#like proportions are what really matter and taller members often (not always there are tall idols who have good proportions too!!)

[liinos]

i do also think people have an inherent bias against shorter members when it comes to dancing/performing 😭

[breakoutime]

Rewarded

Hades x (Neutral)Reader

Warning, nsfw!

Tags: Cockwarming, size kink, exibitionism? praise kink? (ask to tag pls)

Summary: Reader has been working hard for the house of Hades, and the master of the house has noticed and wants to reward them.

Authors note: Ok, VERYFIRST TIME writing smut, hopefully its good, or at least passable, english isnt my first language soooo yeah keep that in mind... P-please gimme feedback >///<

Your job at the House of the dead was a strange one. You weren't quite sure how to name it, but for now everyone referred to you as “The assistant”, you never really stayed in the same place for long, always being the one everyone called for help when a task was too much to handle. You have been assigned to Dusa to help with the cleaning, you’ve been working hard with the other shades inside the archive, you’ve been even assigned to stand by Achilles' side when the master of the house had visitors and considered some extra security was necessary. Dusa would always tell you how happy everyone was with your presence in the house, how helpful you’ve been, and how amazingly adaptable you were, having skills that allowed you to act and serve in all these different areas. Your face was quite often on the board at the Lounge, and it was obvious Hades himself was quite pleased with your performance. It was often that you would be called into his desk, to either give a report on your current task or to be praised for your hard work, which always left you inspired and happy for your next task.

You had to admit, your hard working attitude came not only for your passion for your work, but also for the passion you felt towards your master. You couldn't be quite sure when it started, it definitely wasn't there when you first arrived at the house. Hade´s was a rough man, cold, strict, serius. You would always hear him berate the others when their performance was not enough, often punishing them if their results were lacking. It was somewhere between Orpheus' punishment for refusing to sing, and when Zagreus started to openly fight back against his father, that you were called, alone, to Hades’ desk. Of course, at that time, you were anxious, wondering if even with your efforts, the master was disappointed in you and called to have you berated and punished, just like Orpheus was not so long ago, but no. Hades had specially called you simply to praise you, to say how, when so many of his workers, when even his own son was unable to handle his duties, you alone were there to support, cover and pull the needed effort and time to have the house working properly. You weren't able to suppress the smile in your face, or the tingling in your stomach as you heard the so often strict and stern master, praise your hard work for the whole house to hear. Slowly but surely you became obsessed with it. With working hard just to hear Hades himself telling you of your good work and how pleased he was with you. Soon you realized that those words did more than just kindle the fire of your hard work, but also left you warm with another kind of fire, one that burned between your legs. Now, everytime Hades praised you, you had to- no, you needed to take a short break to indulge yourself in that heat, to touch yourself and satisfy this burning need that arouse from you each time that booming, rough voice reverberated through your being, just to tell you how good you’ve been to this house, to him.

Today, you were hoping for such a praise, since you’ve been assigned to work at the archives, getting a lot of paperwork ready for Hades’ reviewing. This was your favorite thing to do, since the Lord was always so busy with paperwork at his desk, always reading and writing and filing, he never had anybody else there to help him with that particular part of the process, sure, at the archives many shades worked to get said paperwork ready for him, but no matter how hard you worked or how many shades he had at his disposal, he was always glued to his work, concentrated and dedicated, but also tired and slightly bored of the repetitive tasks he has at hand. There wasn't much you could do other than work hard and please him with your work, which immediately sent another jolt of heat through you. Of course, your stack of documents was done, which meant you now needed to personally deliver them to his desk. Your smile was proud and your face was slightly flushed from the heat you felt, feeling a bit too eager today to hear what your master had to say. Silently you wondered if it was noticeable, if the master knew that your enthusiastic work and demeanor came from these kinds of feelings, or even if the other people in the house knew. For a moment you thought how would Zagreus react, if he knew you had the hots for his father, but you quickly had to shake that thought and compose yourself, as you passed Achilles and walked straight up to Hades’s desk. 

As always, he was seated there, in his throne, reading attentively one of the many documents he had in his desk. One small part of you felt bad, because the stack of documents was considerably going to grow with the one you were holding, but sadly that stack was going to work either way. Patiently you waited, the stack was heavy but his desk was way too tall for you, and you already knew that interrupting him was never a good idea. If only you could float like Hypnos or Thanatos, or if you were taller, but just like the prince, your stature meant that you’d need some help to get up the desk. Soon, you saw Hades pick up his plume, signing one of the documents, a sign that he was done with his current one, and immediately you made your wade to his side, ready to hand the paperwork for when he stretched his arms to receive them. With a pleased hum, he acknowledged you, taking the stack of papers and thanking you in the process.

“Quick and efficient as always. Glad that there is someone here who never disappoints me.” You had to stifle a laugh, the comment was not only a praise to you but also a small insult to Hypnos, who was floating and sleeping soundly in the hallway in front of you two. 

“Now,” he said, tidying the new stack of documents before fully turning to you. “The house has been working quite efficiently lately, so i'm afraid there are few dignified chores left for someone of your skill and dedication...” That wasn't exactly a bad thing, sometimes you were given time off to rest, but there was something different about the way he spoke, the way he was looking at you. Anxiety started to build in you, and as you opened your mouth to say something, he simply raised his hand, stopping you. “Except one thing.” He moved, lowering his hand to your level. “Come here.” You could feel your heart hammering in your chest, your knees trembling, and cold drops of sweat falling from your brow. Was he really telling you to climb his hand? Nervously, you took a seat on it, allowing your master to raise you and place you comfortably in his lap. This was new, very new and confusing, you’ve never seen anyone have the honor of sitting on Hade's lap, but there you were, comfortable laying in one of his powerful thighs, staring up at him. Your master, who everyone respected and feared, who always made your very being burn was giving you this sort of treatment, of affection? His voice is lower this time, huskier, “Today I have a different task for you… A different kind of service that I need” His hand was on your back now, rubbing it gently. “One which will be quite pleasurable for you and for me.” You had been staring at him this whole time, looking at his eyes, his expression, which was something you’ve never seen before, desire was evident in his face. Desire for you. “I have made a concoction, to allow you to handle such a task-” he continued, now his other hand lifting his robes, exposing himself for you. You could not believe it. Your master wanted this from you, just as much as you wanted it from him. His size was massive, proportional to a man of his build and stature, you couldn't help but reach out, running your hand over it, how were you supposed to  please him? Even with your both hands you wouldn't be able to stroke him firmly, much less fit him inside of you- But your thoughts were interrupted by something uncorking. He did say something about a concoction, but how-

