#just a nasty harsh person who should not have had kids | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mitchywitchythings · 2 years

Text

Red Is All I Can See

Summary: Life is unfair. That’s what you’ve always known, so you fought back against it. Which leads you to where you are now, on a battlefield with people you’ve only known for a while. Will you be able to save everyone or will it all end in a massacre?

Warnings: Blood, Violence, Language, Gore, Angst, Death, and Timeline is messed up

Trope: Crossover/Alternative Universe(AU)

Paring: Todoroki Shoto X Fem! Reader

Word count: 8,364 Words

Chapter 3 : | Series Masterlist

Bang!

3 more bullets were shot into the beast. It roared in pain for the last time before I dropped the gun and shoved it back to the ponytailed girl. She let out an oof at the harsh impact, almost falling down had she not been caught by the earphone-jacked girl.

“Hey, watch it! She could have gotten hurt, you’re just doing more damage than fixing it!” The violet-haired girl yelled out

“Is that so, well I’d like to see you try killing off all these monsters!” I retorted rudely back at her, seriously I was only trying to help, “Todoroki hang on! I’m coming!”

“I am hanging on!” Quite literally he was dangling upside down from the monster's grip

“Why don’t you just freeze it, you pussy?!” I screamed In frustration, throwing one of my blades at another titan who again was trying to devour my classmate.

My question clearly wasn’t rhetorical yet Todoroki never answered back. It was confusing, to say the least. One minute he was trying to literally freeze me to death or burn me alive and now he can’t even accomplish just freezing a single titan?! Seriously, you’ve gotta be freaking kidding me!

If his conscience couldn’t handle the fact that he would be technically freezing a poor innocent police officer or even a civilian who just so happened to get caught up in this war so he got turned into a titan, then he should have just frozen the titan's whole face or just even its mouth! It’s that simple of a solution! No need for bloodshed if he can’t take the guilt!

And even if the titan would rip the ice off of his mouth/whole face, right after he froze it. He would still have had a diversion! A means of escape! Something must be wrong if he didn’t do it. He isn’t dumb, that’s for sure. In fact, he’s like I don’t know, the top 5 in the class in terms of his IQ, I believe. Didn’t really keep track of that since it wasn’t necessary.

Though his IQ is high, do not ask about his EQ. We all know that he has some sort of trauma and/or issue. Plus he’s also very dense. Finally reaching the damned boy, I cut off the titan's fingers, effectively freeing Todoroki from its nasty clutches. I did it so quickly it didn’t have time to regenerate its eyes and all of the places I shot at(It was in its face).

Grabbing the dual-haired boy who was still convinced that I am the mastermind villain throughout all these events before he could fall. He wrapped one arm over my shoulder holding it tightly to make sure he doesn’t fall off, while I wrapped one arm around his waist.

If this situation wasn’t awkward enough, to begin with from the close proximity alone, but the fact that I had to hold tightly onto him or the consequences would be severe. Ending in a pancake Todoroki with ketchup and not syrup surrounding his corpse. I turned my head to look him in the eyes.

I was shocked. Never had I ever seen Todoroki’s face hold so much confusion and desperation as of now. His turquoise and ash grey eyes bloomed with so many mixed emotions, not only confusion and desperation. But fury, hurt, sadness, frustration, and tears. Yes, his face looked even more confused than he had been at the sports festival.

But the moment I saw tears dripping down his face, I knew that at that point and moment, I knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong, not for me per se but for poor Shoto. I had personally never seen him cry. And boy was I glad I hadn’t because fucking Hell was it so awkward. It was even more awkward and uncomfortable due to our close proximity.

I didn’t know anything about how to comfort the poor boy and I’m certainly not going to use Levi’s method of destressing and calming himself, which is cleaning everything until it was spotless of course. If it wasn’t obvious enough, what else would it have been? Spending time with me and Mikasa as a family though distant?

Nuh-uh! I mean I have noticed that he’s kinder to me and Mikasa but that doesn’t mean shit. He cares about all of his soldiers and that final. I shook my head, so many things are going on around me but I keep on getting lost in my train of thoughts.

That isn’t good, to say the least. Not good at all. Setting Todoroki down with everyone who was busy trying to fight off the titans, well more like distract them since their quirks didn’t do shit to the damned beasts.

“Shoto? May I call you, Shoto?” I asked in worry, turning his head to face me, by the chin.

‘Ah shit, way to go me. I spoke before I could even think. Too late to back out now, best get on his good side then. Even if he doesn’t believe me, I still gotta try or I’ll die trying!’ I mentally cursed at myself for getting in an awkward position.

‘Yeah sure we’re wasting time but we’ve never actually talked before unless it’s for school. Best get it off of the bucket list before we’re all inevitably killed in this stupid war. Plus can’t I just get a single good conversation through this war? Is it that much of a crime? And yes I know my classmates are dying but give me a damn second.’

“It’s Todoroki to you. Respect my name.” He replied coldly, turning his head harshly from my grasp.

“Look we got on the bad foot. I know I may not be trustworthy but give me a chance. I have never done anything wrong to any of you since we’ve been classmates these past few months.” I replied coolly, practically saying to everyone who was fighting for their lives to fuck off for a second and let me have this moment.

“Look I guess we did get off on the bad foot but I’m not going to trust you! So what we’ve been classmates for the past few months! I’m still not letting you off the hook, villain!” He yelled in frustration, squeezing both of my shoulders tightly.

“I think you should reconsider. I’ve heard rumors that before the sports festival you acted like your father. And we all practically know how much he’s like a villain if it wasn’t for the lives he saves. In fact, you don’t seem too good, Shoto. Now I’m not saying this to get on your bad side. I’m just saying that you haven’t seen my side of the story. So don’t judge the book by its cover. Because I don’t go doing that to you or would you, like me too? That can be easily arranged if you wish.” I turned his head again like before, though this time I wiped off the tears from his face with my sleeves, “Keep this in mind Shoto. Villains are made, not born.” My speech left him absolutely speechless, though despite that tears kept flowing down his face.

“I’m so so-sorry…” He let out a hiccup, “I couldn’t do it, I risked not only my life but yours as well… I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. It's just…” He looked like he was on the verge of breaking down, making me think he saw something that triggered him so he paused to take a minute to recover, “We’re wasting time! Everyone’s dying around us! Let’s get back to this later!” His heart was frosted over ice once more, so he scoffed and grabbed my hand.

He pulled me towards another damn titan. By now Yaoyorozu had made guns and passed them all around. Now we’re talking! Finally! We were able to fight back against these monsters! It was ironic it seems, we’re supposed to be people who save other people such as civilians and such yet we’re the ones who are in desperate need of help and like fast.

Creati after some point got super tired of making the guns and the bullets for them. She overworked herself and pushed over her limits. Now she’s practically useless and a dead weight. Her girlfriend, Jirou is currently carrying her on her back despite being practically more petite than her.

The boys would have carried her had they not been busy trying to save their own lives before they could save the others. Me, I was barely getting by, it wasn’t because I was weak or anything. I guess I just didn’t have the motivation or determination to push through and give it my all.

If I had, I would have finished all of the titans off in no time. Honestly, they might be humans and supposed allies of us, People of Ymir. But I wouldn’t think twice about leaving them to become titan food. Maybe it was from everything they’ve done to me or maybe it was something else.

The titans just kept on coming and coming. There was nothing we could do. I was beginning to run out of gas and more swords. I only had 2 extra swords left and with the number of titans after us, I don’t think we can pass through. The amount of luck and time was running out. I’d say we’ve been fighting for at least 2 hours by now.

I wasn’t sure at this point since I wasn’t keeping track of the time, though it sure did feel longer than that. The number of our survivors wasn’t that fatal per se . A lot of us were still alive, well considering I’ve seen the scouts complete more dangerous missions with lesser soldiers. Who the Hell am I even kidding with this bullshit?! Like half of the class had been wiped out!

As of currently, there are a total of 12 survivors:

Todoroki Shoto

Midoriya Izuku

Uraraka Ochako

Iida Tenya

Bakugo Katsuki

Kirishima Eijiro

Kaminari Denki

Mina Ashido

Jirou Kyoka

Yaoyorozo Momo

Aizawa Shouta

Mineta was first to die, then Koda. The 3rd death was Tsuyu’s, such a tragic death. Her tongue was bitten off by the titan and while she was focused on the plan, she had not noticed the 10-meter titan creeping from her behind. I had also not noticed that until Sero pointed it out, screaming along the lines of he’ll save her.

The 4th death was Sato’s. Despite his quirk being super strong, he wasn’t strong enough to survive and lift the small building that fell on him. Effectively killing him instantly.

The 5th death was Sero, when Tsuyu had been killed, he went into beast mode—dodging all of the titans by swinging through the air with the help of his tapes. First, his right leg was bitten off and he fell on a nearby roof. I could have helped him had it not been for another titan holding me back.

He was close enough to Tsuyu’s murderer and I could tell he could only see red rage. Again he was too late, 3 more titans approached him and ripped his body apart. His death was similar to Eren’s first death in a sense. They both died in rage trying to protect the ones they love.

6th was Shoji, who died because of being accidentally stepped on by a really big titan. He had no time to process things until a large shadow casted over him. When he looked up there was nothing else he could do to stop the tears, screams, and fright coming from him. Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! He was stepped on 3 times before the beast was sure he was dead.

7th was the invisible girl, none of us saw her die of course but we did finally see her body. I'm not even sure when she died; we just found her buried in rubble, similar to Sato’s death. Though we finally saw her true form. Since when she died, her quirk also went away revealing her beautiful self. At least she was covered in the rubble when she died as she was naked.

8th was Tokoyami, and to make matters worse it was somewhat Bakugo’s fault. I’m sure he’s feeling pretty guilty now. Tokoyami, of course, couldn’t use his quirk properly but with Bakugo who was coincidentally beside him, it was definitely hard to use Dark Shadow’s true potential. Not like his quirk was much help since quirks, in general, didn’t work against the titans.

And Tokoyami relied purely on his quirk even after the internship and camp. Dark Shadow’s punches and such kept on going through the monsters, it was completely immune to it. And so another student went down to the monster's belly.

The 9th death was Oijiro, distraught by the death of his girlfriend or maybe even almost girlfriend. He gave up on hope. On everything, accepting his death he let himself be picked up by 4 titans who started tugging on each of his limbs until he was ripped apart into 4 pieces.

The 10th death was Aoyama. To cut things short his stomach went hurting after using his laser beam for an extended period of time even if it did not affect the titans. So he used them as distractions for us. The titans crowded on him so quickly right after his stomach began to hurt like Hell, using his moment of vulnerability to their advantage.

The rest of us were covered in dirt. The fabrics of our costumes had been torn apart as proof of our escape from death, also known as the mighty beasts. Blood was either seeping out or splattered from our clothes, both our own and from our classmates, dead or alive, which didn’t matter at this point. Because what mattered was getting out alive. Surviving…

By now the city was covered in debris. Titans roamed freely and I haven’t seen a single scout passing by, not yet at least. The once beautiful city now roared in a massive blaze of fire that even put Endeavor to shame. Most of the civilians may have already escaped or evacuated to the docks, but we can’t say for sure.

I think the class and my teacher find it weird that they haven’t run into any civilians by now or even other heroes. Maybe their thoughts were filled with hopes that their loved ones are safe. I could tell they were desperate to see their families and friends, but they now have a duty to uphold. If they won’t help in fighting who will?

Maybe everyone is focused on somewhere else…? Or maybe their… Who am I kidding? It is clear to see. Most civilians are dead. Some may have managed to be evacuated or escaped but it cannot make up for the blood that was shed. But I also had a theory, they could have also been turned into titans, which was most likely since the amount of titans roaming the city was quite a large amount.

In the distance, I heard guns going off. Like a battle was occurring. I looked at everyone else, somewhat confused that they either didn’t seem to care or they didn’t hear the guns being shot. Wait, a minute! I have an idea that might just really help.

“We won’t last like this! We need more people!” I screamed at our teacher.

“We don’t have any backup! All communications are lost as well! Looks like they took down the cell towers!” He replied in a frustrated yet tired voice.

“Weren’t we the only ones going on a field trip?! What about class-B?! If we can gather our forces with them! We might just make it out of this!”

The realization hit him, “They’re at the city square! If they're still there we can make it! it's not far from here!’ He then began to instruct the class to go to the city square and combine forces with class-B while he’ll distracts the monsters.

A lot of them didn’t like this plan. They didn’t like the fact that we’ll be using our teacher as a distraction. They think he’ll die if he fights against the titans alone, which is most like the outcome. They had learned that the hard way of almost losing their teacher with the USJ incident

My classmates protested, especially Iida who looks up to Aizawa-sensei immensely, that’d be a huge blow to him if our adviser would return injured or even not return at all. Kirishima is well saying along the lines that it’s not manly of us to leave our teacher behind. Our teacher's heart warmed up at that obviously.

Of course, he didn’t want to leave us all alone to fend for ourselves. He was supposed to look after us. Now it was on his watch that almost half of his students had died. I could tell his conscience felt very guilty about that and devastated. Who wouldn’t be?

I wasn’t close to our teacher though. But I understand his actions and where he was coming from. A shot of deja vu tan through me. His actions remind me of Commander Erwin. It felt so long since his death passed and I’m sure none of us had gotten over it.

But we continued to persevere, fight, and survive. We continued his legacy. So that is why it pains me to watch our teacher sacrifice himself just as our Commander did. It was for the greater good. If our sensei would distract the titans, drawing them all near him.

We’d have a clear shot at survival. We’d probably make it to the city square and regroup with class-B. If not then we’ll figure another solution out. For now, we’ll have to gamble and take the risk.

“Let’s go, everyone! There’s no time to waste! We don’t have another plan! Use your quirks and let’s go! Don't let our teacher’s sacrifice be for nothing!” I screamed at them as though they were soldiers, trying to knock them out of their fears.

“Plus Ultra!” With tears in their eyes, they knew I was right, then we all yelled a battle cry, pushing ourselves over our limits.

We ran and used our quirks, my body felt tired. Everyone else felt like that. We felt heavy and as though we were pushing a boulder. Todoroki who once again was beside me using his ice to move faster. Midoriya and Bakugo ran behind him, I could tell though that Midoriya was taking this the hard way. It wasn’t only him though. Everyone looked defeated with tears and frustration kept building up inside of them.

“Hurry up everyone! We’ll have time to mourn for them all later, but if we don’t hurry up we might end up with the same fate as the-!” I was cut off by a scream that came from where we left our teacher.

“Come on! Bring all you’ve got! I’m over here!” Sensei yelled trying to bring all the titans towards him which unfortunately did work.

We decided to tune out those sounds. Listening to them further would only make us more guilty for leaving him behind. 2 more minutes of running and I’d say we’d reach City Square. If class-B still stands then we’d have a second shot at getting through this.

“We’re almost there, we can’t stop now!” I grabbed the ponytailed girl from Jirou, who was on the verge of collapsing, “Kaminari, carry Jirou, we must push forward if we can to survive!” Even if I was tired I placed the girl on my back.

“I can take it, give her back!” Both tired and exasperated, the said girl screamed her lungs out at me.

Iida but in to scold us, “Argue later, for now, we have to survive! Do not let Aizawa-sensei’s sacrifice go to waste!”

“What’s the plan, bitch face?! Once we reach class-B and regroup what’ll we do?!” Bakugo, who flew beside me using his explosions, asked calmly.

Rolling my eyes at him, “We’ll split into groups probably, first I’ll let you guys evacuate your family then we move onto the civilian's right aft-!” The falling of boulders rapidly from the sky cut me off, “Shit! It’s the beast titan! Fuck! Everyone! Get behind me! We have to continue before it’s too late! Bakugo if ever boulders or debris is blocking our way, blast them to bits!”

“With pleasure!” He smirked, finally getting his hopes of turning the tides around against the titans.

I grabbed Todoroki’s hand, who happened to be the closest one near me and dragged him behind me. While Bakugo got the message I yelled at him, flew in front of me, and began to lead the way to City Square. We were dodging the boulders to the best of our abilities but that wasn’t our only obstacle.

Because there were still the occasional titans we just so happened to pass by. Yes, Aizawa-sensei drew in most of the titans from this area, still, some kept getting in our way. Like right now.

I scream a battle cry into the air, “Agh! Fucking die already!”

I quickly flew ahead of Bakugo and dropped. Yaoyozorou who was on my back, into his arms. Causing him to stumble back and yell out a curse at me. The titan just popped out of nowhere. It was going to be face to face with him and it was about to eat him by surprise had I not acted. Swerving behind the beast with my aerobatics skills, I sliced off the titans' nape. Making its blood splatter on me, freaking disgusting.

