic to try and capture the way he’s fighting to detach from what’s happening in his body / getting pulled back into himself despite his best efforts. there’s a lot more active voice here than there was, for instance, when he was blowing seb and could make himself dissociate from what he was doing - he’s starting to lose control. The panic catches in his throat, fuzzing out his brain. He’s going to–with Vettel's mouth on him, he can’t stop it–

Lewis digs his nails into his palms, as hard as he can, until the knife-edge of pain cuts through the fog in his head. Forces himself to breathe through his nose, fast and harsh. No. He isn't. He forces his breathing to slow down. He isn’t. He’s kept it at bay for so many years already. (he has not.) He can do it tonight. (he cannot.)

Vettel’s mouth makes a wet sound. Lewis twitches, his hands jerking convulsively. He forces his attention away and up, tipping his head back and searching the inside of the car. The lining on the roof. The leather of the headrest next to his face. Five, six, seven, eight stitches in the seam. The windscreen is fogged up. He presses his fingertips against it, the cold sending a shock down his spine all the way to the soles of his feet. please imagine the titanic car sex scene but if rose was having a massive dissociative panic attack the entire time. Nineteen stitches, twenty. In the distance, a car honks. Thirty-two, thirty-three. random observations about the setting around a character my beloved. maybe my favorite narration trick of all time to get across that a character is distracted and/or trying to distract themself but also in this case, for a fic whose mood is very much driven by the setting it takes place in, a nice way to sneak in extra exposition about some tactile and sensory details that would be unreadable in large paragraph form.

“Are you even paying attention?” Vettel suddenly snaps, as he pulls off with a wet sound. [affectionately] attention-thirsty BRAT.

Lewis jerks. “What?” he croaks, clearing his throat. “I–obviously–”

“So then why aren’t you doing anything,” Vettel snaps back. “You aren’t even looking–” for the most part, this version of lewis is not particularly concerned about seb’s internal life (much like this version of seb isn’t concerned with lewis’s whole deal - they’ve never really interacted as people outside of racing at this point, remember), but i also didn’t just want seb to come off as a blank wall that only exists in-story for lewis to bounce his repression off of. imo, it’s important that seb is also working through his own stuff - not just because that makes him more interesting as a character, but also because it puts him and lewis on more even footing - for all of seb’s bravado and (imo genuine) greater comfort with his sexuality, he by no means has all his shit figured out, and the fact that he’s so in his head about wanting to be good at sex, wanting to be taken seriously and not seen as a child, wanting to be genuinely desired, etc. that he ALSO pulled the “find a stranger who will face-fuck me, a barely-legal adult, in a bathroom at a random bar” move, just like lewis, points to them not being all that different, even if at face value seb seems far less bothered by lewis about all of this.

“That's your problem, not mine,” Lewis answers. He forces his hands open, wincing at how stiff his fingers are. His breaths feel damp, like he’s just run ten kilometres or cried for an hour. The skin all over his body feels so tight that he thinks he might burst. lewis’s plan b for the night truly was like 1) suck seb off and don’t enjoy it (failed step 1) 2) don’t let seb suck your dick just get out of the car and go (failed step 2) 3) okay if he really wants to he can but you’re going to have the most self control of any person in the world and not come and eventually he’s going to get bored and give up and you will have achieved your goal of having mediocre gay sex and proving to yourself it's not all it's cracked up to be and can go home in peace (about to fail step 3)

He needs to get out of the car. He needs to get Vettel’s mouth off of him. He can feel the two of them flying around the corners, wheel to wheel, trying to force each other wide; pushing the braking point further and further, edging closer to disaster every lap. Lift off, he hisses to himself desperately. broadly one of the things i wanted to explore in this fic is lewis’s relationship to his own drive and hunger, and the parallels between his own desire to win, which propelled him to that GP3 title, and his sexual desires. a lot of this fic is about him trying to pretend that those two things are separate when in reality (and he knows this on some level) the thing that he hates and wants to rip out of himself is the same thing that will push him to greatness and let him achieve all that he has achieved (and will achieve)! and trying to nourish that desire in one part of his life and stamp it out in another does not work.

Vettel’s mouth is still hanging open, panting. His pupils are so wide that they’ve almost swallowed up the blue. In the low light, Lewis can barely see the shine of spit on his lip. He looks ravenous. Lewis’s mouth waters. [f+tm voice] WE ALL! HAVE! A HUNGER-

but actually. once again. even if they don’t know it yet - they are more similar than they are different. in the way they’re hungry for the things they want – wholeheartedly, ravenously, undeniably, and beyond reason – maybe more so than anything else.

He forces himself to drag his eyes back up to meet Vettel’s, digging his nails back into his palms. Quietly, he hears himself say: “Give me something worth looking at, then, if you’re so upset.”

Something shifts in Vettel’s expression, and all of a sudden it hits Lewis, too fast and too late, how monumentally stupid that was to say; to think, even for a second, that there's any universe where Vettel would ever brake first. a little bit of projection on lewis’s end, imo, because this is also definitely true about him. in the same way that neither of them would ever brake early to play it safe and let the other overtake them through a corner - even if lewis knows it’s a bad idea, there was never any way that he was going to let seb win gay chicken tonight. and so there was no other way that this could have ended.

The heat crashes into Lewis, full-force. Before he can say anything, do anything about it, Vettel pushes his legs back open and swallows Lewis back down.

#my fic #asks #sunnyroscoe #thank u friend!! this was so fun #car sex fic #still taking these! you can either give me a full fic and i'll choose a section or you can give me a specific scene - down for either :)

9 notes · View notes