A small vial was in his hands, the liquid of which looked like nothing you had ever seen. It shifted in color, going from red to orange to green, it must have been made from Hades’ power. “Do not fear. Spread yourself for me, and I'll take care of the rest...” You didn't have to be told twice.  Breathing heavy, you allowed your master to pour that strange liquid into your entrance, which seemed to burn you in the most pleasurable way, making you let out soft pleased sounds. “It was about time we took some sort of break, so few of us take our work seriously...” gently, he applied pressure with his finger into your entrance, which to your surprise stretched without problem to fit his finger, coating your insides with the strange liquid as it went in. “And you are one of the bests of course.” His words were like honey, fueling the need inside you. “That's why I know only you will be up to this task….” He removed his finger, having your insides well coated and warm for his member. “I want you to keep me company, to keep me warm... While im at my desk today.” Your legs were shaking, but you knew what you had to do, he really didn't have to tell you. Bracing yourself against his chest, slowly you pressed your entrance into his member, even with the concoction, it took some effort, the tip slipping a couple of times before being able to get in. The stretch should have been painful, but all you could feel was pleasure, the burn of the strange liquid must have changed you, allowing you to take such size and not feel an ounce of pain. “Hmmmmm, go on now, get comfortable- Ah~!” Your master moaned when you started moving, the tightness of your hole breaking a small part of his determination to keep this quiet. You yourself weren't being quite quiet either, whimpers, moans and whines coming out of you as you slowly adjusted your tight grip on Lord Hades’ cock as you sank down, coming to a rest against him, now his member fully sheathed inside of you. Your Lord seemed to be taking a moment to compose himself while you simply slumped against him, your thighs twitching as your insides squeezed exquisitely around your master. In the back of your mind, you wondered if this was some sort of dream, one witch you’d never want to wake up from, but as Hades moved a document from the stack to be reviewed, one of his hands went for you, lifting you barely from his cock and pushing you down again, making him growl in satisfaction and you cry out in pleasure. “Absolutely perfect. Even now your performance is impeccable.” You couldn't really answer much to that, being a bit overwhelmed by this whole situation. “I was hoping to work while you kept me pleased, but you’ve demonstrated to be far more… stimulating than I thought.” He shifted you again, making you see stars and your insides to tremble. “But It hardly matters, this just means my paper work can wait....” He looked hungry at you, even more so, now holding you with both hands with the clear intention of focusing on you. “Now I’ll have to work on giving us both a reward for working so hard.”

With that, he started really moving you, pounding at you slowly and gently at first, but quickly picking up pace and intensity. Your screams of pleasure practically echoed in the house, you were unable to repress them, far too gone in the pleasure to care. “That's it, L-let everyone know your price- your pleasure!” He boomed on top of you, now lifting you up to lay on the desk as he stood and pounded away at you. “Let this be an example for everyone- Only the best can get this from me” Hades growls and loudly proclaims on top of you now, his movements so fanatic you can't understand how you havent came ten times by now, but the ecstasy you felt right now was more than worth it. You couldn't help but look around, now laying in said desk you had vision of Hypnos, who clearly had woken up and was openly staring with both of his hands over his mouth, a deep flush evident in his face, and achilles, who clearly was looking away, red and ashamed of being in proximity of such an act, and of course, many shades where looking, some even cheering at the expectable, even with the little features they had, you could see a pang of envy on them, which only fueled your pleasure. With a mighty grunt, he slammed deep inside of you, filling your insides with his seed, which was all you needed to break and finally cum yourself, blacking out for a second, over the overwhelming wave of pleasure he had just given you, that delicious burn his liquid gave you coming back with vengeance, making you ride your orgasm with that pleasure too, leaving you utterly spent and satisfied. Maybe it was that same liquid which made your orgasm wait, so that you could reach it with master Hades. 

Now, with both of you panting, he gently pulls out of you, covering himself again and using a clan rag on one of his drawers to help you clean up. The adoration in your face must have been evident, since the look he gave you was both gentle and smug. “I’ll leave you to rest in my quarters, but once I'm finished with this paperwork, I'll join you one more there, I won't be long.” With that, he picked you up and carried you to his room, just in time for zagreus to rise from the river, shooting you a questioning look as he saw his father carry you away. You were far too tired to care, really, the only thing that mattered now was the fact that Lord Hades himself was laying you on his bed, where he would surely instruct you to pleasure him, now in private. Curling up. you knew you needed some rest if you wanted, like always, to give your very best for the task.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 65: Hit the Beach!

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Okay, maybe having rich friends wasn’t such a bad thing.  And since everyone had come along, Isamu didn’t feel like too much of a moocher.   Well, maybe a little.  Even with the seventeen members of Class 1-A, Izumi’s parents, and the butleriest butler to ever butler, there’d been plenty of space on the private jet.  He’d really underestimated Izumi’s family’s wealth.  That wasn’t how the upper half lived.  It was some kind of upper percentage that involved a lot of zeroes after the decimal point.

But laying on a tropical beach?   Yeah, he could get used to this.   Maybe if he got really successful as a Pro-Hero someday he could make enough money to do this kind of thing sometimes.  Mom and Dad would probably appreciate a real vacation too.  

After getting checked into the resort (Owning your own resort on your own island must be nice. They had an entire floor to themselves.), Class 1-A had done a bit of scattering to take advantage of the amenities. Aoyama had begged off going to the beach—understandable with how his Quirk absorbed light—and had instead decided to hit the spa, for which Izumi, Koda, and Tokoyami joined him (Izumi had practically insisted Tokoyami joint them, saying they had a specialist in spa treatments for people with feathers on staff).

Isamu’s gaze drifted out to the water, where several of his classmates were already horsing around.   The water looked extremely inviting, as clear as anything he had ever seen, gentling lapping onto the white sand shote.  Somehow, Sero (wearing the loudest swim trunks Isamu had ever seen in his life and which no-doubt were deliberately picked for how they clashed with his pink skin) had convinced Kocho to fly him out over the water.  Her wings were flapping hard and she was hovering probably a good six feet above the water.

“Okay, okay,” Sero said. “Now let me go!  Let me go!”

“I don’t know about this…” Kocho said.

“Look, you can either let me go, or I’ll squirm out on my own.”

Kocho just sighed. “Your funeral,” she said, and let him go.  She flapped hard and shot straight up, even as he shot straight down.

Sero tucked himself into a ball as he fell.  “CANNONBALL!”

SPLASH

Sero hit the water hard, sending water flying everywhere and utterly soaking Sato, who was filming the whole thing, as well as Ojiro and Tensei Iida, who’d been in the water too. Ojiro was wearing one of those long-sleeved uv protective swimsuits, in bright neon green, which she’d said was for “visibility.”   Which he supposed made sense.  If she was wearing less, it’d be hard to spot her if something went wrong.  She also had a flower in her hair and was wearing large, bright yellow sunglasses, which gave some general definition to where her face was.

Sero popped up out of the water with a laugh and grin.  He fired off a double thumbs’ up. “Did you catch that, viewers?  You’re just been Sero-Bombed!  Boom!”

“TAKUMA!” Ojiro screamed, arms flailing wildly.  “Did you have to do it so close?!  Look what you’ve done to my hair!”