Kirishima, who saw this all happening, decided that he wasn’t going to run and do nothing except watch us do all the work. For him, it wasn’t something manly. So he rushed to Bakugo, jumping on top of the debris and boulders, grabbing the girl from Bakugo’s arms. He placed her on his back and continued to push himself forwards.

I flew back next to Todoroki and let Bakugo lead the way. Occasionally he had to blow up some debris and boulders both coming in our way and blocking them. I also had to come in and intervene sometimes because titans kept randomly popping out, I didn’t want any more students to die so I decided to act upon myself quickly.

“We’re almost there!” I screamed, seeing a bunch of different colored hairs in the distance as I finished off yet another titan.

“Then let’s hurry!” Todoroki screamed as he and our classmates passed by me, grabbing my hand and pulling me into him.

“By the way, I’m still not done with you, I still wanna know why you risked my life.” I glared at him the same way he used to glare at me.

“We’ll have time for that later.” He glared back, not backing down.

I rolled my eyes and scoffed, “If there even is a later, I’ll protect you and everyone until we part ways to evacuate the civilians. I’ll be going with you though since you trust me so much.” I spoke sarcastically to which he just nodded irritatedly.

Running and pushing ourselves past our limit we finally reached City Square. A chance to victory was in our hands. A bunch of newly graduated cadets was supposedly positioned here. Even if they were cadets they could help me a lot.

“Shit!” I grabbed Todoroki and placed him behind me as a gunshot fired into the air.

It hit Bakugo in the shoulders, making him curse in pain. Midoriya who witnessed everything cried out for his childhood friend, grabbing him quickly and then hiding behind a large piece of debris. Ripping a piece of his hero costume to use as a bandage, he tied it tightly around his shoulders in an attempt to stop the blood.

I and everyone else followed his actions, hiding behind large pieces of fallen debris. Mina let out a scream as a bullet shot into her left abdomen. Kaminari, who was next to her, quickly took off the jacket from his hero costume and ripped off a piece. Doing the same thing as Midoriya he tied the fabric to her abdomen.

With shaky hands he pressed down on the wound, hoping the blood would stop spilling out. Tears began to stream down his face. It was clear enough to see that by the amount of blood coming out from Mina, she wouldn't make it. This was her end.

I could see the life beginning to fade from her eyes. I couldn’t watch. Not when the Kirishima who passed the passed-out girl to Jirou began to sprint to Mina. Not caring that multiple bullets were shot into the air, one of them happened to graze his leg. He didn’t flinch from the pain, instead continuing to push forward, determined as ever. Plus he did use his quirk to make sure he wouldn’t die.

He crouched down to Mina and tried to help Kaminari stop the bleeding. Using the rest of what was left of Kaminari’s jacket to put pressure on her wound. Tears kept coming from both of them and I could even tell Bakugo was also crying based on the sniffles he was trying to hide.

It was sad that we don't have time to mourn the death of our classmates. It was sad we didn’t get to say goodbye. Everything just happened so quickly yet it felt like time moved in slow motion. If you even get what I mean.

Realizing quickly that we couldn’t stay behind the debris for long, I took a little peek from out behind the debris I was using as a shield. A bullet shot at me directly, just narrowly missing me. ‘Shit if I can’t find where they are positioned at, we’ll be sitting ducks!’ I spotted a broken mirror near me and Todoroki. It was a bit of a stretch but completely doable.

I nudged his shoulder, pointing my finger at the broken mirror shard. He extended his feet and used them to pull the mirror to us. It wasn’t as easy as it looked though, he failed a couple of times. It took him multiple tries before he successfully reached the mirror with his foot. Bullets also shot from what seemed out of nowhere. Almost hitting his leg in the process.

He stepped on the mirror and dragged it back to himself, picking it up from under his foot, he quickly handed it to me. Using the mirror, I angled it to look in different directions. I spotted a few class-B students hiding under some debris and some dead bodies scattered around the ground. The bodies belonged to those of class-B, their adviser, random civilians, and the newly recruited cadets.

There were a total of 2 of the newly recruited cadets. If I recall correctly, there should be a total of 5 of them stationed here. Seeing as this is the city square, it’d be stupid to station new recruits there, of course we had our reasons. We believed that the center of their attacks would be at city hall. Their main target being the mayor of this city.

Whispering quietly to myself as I scanned the area through the mirror, “Where are you?”

“Maybe they're in the buildings or cars.” Todoroki proposed

“Probably…” Pausing for a second to think of our next possible moves, “Hey umm… Guys, I got some good news and bad news.” Everyone who was still alive looked at me

Shoto spoke up because everyone was quiet, “Good news first.”

“Well, good news is that this is a titan free zone and there may be 3 of my comrades here to help us. The bad news is we got here too late and the Marley’s have dominated this area and I can’t seem to find them. So we'll need someone to create a distraction, then that’ll draw our enemies out. And with our remaining guns and bullets, we’ll kill them. Got it?” I asked everyone

They more or less seem in and out of it, it was understandable of course as their whole lives had changed so drastically in a matter of moments. I can only imagine the amount of trauma they're going through right now, as well as all of the anxiety of not knowing whether or not your loved ones are safe or at least alive. They seemed to have understood what I explained and asked of them, yet they still continued to be trapped in this sort of trance.

“This is so not manly… How can I be this useless…?” Kirishima began, his knees tucked to his body, rocking back and forth whilst he pulled his hair in frustration, tears already pouring down.

“... Kiri-” Midoriya began to try and soothe the said boy, before another person interjected.

“What about our families, will we never see them again? I didn’t even get to say goodbye or to repay my parents…” Uraraka’s voice cracked as she broke down, following the same as Kirishima, then puking, most likely from overworking her quirk.

“Guys…” Iida tried to intervene and cheer everyone up, but he himself was in the same boat as they were, so he was left like a fool speechless.

Jirou spoke a little bit too loud that the enemies had noticed, effectively shooting a bullet in our way, “She must have really overworked herself!” She pressed down on the gun shot on the ponytailed hair girl, tears already falling down as she kept mumbling to herself that everything is fine.

Everything was not fine. It was all going down hill and if we didn’t do something to turn the situation around. Then we’ll all die.

Iida who sat besides them yet never noticed the blood rushing down from vice-president’s leg began to help the 2 girls in any way he could

I see now that everyone was in despair. All hope was lost. Everyone was tired, confused, depressed, and scared. This was our first moment of break from all of the fighting and exhaustion from before. I was the same as them, yet I can’t find it in myself to care as much as I should have.

Could that have been from all the bullshit they put me through. I couldn’t tell at this point, I practically didn’t feel shit. Everything’s just so numb. I had no motivation to push through the boundaries or as per the heroes, ‘Go Beyond And Plus Ultra.’

I think Todoroki must have gotten the hint that I was also giving up on them because he began to speak to me gently, “Please, we need your help. We can’t do this alone.” He desperately begged

The depth of the graveness of the situation, settled in on him probably. In all seriousness, I was shocked by his actions to say the least. Never did I think that in my life, that Todoroki Shoto, son of Endeavor, son of the number 1 hero, best of class 1-A, begged me to help them.

I thought about my choices for a hot second then made up my mind and stood up a bit, “What else do I have to lose? Just my life of course… However, I did make an oath to save humanity and I intend to see it through. Let’s go, no more wasting time.”

A familiar boyish scream cut me off, “Agh!! (Y/n)! Captain! Mikasa! Armin! Help!”

“Oh God. Anyone but you!” I screamed and against all my wishes, when I peaked out I saw a familiar black hair, “Ayato!” I screamed out in fury before another bullet was shot to his side.

Before Todoroki could pull me back and knock some sense into me, I felt a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time. Electricity ran through my brain and I feel in full control over my body.

“Die!” I screamed out a battle cry, wasting a lot of my gas that was already running low.

With a battle cry, I killed all of the surrounding enemies without hesitation, managing to dodge all of the bullets they were rapidly shorting at me. There was only 1 final enemy left though, the one on top of Ayato. I kicked the soldier off of Ayato and grabbed his gun from him.

He laughed at me and began yelling insult after insult. All I saw was red and rage. I didn’t care who was watching, he deserved to die a painful death. Grabbing his head I threw it to the ground so hard that blood began to fall.

I was sick of it. I towered over him as he whimpered and begged to live, pathetic can’t even hold his honor. I lifted my foot over his head and began to stomp on it with all my might. Everyone’s yells went deaf in my ears.

Stomp!

His cries, whimpers, and pleads fell deaf on my ears as I began to scream out reasons why he deserved this.

“You killed my family!”

“You killed my friends!”

“You killed my soldiers!”

“You dare ask for mercy but did you even give us mercy!”

“You took away my life!”

“You took away our peace!”

“You killed my people!”

“You deserve this!”

“You keep on taking away the lives of others!”

“I was forced to become a soldier because of you!”

“It’s your fault!”

I lost count of how many times I crushed his head with my foot. Blood splattered all over my clothes, but I didn’t care. He deserved it.

“That’s enough!” Before I could even yell and stomp even more, Todoroki grabbed me from behind and began to cool me.

Trying desperately to calm me down, I looked around and I saw what remained of our class. Helping all of the Class-B students who were still alive, some of them tied up. I can only assume they were tied up because they wanted to keep them as prisoners or hostages. But then my eyes landed on Ayato and all the other new recruits, 3 remained left out of the 5.

I wriggled out of Todoroki’s grasp and ran to Ayato, “Please! Anyone but you! Don’t die! Don’t die! Don’t leave me alone!”

I quickly kneeled before him and placed his head gently into my lap as he coughed out some blood and gave me his hand, speaking in between his bloody coughs, “Live for me and take care of everyone…”

That was the last thing he spoke before dying, I felt nothing but complete sadness and rage. A few tears ran down my cheeks but there was nothing more I could do. My best friend was dead. There would be no more stupid jokes or silly stories for us to share during break time or whenever we were free.

“Ayato wasn’t supposed to be placed here. Why is he here?” I questioned

“He heard that we were having a hard time defending. So he came back up.” A new recruit hugged me from behind, tears also streaming down her face.

I grabbed Ayato’s cloak and called over Todoroki, to which I gave him my own bloody cloak and told him to wear it, reluctantly he did. I wore Ayato’s which was also stained in his own blood and ripped out his name tag from his jacket.

“Shoto. If I die, you will lead everyone on, including my soldiers. Make sure you put them first before you. Please, they have families, they have names...” I didn’t care if I wasn’t using his last name

Before he could reply, I walked away and gathered everyone up. The new recruits, my classmates, and what remained of class 1-B. Class 1-B didn’t complain nor questioned my authority, especially Monoma who looked at me seriously like an ally, yet there was still a hint of disbelief and resentment in his eyes as he stared at me. I can only assume my classmates had explained the situation to class 1-B already.

Putting my hands behind my back, I began to speak, “Today as we face the impending and inevitable war! We are all the same. We’ve lost our families, friends, dignity, and what we once called home. Today, we saw many die before us and we were helpless, we couldn’t save our fellow classmates and teachers no matter how hard we tried.”

“And who said you can lead?!” This pissed Monoma off apparently as he screamed furiously, “From what I see here you're just with them!”

“How dare you speak against her! You don’t know what we’ve been through! We save humanity, we’re fighting this war! We’re on your side!” A recruit cried out in anger towards him pulling out her blades.

“And what about it?! What were you doing when we were all being slaughtered?! Nothing?! That’s what, you did absolutely nothing as we were helplessly being killed!” Monoma spat back

“We helped! We sacrificed our lives as well!” Her and the 2 other recruits hissed back at him

“ENOUGH!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, “All of this fighting among ourselves is meaningless, we can’t do anything anymore, what’s done is done! So fucking forget about it! We only have our duties to do! We only have our duties left to uphold! Protect and serve the people! And what are we doing?! Meaninglessly yelling! Now listen up because these might be the last words you hear before you die!”

“Tch.” Both Bakugo and Monoma said in unison

Placing my tight fisted hand above my heart with my other hand behind my back, “Worry not of your fallen friends and family as no soul can say they’ve died in vain, not until the end when this war is finally over.”

“Even still, how can we win against them? Our enemies are gigantic and our quirks don’t work against them.” Uraraka cried out

“Remember this everyone, deep within us if we channel our anger and rage, we are just as barbaric as they are.” Raising my blades to the sky, “Wielding the blade of gloria we’re meant for victory! And it doesn’t matter if your quirks work or not against the titans because with every ounce of our lives we’ll fight back! We’ll reclaim the land and pride that was stolen from us! We will bring justice to all the lives taken.” Dropping my blades at my shoulders then to the cloak on Todoroki’s back, “Only those who fight against the titans are deserving of those wings! The wings of freedom!”

“They are the prey and we are the hunters!” The 3 remaining scout members yelled a battle cry.

The other getting what we were supposed to be doing followed along, “They are the prey and we are the hunters!”

“Our names won’t be remembered if we die so easily and I refuse to be forgotten! We’ll be written off less than worthless!” They began yelling battle cries, “Plead, beg, and cry but none will help you! You no longer live as cattle to the titans! Will you rise and join the battle?! Will you take your freedom back?! Will you fight in this war?!”

“Yes!” They chanted back

“Will you let them steal your freedom!”

“No!”

“Then channel all the rage and anger that’s swelling inside you and fight the boundary until we break through! And never hesitate! They did not hesitate so why should we?”

They screamed at the top of their lungs!

“Waging war with every single passing minute, we will march to victory no matter what the cost! We cannot be their prisoners! So let’s rise up again and fight until it’s over!”

“Hell yeah!”

“Every passing minute they must be slain at any cost and so we’ll offer up! We’ll sacrifice until our hearts have stopped! With our own hands let’s take a stand! We dedicate and sacrifice our hearts for humanity!” Me and the 3 other scouts screamed

“Wait what?” Both class 1-A and B deadpanned

“All that was lost, all the lives that were laid down was not in vain! Everything leads up to this moment!” We screamed out without both classes

“Shinzo wo sasageyo!” We finished with a salute.

“What do you mean by sacrificing our lives for humanity?” Todoroki looked at me seriously.

“This is war. And you will either die with honor or die a coward. Or you’ll survive to see another day. It’s your actions which will decide your outcome.”

Midoriya jumped in, “(L/n) not all of us want to die.”

“Of course, I understand everyone’s feelings but as a soldier, I’ve decided my life to fighting this war since I was 12, along with every single soldier fighting this war, we graduated when we were 15 and most weren't able to see past that age. However for me being an Ackerman meant that I excelled, when I was already 13 I began working in the Scott’s regiment. Which means that I have the most experience in war here. I’ve seen more people die than any of you here. So I suggest that you get over with it and help us evacuate the civilians. If not, run back to your families. I don't care.”

“(L/n), I get you but you can’t just drop all of this on us, just this morning we didn’t expect that all of this would happen but it did.” Speaking in tears Kirishima interjected

“This happened to us as well, but unlike you guys. Nobody was there to save us, so many lives were lost that day. And so many lives continue to be lost with every day this war continues.”

“You bitch! We also have families, do you not consider how we feel?! They could be dead!” Bakugo marched forward pointing his fingers at my chest, he looked like he was close to strangling me, yet unshed tears were clear as day in his eyes.

Giving him a sad smile, “Yes I get you, I watched powerlessly everyone I love die before me. But I don’t want that to happen to other children, so as much as possible. I’ll do my best to save as many people as I can.”

“And what if you die?” Todoroki questioned with clenched fist

“Then I will die with honor as I upheld my oath, protect and save humanity. To sacrifice everything until my heart stops beating. That is my duty and then after that I can finally rest in peace. I believe someone will carry out my death and bring us to victory. If I don’t die however, if others die, then their deaths will be on my shoulders and I’ll carry them to victory, even if I’m the last one standing.” The silence was loud besides from the screams of titans in the distance, “So let me ask everyone again, are you still willing to fight in this war? Last warning, only few and far between know that victory takes sacrifice. Only can they really see… See through offering up the price, our lives. If you think that your dreams come true easily then my friend you're in for a surprise because nothing in this world will come for free.”

“(L/n)-“ Iida began but I cut him off.

Walking towards Midoriya, “Deku, especially you of all people need to hear this. Foolish decision in this world, this illusion. Don’t be caught up in your reckless bravery. Or you’ll become a pawn to freedom, fighting in the chains that will hold you back. But if you move correctly, then checkmate. Victory is out there waiting. Once we win, you are not only freeing just your freeing lives but ours as well.” I gestured to me and the scouts then turned back to face everyone, “I’m counting on Deku to lead class 1-A, Iida-kun make sure to back him up and keep the class in order, do your best to make sure everyone survives this… Kendo as your class 1-B representative I expect you to lead your class, Phantom Thief back her up as well like Iida, and no figuring with 1-A this is a serious matter. I will lead my scouts of course and do my best to keep you all alive. But if I die or am unable to lead my scouts, I’ve decided that Todoroki will lead my scouts. If he refuses to take it though seeing as he has some resentment towards me or if he happens to die, Red Riot… Please take very good care of my scouts and try your best to bring them all home. Todoroki, if you do take up the position or not die of course, please believe in yourself as I do, I know we have our differences, you’ll have to excuse that for now. Let’s all be real friends after all this, okay?” This shocked Todoroki.

He couldn’t believe that you believed in him. Him of all people? Him who has been anything but kind to you? Honestly he just wants to go home and find his family, he’s so worried about his mom, sister, Natsuo, and Hell even his dad! But he knows he can’t go to them because the citizens are at a higher stake, he can only hope his mom and siblings are safe.

In fact as of when all of this started he was praying to all deities out there to save his family. It all felt suffocating, especially when one of those titans that almost killed him reminded him of Touya. Opening an old wound, he was going to freeze the titans mouth from before but he just couldn’t. Those eyes reminded him too much of his oldest brother. And because of that (Y/n) had to come save his ass.

“Are you still with me?” I asked, breaking Todoroki out of his thoughts

“Yes.” The scouts saluted to me

I looked at the class expectantly, “How do you expect us to say yes after all that?” Kaminari spoke out

“My speech isn’t really that great I’ll admit, however let me tell you the speech our commander told us when he was about to send his soldiers to their deaths. I think you’ll find it… Inspiring.”

I closed my eyes as a single tear fell from my face, this may be one of the most traumatic things I witnessed. I began to speak out as I reminisced about that moment. Managing to recall the exact words of Commander Erwin and every single thing that occured.

I replayed his words in my head, “There’s no point standing around, we'll only be showered by more boulders. Ready your horses on the double”

A soldier asked him, “Be honest, are all of us riding to our deaths?”

“Yes we are.” The Commander replied

The same soldier spoke up, “And since we’re dying anyway you’re saying that it’s better if we at least die fighting?” His voice cracked, on the verge of breaking down completely.

“I am.” Despite knowing what he was doing the Commander spoke calmly.

“Captain, isn't there anything else we can do for them?” I asked Levi

“Unless you wanna ride with them to their deaths as well, I suggest you stick with the plan.” Levi spoke calmly as well like the Commander.

“But wait… If we’ll die anyway then who cares what we do? We can just disobey your orders and it wouldn’t mean a thing, wouldn’t it?” The same soldier asked the Commander

“Yes, you’re precisely right. Everything that you thought had meaning. Every hope, dream, or moment of happiness. None of it matters as you lie, bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body. We all die. But does that mean our lives are meaningless? Does that mean that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they meaningless?” The Commander's eyes widened as rage filled him, a newfound motivation, “They were not! Their memory serves as an example to us all!” Walking to the middle of the crowd I began to yell out everything I could recall, “The courageous fallen!” I grabbed Todoroki’s shoulder, “The anguished fallen!” I moved onto Iida, then Midoriya, Bakugo, and everyone else who was still alive, after that I went back in front of everyone and screamed, “Their lives have meaning because we the living refuse to forget them! And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us!”

“BECAUSE MY SOLDIERS DO NOT BUCKLE OR YIELD WHEN FACED WITH THE CRUELTY OF THIS WORLD! MY SOLDIERS PUSH FORWARD! MY SOLDIERS SCREAM OUT! MY SOLDIERS RAGE!”

Taking a breath to calm myself down, another tear fell from my face.

“After that they all died. But they put their trust in us as their successors that we will continue fighting and their deaths won’t go to vain. If there’s anyone who can bring about change, it’s someone capable of giving up what matters most… People who are capable of abandoning their humanity when forced to rise above monsters. Those who can't abandon anything… Can’t change anything. So I’ll ask one more time… WILL YOU SACRIFICE YOUR HEARTS UNTIL THEY HAVE STOPPED AND FIGHT IN THIS WAR?!”

“… Yes.” One by one they finally agreed to fight in this war after Midoriya finally agreed to.

“If we survive this, I promise that from then on. We have a winning shot! If we make this alliance work, all of their deaths won’t be in vain! And I promise you this! If we survive all this, I’ll do my best to bring you all home!” This time it was the scouts who cheered the loudest at the mention of being able to go home.

Home… That was the trigger for everything, making everyone scream out at the top of their lungs. Gathering a lot of titans attention though they were far away. And so they began to run in our director at full speed.

“Now! Let the onslaught begin!” I screamed along with them, raising my blades in the air.

8 notes · View notes

teenz-stories · 1 month

Text

Teen-Z: Forever Young #3: Stressful Day In Work (Part 2)

As Cody’s client leaves he spots old lady. Pegasus woman with gray,long hair,blue eyes,green peplum dress and same colored heels looks angry at Cody.

Gleam: khm angry

Cody: smiles nervously Welcome to the CrispyBees! May I take your order?

Gleam: This place is way too bright. When I was your age restaurants were normal. She then scans the menu What’s with these weird names? „Extra Sweet”? „Triple Delicious”? She puts the menu away How should I know what do you serve here?!

Cody: sighs pointing at the bottom of „Extra Sweet” Ingredients are shown in the lower part.

Gleam puts on glasses

Gleam: Okay. She sighs I want „Choco Fun” then. I hope ice cream is good quality,not bought from the shop.

Cody: I will tell chef...

Gleam: smiles evily Oh no,young man. I want you to do this.

Cody: sighs M’am. This isn’t personal delivery. I got other clients.

Gleam: I got time.

Scene changes into Pinky and Mermaid arriving to the restaurant. Just as they enter they spot Gleam spitting ice cream out.

Cody: wipes his face angry M’am. Your behavior is horrid. I never had client who acted this nasty before.

Gleam: And this won’t be the last time. She pulls out the notebook as she writes something

Pinky and Mermaid are shocked seeing the view.

Pinky: whispers to Mermaid Who’s that?!

Mermaid: You really don’t know? This is Gleam. Culinary critic. She never shown any mercy towards peoples she visited on the restaurants. Many restaurants she visited ended with negative reviews. I'm afraid this will be end of CrispyBees and Cody’s job if he will receive one star review.

Scene changes into Cody sitting sad on the table. Whole crew cheers him up except Charlie. They are now on the supply base.

Charlie: smirks Maybe discount for friends?

Cody: For idiots like you? No.

Charlie looks angry as he leaves. Pinky then looks worried at Kid.

Pinky: She gulps Listen. That girl is culinary critic.

Cody: I noticed this. He bends down to whisper seeing if Gleam isn’t anywhere to be seen She’s been harsh to me for few hours already!

Belze-Bob: Couldn’t you...I don’t know. Check what’s wrong is with her?

Dakota (offscreen): Whoa! Mind reading?! Count me in!

Crew notices vampire character coming back to the place. Then they look confused at Kid.

Dakota: their eyes goes wide You didn’t told me you have this huge pack of friends.

Cody: he smiles Guys? This is Dakota. He then turns to his friend Dakota? Meet. Pinky Pinky waves Greeny Greeny looks happy seeing Dakota’s style Belze-Bob demon boy waves Mermaid Mermaid smiles gently Ninelle she shyly smiles Alvin

Alvin: Hi

Cody: Aaaaaand he points at Nerd Wiccy.

Wiccy: Hey there. Nice style.

Dakota: smiles Thanks! Oh I feel so excited. They look judging stare at Kid Some old witch said some unpleasant things to you. I won’t let it slide. This she did crosses the line.

Mermaid: Dakota,dear. She gulps You know. Violence won’t solve the problems.

Dakota: I'm not talking about violence. I know she’s old woman but...

Cody: looks at Dakota Dakota. Mermaid is right. I appreaciate that you want to help me. But I can handle it alone.

Alvin: looks at Dakota Wait. I know you.

Dakota: smirks

Alvin: You are that Teen-Ztuber who develops a Zims game? I seen your stream last week. I love how you worked on models for the Winter DLC. Definitely will be buying this game once everything will be ready.

Dakota: I plan Zims to have premiere next year. I wanna know that there won’t be any errors here and there. Plus having sponsor wouldn’t hurt.

Then they notice Charlie peeking from the window. Dakota stares confused.

Dakota: Uh... Who’s that?

Cody: scared Don’t let him in.

Dakota: Why? He doesn’t seem to be bad.

Pinky: She spits out her drink Oh my God. Dakota. He is far worse than you think.

Belze-Bob: If he will get inside,I'm leaving.

Dakota: If he’s making you mad. I can help you with giving him something to do so he won’t bother you.

#fanfic #teen z #teen-z #teen-z fanfic #teen_z #teenz

0 notes

halfusek · 2 years

Note

Since the new Chris Portal documentary showed the true and nasty side of KB/Mike and TheMeatly, are you still gonna Say "we don't know the full story"?. We as a fanbase were treated as shitty as the employees they fired and abused, they don't deserve respect anymore.

uh i dont know where you've been but that video hasn't uncovered much new to me aside from some details from the two interviews near the end of the vid but like all of that stuff has already been known, it is just the first instance of someone compiling it into a coherent video (like the stupid games for kids said by mike we already knew in 2019 which i would not exactly say is the same as experiencing work abuse lol)

and idk why you're being so hostile at me, i've never been one to defend mike nor meatly but tried to find and share as much of the information as i could find about their wrongdoings, like dude i was fucking there pointing out that a lot of employees dont have "kindlybeast employee" in their twitter bios which then got screenshot and that post went on reddit where actual ex employees started sharing stuff (which freaked me out cuz i didnt want to have my "face" on the post dedicated to that) so like maybe turn that down a little

i feel like there's a lot of people new to some things unraveling in this controversy but as for me i've already made up my mind what i think of it, so i'm not so up in arms to scream about things that we already screamed about 2-3 years ago and that might make people think that i don't care or wanna brush it off which is not true

kindly beast / joey drew studios inc / mike and meatly deserve all the criticism aimed towards them, and on the day it was known about the lawsuit i laughed that karma finally got to them because i had thoughts "for all the shit they did to people, they deserve to fail and lose everything, to start over"

but i also think this is an opportunity for them to improve, learn and do better, sooooo i'm just kind of waiting for the next thing to happen i guess

in case they don't improve, welp, they can honestly fuck off

death of the author, whatever, it is anyone's personal call if they wanna keep on supporting some creators or not, and well as for me i think there's so much more and worse stuff that we (we as... gaming community... fandoms...?) tolerate that this seems just... small in comparison. i'm NOT saying it's not a big deal, it has me wishing lowkey that i just wasn't into batim lmao so i could just go. like for example i'm much more disgusted at sc/ott caw/thons wrongdoings cause they actually influence politics so i'm actively trying to keep myself away from engaging with fnaf or that one pirate gay show that i was like holy shit a cool gay couple but then read some yikes things about a character being based on actual real life guy who was a slave owner and that just had me nope out. i guess what i'm saying is i try not to support problematic things but if i were to suport only those purely unproblematic thatd kinda leave me with nothing idk society capitalism something something so you know i just try to weigh if something is actively harmful to people or if there is something that happened that i absolutely cannot forgive and based on that i get into something or not

does that make me a hypocrite? maybe but if i focus on boycotting what matters in the grand scheme of things and indulge a little in indie game fandom that's rapidly losing popularity i think i can personally live with that

sorry for going off about this, truth be told there's a lot of things happening in the world right now that put me in a very doomer mode lmao i mean we all see whats happening, shits pretty fucked and it was hard for me to even spare some focus on this, its really not good to get so desensitized so i also apologize for the harsh tone but yeah

anyways, i agree that we should make them feel like they need to apologize and do better, meatly still havent said a word publicly about anything that has happened and that fucking sucks

i still do not like harassing them over releasing batdr, thats part of crunch culture and all that jazz and i think we shouldnt lower the standards for that for anyone because [insert that image of you doing something bad to someone you dislike but it deflecting into someone you like]

but we should keep them on their toes and not let them think that we will just forget and let them get away with it because wow they've been massive assholes

#its funny because even chris portals first video was late to the controversy in my eyes #(understandably tho cuz it was long and that sort of stuff takes time to make)#it is a good video and i recommend watching it esp if you are a batim fan #sorry it got so long and weird i am in a . . . . . . state #halfask

46 notes · View notes

helpimhyperfixating · 3 years

Text

Photos and Crushes - Cowboy AU Jotaro x Reader P1

Look, I’ve been playing some Red Dead Redemption 2 again and I just got this idea. Sooo, rooty-tooty-guns-n-shootie, takes place in 1887 ish, America.

Part 2 | Part 3

Word Count: 7704

You are a kindhearted, positive, gentle person. Despite the harsh reality you live in, you try to see the good in people, even if it sometimes might not be there.

It has gotten you into plenty of trouble before but, it has gotten you so much more positivity as well.

Jotaro was one of those positive points. Angry, aggressive and dangerous in the eyes of others, you were one of the few who didn’t judge him for how he looked and carried himself. And thus, a miraculous friendship was born.

Whenever you would hang out together, people would always be wary of the strange duo, more so for your safety than what you would be up to. But you never paid them any mind. If they wanted to judge Jotaro, that was fine, but you wouldn’t let it ruin the time you had with him.

Jotaro, of course, noticed all the stares and whispers, but he didn’t give a shit.

When he had met you two years ago, you were being cornered by a couple of guys who had taken advantage of your kindness, pretending to ask if you could lead them to the general store, only to drag you into a secluded alleyway.

It just so happened that Jotaro had been across the street, seeing you happily chatting about the town to the boys, oblivious to the malicious glint in their eyes.

At first he didn’t want to get involved. He had seen you around before but never talked to you and if you were dumb enough to not see their true motive, why should he involve himself? But then you looked around and crossed eyes with him, and instead of instant swooning or darting your eyes away and cowering in fear, you sent him a polite smile and a wave, since you recognised him from around town. It surprised him, seeing you act so casually and greet him like a person.

Gritting his teeth, Jotaro looked down at his feet for a second, grabbing the bill of his hat in frustration, only to abruptly let it go and stand up, discreetly starting to follow you and the boys.

Not a few minutes later and the boys executed their plan, pulling you into an abandoned alley, much to your surprise. They didn’t get even twenty seconds before Jotaro slinked up behind them. Just the image and threat of the imposing nineteen year old was enough to get the boys to scamper off with their tails between their legs.

Upon being saved, you practically dragged Jotaro along, insisting on paying him a drink as thanks and from there on, the two of you hit it off.

Ever since then, you two regularly hung out. And Jotaro had taken it upon himself to become your self-appointed bodyguard.

Right now he was headed to the church.

The town you two lived in was of moderate size and, since there were so many people in one place, a small church was built there. But Jotaro wasn’t going to the church so he could pray to God, no, he was going because you were there.

He knew you had started teaching kids how to read. Most of them were homeless, piss-poor or sticky-fingered little brats, but you taught them all the same.

Jotaro had once pointed it out and asked if you knew what those kids were actually up to every day. You had answered with a shrug, saying it didn’t matter and that you just wanted to help them. Jotaro had just grumbled at that and pulled his hat down. It didn’t matter to him, as long as they kept their grubby hands off of your belongings and didn’t harm you.

He rounded a corner and the church finally came into view further down the dirt-path. For a second, Jotaro reconsidered whether he wanted to visit you or not. He had nothing to do and wanted to share in your company, but he also knew that if you weren’t done teaching yet, you would not go with him until you were; which would mean Jotaro either had to leave with his tail between his legs in front of a bunch of brats, or he had to sit down and endure their incessant squabbling.

Shaking his head, he just decided to go for it. Regrettably enough, Jotaro just really wanted to see you right now. Recently, a gang of thieves and murderers had swept through town and pretty much everyone had been holed up inside, making him unable to see or spend time with you.

Finally reaching the church, he looked past the gates to see you sitting on the steps, about eight kids with you, of which five were sitting around you, while the other three were fooling around on the small grass churchyard that sat in front of the steps.

God, you were beautiful. Jotaro could immediately tell some of these kids were violent, thieves and just straight nasty, yet you talked with them as if they were your own.

Your own.

Jesus, how his stomach twisted at the thought. You both were 21 now and Jotaro knew he should be looking to the future. If there was someone he wanted to be with, it was you. And just the thought of you, your belly swollen with his child? It shook him to the core.

As he reached the gate, he must have stared at you for a little too long because as soon as he had put two steps inside, the three boys that were kicking around on the grass stopped in front of him, seeming to be between the ages of eleven to thirteen.

“Whoa there, mister! What do you think you’re doing?” The dirty blond to his right said and Jotaro looked down at the boys, raising an eyebrow at them for stopping him. “We don’t like that look in your eyes.” The boy continued.

“Yeah, need we remind you you are on church grounds?”

“What were you staring at Miss Y/N for, mister? What do you want with her?” The third kid spoke up and Jotaro was now annoyed, feeling ticked off at their questioning.