“Aw, c’mon, Kimmie,” Sero said.  “It’s not anybody’s going to be able to tell.”

There was a moment of silence, the air thick with tension.  That had definitely been the wrong thing to say.  As if guided by some kind of primal instinct, Sato and Iida were backing away slowly.  And then Ojiro set herself upon Sero, fists flailing and hitting him upon the arms and shoulders again and again.

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT, TAKUMA!  YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT NICE!  WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SCREW AROUND LIKE THAT?!”

“Ow!  Ow!  Kimmie, you know my weaknesses is being smacked!  Ow, ow!  Just not the face, okay?  Please, not the face!”

“Don’t worry,” Sato called out.  “I’m getting this all on film!  Kick his butt, Kimmie!”

“I really must protest this assault on my boyfriend,” Iida piped in.  “No matter how misguided his actions were, violence is not the proper response!”

“Guys, I am so sorry,” Kocho called out circling around above.  “I had no idea it was going to be that big!”

Isamu looked over to his left, where Midoriya was occupying another one of the beach chairs. “Should… should we be stopping this?” Ojiro’s outbursts usually ran themselves out fairly quickly, but still…

Midoriya shrugged.  “They’re not hurting anybody, except maybe Sero. And it’s my vacation. I’m off duty and I say let them blow off some steam.”

Well, that was a different answer than he’d been expecting.  Maybe Midoriya was taking Aizawa’s admonishment to have the rest of the class to rely on him less to heart.  Of course, Aizawa had also told him that he needed to step up his own leadership game and that thought was just terrifying.

So he was going to file all of that under things he wasn’t going to think about right now.

Kocho, meanwhile, had flown away from the chaos and landed next to them.  She wore a backless black one piece swimsuit and had explained that while she liked the beach, she couldn’t really get her wings too wet or she’d be unable to fly.  

“Definitely time for a strategic retreat,” she said.  She gave her wings a flick, causing some stray drops of water to fly off, before folding them behind her.  Her antenna flicked up for a moment before settling.  “Sorry I set that off.”

Isamu laughed.  “Trust me,” he said, “that would have happened sooner or later no matter what.  That’s just who they are.”

“Definitely getting that,” Kocho said.  

“Besides,” Midoriya added, “Sero is extremely persuasive.  He even managed to talk me into standing on the ceiling once for some kind of “upside down room” video.”

Okay, Isamu made a mental note to see if that was somewhere on Sero’s Viewtube channel.  Because that sounded hilarious.

“Ooooh, boys,” a sing-song voice called out from somewhere behind them.  Isamu felt a chill go down his spine as he realized it was Mineta.  

***

Despite his words to Haimawari, Toshi’s roles as “Team Dad” and class representative were hard to completely shake, so he did keep an eye on Ojiro and Sero, even as Sato and Tensei tried to pry them apart.

Mineta’s call, however, distracted him from anything else.  He’d head that particular tone of voice often enough over the years, usually when she was feeling particularly attention-starved and was going to hit on someone.  

“Should we look?” Haimawari asked, sounding a bit panicked.  

“She’s just going to keep making noise until we do,” Toshi told him.  

“I take it this happens a lot?” Kocho asked.

“You have no idea,” Haimawari said.

“You all better turn around!” Mineta called out, proving his point.  “I mean, you’re going to want to feast your eyes on me anyway, but Midoriya’s really going to want to see this.”

Oh, that couldn’t possibly be good.

Reluctantly and with sinking dread, Toshi turned to look.  He could hear both Haimawari and Kocho suck in a sharp breath and it wasn’t hard to understand why.  There was Mineta.  And there was a lot of Mineta on display. There was also a cow-print bikini, of which there was not a lot.  Kaminari was standing next to her, wearing a considerably more modest one-piece in yellow and black, and looking vaguely embarrassed.  

“She cannot possibly be real,” he heard Kocho say.

“…Pretty sure she is,” Haimawari squeaked.  As both a frequent target for Mineta’s flirtations and having had some accidental if direct contact with her during the Sports Festival, he was qualified to weigh in on this.  Mineta had a way of getting into people’s heads like that.  

And, well, Toshi had eyes. And he was a guy.  He’d be lying if he said that between her bikini and her b…ody proportions, that Mineta didn’t have an effect on him.  He felt more than a little flustered just looking at her.

“Like my bikini?” Mineta asked, posing so that she thrust her chest out and also somehow emphasized her rear as well.  “I bought it special for this vacation!”

“I still can’t believe you have that,” Kaminari said.  “You’re almost naked.  Hell, you’d probably show less if you were.  Your parents can’t possibly know you have that.”

“Just because you’re lifetime president of the itty-bitty committee, Chi, is no reason to get snippy,” Mineta replied, turning so rapidly that it set parts of her swaying in ways that he felt he probably shouldn’t be watching.

“The hell did you just say?!”  Kaminari’s Cords snapped up, crackling with electricity.  “Say that again, Mika.  Say that again and we’ll see how much fat conducts electricity!”

“Oooh, kinky!”

There was also, Toshi realized, a familiar head of blue-black hair behind the two of them. Sora was taller than Mineta, but between Mineta’s horns and the fact that there was a lot of Mineta competing for attention, he hadn’t noticed her at first. He heard a soft cough.

“Oh!  Right!” Mineta said, switching gears with such suddenness that Toshi was sure he heard the clutch pop.  “I almost forgot the real reason I wanted your attention.”

She made a dramatic gesture with her arms.  “Presenting… the tall, the brainy, the hot, the runner up for best boobs in the class… Sora Iida!”

Mika took a few steps to the side and Toshi got his first look at his girlfriend since they’d split up to their rooms.  He’d asked if she’d wanted him to wait, but had somehow been overruled by Mineta, who’d said she needed to talk to Sora first.  

In retrospect, that really should have been a warning sign.

“Hello, Toshi,” Sora said. She was smiling, but he immediately noticed that it was nervous and uneasy.  Her posture was more hesitant and awkward than usual and in stark contrast to Mineta’s confidence.  “Do you like what you see?”

Sora was wearing a bikini. It wasn’t as small as Mineta’s, but it was definitely a bikini.

Toshi was not a blind man. He was aware that his very tall girlfriend was also very busty.  In reasons why he liked her, this fact ranked very, very low.  Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t thought about that, in late night moments, or when she hugged him tightly and pressed up against him.

“…Why are all the girls in this class so hot?” Kocho said.  “Oh, no, I said that out loud…”

“Not looking at my friend’s girl, not looking at my friend’s girl, I’ve got a girlfriend” Haimawari said, quietly and quickly.  He continued repeating the phrase.

He became very aware that he hadn’t said anything in a while.

“Toshi?” Sora asked, concerned, her own nervousness seemingly forgotten for a moment.  “Are you all right?”  She waved her hands to try and attract his vision.

“See?” Kaminari said, throwing her hands in the air.  “You broke him!  I could have told you he’s too innocent for this!”