“That’s my business, now get out of my way.” He glared, but though he could see he scared them, they held their ground.

“No! We are not letting you hurt her!”

“You wanna fight for it? Let’s go then!” The one right in front put his fists up.

“Yare yare daze, just move, kid.” Jotaro sighed, tilting his hat over his eyes to stay calm.

“Now you’ve done it! Haaa-!” The blond yelled out, punching Jotaro in the stomach, but the man didn’t even flinch. The kid’s eyes went big.

He looked to his friends for help and they got the hint, all three of them now rearing up for an attack as they each shouted a battle cry, going to throw punches while Jotaro grit his teeth in annoyance. As much as he despised these little shits, he couldn’t punch them, and so he just decided to let them vent and then move on.

Someone else however, heard the screaming. “Hey! What’s going o-! Oh! Hey, Jotaro!”

Your sudden happy greeting stopped the boys in their tracks and two of them stumbled as they made their punches go wide to miss the intimidating man.

Jotaro put his hand up in greeting and you beamed a smile, much to the confusion of the kids. You excused yourself from the five around you and walked over.

“So, what’s going on here?” You asked sweetly, yet there was a warning undertone in your voice.

“N-Nothing!” The blond squeaked, holding a not so convincing smile, his face screaming ‘guilty’.

“Good grief, I told you they were brats.” Jotaro once again lowered his hat over his eyes, feeling a kick to his shin that made him glare at the boy beside him, instantly making him run off in fear, the other two following not a second later.

“Oi, don’t be mean to my kids.” You scolded him, rapping your knuckles on the top of his head.

“They’re not your kids.” Jotaro deadpanned and you sputtered a bit.

“Yeah, well, not technically no, but-“

“That little shit stole from me two weeks ago.” He pointed to the auburn haired boy that had been standing to his left earlier.

“He did? What did he steal?” You questioned, your brows furrowing.

“Pack of cigarettes and my lighter. That shit ain’t cheap you know.” He grumbled as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Oi, stop swearing every other sentence. You’re on church grounds.” You lightly smacked him on the chest while Jotaro just gave you a look that said ‘does it look like I care?’. “So... why are you here?” You then asked, diverting the subject.

“Just came by to see you.” Jotaro shrugged.

“Aw, how sweet.” You teased a little but a small blush did make its way onto your cheeks, making Jotaro’s heart skip a beat. Could that mean you...? No, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. “Why don’t you come sit down?” You suddenly asked and Jotaro looked down at you.

“No, I don’t-“

“Too bad, too late!” You grinned as you grabbed his hand out of his pocket and dragged him back to the stairs with you, not even giving him any time to protest. “Everyone, this is Jotaro! Jotaro, this is everyone.” You smiled as you introduced him to the terrified kids on the stairs.

A small girl then slowly stepped forward, her hair almost white-blonde and braided in two braids down the sides of her head.

She looked up at Jotaro with big eyes, the man staring back, before smiling wide, holding her arms up at him and making grabby hands. “Uh.” Jotaro hesitantly looked at you while you just held the biggest smile.

“That’s Amelia, she’s seven years old and mute.” You explained before urging Jotaro with your eyes to do as she asked and pick her up.

Sighing, he leaned down and grabbed the girl under her armpits, easily lifting her up into his arms and looping an arm under her to hold her. Amelia immediately wrapped her tiny arms around his neck, smiling brightly as she looked into his eyes.

Jotaro averted his gaze from the girl in his arms, over to you, to see you nearly melting on the spot. He rolled his eyes in response to you freaking out. “Happy?” He grumbled out and you just nodded vehemently.

A tugging broke Jotaro from watching you and he looked down behind him to see a little boy tugging on his pants, pointing up at him.

“You want to go up too?” You questioned and the boy nodded enthusiastically, shouting out a ‘yeah!’.

“Wait, Y/N-“ Before he could do anything about it, you had lifted the boy and placed him on Jotaro’s back, letting him cling by himself since Jotaro was using both hands to hold the girl.

You couldn’t help but laugh at the disgruntled look on Jotaro’s face as the boy giggled loudly, clinging tightly on his back.

The other children were suddenly a lot less terrified, as two others stood up and started tugging on his pants as well. It was clear that the younger kids had stayed around you as you taught the lesson, while the older three had drifted a bit away. This meant however, that Jotaro was now surrounded by small kids, two of them on top of him.

“I’m not a horse you know.” He grumbled, looking at the two hanging on his pants a little warily, watching where they put their hands.

“You’re not, but you’re just as tall, if not taller, and a lot less dangerous.” You grinned, earning a glare from the man though you knew there was no real hostility in it.

Just then, the doors to the church opened and a nun came walking out. “Ah, miss L/N! How goes the reading?” She questioned and you turned your gaze from watching Jotaro, to the nun.

“Ah! It’s going fine, thank you! And thank you again for letting me use this space.” You smiled sweetly.

“Of course, our doors are open for you anytime.” The nun smiled back before turning to see the remarkable sight of Jotaro, surrounded by kids, holding a small girl while another child clung to his back. “Mr. Kujo.” She smiled, pleasantly surprised.

“Hello, Sister.” Jotaro greeted back. He may be a hardass, but he at least had respect for those who deserved it, unlike a lot of other people.

“It is good to see you again. Coming to visit Y/N I see?” She smiled and Jotaro dipped his head a little in response, both as a way to answer yet also as a way to hide his eyes from the Sister, for he knew she could look through him as though he was shouting out his thoughts and emotions. “Well, no matter.” The nun smiled slyly to herself, seeing through the action. “Who here is hungry?” She then spoke out a little louder and almost every tiny head perked up.

You giggled at the sight and swiftly moved to behind Jotaro, grabbing onto the boy hanging there and lifting him down from his back while Jotaro himself carefully sat the girl down. In a matter of seconds, all of the kids were lined up in a row and quickly started following the nun into the church, the doors closing behind them and leaving you and Jotaro on the steps.

“Whoo, they are always a lively bunch.” You chuckled, turning a little to face Jotaro before walking up to the stairs and sitting down on them, grabbing the book you had been working on with them, as well as the notebook and pencil.

“What book were you reading?” Jotaro asked, sitting down next to you. You took notice of how close he sat though, his arm touching yours as you sat side by side.

“King Arthur and the knights of the round table.” You said it in a fancy manner and held the book up for him as he took it from your hands.

“Knights? Really?” He scoffed as he briefly leafed through the pages and you playfully bumped your shoulder into his.

“Hey! It’s good for their imagination.” You chuckled. “Besides, it needs to be engaging for them. Lord knows I can’t try to teach them to read with the kinds of books you read. ‘How wagons are assembled’ or ‘how nature works’. Oh! Oh! ‘How a steam train or steam boat functions’.” You giggled a little as you poked fun at him, lowering your voice near the end to match his as best you could as you spoke.

“That’s not what I sound like.” Jotaro rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Sure you don’t, tough boy.” You leaned forward until you could look at him from under the brim of his hat, now hovering over his lap as you cocked your head with a smirk. “I have heard you rant about inventions and discoveries made more than anyone else, I’m pretty sure.”

Jotaro just scoffed and looked to the side, unable to hide his slightly embarrassed blush since you were right below him. Oh god, you were right below him, your face so close to his. He only needed to lean down a little and- Clearing his throat, Jotaro leaned back a bit, giving himself some space and prompting you to sit up again, none the wiser from what was going through his head.

“Hey, did you know they were setting up a new shop last week? Apparently you can get your picture taken there.” You suddenly started, looking forward through the churchyard as you mused.

“Oh?” Jotaro spoke, trying to sound disinterested yet listening intently.

“Would you... perhaps want to take a picture with me there?” You hesitantly asked and Jotaro’s heart skipped a beat though he didn’t show it. “I always wanted to see what I would look like on one of those.”

“Not very different from what you look like when you look in a mirror.” Jotaro cringed at how roughly that came out but he had said it before he could stop himself. He just hoped it didn’t dissuade you from wanting to take a picture with him.

“Say, are you insulting me, Mr. Kujo?” You teased lightheartedly, nudging him again and a tiny relieved smile played on Jotaro’s lips.

“I wouldn’t dream of ever insulting you.”

“Alright, now I know you’re just taking a piss.” You laughed. “Either way, what do you say we-!” You suddenly stopped your excited exclamation, catching Jotaro’s attention. “Oh wait, it’d probably cost a lot huh? Shoot, never mind, we can go do something else...” You deflated but quickly shook it off, perking up in feigned happiness again. “Do you have anything in mind!?”

Jotaro however, studied your face close. He hated to see how your excitement got washed away so quickly. “Yare yare.” Standing up from the stairs, he held his right hand out to you.

“Oh, you’ve got something?” You asked, seemingly back to your happy self as you put your hand in his and allowed him to pull you up.

“Let’s go get that picture taken.”

Your face turned into shock as he said that. “Wait, really? But I just said- I- you- You mean you’ll pay?”

“As long as I can be in it as well, yes.” Jotaro gently tugged your hand, still holding onto it as he now used it to coax you along. “Let’s go then, we don’t know when it closes and it is getting late.”

Jotaro started walking, very consciously keeping hold of your hand. As you fell into step with him, excitedly buzzing, he made a bold move as he re-gripped your hand to fit more comfortably in his; as if you were intentionally holding hands from the beginning instead of just still awkwardly holding on after Jotaro pulled you to your feet.

You didn’t seem any wiser while Jotaro felt his heart pounding in his throat, relishing in how his hand fit around yours, your hand unconsciously still holding onto his. He was so tempted to rub his thumb over the back of your palm or to actually entwine his fingers with yours, but decided against it since that would definitely draw your attention to your hands and he didn’t want that. Right now, he would just hold on, silently musing to himself how small your hand was compared to his and how right it felt to have your hand sat in his.

In this moment, it was one of the few times Jotaro was actually glad for your obliviousness.

It didn’t take long for the two of you to reach the photography shop and you both stood in front of the door, slogans and examples of pictures slapped everywhere to lure people in.

‘Get your photo taken with your loved one and display the memory, so you may never forget!’

That and more was plastered on the display window, yet Jotaro couldn’t take his eyes off of that particular one. ‘With your loved one’. His attention automatically reverted back to how you were still holding hands and he had to try everything in his power to keep his face from heating up.

“Let’s go in!” You jumped once, breaking him out of his focus as you started dragging him to the door, opening it not a second later, the tall male in tow.

“Good afternoon, how can I help the lovely couple tonight?” A man standing in front of a camera asked when he saw you two come in, hand in hand.

“Oh, uh. We’re, uh.” Your face burst into flame as he commented that, your eyes drifted up to Jotaro and then to your entwined hands, realising you were still holding onto him.

You quickly made a move to let him go but Jotaro kept holding on, preventing you from pulling away as he squeezed your hand a little tighter.

“We’re here to get a picture taken, old man. What else.” He snapped a little and you sighed good-naturedly. Good ol’ Jotaro: intimidating people and being scary upon meeting them for the first time.

“Oh, haha, of course.” The owner chuckled nervously, though you swore you could hear him mutter a ‘I’m not that old’ as he turned to check his camera. “Uhm, you can just take your place in front of the background there.” He then smiled, motioning to the wall the camera was set up in front of.

The ‘background’ was a painting of an open plain, a rock formation with a modest waterfall in the back, as well as an eagle in the right hand corner.

Your jittery yet excited nerves for doing this came back, making you forget the flustering comment of the shop owner and you started walking towards the wall.

“Hope it’s gonna turn out alright.” You grinned up at Jotaro and he sent you a rare reassuring smile. It was small, but it was there, and suddenly, you were completely calm and ready to get this photo taken. The two of you took your place, Jotaro standing right up against you, making you blush.

“Alright.” The owner nervously rubbed his hands together, obviously still a bit scared of the nearly two meter tall man in black. “Ah, you are already in the perfect positions, you are naturals at this.” He tried to crack a joke but it came out a little awkward and he cleared his throat. “Look here please.” The man pointed at a spot right above the camera before ducking behind the device.

And just like that, the photos were taken.

After this entire time, Jotaro relinquished his hold on your hand, figuring it was best to let go, lest he was too obvious and even you would notice. Hell you, probably already did but thought nothing of it. Your obliviousness shining through again.

In the end, the two of you picked out the two best ones, nearly identical, and took one each.

That night, as Jotaro walked back home, he admired the photograph in his hand. He didn’t care much for how he looked in it, but it was the exact opposite with you. You looked so happy in it. Your smile shining bright and your energy nearly radiating off of it even through the photo. Yet what Jotaro treasured more than all in it, was the way your hands were entwined in the photo. Right in the middle, screaming for him to look at it. And look he did, feeling his cheeks heat up a little.

Opening the door to his home, he was immediately bombarded as his mother latched to him, wrapping her arms around his torso.

“Jotaro, you’re home!” She cheered happily. “You missed dinner so I put some to the side for you.” She smiled and Jotaro just huffed a little, pushing her off of himself. He wasn’t even hungry, he just wanted to go to bed.

That wish was short-lived however, as someone suddenly tackled him from behind, making him face plant into the floor.

“Jotaro! My boy!” The oh-so familiar voice of his grandfather sounded.

Question marks went off in the younger man’s head. His mother hadn’t told him the old man was coming for a visit?

“Get off.” Jotaro grunted as he attempted to shake his grandpa off but it was futile, as Joseph instead put him into a deadlock, pulling his arm behind his back and trapping it there, which made his eyes widen. The fucking photograph was in that hand and if that old man got even a single crinkle or fold in it, he would have his head.

“Good evening, Jotaro.” A familiar accented voice spoke and Jotaro looked up from under his hat to see Caesar sitting in the arm chair facing him, giving a disappointed look at Joseph.

“Caesar.” Jotaro grunted back a greeting as Joseph found that exact moment to twist his arm a little further.

“Oh, what’s this?” The voice on top suddenly curiously spoke and Jotaro felt the photograph be swiped from his fingers, making his eyes widen.

His grandfather was an expert at pinning people down thanks to years of random fights and being friends with Caesar. Yet you should never underestimate a desperate man trying to keep his dignity who also has a temper to match.

Thanks to Joseph using one hand to look at the paper in his hand, he had lost his hold on Jotaro’s right arm and the young man took full use of it.

Pushing himself up a bit, he threw the older man off of himself and turned around to swipe the photo back, but Joseph was way quicker and had used the momentum to get to his feet and run over to Caesar, standing behind his chair as he turned the paper around, feasting his eyes on the photo again.

“What’s this, Jotaro? Who’s that with you?” He asked in disbelief and Jotaro clenched his jaw. His mother, upon hearing her father say the sentence, zipped over and curiously looked at the photo as well, gasping a little once she saw it, before looking up at her son and sending him a giant grin.

Jotaro pulled his hat down a little and stomped over, attempting to swipe at the photo. “Give it back.” He growled as he tried to grab it, but Joseph moved it out of his reach.

“No way! You have some explaining to do, I mean, you’re smiling in this!”

“I’m not.” Jotaro grumbled, once again lunging forward to get it back, but Joseph tittered away, way too giddy and happy about what he was finding out about his grandson.

“Yes you are! Look! It’s small, but it’s there!” He turned the photo around and pointed at Jotaro’s face in it. Holly took a closer look and her proud grin grew even more.

“Would you stop, old man? It’s nothing, so just give it back.” Jotaro once again walked across the room to try and reach his grandfather, but Joseph danced out of his grasp once more, skipping over to Caesar who had stayed seated in this entire ordeal and showing the photo to his lifelong friend.

“Look Caesar! You see it too right?”

Caesar, who had had his eyes closed, opened them and slowly looked up at Joseph, grasping the photo with his left hand before harshly grasping his friend’s wrist, prying his hand away from the photo before getting out of the chair and moving over to the younger man.

“Here you go.” He spoke as he returned the photo.

“Thanks.” Jotaro spoke, a little unsure of what to say.

“Tell her how you feel soon. Don’t let it slip through your fingers.” Jotaro blinked a few times, feeling his face heat up a little as the Italian man gave the advice, speaking loud enough for only him to hear it. With a soft tug, he pulled down the brim of his hat over his eyes and nodded, quickly making his way out of the room so he could finally just go to bed.

As he walked through the hall, he heard his grandpa’s despairing cries, questioning Caesar why he would do that, and a small smirk appeared on Jotaro’s face. He could always trust in Caesar.

- - - -

Two weeks had passed and Jotaro was sitting on the steps of the church. To his left, he heard your gentle and caring voice reading passages of the book to the kids around. To his right, the little girl, Amelia, was practically glued to his hip as he read his own book, just silently sitting through your class.

He had been doing this more and more frequently, just coming by every once in a while, not really saying anything and just sitting with you as you taught the kids.