“Well, excuse me for trying to help spice up their relationship!”

“No one asked you to!”

“I’m okay!” Toshi yelled, more loudly and quickly than he intended.  He felt his face go red. Either that or he was on fire.  It was hard to say at this point.  “You… you look amazing, Sora,” he said.  

“Mineta said you would like it,” she said, approaching him. He tried very hard to keep eye contact and only failed a couple of times.  Mineta and Kaminari were still fighting, but he tuned them out.  He was also pretty sure he heard Haimawari and Kocho high-tailing it out of there.  “May I?”   Sora gestured to the beach chair Haimawari had vacated.

Toshi gulped and nodded, trying hard not so stare as he she went by.  

“She said that girlfriends “dress sexy” for their boyfriends and that I would be a good girlfriend if I did this for you,” Sora went on.  “She said she wanted to help and had several bikinis prepared for me to try on.”

Toshi buried his face in his hands.  Eventually, he brought his head up.  “Sora, what’s rule one when dealing with anything Mineta claims?”

Sora thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers.  “The same for scientific studies!  Always corroborate with a second source!  Preferably Tokoyami if available.”

He smiled.  “Right,” he said.  “She probably just wanted to see you in a bikini and to give me a heart attack.”   He scooted his chair closer to hers and put an arm around her shoulders, mindful of her Jetpack pipes.  He’d learned the hard way that the skin around them could be quite sensitive. That particular discovery had left him red in the face for quite a while.

“Besides,” he said, “you don’t have to do anything different or special for me.  I mean, unless you want to.”  He added that last part hastily, realizing the gap in what he’d said. Both Sora and her brother sometimes needed extra explanations about proper social conventions.  It was why Mika had been able to fool her so easily. “I like you,” he said.  “I like you in your uniform, in your costume, in your regular clothes.  And I do like you in this.  But do you like you in this?”

Sora frowned. “Undetermined,” she said.  “I am not used to wearing so little.  It seems very impractical.”

“Yeah, there is that,” he agreed.  

“But I am happy that you like what you see,” she added thoughtfully.  “I suspect more evidence is needed.”

Deciding to be bold, he leaned over and kissed her cheek softly.

“Whatever you want, that’s your decision.  I’m not going to tell you how to dress.”

Sora nodded, seemingly satisfied with that.  “I am still learning how to be a good girlfriend, Toshi.  I do not want to get this wrong.  I do not really know what boys want.”

“Hey,” he said.  “I said it before, we’re learning together, okay?”

“Okay.”

And it was.

“Though I did notice you were definitely staring at Mineta…”

***

“Oh, this feels so good,” Mika said, as she slid low into the hot spring, purple hair floating around her head.   She made a very distracting moan.  “I swear, Todoroki, this place really does have everything.”

Chihiro shot her a look. “Do you and the spring need a few moments alone?”   It was a sharper barb that she really should have made, but she was still annoyed at Mika for the “itty-bitty” comment earlier.  It wasn’t her fault she took after Mom or that most of the rest of the girls in the class were more… shapely than her!  And compared to Mika or Iida, everybody looked small.

The look Chihiro had shot her was nothing compared to the look Kirishima-Bakugo gave her.  “If you’re going to be gross,” she said, lips curled back in a snarl, “you’ve got a room.”

“Relax,” Mika said, not looking at her.  “I’m just really enjoying this.”

“When the Yaoyorozu family designed this resort, they wanted to make sure that every luxury was available to the guests and to themselves,” Izumi said, sinking a little lower in the water herself.  Already, her pale skin was beginning to flush from the heat.  “They worked with a geokinetic and a hydrokinetic to craft it according to very exact specifications.”

“Geeze,” Kocho said, “just how rich is your family?”   She was sitting the farthest back, wings kept above the waterline.  “Sorry, that was probably rude.”

It was, honestly, a common reaction when hanging out with Izumi.

“You know that old kid’s manga?  About the kid who could turn stuff to gold and it made his family like, mega rich?” Chihiro said.  

“That would not work,” Iida said.  She’d slid low in the water too.  Apparently her Jetpack pipes were self-sealing.  “It would drive down the value of gold and ultimately make it worthless. Furthermore, any Quirk like that would be highly monitored by the government for misuse…”

“Just go with it,” Chihiro said, trying to avoid a lengthy discussion.  Iida could get too caught up in the facts and miss the actual point fairly easily sometimes.

“Oh yeah, I remember that one,” Kocho said.

“Good,” Chihiro replied. “Triple that.  At least.”

Kocho’s dark eyes went wide and her antenna snapped straight up.  “Ah. Got it.”

“That is,” Izumi began, raising a hand as though to object.  She paused, as if unsure.  She did like magna, Chihiro recalled, but couldn’t remember if she’d read that one. Izumi looked over to Kirishima-Bakugo, who gave her a shrug.   “Not entirely inaccurate.”

“So Kocho,” Ojiro began. She was wearing flowers in her hair again, the only other indication other than a slight ripple in the water around her body, of where she was.  “As the newest member of the class, we have a lot of questions.  Like, are you seeing anybody?  The gossip mill demands to know!”

“Perhaps give her a little space before interrogating her, Ojiro?” Koda suggested.   “Or at least on asking something so personal?”

“It’s fine,” Kocho said, waving a hand.  “I’m single, Ojiro.  Not really looking either.”

“Okay, so that’s means it’s just me, Iida, and Mineta who have boyfriends?” Ojiro asked.  “How is this possible?  Are none of you interested in guys?!”

Ugh, no, she really did not need to hear this.  Chihiro wondered if she could hold her breath and go underwater long enough for Ojiro to stop talking.  She already had spent way too much time thinking about the fact that Monoma had kissed her.  Not that any of the rest of the girls knew, but she really didn’t need Ojiro finding out about it.  She’d never hear the end of it.  She absolutely did not need the invisible girl “shipping” her with Monoma. She didn’t like him, even if she’d ended up feeling sorry for him, and he didn’t like her, and yet…

She hadn’t exactly hated it either.

So of course running away to a tropical vacation had been the perfect way to avoid having to talk to him about it.  

“You do get there’s more than just being interested in boys, don’t you, Ghosty?” Kirishima-Bakugo growled.  

“She’s right,” Mika said, rising up out of the water enough to count on her fingers.   “Wow.  There’s something I never thought I’d say.  There’s also being interested in girls.  And non-binary people.  And non-gender identifying people and…”

“Not the point I was making, Horse-Girl.”

“But she’s right!” Ojiro said.  “I’m open to the gossip mill of all relationships!  I do not discriminate gossip on the basis of sexuality!”  There was a slight shift in the water, as though she was leaning forward.  “So you all better tell me if you get into a relationship!  Not like that relationship hiding hunk Shoji!”

Wait, what?  Like just about anyone attracted to male and possessing a pulse, Chihiro admitted that Shoji was obscenely attractive.   Muscles for days, surprisingly soft features, great hair…  But he kept to himself and she hadn’t had any idea about this!

“What?!” Mika shouted, her eyes wide.   “Nooooo! I was slowly wearing down his resistance!  By graduation, I’d have been all over the Shoji train!”

“No, you weren’t” Chihiro snapped.  Some days, Mika was just flat out exhausting.  She was absolutely her best friend in the world, but sometimes…  “And you already have a giant boyfriend!  You don’t need two!”

Mika laughed as she leaned back in the water.  “Oh, I’m definitely too much woman for just one partner.”   Chihiro didn’t dignify that with a response.

“He does!”  Ojiro said, clapping happily.  “Her name’s Emiko and she’s really cute!”

“He does enjoy his privacy,” Tokoyami said.  Frog Shadow was bobbing contentedly in the water next to her.  “But I am happy for him.”   She didn’t sound entirely convincing to Chihiro’s ears.

“You’re just sad it wasn’t you!” Frog-Shadow offered, eyes snapping open.

“I am not…” Tokoyami started, her voice warbling. The feathers on her head were starting to stand up and Chihiro could swear she saw a little blush under them.  Her hands flew to her beak. “Qui… quiet you!”

“You can’t silence me when I’m right!” Frog-Shadow declared, before Tokoyami shoved her under the water.  She kicked and fought and bubbles churned, but Tokoyami didn’t let her back up until she’d calmed down.

Koda tapped a rocky hand on her chin, a faraway look in her eyes.  “Good for him,” she said softly.  “Shoji is a kind soul and deserves the happiness.”  Mika had said she was having some body image and confidence issues lately.   Of course, Mika had also said she’s had a plan to rectify that.  As someone who’d let herself be talked into more than one harebrained scheme, she had a pretty dim view of Mika’s plans.

It was only then that she noticed Kirishima-Bakugo had her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. Slowly, she pulled her hands back. “Are they done talking yet, Iz?  I can’t tell.”

“I am uncertain,” Izumi said.  She turned back to the group and asked, diplomatically.  “Will this be going on much longer?”  A smile tugged at her lips, obviously amused by, if not particularly invested in the discussion.

“Maybe?” Mika said. “All in favor of talking about Shoji more?”

Even Izumi started to raise a hand at that.   Kirishima-Bakugo gave her a wide eyed stare of betrayal.

“What?” Izumi said. “Even if I am not interested in him romantically or sexually, he is very aesthetically pleasing.”

Kirishima-Bakugo crossed her arms and closed her eyes again.  “…Yeah, okay, he is.”

“…did she just admit to an interesting in something other than violence?” Ojiro asked.  “Isn’t that a sign of the apocalypse?”

“I’m on vacation, so pretend I growled at you and threated you with explosive death,” Kirishima-Bakugo said.

No, Chihiro was still pretty sure that the sign of the apocalypse had been Monoma kissing her, but weren’t signs supposed to come in threes…?

“Okay,” Ojiro said, “we’re all agreed.  Everybody’s attracted to Shoji.  But since he’s off the table, who else are we crushing on?  What about you, Kaminari?  Any guys got your eye?”

“Definitely not Monoma!” she said quickly.  She needed to dispel any idea about that as quickly and loudly as possible.

“We… didn’t mention Monoma,” Ojiro said.

…crap.

***

“Chihiro, you open this door this minute!” Mika shouted, pounding heavily on the door of her friend’s hotel room with her first.

“Go away, Mika!” Chihiro snapped from within.  

“I can wait all day, Chi.” Mika crossed her arms.  “You bolted out of there like you were on fire.”  After mentioning Shiro.   Which was kind of her fault.  And by kind of, she meant completely.   She’d messed that one up by several degrees of magnitude.  But Chi hadn’t said anything about it to her, so she’d hoped it would all die down and she could go back to trying to convince Shiro to date Akaya instead.  

Not that she didn’t want the best for Chihiro of course.  She was her best friend.  And she knew Shiro better than just about anyone; he really was a good guy under some of that bluster.  Probably her best friend after Chihiro, come to think of it, on top of being her ex.

“Look, you want to talk about it?” she asked.  “Or I can get Akaya or Torodoki or, I dunno, Tokoyami?”  …Probably not Akaya, actually.  That conversation might lead down roads she did not want to travel.

No answer this time. Also not a good sign.

Mika pounded on the door one more time.  “Chi… can we talk?  Please. This is actually important.  About Shiro.”

The door opened a crack, revealing a glaring Chihiro.  Sparks danced on the ends of her Cords.  Not a good sign.   But she stepped back enough to let Mika in, then flopped down on the bed.

“I know, I know, I made a total idiot out of myself back there,” she wailed, staring up at the ceiling. “I just let everybody know I maybe kind of have some kind of crush thing going on for Monoma.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mika said.

“Of course it is! He’s… he’s such a…” Chihiro made gestures in the air, which were copied by her Cords.  “He’s Monoma!  The guy who thinks he’s our hated rival! With that stupid smug face and perfect hair! And now that Ojiro knows it, the whole world probably already knows!”

“She said she wouldn’t,” Mika assured her, coming to stand near the bed.  “I think she was too stunned to make much sense of it anyway. And it’s not like anybody knows he kissed you.”

Chihiro sat up so fast Mika was pretty sure she’d broken the sound barrier.  “How do you know about that?”

Oops.

“Well, you see,” Mika began.

Before she could get any further, Chihiro interrupted her.  “I swear, if the next words out of your mouth are “I can explain,” I will tase the shit out of you.  Because I have been trying to make sense of this ever since it happened and if I find out you had something to do it with…”

Well, that would definitely explain the moodiness and irritability.  She’d been ready to blame it on something else entirely.   “Can I at least sit down?” she asked.

Chihiro shrugged and scooted over on the edge of the bed to make room.  Mika took the seat, but gave her a bit of space.  “Okay, so I can explain—don’ttaseme!”   She flinched, but all Chihiro did was give her an eyeroll.

“So after the Internships, Shiro was feeling pretty depressed.  He was going to quit, as soon as exams were over.  Big blow to his confidence, but not really my story to spill.”

“Yeah, he told me that,” Chihiro said.  

“And you remember Akaya was feeling pretty depressed too, after some of the stuff that happened during her Iinternship, with those mutant-prejudiced assholes.”

“Dumbasses.”

Mika nodded her agreement. People could be real asses sometimes. And somebody as sweet and innocent as Akaya definitely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.   “But anyway, she was feeling real down about herself and her appearance.  So I had a couple of friends who were both feeling depressed and I ended up working on a plan with Anime that would help both of them…”

Chihiro buried her face in her hands.  “Mika, Fukidashi is the one person the planet with worse plans than you!  I’m not sure she can actually tell the difference between fiction and reality.”

It didn’t look like Chihiro had put all the pieces together yet.   Crap.  That meant she’d have to explain more.