As he turned the page of his book, he suddenly felt something being lifted from his front pocket however and he snapped his head up, looking to his left to see the dirty blond, who he now knew as Jack, lifting his pocket watch from its place. The boy immediately noticed he was found out and bolted, laughing as he ran across the grass to the fences on the other side.

Jotaro however, was pissed as he slammed his book shut and walked over to Jack with large strides. “Give it back.” He spoke lowly, a threatening glare directed at the boy.

Jotaro physically saw him gulp, smirking a little to himself to see he still had his intimidating presence with these kids. But it was short lived, since Jack seemingly found a bit of courage again - continuing on with the plan, unknown to Jotaro.

“Why? I’m sure you can buy another one. Unless... this one is special?” Jotaro narrowed his eyes dangerously and Jack could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He clicked open the watch and there was a triumphant glint in his eyes. “Aha.” He spoke and smirked up at Jotaro, only for that smirk to leave as he saw the dangerous aura radiating off of the man. “Tommy!” He yelled and threw the pocket watch, making Jotaro’s heart sink for a moment, scared it would drop on the stone steps and break.

“You little shit.” He glared at Jack before turning around to Tommy, who was standing on the steps of the church.

“Hey, what’s going on!” You called out, looking up from your book while the children around were trying to write letters in your notebook.

Tommy immediately took this chance and rushed over to you when Jotaro started taking threatening strides towards the boy. He didn’t want to hit a kid but so help him god, he would get that pocket watch back. Jotaro wasn’t fast enough however, as Tommy zipped over to you and flipped the pocket watch open, shoving it in your face.

Jotaro faltered in his steps, nervous sweat rolling down the side of his face. Those little brats had planned this all out. They knew. Jotaro hated to say it, but he had made it too obvious that he was sweet on you and they knew.

“Jotaro!” Your exclamation of surprise ripped him from his thoughts and he looked over at you, doing his best to keep an expression of indifference. “How did you manage to do this? I had to make a bigger frame to fit mine!” You turned the pocket watch around so he could see the inside, showing the clock on the right while on the left, on the inside of the cover, he now had a perfect view of the photograph of the two of you that he had stuck in there.

Jack and Tommy groaned while Jotaro’s shoulders slumped a bit. In both relief, as well as disappointment for some reason, seeing you were none the wiser.

Jotaro just waved his hand a bit, dismissing your question as he walked over and took the pocket watch back from you. Looking it over to see if it was damaged but luckily, it wasn’t. Concluding that, he flipped it shut and put it back in the pocket where it belonged.

“Well?” You looked up at him with hopeful and curious eyes and Jotaro pulled his hat down over his face. You looked... cute.

Jotaro didn’t lift his hat as he took his spot next to you again. “I went back and had a photograph taken of the photograph.” He said through gritted teeth, reluctantly telling you how he did it, embarrassment flooding through him over having to admit that.

“Oh, that’s so clever! I should do something like that as well.” You giggled, then dreamingly looked forward.

You were pulled out of it by a small tug on your sleeve. “Miss Y/N, can we have a break?” The small boy asked and you smiled sweetly, nodding.

“Of course, you go ahead and play for a bit.” You shoo’ed all the kids and they erupted into talk and laughter, all of them getting up and finding a place to play.

As the kids were running around a bit during the break, a shadow got cast over a specific pair of boys, making them freeze and slowly turn around to the imposing figure. “Tommy. Jack. Any of you touch my shit ever again and I will make you severely regret it.” The threat and danger in Jotaro’s voice was real and the boys swallowed heavily, nodding frantically before busting out into a sprint, running away as far as possible before squeaking as Jotaro made his way back over to them, since they had ran towards where you sat on the steps and that was where Jotaro wanted to sit down again as well.

“Did you have to scare them like that?” You questioned with a chuckle and Jotaro just huffed in amusement as he sat down.

“Yes. They need to know not to take my stuff.”

“You know, you’re right. That is a good lesson to learn.” You chuckled, only for your smile to slowly dim down as your attention got taken by several pairs of horse hooves thumping across the ground. “What’s that?” You questioned as you looked at the large group of riders, watching them trot closer and closer, slowing down the closer they got to the church. All of them carried rather large guns and other weapons.

You nervously looked up at Jotaro, who had his eyes narrowed as he looked at the large group as well. “Stay alert.” He spoke quietly and you nodded, the both of you getting up.

Jotaro whistled loud and curtly, gaining the attention of all the kids. You quickly motioned your arms for all of them to come, not wanting to verbally shout it just in case the riders would hear and take it the wrong way.

Taking the hint, the kids all started to run into your arms and Jotaro took a step forward, holding his arms out a little to keep you and the children behind him.

Everyone had fearful looks as Amelia was the last to reach you, running behind you and around, hanging on the back of Jotaro’s pants. It wasn’t a few seconds later that the riders all stopped in front of the church.

“Howdy, partner.” The leader of the herd spoke up after a few seconds but Jotaro immediately picked up on the false friendliness in the voice.

“What do you want?” He bit back, glaring vehemently.

“Whoa, so angry.” The man mocked with a large grin, turning back to his friends behind him who laughed softly. “You should show me some respect you know.” He then continued, turning back to Jotaro with that grin still on his face. “Did your momma never teach you respect?” He continued jesting but Jotaro didn’t give any reaction, just holding the intimidating glare on the man.

This made him feel as if he was losing grip of the situation, so the man decided to take another approach and laughed a bit while calling out. “Why don’t I teach you some then?” He jokingly pointed his gun at Jotaro and the children whimpered and gasped in fear from behind him. Your grip on his trenchcoat tightened and Jotaro’s reaction was immediate, his right hand pulling back to behind his back before snapping forward, a gun now pointed at the man’s head.

“Try it.” Jotaro’s voice was low and dangerous and even the rider took note of it. “I know exactly what you’re up to. This is a community church, it has nothing of value for you, so take your little group and piss off. You’re scaring the children.” Jotaro calmly spoke as he stared down the barrel of the gun, showing not even a hint of fear, nervousness or hesitation.

“Now... calm down, friend.” The man tried, re-gripping his gun a little nervously.

“We ain’t friends and you know it. Get the hell away from here.” Jotaro’s hand was as steady as ever, his gun constantly pointed at the man’s head without even a single tremor or twitch from holding the iron up.

This angered the man. “You seem to not understand that you are outnumbered here, friend.” He spoke, calling Jotaro that again on purpose, signalling his mates in the meantime, who all grabbed a gun and pointed it at Jotaro as well.

The children cowered even more, small shrieks leaving them and you tried to shush them. “It’s alright, just stay behind me and Jotaro. You’re alright.” You spoke in a hushed tone, petting the heads of those you could reach. You discreetly saw the door to the church open and saw the Sister poke her head out. You quickly and frantically shook your head, a message for her to stay where she was.

“Are you really going to threaten children on church grounds?” Jotaro questioned calmly and the leader growled a bit in anger.

“Stop acting so smug or I’ll blast your head off! And that of that girl too! Give those brats something to look at!”

“Threaten her again and I’ll make sure you’ll never speak again.” Jotaro’s retort was immediate as he glared at the man, lowering his gun just a little to point directly at the mouth of the loud-mouthed bastard.

“Hit a nerve?” The guy smirked. “I’ll say it again, you’re outnumbered.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, son.” A new voice spoke up and everyone’s head whipped to the source. “What’s going on here?” The sheriff spoke, tilting his head a little while two of his deputies joined his side, all of them having their hands hovering over the guns strapped to their belts.

Now that there were a lot more possible enemies, the man wavered. Slowly and reluctantly, he lowered his gun. “Nothing, sheriff. Just a bit of harmless fun.” He spoke and his friends took it as a sign to lower their guns as well.

“Was it? ‘Cause as far as I can see you are threatening innocent children. Now, will you move on yourself or will we have a problem?”

“Tch.” The man gritted his teeth before hitting the reins of his horse, simultaneously softly kicking his feet into its belly, making the animal start calmly stepping forward, the rest of his group following his example as they started riding away at a slow pace.

“Follow them and make sure they leave proper.” The sheriff whispered to his deputies before leaving them to their business and walking over to the gate leading into the church grounds.

Jotaro kept his gun up the entire time the gang of riders were riding away, all of them sending occasional glances back that kept Jotaro on high alert. Only once the deputies rode past and started tailing the men did he finally lower it.

Once he un-cocked the gun and sighed out, the children still cowering behind the two of you finally relaxed a little, two of them bursting into tears as the sheriff walked through the fence and towards the steps of the church - to which you immediately started trying to console them.

“Holy crap! You just won that standoff singlehandedly!!” Jack shouted as the sheriff stepped into earshot, the boy jumping in front of Jotaro with his hands thrown in the air as he looked at the man before him in awe.

“That was so cool!! It was like twenty to one and you still won!” Tommy piped in with an exaggerated number and Jotaro lowered his hat over his eyes, softly letting out his usual catchphrase.

“Are you boys all alright?” The sheriff walked up and Jotaro lifted his gaze again, briefly looking back to see you had succeeded in calming the children down, four of them now clinging to you in a group hug as the doors to the church opened properly, the nun quickly walking out to help comfort the children.

“Yes. Thank you for stepping in.” Jotaro spoke back, nonchalantly putting his gun back in its place, hidden behind his trenchcoat.

“Well, that’s my job.” The sheriff joked before turning a little more serious. “What happened exactly?”

Jotaro looked back at you once again, seeing you now quietly talking with the kids to calm them down. This earned him an elbow poke in the ribs from Tommy and he glared at the kid, making said boy giggle to himself and drag Jack with him, running over to you.

“They came to rob the church, believing it to have many riches like those city churches have, probably.” Jotaro sounded a little indifferent as he turned back to look forward and the sheriff hummed.

“Mr. Kujo saved us, sheriff Miller.” The sister spoke as she walked up, placing a hand on Jotaro’s shoulder blade. Jotaro just looked down at the nun, getting a grateful smile from her and he gave a small barely noticeable nod back.

Something suddenly latched onto his right leg and Jotaro looked down to see Amelia hanging on his pant leg, burying her head into the fabric.

Jotaro just looked at her for a second. He didn’t know what he had done to get her like this, but Amelia had really attached herself to him. Jotaro on the other hand, still had no idea what to do around children. He awkwardly patted her on her head, making her look up. “Go to Y/N, it’s alright.” He spoke, trying his best to sound gentle but it still came out quite gruffly, regrettably enough.

Amelia didn’t seem to care though and stayed latched on his leg while both the nun and the sheriff chuckled discreetly at the young man trying his best. Crouching down to get on eye height with the girl, the sheriff got her attention. “Are you alright?” He asked and Amelia turned her head, half of her face still buried in Jotaro’s trousers but still paying attention. She nodded softly and the sheriff smiled.

“Why don’t you go to Miss L/N, Mr. Kujo? I’ll handle the rest.” The Sister smiled and Jotaro nodded at her, turning around.

Amelia let go of his leg and instead grabbed his hand, trying to pull him along now as she tried to hurry over to you.

Once he was close enough, you noticed and got up, turning around to face him. Amelia let go of his hand and ran to her friends while your eyes crossed with Jotaro’s.

Tears were pricking in the corners and that shocked Jotaro slightly. He had no time to react as you ran over to him and jumped into him, wrapping your arms around his neck as you buried your head in his shoulder.

He immediately caught you, wrapping his arms around your body and holding it against himself to hold you up. Yet, his eyes were wide as he felt his heart thump. He had no idea what to do. He felt you pressing your face even deeper into his neck, trying to keep yourself from crying in front of the children but Jotaro knew you wanted to, more than anything.

His brain short-circuited and all he could think to do was tighten his hold on you, letting you know he was there.

Some noises to his left caught his attention and he looked over to see Jack and Tommy making kissy faces at him. In an immediate reaction he kicked a rock that lay at his foot to them, making them dodge it and giggle while running away again, joining the other kids while Jotaro silently grumbled to himself, trying to calm his beating heart.

“You alright?” He asked after a minute more of silence and he felt you nod into his shoulder.

“Yeah... you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jotaro questioned and you lifted your head, leaning back a bit to look at his face. Your eyes were a bit red and you sniffled softly.

“Well.” You started with a small sad chuckle. “You did just nearly die.”

To that, Jotaro rolled his eyes. “You clearly read the situation wrong then.” He put you back on your feet, looking to see the nun walking back over to the children while the sheriff was now walking away, sticking his hand up as he looked back in a goodbye before turning around fully and walking back to his horse.

Because he was looking to the sheriff walking away however, he was unable to brace himself when you took a few steps back and jumped right into him, tackling him to the floor.

A heavy ‘oof’ left him as he crashed to the ground with you right on top of him. You immediately sat onto his stomach and Jotaro had to try very hard to suppress a blush at the sight.

“Don’t you dare accuse me of seeing things wrong when I am just worried for your safety.” You spoke, poking his chest in warning, but the teasing look in your eyes told Jotaro exactly what you were thinking.

In return, Jotaro grabbed your wrists and rolled the two of you around so that you were now pinnend under him. “I will accuse you, because you will always remain oblivious.” He spoke, his voice sounding a little strained even though he held a small smirk.

“Oblivious to what?” You questioned, narrowing your eyes. Jotaro didn’t say anything, just looked deeply in your eyes. Neither of you really noticed he was leaning down until his face was inches from yours.

Yet before anything else could happen: “GET HIIIIMMM!!” A young voice screamed out and Jotaro jerked his head back up, looking up past his shoulder only to have three different bodies flung on top of him.

You burst out laughing at Jotaro’s surprised face that only you had a view of, even though you were still trapped under the man, his hands on either side of you as he attempted to keep himself from toppling over and crushing you.

“No, no! Oh dear.” You heard the Sister laugh, having tried to stop the children, only to fail miserably as six of the eight were now on top of Jotaro, trying to bring him down.

Part 2 | Part 3

#hopelessly in love joot hours #jotaro x reader #jotaro kujo #jojos bizarre adventure #cowboy au #jjba au #jjba #jojo x reader #jjba x reader #long awaited and I hope you like it cause I love it #jotaro x you #jotaro x y/n #jotaro #kujo jotaro #cowboy jotaro

278 notes · View notes

river-bottom-nightmare · 4 years

Text

you know what i’m curious about? jason reacting to dick after red hood.

and by “after red hood,” i mean after he’s become a more of an anti-hero, teaming up with the bats when it fits his convenience, looking out for the underprivileged and lower class of gotham specifically, not turning to killing as his first thought but not shying away from it if required either.

and that’s roughly how the bats are pulling him back into their little universe: it’s not their first priority anymore now that jason’s established himself as someone who uses lethal violence but has still managed to gain the trust of gotham’s people, but they aren’t shying away from how they clearly want him back either. so jason isn’t plugged into the bat’s central mainframe, but oracle passes on knowledge whenever it’s deemed important. and tim made jason a couple of fake ids as an olive branch, he returned it with the keys to a safehouse he never uses but tim may find useful. steph doesn’t seem too terrified of him, cass doesn’t seem to hesitate talking to him. and bruce is awkward and fumbling and manages to completely screw up almost every interaction the two of them have, but goddamnit he’s trying, jason can see that bruce is really, really trying. so he backs off bruce’s neck, knowing that he won’t ever be accepted into the family again, knowing that bruce has made it clear he won’t ever see jason as his son again, but maybe he can establish himself as an ally. someone they don’t trust with their hearts, but they trust with their lives.