“Sooo,” she went on, “I sent him a text after the exams saying a ‘mutual acquaintance’ was feeling down and maybe he’d like to come by and cheer her up.”   She sucked in a breath.  Chi may have doubted her own intelligence at times, but this wasn’t going to take much to figure out.

Chihiro frowned.  “And there I was when he showed up, depressed as hell because I nearly caused us to flunk.  I thought he was acting funny! Even for him!  No wonder!  He probably thought you meant me!”

Before Mika could blink, Chihiro’s Cords shot out, less than a couple centimeters from her face.  No sparks, thankfully, but that could change in an instant.  “Did. You. Tell.  Him.  To. Kiss.  Her?!”

“Absolutely not,” Mika said.   “He came up with that on his own.  I think you really gave him a breakthrough, Chi.”

Chihiro sagged, her Cords drooping, letting go of some of that agitation.  “What am I going to do, Mika?”

“Well, he did say he was maybe going to ask you out…”

“What?”  Chihiro’s head snapped back up again.

“Give him a shot,” Mika said.  “He’s really not nearly as bad a guy as most people think he is.  He’s just… a lot.”  She gestured at her chest.  “But he liked me even before these came in, so he’s obviously not just in it for the physical stuff.”

She opted not to mention that there’d been an intermediate phase where Shiro had been hung up on Kirishima-Bakugo.  Like Granny always said, sometimes, maybe don’t kick the rattler’s den.

“Ugh, but he’s so… him!  With his stupid blue eyes and stupid fancy hair and stupid little smile…”

Yeah, okay, Chihiro had it bad.

“Look,” Mika said, “date him. Or don’t.  That’s your decision.  But you gotta stop worrying about what people will think about it.  You think I worry about stuff like that?”

That, at last, got a laugh. “No, but you’re shameless.”

“One of my many talents.”

Chihiro shook her head. “Yeah, well… maybe I’ll wait and see what he does.”

“Bonus, if you do date him, I can tell you alllll kinds of secrets.”

“You two were tweens when you dated!  How do you have secrets on him?”

“Because he’s still one of my friends and I still know how to get him flustered.”

She shook her head again. “Going to need you to be straight with me, Mika.”

“I think you and I both know how much I cannot do that, Chi.”

That got an actual smile out of her friend, which meant it had worked.  “Not what I meant and you know it, Mika,” Chihiro said.  “You’d really be okay with me dating your ex?”

It was a good question. They were two of her best friends. But she didn’t harbor any particular plans to get back together with Shiro.  Being “just friends” with a guy was actually kind of nice.  Not that she’d admit that to anyone.  And not that she’d object if he wanted to get back together or even just get a little frisky, of course…

“Look,” Mika said, “I’ve got a buffet table out there.  And one of the most gorgeous hunks of man on the planet.  So if you wanna shack up with Shiro, be my guest.”

Chihiro went red. “Look, just because you’re that fast..!”

Mika laughed.  “Relax, Chi.  But be my guest.  Sounds like you guys kind of connected.  I’m happy for you, if it works out.”

Chi smiled at that, and Mika finally felt a little relief.  “Thanks, Mika.”

Of course, now she needed a new plan to help Akaya.  Maybe she could just bite the bullet and shove her and Aoyama in a closet until Frenchie expressed his super-obvious feelings…

Chihiro poked her with a Cord.  “You’ve plotting again.  Stop that.”

“No.”

“We were having a nice moment and now you’re back to being impossible.  Why are you like this?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

***

The sun was low in the sky when Class 1-A returned to the beach, this time gathering around a bonfire. Todoroki had volunteered to simply start it with her Quirk, but Kirishima-Bakugo had declared that “cheating” and had proceeded to start one by hand.  For someone who was so angry with everyone else, she was surprisingly soft when it came to Todoroki.  Koharu wondered if there was some kind of history or something there.  At the hot spring, Todoroki had basically said she wasn’t interested in romance or sex, so it probably wasn’t anything like that, but…

Together, they made a big ring around the fire, the flames crackling red-orange in the darkening sky.  She liked twilight, when the day gave way to the night, starting to bring things to a close.  Koharu’s Moth Quirk actually have her excellent night vision, though she didn’t have the problems with bright lights that some of her family did. She had a cousin that was pretty much blind for anywhere up to a half hour after somebody turned on the lights.

The others were already starting to sit together in what she was learning were some of the usual pairs and groups, most of them talking animatedly.  Midoriya was sitting with his girlfriend, Sora Iida.  Next to them were Shinso, Tokoyami and Frog-Shadow, and Shoji.  Then there was Todoroki and Kirishima-Bakugo, Shoji, Aoyama, and Koda, and Mineta and Kaminari.  After that, there was Ojiro, Sero, and Sato.  She took a seat next to them, with Haimawari on her left completing the circle.

“Having fun?” Haimawari asked.  

She nodded.  “I am.  I was a little nervous about coming along.  I mean, I’ve only known Ojiro and her friends for a few weeks, and you and Midoriya for a little less than that, so I don’t really know if I feel like I belong here yet…  But everybody’s been really nice and welcoming.”

Haimawari smiled and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.  “They’re like that.  I was the same way, you know, when we started.  They all knew each other, and there I was, the new guy moving into the dorms and being in class with them.  But Midoriya reached out to me and made sure I was included.  Him, Tokoyami, Izumi, and Shinso.  The first friends I had here.”

For a moment, Koharu’s thoughts drifted back to her General Education classmates, especially her best friends, Mogura and Tokuda.  She wouldn’t be living with them anymore and would have different classes.  It would make it harder to find time to get together, though not impossible.  But she definitely didn’t want them to drift apart.  They’d surely understand the differing demands of the Hero Course, but she knew they’d be hurt if they thought she was forgetting about them.

Maybe she ought to try and do something to bring her old class and new class together.

“Trust me,” Haimawari assured her.  “Before you know it, it’ll be like you’ve been here since day one.”

“I sure hope so,” she said.

“You will,” he said. “Trust me.  They’ve got history.  But now that you’re here with us?  You’ve got future.  And that’ll turn into history.”

He made a good point, she had to admit.  

“Hey, look, Kocho,” Sero said, leaning over to show her his phone. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a pattern that made her eyes hurt just to look at.  His phone was open to a Viewtube page, showing Sato’s earlier recording of his cannonball and subsequent Ojiro-induced smacking.  It had been titled “Cannon-Fail.”

“Eighty thousand hits and counting!” Sero told her, grinning.  

“So you dropping out of the sky and Ojiro beating the stuffing out of you is hit worthy?” she asked.

“Oh yeah!  Kimiko yelling and hitting things rates really high with our subscribers.  Hope nobody’s getting off on it though…”

Koharu blinked slowly. “I do not get internet fame.”

Sero just laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m an expert at this. Stick with us, we’ll make you a star!”

Before she could make a counter argument to that, Shinso piped up.  “Oh!  Oh! Kaminari!  Are you going to play?  Are you?”  The short boy was practically bouncing with excitement.  “Pleeeeeaaasseee?”

Kaminari had indeed brought a case of some kind with her, what looked like some kind of small, guitar-ish instrument.  She opened it up and Koharu realized it was a ukulele.  She knew the electric girl’s mother was a musician on top of being a Hero, but hadn’t realized that she played too.  She still had a lot to learn about her new classmates!

“Only because you asked so nice, Shinso,” Kaminari said.  She strummed a few chords and made a few minor adjustments to the instrument before she started to play.  “So this one goes out to all of us, for passing our exams, for surviving our Internships, for making it through the first term.  To our Sports Festival winners.  To old friends and new friends.  And to our hero academia.”

“Hero too, I am a hero too

My heart is set and I won't back down

Hero too, strength doesn’t make a hero

True heroes stand up for what they believe

So wait and see

So wait and see…”

[hprarepairnet]

truth be told I never was yours

get to know our members challenge: favourite rare-pairs – pansy parkinson & ginny weasley (5/5) - maggie

setting: modern, non-magical the bachelor/reality show AU word count: 2642 a/n: just to clarify, I have seen less than one episode of the bachelor & I only vaguely remember it, and this entire thing is based off this thing I saw about two contestants falling in love with each other and then me skimming the bachelor’s wikipedia entry, so, you know, if this isn’t entirely ~true to form~ well… my bad.

If you love me let me go If you love me let me go ‘Cause these words are knives and often leave scars The fear of falling apart And truth be told, I never was yours The fear, the fear of falling apart - Panic! At the Disco -> this is gospel

Pansy was there to win.

Typically, she didn’t sign up to do things unless she was reasonably sure she had a strong chance of not only succeeding but also winning by a mile. Often, that meant she just didn’t do things. Wasn’t worth trying out for soccer in University because her school only had a boy’s team, even though she had been playing her whole life and might have been good enough. Wasn’t worth going fully into acting because she might fail and end up on a television commercial for hemorrhoid cream or something equally as appalling.

But seduction? That was one game that Pansy had always been good at. And besides, who didn’t want to star on one of the country's most popular reality shows, and land an attractive moderately-wealthy husband as their grand prize?

Besides. Pansy had just been so bored lately. Of dating, and men, and of her boring friends who kept doing all the same things. Draco had gotten some plain curly-haired girlfriend who wanted to go to museums and bookstores, Blaise and Theo had pulled their heads from their own asses and put them in each others, and Daphne was engaged to someone named Cassius and kept texting Pansy pictures of ever-more-expensive wedding dress options. If (winning) The Bachelor couldn’t cure her boredom, there was no other hope out there for her.

Pansy was there to win. She hadn’t expected to fall in love – at least… If she had expected to fall in love, she figured it probably would have been with the bachelor himself.

Unfortunately, Cormac Maclaggan was not exactly her type.

Ginny still wasn’t entirely sure what had persuaded her to try out for the show. She had only just broken up with her long-time boyfriend Harry Potter, someone who she thought had been the love of her life. It wasn’t that she didn’t still love him, it was just that they were missing something and neither of them could figure out exactly what it was.

And then her stupid older twin brothers had started joking around and saying that she should go on The Bachelor. She had always had a competitive side, always been the type to play to win. And what better prize was there than a handsome wealthy man who would whisk her off her feet and carry her away to paradise?

Except. As handsome as Cormac was on the surface, he was also just incredibly dull. But none of that mattered, really, because she was only there to win.

Ginny had never been good at seeing things that were right in front of her face, even if that thing was love.

For the most part, it went well. Contestants dropped like flies. Pansy batted her lashes and tightened the laces on her shirts, decided she could probably handle him and they could be happy. Ginny put her brain to use and said the things she knew Cormac wanted to hear, put herself aside and tried to figure out how to love him.  

There was, of course, the small matter of the fact that Ginny and Pansy hated each other. It had started day one, when Pansy had arrived first and taken the best bed and Ginny had snapped that of course some rich pampered princess would think herself best. (It didn’t matter that they ended up having to room together for the rest of the show anyways).

It continued through group dates, while Pansy tittered on about horseback riding lessons and expensive music teachers, and Ginny had mentioned (only a little under her breath) that it would be such a shame when Pansy lost and couldn’t buy her way out of it.

It hit a tipping point when Pansy made a comment about red hair being so passé and Ginny had retorted that bitch wasn’t a good look on anyone. This escalated into a screaming fight of epic proportions that was all caught on camera and blasted across every news media outlet in the country. Ginny was labelled a frigid witch and Pansy a stuck up snob and ratings soared – probably in hopes that the fight would turn physical.

Which it almost did, once. Ginny couldn’t even remember the basis of that argument, just that it had ended with her holding Pansy up against a wall, ready to, well, ready to do something. And then Pansy’s eyes had flicked down to her lips and Ginny could nearly hear her heart speed up and all of a sudden, a hundred things clicked into place all at once and she basically jumped backwards because the crushing realization of it all was just too much to handle.

The next night, Cormac brought them both on a double date. There were only six contestants left in the house and Ginny and Pansy had been unluckily enough paired up together for this particular activity.

Cormac was useless. He tried at first to ask questions about them, what they liked. For the most part he ended up talking about himself nearly nonstop, and Pansy and Ginny started to bond through exasperated glances across their small circular tables. At one point, Ginny had started quite convincingly mocking Cormac behind his back and Pansy had tried so hard not to laugh that he had paused mid sentence to ask if she was alright.

When the date was over and Cormac had kissed them both goodnight, they stumbled into an anteroom where cameras tended not to ever be and collapsed against each other in a fit of giggles.

“I can’t believe you…” Pansy managed to get out between laughs.

Ginny’s laughter only grew. She cleared her throat and shook out her shoulders and put on her best Cormac voice. “Oh Pansy, you ride horses. Well one time I rode a horse you know. I was quite good at it, could have gone competitive but it just wasn’t for me. Ginny, you know how to run? I as well run nearly ever-”

Before Ginny had a chance to finish her sentence, Pansy had pushed her up against the wall, hands tangled in her red hair, lips against hers.

Ginny yelped softly in surprise but she couldn’t help the fact that her own hands lifted nearly against her will to cup Pansy’s smooth soft cheeks, that her body pressed forward until it melded against the taller woman. They stayed like that for far too long and then finally Pansy pulled back and sighed, softly, contentedly.

“Well.” Pansy said, with a huff that clearly was meant to be exasperated but instead came off rather childish. “We’re both going to be eliminated after that stunt you pulled out there.”

Ginny nodded, slowly. “Probably.” She agreed.

“Figured I might as well… well.”

And then Pansy was stepping back, brushing her hands over the front of her outfit.

“I should go to bed.”

Ginny swallowed but she nodded again, feeling frankly nearly star struck with the entire situation. That puzzle piece that she had been missing with Harry was right here, settling comfortably into place and now with the memory of Pansy’s soft lips, her smooth cheeks, the way their bodies brushed up against each other – she couldn’t seem to turn it off.