(and jason’s okay with that. he really is.)

the one person that doesn’t sit right with jason is dick.

because the dick that jason remembered from his scattered, ash-blown mind was nothing like the dick he saw parading around the manor.

for one. he was in the manor. jason’s formative years as robin were filled with the most agonizing screams he could ever think of. his father’s drunken yells, the gang boys that busted up far too near jason’s dilapidated little home, the yowls and howls of a thousand voices in gotham city screaming in pain, all of that had nothing on what jason heard. because sure, he’d heard from the people bruce and dick took him to meet that dick was so kindhearted, so good, so passionate. and,,,,passionate certainly seemed to be a word for it. there was nothing more terrifying, thirteen-year-old jason decided, then the harrowing, angry screams of a sober man screaming at someone he loved. because bruce and dick loved each other. loved each other so much that love turned to hate, rolled around until it became black and blue like an ugly bruise, except dick decided to take that black and blue and smear it across his chest so the whole world could see his pain.

now? now, dick smiled at bruce like a mischievous little boy, corrected his form during spars, pointed out things he missed in the field. and bruce,,,,,acquiesced. he rolled his eyes longsufferingly at dick’s antics when previously, a hint of that humor would have bruce sneering at dick’s childishness that he should have outgrown. bruce corrected his posture on the mat, then struck again calmly. bruce nodded his head at the correction, thanking dick for his insight with a glance and a nod, then carried on with the investigation. that easy trust the two of them fell back on, previously only seen during a combat situation when jason was robin where action was instinctive, was now present in almost every interaction the two of them had. seemingly overnight, bruce had learned to respect dick as an adult, and dick had grown around bruce’s paranoia and obsessiveness instead of rushing straight into it.

for another thing. he wasn’t joking when he called dick the “golden child.” he’d joked when he was a kid, calling him every iteration of the nickname his team had given him, because in his mind it was ridiculous. over time, dick had warmed to him, though it had taken a while for the man to stop seeing robin every time he looked at jason and started seeing jason. the death and the resurrection and the impromptu swimming lesson in the world’s most dangerous indoor pool had mixed up jason’s memories, but he was slowly getting back flashes of a laugh, a hand on his shoulder. dick teaching him how to train surf, dick taking him out for ethiopian and scoffing at how americanized it was, dick stitching up a nasty gash on his calf. but those incidents were rare, few and far between, and dick knew it. the two of them knew dick wasn’t as perfect as the world made him out to be, and dick shot jason a rueful smile every time he called him “goldie,” because jason seemed to be one of the very few people in the world that got to see how imperfect dick really was.

when jason was younger, he used to think that made him special.

now, jason couldn’t decide if dick had stopped thinking of him as one of the select few that actually saw dick grayson and not a picture-perfect mask he presented, or if dick had taken a dive in his own personal lazarus pit, only this time instead of anger issues and trauma, he got a fat ass and brilliant big brother skills. the guy managed to connect to cass on a level no one else could, the two of them using their bodies as a language few others could read. he coaxed laughs out of steph even though the two of them didn’t see each other that often. but the biggest change? timothy goddamn drake. his replacement, only you can’t replace a position that never existed in the first place, can you? to dick, jason was only ever a kid he babysat sometimes, someone whose hair he ruffled on occasion and bought hot chocolate for, but nothing more. dick tugged tim into hugs so naturally, jason almost believed they’d been doing it all their lives. dick’s teachings were evident in every fluid line of the kids arms twirling a staff, dick’s influence in his not-as-beautiful-and-smooth yet practiced acrobatics, dick’s mark on the kid showing up even in his ice cream order. tim was dick’s brother, someone that looked up to him with stars in his eyes, someone that dick actively strived to be perfect for.

the stars in jason’s eyes had burnt up into a supernova of tears the first time he’d met dick, that tiny flame of hope snuffing out immediately as he curled under dick’s harsh gaze and spiteful words.

the thing is, people don’t just change like that. jason liked to convince himself that he’d become someone new, someone different once he came back to gotham, but he knew deep down he was that same scrappy, street-smart kid. jury was still out on whether that little kid had the same inky darkness drenching his soul that jason was covered with now, or if robin’s wholehearted goodness still shone through in the cracks of red hood’s armour.

dick sure as hell hadn’t been the perfect big brother back then that he was now. he wasn’t the family mediator, translating bruce’s gregorian knot of emotions to something the others would understand. he wasn’t the calm, cool, collected crimefighter with a powerful name stretching out in front of him and the biggest legacy ever created behind him.

dick was human. he screamed and raged cried and hated and made mistakes and broke like a dying star. this glossy, picture-perfect mask he seemed to have drilled to his face wouldn’t stay on forever. and jason wanted to be there when it cracked.

who even knows what the fuck this was. certainly not me. i was just having some robin!jason feels.

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @screennamealreadyused @subtleappreciation @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @iwhumpyou

#scribbles from the swamp #jason todd #red hood #robin #dick grayson #nightwing #batfam #dc #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanon #robin headcanon #dick grayson headcanon #nightwing headcanon #batfam headcanon #dc headcanon

888 notes · View notes

athenasbloodyspear · 3 years

Text

Don’t Make Me Beg Now Baby

CHAPTER ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS

Hello fellow Greta Van Freaks. This is my very first Greta fic! I hope you enjoy.

MASTERLIST

Note: This fic contains mature themes, discussions of past non-con (no members of GVF involved) and drug use. Minors DNI. 18+ only and please take care of yourselves. (See Ao3 for full tag list)

You can also read this fic on Ao3 if you prefer!

Jake Kiszka x Original Female Character

Picture this: The boys are in Northern Michigan to write the new album and they meet a wild young woman who works at a local record store who has a rough history with rock bands.

She doesn’t want to fall into the same traps she fell into before. He doesn’t want to hurt her.

The rest of them just want them to figure their shit out.

Note: While this fic is based on the members of Greta Van Fleet, I obviously do not know them personally (lol) and nearly 99% of this is a fever dream I decided to write down. Some tid bits are based on things said in interviews/photos/songs but please do not come for my neck if you dislike my portrayals as this is a STORY that I have entirely made up.

This will be a slow burn, overly dramatic, cliché fest of me missing my Mitten State and wishing more than anything I could move back home. Their music makes me homesick and for that I’ll never forgive them. ;)

Chapter Under the Cut

CHAPTER ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS

The tiny bell on the door to “The Edge” clanked as Jake pushed his way in, followed by Josh, Sam and Danny. The afternoon sun streamed through the slats in the windows at a harsh angle, illuminating the swirling dust. The boys all immediately took a deep breath. They all loved the smell of this place. A mix of dusty old vinyl's, incense and weed.

The Edge was the shop owned by an old friend, Levi, who had been a longtime family friend of the Kiszka’s. The boys had made the near three hour drive to the shop whenever they had a spare weekend in their younger years. They bought Levi out of his guitar strings and drumsticks and always looked through the boxes of vinyl's hoping to find treasures. Levi sold an eclectic mix of music equipment, records, books, home goods and comically horrific coffee.

The Edge is where they had each bought their very first instruments, had their first beers and even smoked their first joint. It was a special place for them.

The old wood floors creaked with every step, the wood walls were covered with old articles from Rolling Stone, photos Levi had taken and autographs from the artists who had cycled through the place over the years. There were stacks upon stacks of vinyl's. Shelves of old autobiographies and music theory books. There were speakers stacked from floor to ceiling, and the whole right side of the store was jam packed with basses and guitars. The back corner had a few keyboards and a drum set, but plenty of catalogues to pick even more instruments from. There were cases of drumsticks and guitar picks and strings. The middle of the store had tables full of incense, candles and interesting home goods. There were tables where local artists sold jewelry, art pieces and furniture. It was full to the brim, most shelves rising way up to the ceiling. Most needed a ladder to reach the top. The basement had a sound studio with even more equipment set up to be used to record, or to test out.

Levi had inherited the place from his father, who had built up quite a legendary roster of friends over his years. The shop was just off Front Street on the main drag of Traverse City. Levi’s father had made a name for himself as a great host to bands looking to escape to northern Michigan to hole up in cabins and write albums. Levi continued the tradition and took it a step further by buying the space next door and turning it into a club with live music on the weekends.

If you were lucky, you could catch some super huge bands playing for only about 100 people in the dark side room of The Edge.

“You bastards finally made it!” Levi called out as he came sauntering out of the back room. Levi looked the exact same as the last time the boys had seen him. Tanned skin from his days paddle boarding and hiking along the Lake Michigan shore, sandy blonde hair that was brighter in the summer, perpetual 5-o-clock shadow because he just couldn’t be bothered to shave, shell necklace around his neck, light wash jeans low on his hips with the same old cowboy boots he’d been wearing since the boys were 12.

“Is that grey hair I see Levi?” Josh leaned forward with an exaggerated squint. Levi laughed, snagging Josh’s head to give him a noogie.

“I may be older than you punks by a few years, but I’m not greying yet.” Levi released Josh from his headlock and gave him a shove.

“I’d say 37 is more than a few years older than us, grandpa.” Sam snarked.

“You’re makin me regret extending my hospitality, kid.”

Jake felt himself relax fully for the first time in a really long time. It was just like old times. Exactly what the boys needed.

“Welcome back dudes. I’m surprised I’m still cool enough for you Rockstar types.” Levi crossed his legs and leaned back against the front counter.

“We’ll never be too cool for The Edge. This place will always be way cooler than we could ever be.” Danny piped up, walking forward to wrap Levi in a hug.

“It’s been too long man.” Levi commented as he smacked Danny on the back.

“We know.” Sam said “Way too fuckin long.” He hugged Levi next. Josh and Jake followed up with hugs next. The room was heavy with a tinge of melancholy. Old friends who had missed each other finally reunited.

“Well, have you guys been to the house yet?” Levi stepped around the counter and started pouring four cups of the famous nasty coffee.

“Yeah we dropped our bags off before we headed into town.” Danny spoke up.

“Isn’t it sweet?” Levi asked enthusiastically.

“It’s wicked man. Thanks so much for getting that set up for us.” Josh grinned as he snagged a cup off the counter.

The house was a mid century modern cabin right on the east bay shore. It came equipped with a huge garage studio, front deck and a dock out into the bay. Levi had bought the house in foreclosure and along with help from a bunch of locals (in exchange for beer of course) they turned the house into a perfect getaway for any artists looking to come take a break up north. The place had five bedrooms and three bathrooms with a giant living room with overstuffed couches and velvet chairs. The walls were covered in art and the shelves were full to bursting with plants. It was a kaleidoscope of colors and textures, with mix matched rugs and lamps. It was Levi’s pride and joy.

“I’m so glad you guys like it.” Levi smiled even bigger as he passed coffees to the rest of the boys. “Once you’re a little more settled, feel free to send me a list of equipment you want me to set up downstairs and you can start coming in whenever to work. But also, I think you should probably take a week or two off first. You all look about two seconds away from collapsing.”

“Yeah we’re pretty fuckin beat dude. But we’ll send you a list ASAP.” Jake said, taking a burning sip of the coffee. It singed his nerve endings and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

Levi opened his mouth to speak again, when a voice filtered through the window to the loft above the store.

“Yo Levi!” the person shouted “Can you please get off your fuckin ass and pick music to play? I know Wednesdays are your day to pick but if you take forever I’m just gonna put on whatever I want and you can suck it.”

All four boys' heads snapped up to the window to the loft, but whoever was up there couldn’t be seen. All they could see was that the loft had clearly gotten a makeover. What used to be an upper level where Levi stored surplus supplies now looked like it had a plush velvet couch, lava lamps and plants in it.

“Alright alright! I’ll get on it.” Levi called back up, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he walked toward the central sound system behind the counter to scroll through Spotify playlists.

“Who the fuck is that and what have you done to the loft?” Josh asked, hopping up to sit on the counter.

“That would be the very best thing that’s ever fallen into my lap. A.k.a my new store and venue manager Maven. She moved back to the area after living in Hollywood for a few years managing bands and she completely changed my life. We finally have consistent stock, a longstanding line up at the club and I have had the time to start photography again. Truly a godsend, if not occasionally a pain in my ass. She turned the loft into a breakroom of sorts. There’s a couch and table up there now. She practically lives up there sometimes.”

“Damn she must be some woman if she finally got you to get your shit together with that club.” Sammy piped up.

“She’s hellfire, I’ll tell yah that.” Levi chuckled, finally hitting play on a playlist. The first bars of Surfin USA by the Beach Boys came on the surround system and matching groans came out of Jake downstairs and Maven upstairs.

“Not this shit again!” Maven yells. Jake chuckled to himself. Hellfire indeed.

“It’s my day to pick so suck it!” Levi called back before faux stage whispering to the boys “I mostly just play this to piss her off.”

Levi clapped his hands together once “Well boys, It’s close enough to five o'clock and I owe you a beer. Let’s head over to Little Fleet for some grub and beers and we can catch up.”

Josh grimaced as he sucked down the last bit of his coffee before lobbing the empty cup into the trash at the end of the counter. “You still make shit coffee Levi.”

“It’s the one thing I wouldn’t let Maven fix.” Levi said with a grin as all five men exited out the back door.

~0~

The boys took a week to relax, as per Levi’s request. They spent the days hiking the shore, kayaking and drinking beer around the fire. It had been way too long since they’d done this. The release of The Battle at Garden’s Gate had been exhilarating and the fans' response had been everything they’d hoped for. People seemed to love the album and they were all so proud. But with press interviews and touring, they hadn’t gotten more than a day or two to relax at a time. And they certainly hadn’t gotten a chance to get back to their favorite old haunts in years.

They stopped by the store almost every morning for a cup of coffee strong enough to jumpstart their hearts. Sometimes Levi joined them on their escapades, and sometimes he stayed behind to help out at the store. The boys spent a few afternoons sifting through albums and strumming on some of Levi’s vintage guitars.

Mostly they caught up on each other's lives. The boys recounted their more personal lives that happened outside the coverage of the album and Levi talked about the past few years of his life in Traverse City. Levi told them all about Maven and how she was practically his little sister. They laughed. They drank. They had a blast.

The boys noticed Levi was a little on edge occasionally, typically when they heard someone shuffling upstairs or equipment moving around in the backroom of the shop. They assumed it was Maven but weren’t sure, since they had yet to see her in the flesh. A week from their arrival they were all sitting in lawn chairs in the alley behind the store, smoking cigs and drinking their coffee when Sam finally asked.

“So, why haven’t we met your precious Maven yet? Hiding her from us or something?”

Levi shifted a bit in his chair. “Um..” he coughed out a laugh. “I am actually. Yes. But it’s the other way around, I’m hiding you from her.”

“Afraid she’ll fan-girl or something?” Josh commented as he ashed his cigarette.

“In… a sense.” Levi coughed. “But in quite the opposite way you’re imagining.”

“She’s a fan then?” Sammy piped up.

“She loves your music. A lot.” Levi sniffed and coughed again. “It’s a real safe haven for her. When she’s having a bad day I catch her upstairs laying on the floor smoking a J with sound cancelling headphones blasting your albums as loud as she can.”

“Exactly how it’s meant to be enjoyed. With a joint in hand.” Jake chimes in.

“Yeah..” Levi toes the asphalt a bit with his boots, but doesn’t continue.

“Soooo” Sammy drawls “Why can’t we meet her? We’re no stranger to super fans. I’m sure she’s cool.”

“Um, well. It’s a bit complicated.” Levi heaves a sigh before flicking his cigarette butt into the coffee canister at the center of their little circle. “I suppose I can trust you guys. You’re friends. Do you remember the huge lawsuit that the band Undercover Heart went through last year? The one about the um” He coughs again, “Rape of one of their staff members by the lead singer Ryan?”

“Yes. That shit was horrific man.” Danny spoke up. “I read all the details I could. They kept the poor girl's identity private but goddamn I felt so bad for her. She was a badass for filing that suit though.”

“Yeah. She was.” Levi breathed. “So, this is strictly off record and if you repeat this to anyone I will skin you all alive, famous rock stars be damned.”

“Jesus Levi.” Jake said.

“It was her.” Levi choked out. “Maven. That’s why she ran back from Hollywood and ended up here. That dude messed her up and she just… she struggles with meeting famous bands now. You know how many people cycle through this joint writing stuff. She just… has a really fuckin hard time with it sometimes. Particularly bands she likes. I think it’s because once you meet someone, and in her case, discover how much of a monster they can be, their music isn’t… safe anymore.”

“Fuck.” Jake said, flicking his cigarette into the canister.

“Well I feel terrible for joking about her being a fangirl.” Josh mutters.

“She just genuinely loves you guys a lot. I never really told her I was an old friend because I didn’t want her to be worried about y’all stopping by. I just know that if she knows you’re here she’ll take off and avoid coming by the shop as much as she can and not only do I need her here, but I think she needs the safety of the shop too. I didn’t want to wreck it.” Levi sighs again. “I know she’ll find out you’re here eventually, it’s inevitable. I just was a coward and didn’t want to break the news to her.”

“She was a pretty well known band manager wasn’t she?” Danny asks. “She like… completely made Undercover Heart what it was. Before they hired her they were slated to be a one hit wonder but she hauled them into relevancy basically by her will alone.”

“Yeah. She basically built that man's career for him. She gave him everything, and he took everything from her. If I ever see the man I’m liable to get my ass thrown in prison.” Levi mutters.

“I’ll help.” Danny says immediately.

All five sit in silence for a few minutes, smoking the last of their cigarettes. When they’d all finished, they stood and stretched to head back inside the shop.

“So yeah. Anyway, If you see her that’s fine, just… well now you have context for… her.” Levi says as he yanks open the door.

A few steps into the back hallway, Levi suddenly halts, causing all four boys to nearly bash into each other. The front door to the shop had crashed open and there were footsteps stomping across the store toward the front desk.

“Listen Levi,” Maven’s tense voice carried down the back hall. “I know Wednesdays are usually your day for music but I’m having an absolute shit fucking day so I’m playing Greta all day and there’s absolutely nothing you can fucking do about it, kapeesh?”