At least, as Pansy said, they were about to be eliminated anyways.

They weren’t.

Cormac said goodbye to Susan Bones – who would have probably been upset except for the fact that he had still winked at her when he didn’t give her a rose – and Astoria Greengrass - who sighed but shrugged as if it were inevitable, and then there were only four.

Pansy, who was suppressing her shock with a self-satisfied-looking smirk. Ginny, who was trying to hide her horror behind her curtain of hair, ducking her head as if she were bashful. A tall broad shouldered girl named Millicent who seemed genuinely pleased to still be on the show. And finally, a beautiful brunette named Romilda who, when handed her rose, winked so salaciously at Cormac that Ginny was sure you could see if from space. If he had been the type to blush,

That week, Cormac visited each of their families. He left Pansy’s house with a twinkle in his eye that seemed to be about more than just the fact that her father had clapped him on the back, winked, and called him son. He returned from Romilda’s villa with a swagger in his step that was undeniable, and Romilda was wearing a rather thick scarf, despite the warm temperature.

Ginny was sure that as soon as Cormac took one look at her tiny cramped house, met her slightly-overbearing mother, had to talk about car parts for an hour with her father, he’d be gone. But he was shockingly charming the entire weekend, friendly and respectful, and when Molly had insisted that he sleep on a different floor of the house, he hadn’t even tried to sneak into her room. (Luckily, Ginny thought, because she wasn’t sure how much clearer she could be about rejecting his advances.)

(Really, she needed to quit, to walk away from this madness. But Pansy was still here, with that determined look in her eye, and Ginny couldn’t quite bring herself to run away from it just yet. Not when she wasn’t entirely sure that Pansy would follow.)

Apparently, from the little Ginny heard about it after the fact, the visit with Millicent’s family had been a nightmare. Cormac was allergic to cats, and Millie’s mother had four. Cormac had asked a wholly insensitive question about where Millie’s father was. And, while Millie’s older brother was teaching him how to use a gun, he had nearly shot off one of Millicent’s legs.

When the elimination ceremony came and there was no rose for Millicent, not a single one of them was surprised.

Afterwards, when Ginny heard Romilda snickering about Millicent being poor and entirely too unattractive for a show like this anyways, she had barely contained the look of disgust on her face. Especially when Cormac snickered right back.

The last elimination came far too quickly. The girls had spent the final week of the show in a beautiful tropical country with Cormac. Pansy had flaunted her figure in a far-too-small bikini that made Ginny’s mouth dry. In turn, she had worn her tiniest skirt to the party they attended that night and danced far too close to Cormac, watching the way Pansy’s eyes darkened in a heady mix of attraction and frustration.

Ginny wasn’t entirely sure why. Why she didn’t just grab Pansy, beg her to leave with her. Why she didn’t, failing all of that, tell Cormac that she was pretty sure she was actually gay and he didn’t seem like a very nice person anyways. But every time she thought of leaving, she thought of not seeing Pansy again. Of not getting to watch the way she slept, all curled up and tangled in her sheets, hair off in six directions, face scrubbed bare and shining in the moonlight that poured into the room the still shared, despite the house emptying out around them.

Pansy, for her part, watched but didn’t act. She kept her eyes trained on Ginny’s lips, paused a moment too long before she spoke. On the few nights that Ginny went to bed first, she was sure someone had kissed her forehead when she was stuck in the dreamy haze halfway between awake and asleep. Once, she pulled Ginny aside and it seemed like she was about to say something, but then Romilda had turned the corner too and Pansy instead threw her a look that seemed half upset and half like a promise, and Ginny was left stuck exactly where she was while she tried to figure out just what it was that Pansy wanted.

And thus. The final elimination arrived. Cormac would be proposing that night, and the three women had all dressed to the nines. Ginny was sure she was out of place. Short and stocky and red headed among these tall brunette beauties. She hadn’t had her nails done, didn’t even own a pair of tweezers. Even her dress was one she had found at a second hand store and thought looked cute, but it was nothing to the gorgeous outfits Pansy and Romilda had picked out.

Standing in a spread out semicircle, waiting and waiting for Cormac to finally show up, smiling at the cameras surrounding them, Ginny made a decision. She didn’t do it consciously, in fact it wasn’t a decision she thought she would have to make. And then, Cormac was standing in front of them, holding a single rose and a single small box. He stepped forward, and started to turn towards her, and she panicked and stepped forward and was speaking even before she realized she’d opened her mouth.

“Cormac… I have to tell you something.”

Pansy was looking at her now, that same curious mix of apprehension and attraction. Romilda had placed a hand on her hip and was tapping her fingernails impatiently against her side.

Cormac nodded, then. “Of course, Ginevra.”

“It’s Ginny.” She mumbled, for the thousandth time, and then she sighed and shook her head. “Look, I… I don’t think I’ve been entirely honest with you, these past few weeks. I came onto this show looking for… well, looking for what it is that I’ve been missing. And I’ve really… enjoyed… getting to know you, and spend time with you.” Cormac was smiling at her and she took a deep breath and then turned her head towards Pansy.

“But I realized that the reason I haven’t found what I’ve been missing is because I’ve been looking in entirely the wrong place. And actually… I think… I think I have found it. I just think I maybe… needed to look a little closer, is all.”

“Sorry,” Cormac said, as Ginny stopped and flashed a winning grin at Pansy, who bit her lip in response. “Am I, er, missing something here?”

Ginny nodded, but didn’t spare him a glance. “Pansy?” She asked, stepping out again and towards the other woman, looking up at her, feeling her heart pound in her chest. “Would you maybe, erm, go out with me?”

Romilda gasped dramatically and Cormac choked a little and none of it mattered because it had all occurred to Ginny that no matter what Pansy said, no matter what happened, she was free. She didn’t have to do this just because she thought it was what she wanted. In fact, she planned on never again doing things that didn’t make her feel exactly the way she felt in this moment. Slightly terrified, incredibly awed, and like she was flying.

And Pansy. Pansy stepped forward too. She didn’t glance once at the cameras. Didn’t look at Romilda, or Cormac who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Instead, she looked at Ginny, and crossed the distance between them, and leaned in so close Ginny could feel her breath ghosting across her lips.

“Yes.” She whispered, and Ginny shut her eyes as Pansy kissed her and it didn’t matter that they were surrounded by television cameras, didn’t matter that Cormac was still standing there with a rose and a ring. When they broke apart Pansy grinned down at her and Ginny let a happy laugh bubble out of her chest and without a single word to the two stunned people still standing there, turned and left the stage.

Cormac cleared his throat, looked around. Behind a camera, the director shrugged a little and gestured his hand, urging Cormac to keep going. He walked towards Romilda and flashed his best money-winning grin at her, and then paused a foot away. “So,” he asked, laughing only slightly nervously before popping the ring case in his hand open and holding it out to her. “Marry me?”