The very opening chords of Edge of Darkness scratch through the speakers after she finishes her sentence and the boys all exchange a slightly amused look, grins spread on all of their faces.

“Kapeesh.” Levi calls out to her. He spins and silently nods to the boys to head toward the back door. The boys attempt to be as quiet as they can as they creep toward the door.

“Also, Levi?” Maven calls again. Everyone halts in their tracks. “You said there was a band coming in soon. Are they here yet? Do you need me to set up the backroom?”

“Uh, yeah they’re here.” Levi squeaks. All five men share nervous looks. “They’re uh… up at the house.” He cringes at his lie. “I’m getting an equipment list from them today and then you can get started.

“Cool cool.” Maven calls back. “Do you think I’ll like their stuff?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Levi grins then. “I think you will.”

“Wicked.” Maven calls back.

All five men repress giggles as they skedaddle out the back door and into the alley.

~0~

The next morning the boys wake up to a group text from Levi.

COME BY THE SHOP ASAP. COME IN BACK DOOR. HEAD DOWN THE STAIRS TO THE BOOTH. BE AS QUIET AS YOU CAN.

A weird request, but they did as they were told. They all piled into the SUV they had rented and headed to the shop. Danny peeled open the back door as quietly as he could, and Sammy opened the door to the stairs. They tiptoed down and through the door at the end of the stairs that opened into the booth of a sound studio. Levi sat in front of all the mixing boards with a cup of coffee to his lips. He glanced over at them and softly said “coffees on the table.”

“Why the weird text?” Jake asked.

“Because of that.” Levi responded softly, pointing through the dark glass into the soundstage.

The sound stage was littered with mismatched rugs, and a few milk crates that doubled as tables. There was a gorgeous seafoam green drum set toward the back wall and stands full of various guitars and basses. Along the left wall was a piano and a Mellotron set up exactly to the specifications Sam sent over. However, with all these beautiful instruments to look at that would normally catch their eye, it was the woman sitting on stool in the center, cradling a dark purple Fender guitar that made Jake stop in his tracks.

Maven, Jake had to guess that’s who it was, was wearing checkered distressed pants, with a ripped up old band t-shirt cropped at her ribs, revealing a sliver of the rounded part of her stomach. Over top she was wearing an orange leopard print cardigan that ran down to her thighs. Around her neck was a series of long necklaces, and her wrists were adorned with interlacing leather bands.

She was plucking out a melody with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth on the stool. Jake had seen countless numbers of people playing the guitar before. On the road, in the studio, studying old masters on YouTube. There was nothing overly special about the way she was sitting or playing, but he felt a little bit like he couldn’t breathe.

“She never fuckin plays anymore man.” Levi whispered. “It felt like magic hearing music coming out of the basement this morning. I just felt like you should see it.”

The melody she was playing was sad. Haunting is a better way to put it, and Jake couldn’t look away. Not even when Sammy placed a cup of burning hot coffee into his hands. She was moving her head along with her playing, the strands of her dark messy hair shaking back and forth. The group watched in silence as she played out the riff a few times, Levi cranked the volume of the mics in the space and they could hear her humming softly.

“She has a strong presence.” Josh murmured.

Maven suddenly stopped. Everyone froze as she heaved a sigh and stood from the stool to put the guitar back on it’s rack.

“You in there Levi?” Maven said then. The boys still didn’t move a muscle. Jake’s head was spinning, having finally seen the face that went with the voice he’d heard in the loft for a week. She was beautiful. He couldn’t even really put his finger on why, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Even seeing her through the thick dark glass of the studio.

Levi hit the button to the mic in the booth and responded “Yah.” He paused before adding. “Sounded good.”

Maven snorted in a self-deprecating way and said “Thanks.”

Levi hit the mic button again and said “You should play more.”

“Don’t push it Levi.” Maven snapped back. Levi released the button to his mic and let out a heavy sigh. “Can you check some levels on the lines for me? I think I have everything pretty good but I want to make sure before they get here today.”

“Sure.” Levi replied.

Maven pulled the amp cord out of the Fender she had been playing on and plugged it into another guitar, one more similar to the guitars that Jake regularly used while they wrote.

“Are we looking for a punk or a rock-y sound?” Maven asked.

“Um.” Levi hesitated. “Rock. Their sound is like…” He tossed a small smile over his shoulder at the boys. “Like Greta’s actually.”

“Dope. I hope they’re not just copying the boys. They’ve got a mellotron in here and everything.” The boys smiled. She pounded out a few chords on the guitar. “Good?”

Levi looked over at Jake for confirmation. Jake, who still had not taken his eyes off Maven, nodded.

“Yeah, that should be good for raw sound. They can play with stuff too. They’re a pretty well educated bunch.” Levi called back.

“Thank god.” Maven snorted. “Not like that indie punk bunch you booked last month who needed me to do fucking all their sound mixing for them.”

“Maven, I don’t think they kept asking you down here because they need help with their sound.”

Maven just rolled her eyes at that.

They repeated the process with each instrument, Levi silently asking for confirmation from the respective Greta member until they were sure the sound lines were all functioning properly.

“Great work kid.” Levi called into the studio.

“Ew don’t call me kid. I’m a 27 year old woman.” Maven called back.

Levi chuckled. “You’re a kid to me.”

“Whatever.” Maven muttered. “I’m gonna go take a walk along the beach. Smoke a little. Text me if they need me.”

“Will do.” Levi called back. The boys all tensed, looking for places to hide, or to run up the stairs and back into the alley. Luckily, Maven took the back door out of the studio and up another hallway instead.

“Well boys, it’s all you.” Levi said. “Text if you need anything.”

Sam piped up and said “Yeah actually, can you pick my brother’s jaw up off the floor?”

“Jake see pretty lady play guitar and Jake brain break.” Josh teased.

“You guys suck.” Jake grumbled.

Levi cackled. “I thought you’d like her.”

~0~

Maven walked along the coast of the bay and absentmindedly smoked a joint. It was an overcast and drizzly day which meant there was no one around, which she preferred anyway. She was feeling on edge. The drizzle was very slowly building a small sheen of water on her arms and hair, but she didn’t mind. The cool water and gentle breeze combination was perfect.

Maven sat her butt down in the sand and stared out at the waves. She normally wore headphones on her walks, her world was a near constant stream of music, but she had opted for silence today.

Levi was being weird. He was edgy around her all week, sending her out every morning for tasks and disappearing without saying where he was going around 4:30 every day. She had come to the conclusion that whatever band was in town this week was a pretty big name. Or big enough that he was nervous about her being around them. She sighed. She hated when he tiptoed around her. Maven didn’t blame him. When she first started working at the shop she had had a couple pretty bad PTSD episodes that had scared the shit out of him. She owed him everything for staying with her, talking her down and making sure she was fed and had water when she got into one of her states.

Levi was her best friend, to put it mildly. He cared for her, kept her safe and in return she busted her ass at his store making sure they had the best products, the best shows and that their artist getaway was something that people would go back and tell their friends about. She loved Levi like an older brother, and he cared for her like his little sister. She would forever be grateful to whatever power in the universe made her stumble into The Edge two years ago.

She had been high out of her mind, as she had been most days after she came running back to Michigan with her tail between her legs, and Levi had been struggling with an amp in the shop. She had walked in, spotted his struggle and didn’t even say a word to him, just walked over and fixed the wiring so that it was functional again. Levi had looked up from where he sat on the floor and said “You don’t happen to need a job do you?”

The rest was essentially history. It only took two months of seeing him every single day, and him not letting her sour moods go by unnoticed, for her to spill her guts over some bourbon one night. About Ryan and Undercover Heart and how badly the whole situation fucked her up. How after she’d recorded her testimony she’d boarded the next flight to Grand Rapids and hightailed it up north. She came crash landing into Traverse City because she’d always loved it as a kid, and figured it would be a great place to start over. The small town she’d grown up in had too many people who knew her.

He was extra careful with bands for a while. Never letting her be alone in a room with too many male band members, and carefully vetting everyone who came through. Eventually she told him off about treating her like a porcelain doll and he backed down a bit, giving her free reign over lots of the equipment set ups and giving her plenty of hours in the shop by herself. She was happy to do so, so Levi could focus on fixing up the artist house and starting his photography again.

But he was still very gentle with her sometimes, and she’d always love him for it even when it pissed her the fuck off.

Once she’d smoked the joint down to the roach, she tucked the end into her pocket. It was sacrilegious to litter near the lake. It was too precious to be fucked with. She meandered back toward the shop. Her plan was to grab her bag and head back to let her Pitbull, Stacy, out for a walk and pee. The girl had been cooped up all morning and Maven felt bad.

She threw her whole body against the front door, as the latch often stuck, and the loud sound of the chimes clanged in the empty space. She rolled her eyes. Of course Levi left the shop unattended and unlocked. It was Traverse City, no one was gonna rob them, but what if someone wanted to buy something?

She was humming softly to herself as she made her way around the edge of the counter and plopped down on the stool by the register. She whipped out her phone to ask Levi where he was. She had the message halfway typed when the door behind her, the one that led to the staff restroom, popped open.

“You know, crime is especially low in this town but that doesn’t mean someone wouldn’t come in here and try to steal your precious coffee maker.” She tossed over her shoulder.

“Oh.” Was all that came back. It was decidedly not Levi’s voice. Maven spun back quickly.

“Sorry I…” But that’s as far as she got. She was suddenly face to face with Jake Kizska and all thoughts quickly left her brain.

They both stared at each other for a long moment. Maven couldn’t quite figure out why he looked just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. He also almost looked afraid for some reason that Maven couldn’t figure out.

He was dressed in an outfit she’d seen him wear plenty of times. A black button up, half unbuttoned, loose fitting light wash jeans and a pair of well worn boots. His wrists were full of bracelets and his hair was longer than the last time she’d seen footage of their concerts, well past his collarbones at this point.

“Hi.” Jake finally broke the silence. “I’m Jake.” He reached out his hand for a handshake.

“I know.” Maven replied, and then coughed. Why did you say that you freak?

Suddenly the front door bell chimed again, and Maven whipped her head to see Levi coming in the front door. She stood abruptly from her stool, skirted around Jake’s outstretched hand, and out from behind the counter. She scooped up her leather satchel on her way.

She headed straight at Levi. He glanced over his shoulder and saw an apologetic Jake looking forlorn and lowering his hand back to his side.

“Oh hey Maven-”

“Hey dumbass, don’t leave the store unattended again. I’m going home to check on Stacy. Probably won’t be back for the rest of the day.” Maven spit as she stormed past him toward the front door.

“Maven wait-”

But she was already outside, the hinges bringing the heavy wood crashing back into the frame. The chime of the bells rang through the space.

“Sorry.” Jake muttered.

“Not your fault. I knew she’d find out eventually. Right now she’s probably just pissed I didn’t tell her. Which she has every right to be.” Levi sighed.

After a few more beats of silence Jake spoke again. “Who’s Stacy?”

Levi huffed a laugh. “That would be her Pitbull.”

“Oh.” Jake said again. He felt crazy because his brain couldn’t come up with anything else to say. She was prettier up close. She smelled like the Lake and weed and sandalwood. He really wished she’d taken his hand. He shook his head trying to find his brain in it somewhere.

The other three boys came clambering up the stairs and into the store. They all looked between Levi, who was still standing in the middle of the shop, and Jake behind the counter.

“Are you two playing freeze tag or something?” Sam quipped.

“Jake met Maven.” Levi responded. The boys' heads whipped toward Jake.

“And… I’m guessing it… went well?” Danny questioned.

Levi finally walked back toward the counter. “She left for the day. This is on me. I should have told her y’all were here.” He snagged his keys from below the counter and walked toward the front door to lock up. “I’m closing early, boys. Let’s go get a beer.”

“Kowabunga baby.” Josh said with a grin.

~0~

Maven sat curled up on her velvet couch, Stacy was her little spoon. There was incense burning, a bottle of wine open on the side table and a lit joint in the ashtray. She had changed into a giant t-shirt and boxer shorts. The soft sounds of John Denver playing off her record player.

However, none of these things were easing her mind.

She was pissed, mostly. At herself. At Levi. She was pissed he didn’t tell her they were coming. She was pissed that he felt he couldn’t tell her. She was pissed that she had acted like a freak in front of Jake.

The anxiety was an endless pit in her stomach. She couldn’t go back there tomorrow. She couldn’t see any of those people. Not when she felt like this.

She whipped out her phone and quickly shot a message to Levi, before chugging her whole glass of red wine and snagging the joint out of the ashtray.

~0~

Levi’s phone dinged on the table where all of the guys sat drinking beers and chatting. Levi glanced at it and quickly picked it up when he saw her name.

“It’s Maven.” He said.

“What did she say?” Jake asked, sitting up a bit in his chair.

“Fuck.” Levi said, tossing his phone on the table, still unlocked.

All four boys leaned in to read the screen.

CASHING IN ALL MY VACATION DAYS. I’LL BE OUT FOR TWO WEEKS.

“Fuck indeed.” Josh said, pounding back the rest of his beer.

#jake gvf #jake kiszka #greta van fleet #greta fic #jake fic #gvf #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta fan fleet fic #peaceful army

54 notes · View notes

none-gender-left-man · 4 years

Text

People need to understand that some intersex people find out late, and not every single intersex person has had invasive medical trauma, and we don't owe you our history or proof of our intersex status.

Turning it into the trauma Olympics and denying covert intersex people from within the intersex community simply because we aren't yet diagnosed, don't "look intersex" (whatever the fuck that means), or because we weren't detected as intersex in childhood is harmful to the community at large and perpetuates the false idea that being intersex is an inherently rare, "freakish" anomaly as opposed to a Somewhat rare, but also more common than thought condition.

I don't appreciate our experiences being pathologized and people feeling entitled to our personal medical history just to "prove" we're actually intersex. Especially when this comes from perisex people.

Everyone needs to remember that being intersex without knowing it is shockingly common and more recent data would suggest the intersex population is much higher than what is currently recorded, because many intersex people will never discover it and never have a reason to identify it. Because it's NOT something that is always obvious or visible, and it doesn't always cause medical issues that lead to it being discovered. Not every intersex person is obviously androgynous, and not all of us have intersex traits that the average person can detect.

We should NOT be allowing perisex doctors and perisex academia to determine what we are and what defines our community. Yes, our identities are intertwined with our medical history but you are not entitled to that history, and this fact does not mean that being intersex is a "disease". Intersex conditions can cause health problems, but this doesn't mean we're "defective" in some way, and it doesn't work as proof in claiming that it's strictly a medical issue and not a social one. It is very much both.

To be intersex is so much more than just our medical history and anatomy and some of y'all are just fucking creepy and fetishistic trying to figure out what our genital phenotypes are.

I am intersex. I didn't discover this and accept this about myself until 2020 despite questioning since I was 16. I was too afraid to be attacked for "overstepping" into a community I "don't belong in", despite having clearly intersex experiences throughout puberty and especially in my late teens.

My being told I looked ugly for being androgynous as a child, my being made fun of for having facial hair and a low voice (I was even seated with AMAB kids in choir despite being AFAB and that led to some really nasty bullying), my shame and fear of changing clothes around others such as locker rooms because my body felt "wrong" and I couldn't place why, my asking questions about my body and being told that my actually very abnormal development is "just a quirk" and not having it diagnosed (because doctors avoid diagnosing intersex conditions out of prejudice), my fear of going to a reproductive doctor as a young teen that still continues to this day, my lifelong confusion and discomfort with gender as a whole, and my being treated as a disgusting freak for appearing outside of the norm still fucking counts, even if I didn't undergo the harsh trauma of invasive medical procedures. The only reason that I DIDN'T have those experiences is because I was denied the truth and all doctors in my life have ignored it willfully or refused to see it at all.

I don't wish medical abuse on anyone and I am by no means attempting to co-opt or compete trauma, those who have invasive intersexist medical trauma are the highest of priorities and that shit HAS to be stopped, but please-- Please consider that not everyone is given access to doctors that acknowledge intersex status as they should, and many of us are forced to go without a diagnosis as a result of these biases, despite still fighting the same struggles and intersexist oppression in our lives and development. Intersex medical abuse is a fucking plague, but so is underdiagnosis.

#intersex #actually intersex #intersexism #medical abuse #medical gatekeeping #ableism #classism #self dx #self diagnosis #misdiagnosis #underdiagnosis

240 notes · View notes

seyaryminamoto · 3 years

Note

I'm just thinking about what you've said in the past about Zuko's morals in The Southern Raiders and what bugs me the most is that Zuko could have easily been Yon Rha. Yon Rha's big sin, as far as Zuko knows when he makes his proposal (before Katara tells him the whole story), was raiding the Southern Water Tribe in a manner which lead to someone's death, and Zuko raided both Kyoshi Island and the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko would be an acceptable target for vengeance under his own standards.

:'D very fair point of view, Anon. I've always focused on another angle with this particular problem, namely the fact that Zuko's traumatic Agni Kai happens because he was trying to defend soldiers from being used as bait, slain in battle as though their lives were meaningless... and then he's offering Katara his assistance with killing a soldier if that's the only way to become her friend. There's such a profound incompatibility between both ideas, such a massive rift in reasoning, that I can't help but wonder if Ozai, intentionally or not, actually taught Zuko through their Agni Kai that the lives of their people aren't worth anything after all.

In general, that episode's plot is just... very questionable. I understand these kids are jaded, they've seen pleeenty of ugly stuff and even done some ugly stuff themselves, but the core of the problem with Zuko, back in the day, was that his violent pursuit of the Avatar caused lots of trouble and nobody liked him because he was being a selfish ass who wanted to fulfill the Fire Lord's orders at all costs :'D so... as blind as Katara may be over anything to do with Kya, it baffles me that neither Sokka nor Aang would step up to tell Zuko that this sort of ridiculous reasoning, impulsive behavior and willingness to resort to violence is EXACTLY what made him an asshole during the months he chased them, and that changing sides without changing those violent impulses doesn't amount to jackshit. I'd honestly prefer it if Katara were the one to tell him as much, because then she'd have the bonus of telling Zuko: "That's funny, because this sort of BS is precisely why I can't trust you!" and Zuko would be at an even bigger loss than before :'D but of course, when emotions are involved, Katara loses sight of reality and common sense, it's true...

Looking at it the way you do, just imagine if Yon Rha had told Katara "Oh. Sorry. Nice to see you again!" the way Zuko does with Suki :'D I'm pretty sure she would've actually killed the guy without even hesitating.

It's not to say that Zuko has objectively murdered anyone with the particular cruelty Yon Rha killed Kya: as far as we know, he didn't. We do know, however, that he's imprisoned people in nightmarish conditions (something even his sister cannot be said to have done), as he does in LOK, conditions bad enough that one of those prisoners (who, arguably, wasn't in the worst of conditions) said he'd rather die than return to that imprisonment. So, however "deserved" the Red Lotus's imprisonment might have been, dehydrating a waterbender and freezing a firebender for well over a decade sounds like one hell of an act of cruelty, which says he's perfectly capable of cruelty, all the same as Yon Rha was, and Zuko can't even say he's following someone's orders: he's the one who chooses to do this, plain and simple. So cruelty is NOT beyond Zuko. He can be harsh and nasty whenever it suits him. Despite what he'd have the audience believe, he isn't truly the poster child of peace and kindness :')

As you've said, Zuko caused lots of damage with his careless actions back in Book 1, actions that could have certainly cost lives if this show had been written to be grittier and darker than it was.

As a careless, casual example, here's the typical, boring old trope of "there's a kid in danger and the hero swoops in to save them!" (and there's poor Sokka on the background too ;_;). That ship just comes into shore, breaks all the ice it cares to, and it could have cost at least the two lives of those in the scene here (and who knows how many more that we aren't seeing). Is this not the same as attacking someone deliberately, with killer intent? Sure, it's not, but the ultimate outcome would be the same: someone's died, and it's your fault. And if you're a good person, you would feel bad about it. In fact, you might not even be able to think of yourself as a good person if anyone's death can be pinned on you.

Again, we don't know for sure that his actions cost any lives, but that they could have speaks for itself. That he was once part of the Fire Nation killer machine, that he was a tool to his father (even if not one he particularly cared for), should have made him all the more willing to understand that soldiers are as brainwashed as he was. No, this isn't to defend Yon Rha by any means, he was indeed a piece of shit... but Zuko doesn't even wait to meet him to confirm this. He's ready to help Katara kill a guy who, for all he knows, could have spent his whole life repenting for his actions (yes, we know that's not the case, but if the show had wanted to give us more nuance in the Fire Nation army, it could have been). Zuko doesn't even hesitate, and he even eggs on Katara until she finally decides she's not going to do it -- then he proceeds to badger Aang non-stop about how he MUST kill Ozai, funny how that goes. Which allows the interpretation that Zuko didn't learn anything at all from the Southern Raiders adventure.

In the end, if Zuko's actions cost any lives whatsoever (like, I don't know, maybe lives of the people whose food he stole in the Earth Kingdom (: what, me still being salty about this in the year of 2021? Noooo waaaaay...), you're quite right to say that it'd be fine, as far as his own philosophies are concerned, for Zuko to be executed by the injured party. It'd only be fair, right? Yet I guess that's the beauty of Zuko being Zuko: fairness isn't part of it. Justice? I don't think he's actually familiar with the concept. His sister made lots of mistakes, same as he did, but has he attempted to help her find her way, same as he was helped? Has he given her another chance? The answer is nope. Chit Sang is a convicted murderer who claims he didn't do the crime he was put in jail for: Zuko doesn't even bother asking any questions about who he is, or trying to get to the bottom of this problem. He's fine with getting the guy out of prison without first confirming whether his story checks out or not. Even back in The Blue Spirit, when he was "under" Ozai's thumb, and Ozai's priorities should have been his own, he decides that it's more important for him to capture Aang himself, and somehow the show spins that situation into "hey, Zuko's not that bad :>" when... everyone knows he's not setting him free out of any selflessness on his part, in fact, it's the entire opposite.

So yeah, more sketchy Zuko things that remain unresolved, unaddressed and go ignored all the time. Again, things that don't make much sense with the character he's supposed to be. And as usual, it's stuff we're supposed to shrug off or make a thousand excuses for in order to always find a way to see Zuko as a perfectly good person, when, as I've said before, being good takes efforts Zuko often didn't bother making, not before his "change of heart", not afterwards either.

#anon #welp I guess my Zuko posts have been doin' the rounds #:'D #and no they never are about the things I like about him #... which...#... do I like anything about him?#O_O #well that answers that LOL

95 notes · View notes

rogue-durin-16 · 4 years

Text

STICK TOGETHER

Summary: When Fred finds out Y/n is planning on leaving the Wizarding World, he canalizes his feelings in the worst way possible, which leads to a terrible outcome that seems unfixable.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Slytherin!Reader

Genre: angst

Tags:

Fred Weasley: @whiskeyn-rain @lumos-solemn

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @just-here-to-escape-from-reality

Warnings: swearing

A/N: @meph1stophelian is here putting pressure on me to post this already so I'm apologizing for the poorly written ending lmaoo enjoy <3

Rogue-durin-16 masterlist

"Fred, calm down." George begged me; he walked by my side, trying to talk some sense into me, but it was not the moment. "You gotta understand her— throwing a fit isn't going to help anyone—" I didn't even look in my twin's direction while he spoke. "Bloody hell, Fred—"

"Y/n!" I quickened my pace, leaving George behind after spotting her in one of the corridors, having a chat with a couple of Ravenclaws. "Can I have a word?"

"Sure— Oi!" I hadn't waited for her to reply before grabbing her hand and snatching her away to pull her into the nearest broom closet. "What was that about?"

"Tell me I heard Katie wrong and you're not actually leaving."

"I can't tell you that." She plainly responded, her voice steady.

A single, gobsmacked snide left my throat. "You're joking, right?" My heart ached as if it was being constricted when she shook her head no. "So you're fleeing?"

"What?"

"Things are getting ugly so you're running away."

Her eyes dug into mines as she stayed in a very uncomfortable silence before replying with. "So what if I am?" When I averted my eyes from hers, she called my name. Her eyes were somewhat softer now, with a gleam of plea in them. "For the last two years we had nothing but tragedy. Diggory died, You-Know-Who is back and recruiting, the ministry is full on going against a teenager, this pink colored nasty toad is physically abusing us, and on top of that, I have to put up with my housemates' bullshit for having muggle blood— I'm tired!" Her voice had raised a bit, enough for me to know she was struggling to keep it at bay, but still managed to. "If I can have a life out of this then—"

"You're a coward."

"Fred." there was a warning on her tone, but I couldn't listen.

"You're leaving... people behind," she attempted to reason; I didn't let her. "Dunno why I'm surprised, really. At the end of the day you're a Slytherin for a reason."

Her eyes started to well up, and I couldn't tell if it was with anguish or fury. I knew I was getting under her skin, but that was exactly what I intended to do; if I was going to leave that room scarred, so would she.

"Self-preservation, you call it." I scoffed, feeling my own rage building up faster each passing second. "Pure cowardy."

"Is that what you think?" Her tone wasn't steady anymore; she was holding back the poison of her words, for my sake.

"Yeah." I wasn't capable of doing the same thing for hers. "And I don't want your cheap excuses and emotional manipulation to convince me otherwise." My face was probably red due to the anger, my jaw and fists hurt from clenching them; I was off the rails, and the person who would usually stop me was standing in front of me. "Better leave now so you don't have the chance to sell us out when shit goes down."

Silence fell upon us, our gazes locked, equally watery and with the same amount of fury and sadness within them.

And finally she snapped. "Maybe I'm a coward, but you're a self-absorbed prat who's not able to see beyond your own ego!" The way she said it hurt me more than the sentence itself. "This is not gonna be a DADA class, Fred! I don't want to fucking die because I was too slow casting Protego."

"Good luck, Y/l/n." I curtly wished her before stalking out of the broom closet I have initially dragged her into.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

We avoided each other for a week. The following Monday, when I entered the Great Hall, I found George and Katie quite depressed.

"What's gotten into you?"

They shared a look before my brother turned to me, deciding to break the news himself.

"Y/n left last night." He gave me an apologetic look. "Thought she'd wait until the graduation—"

"But she's had enough." Katie finished, toying with her breakfast. "Honestly, I wish I had a life in the muggle world too."

My lungs were refusing to take the air inside; I felt as if I would choke if I stayed there, so I stormed out, jogging to reach the countryard.

I needed to breathe.

Even after the wind hit my face, that vital task felt like the most difficult thing in the world to accomplish.

I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her.

A sob escaped my chest, realising the harsh words I had spat at her were probably the last ones she would ever hear from me.

I love her.

A Year And A Half Later

READER'S P. O. V.

I managed to apparate somewhere in the cornfield —the only place around the Burrow I remembered clearly.

I should have landed with a broom, but apparently, Mad-Eye didn't inform Lupin that I would serve as an extra escort for Harry if they were ambushed, so my broom was now smashed somewhere down the muggle road we had flown over.

Mentally cursing the damn moment in which I spoke to Shacklebolt in hopes of being useful in this war, I looked for the entrance of the Weasley home, which took me quite a while.

Funnily enough, it was Lupin who stepped out, wielding his wand and casting yet another hex at me that I somehow managed to block.

With a swift wave of my hand, he was propelled back into the house. "YOU!" A long-haired redhead I recognized as the eldest Weasley helped my old Professor up as I stalked to them with my wand up. "YOU HEXED MY BLOODY BROOM! I'M LUCKY TO BE ALIVE!"

"Y/n, calm down—" Shacklebolt was now besides me with his hands up. "He didn't know you were coming— he was trying to protect George from further harm."

My brain was slow to process his words, but as soon as it did, I started to down my arm. "What happened?"

"Snape hit him with the sectumsempra." My eyes widened at Lupin's heavy words.

"Did everyone else make it?" The three of them remained silent, the ginger shaking his head no.

My breath caught up in my throat, but before I could ask if Fred was alright, another tall ginger flashed the corner of my eye, and my head snapped to the living room's door.

FRED'S P. O. V.

Everyone was scattered around the house. Ginny took Hermione and Fleur to her room; Ron and Harry made its way up too; Tonks went out —she needed a moment alone to mourn Mad-Eye—, and, while my parents and I stayed with George, Lupin, Shacklebolt and Bill went to guard the entrance.

I was still kneeling by George's side, holding his hand while our mother healed his wound the best she could, when we heard a yell followed by a strong blow in the kitchen.

I looked at my mum and dad, my eyes flickering to my twin while I reached for my wand.

As I got up, more yells were heard, this time clearer; the voice was familiar— I knew that voice all too well.

There she stood, at the entrance of my home.

Her eyes met mines as soon as she caught a glimpse of me, and my head started to spin. I knew I had no right to do what I was about to do, but after that night's events, in which the war became very much real, I couldn't help but rush to her and engulf her in a tight hug.

Surprisingly enough, I couldn't take more than two steps forward, since she did what I intended to do first.

"You're alright." She mumbled against my shoulder. My eyes shut, trying to block the tears that threatened to fall. "How's he?" She inquired whilst pulling away with a concerned frown.

Not trusting my voice, I nodded in the living room's direction. A quiet sough escaped my lips as she passed by, her hands lingering on my arms for a brief instant before she entered the room and took careful steps towards the settee.

I barely caught a couple of words from George and Y/n's exchange, my mind still buzzing due to the shock.

"What do you say, Freddie?" I frowned at my twin, regretting not listening to the conversation. "She can take my bed, right? I'm not gonna get far anyway."

"Right." I agreed, struggling for my voice to come out steady. It was Y/n we were talking about; I had known her since our fourth year, I had been friends and more with her, seeing her shouldn't be that nerve-wracking.

A couple of minutes later, we were all heading to our respective rooms, and as I closed my room's door behind me and Y/n, it dawned on me that I had underestimated the anxiety that could cause me being left alone with her.

Get it together, Fred.

"If you want, you can grab a shirt from the drawer." I finally managed to speak, motioning at the chest besides the window. She nodded and turned to it to look for one she could sleep in.

Now that I had the opportunity, I carefully observed her, and soon realized how much she had changed in the time we were apart. Not only when it came to her physical appearance; she stood a bit straighter, talked a little calmer; the joy with which she used to sparkle was dim now, eclipsed by a severe, worried attitude— a sign of us no longer being the kids who messed around at Hogwarts.

"I missed you" I knew right away that wasn't the best start for the conversation.

"It sure didn't seem like it." The bitterness in her tone stung my heart harsher than I expected.

"You're still mad?" The way I was conducting the conversation was making me want to bang my head against the wall.

She sighed, turning around now that she had the shirt on to meet my gaze. "A year and a half, Fred. You didn't contact me for a year and a half. I thought we were friends."

"You left me behind!" I talked back, partly because I panicked, but also because I, to my surprise, was still mad too. "What did you even expect?"

"A letter?" She questioned, throwing herself down on the bed. "I mean— I didn't really expect anything, but a letter would have been a good way to let me know you didn't fucking hate me." My eyes, now fixed on my lap, went wide when Y/n's voice broke at her last three words.

"I'm sorry." I mumbled, quite ashamed of having to apologise while also being scared of saying anything that could harm her further. "I'm sorry about not writing and- uh... I'm sorry about what I said to you. I know it's not an excuse but I was really mad and..." I cleared my throat and felt the blush creeping up my neck even before I finished the sentence. "... and hurt 'cause you- I thought that maybe I wasn't important enough to you and- yeah, I'm sorry about what I said." I tried meeting her eyes but they were fixed on the wall before her.

"It's fine." She shrugged, "I guess you were right anyway."

"I wasn't right-"

"You were." She hugged her knees to her chest and hid her face there. "Wanna know why I'm back?" She didn't need my response. "They're hunting down my family." My heart stopped beating for a second due to the shockingly deadpanning tone. "A friend gave me a tip-off— they were tracking them down. I got to them just in time." I refrained myself from asking about them —the less I knew, the better. "So yeah, you're right, I was a coward and left people behind."

My body shot up and my legs carried me to George's bed; without me being fully aware of what I was doing or which consequences it could have, I sat down and pulled Y/n into my arms.

Though she was shocked at first, her body soon relaxed into the familiarity of my arms, and she let out a relieved sigh. "You're not alone on this." I whispered, pecking her crown. "I'm here, okay?"

"So you don't hate me?" She murmured against my chest.

Maybe it was the fragility of her voice, or the warmth of her embrace I missed so much; maybe it was this past year and a half of regret, or the night's events, but I couldn't hold back my words.

"I love you."

And even though she went stiff, even if I had just blurted them out almost in accident, I didn't regret saying them, because I, in fact, loved her.

She pulled away to look into my eyes. "You mean it?"

"Yeah." I replied, calmer than I had been in a while. "And I'm really sorry about everything, if I could turn back time—" words and air were cut off by her lips crashing against mines.

We had kissed before, but it was on a bet's behalf or to prank someone; this was different, this was her pouring her 'I love you' into actions, and I embrace it gladly.

"No more running away." I commanded when she pulled back. "From now on, we stick together." She nodded, her forehead resting against mine and her palms on my chest.

#fred weasley x reader #harry potter fanfiction #fred weasley #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley fic #fred weasley fanfics #fred weasley angst #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley x gryffindor!reader #fred weasley x slytherin!reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley x gender neutral reader

161 notes · View notes