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darkdevasofdestruction · 2 years

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Being in a relationship with Kure Raian...

You’d think that Raian, although he’s the black sheep of the clan, would be as obsessed over strong people and fighting as everyone else is - Just like Karla is obsessed over Ohma not because she likes him, but because he’s strong and could produce strong offsprings and whatever - But Raian isn’t that way.

In fact, even if people like that catch his eye, he would fight the urge to march up to them and strike up a conversation - Rather, if he does find strong people, he might just beat them up.

But there is something that would make Raian all hot and bothered - And that is getting ignored.

Yeah, that’s right.

Raian would literally spontaneously combust if he wants someone’s attention, and he’s getting blatantly ignored or brushed off.

That’s exactly what happened when his younger sister, Fusui, brought over one of her friends. At first, he didn’t care. You were just some pretty face, like many, many others he’s seen... But somehow, your aloof personality and the resting bitch face you were sporting, a complete opposite aura from Fusui, who held the most cheerful grin on her face - Okay, he was intrigued. Not only that, but from what his sister said, you were just a normal person - A cute, little rabbit in a den of lions - Yet you seemed completely at ease and unafraid.

In an instant, Raian found himself towering his large shadow over the spot on the grass where the two girls were having a picnic. He had that psycho grin of his ever present. Fusui greeted him cheerfully, though she sweatdropped, realising that he might be so bored that he wants to scare her friend away.

Y/N simply gave him a lazy wave of her hand - Her attention was still on Fusui, and she didn’t once break the flow of their conversation. He frowned. Not even a hello? How rude!

Raian’s voice became louder, but also grittier, like the sound of nails scratching a blackboard. He was throwing the most random profanities, and telling Y/N about his latest assassination mission he had, hoping to creep her out with the gore details - Much to his surprise, the small girl casually got to her feet and looked, incredibly bored, into his eyes.

“Hey, Ryan, where did you get this shirt?” Raian blinked, his smile dropping immediately, feeling the girl gingerly pick the hem of his shirt and feeling it. “It feels like cashmere. Is it cashmere? It’s really good quality.” “My name is Raian, you bitch! Get it through that thick skull of yours!” Fusui immediately reprimanded him for insulting her friend - But the insult fell on deaf ears. “Tell me where’d you get it from, Kevin. I kinda want to get one myself.” her hands slowly traced up to his abdomen, but Raian was so flustered up and irritated by getting called such weird names, that he didn’t notice. “I SAID MY NAME IS RAIAN, ARE YOU DEAF?!” he was shouting so loudly, that Y/N could have sworn her eardrums ruptured. “It would be better if the store had an online site - I don’t really have much time to go shopping myself. Actually - Do you think I could have it delivered for Kure Miguel?” Fusui was sure her friend had a death wish, but at the same time, it was kinda hilarious seeing her brother so worked up over his name. “WHO THE FUCK IS MIGUEL?!” his screech was so powerful that he’d put a Banshee to shame. “Dunno.” Y/N shrugged and pushed Raian into the small water pond right behind him. The water barely reached his waist as he was sitting in it, a lilypad on his head. “I’ll kill you.” his voice was so ominous, low, dark, menacing - And solemn, above all else - That Fusui’s heart froze in fear for her friend’s life. “WAIT, NO, RAIAN DON’T ---” but Y/N was laughing so cutely, that Raian stopped abruptly, glaring down at her. Instead of killing her, he threw his arms around her, hearing her groan. “I~ Got~ You~ So~ Weeeeeeeet~ ♪ Babeeeeeeeeeee~♪“ Fusui has never seen her brother like this - She could just stare in complete disbelief. “Technically speaking, I made you wet, Fritz.” the girl put her palm over his face, pushing him away from her. “Now you’ve done it.” Raian grinned widely. Y/N realised his master plan, and she sighed in defeat. “You’re gonna throw me in the water, aren’t you?” he let out a ‘yup’ sound, before he threw her in the pond. If the water was any higher, he’d have jumped with her - But with how little it is, she probably would have barely gotten wet at all. He was laughing so hard, his sides were aching, but he couldn’t stop. She looked like a wet, grumpy dog - Until she, too, started laughing. “Alright, alright, you got me. Good one. Now help me up, psycho.” Raian missed the mischievous smile on her face, and as he crouched down, extending his hand for her to take - Only for her to tug on his hand and have him fall in the water again. “You’re the psycho, not me!” the two looked at each other and started sniggering like two idiots. Fusui just stared at them, perplex, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from them. Did Y/N just manage to tame the Black Sheep of the Kure Clan? Something that not even their Patriarch could do? “You owe me your shirt.” she said blankly, stopping her laughter abruptly. “Any time~♪“ Raian nonchalantly took his shirt off and let it fall on her head. “...Okay, I might have just sabotaged myself.” she sighed, getting up and out of the pond. “I was supposed to have a sleep over. I don’t have any dry clothes anymore.” she stole a glance at the man. “I suppose I can’t stay over anymore. What a pity. Time to get home, I guess.” she shrugged nonchalantly, waving at Fusui and walking towards the exit of the large garden, only to feel herself being picked up bridal style.

Raian had taken her to his room and threw at her all cashmere clothes he had, while Y/N could barely hide her amusement. Clearly, she could wear some of Fusui’s clothes, after all, they’re around the same frame and they are friends - Or she could borrow the clothes of literally any woman of the Kure - Silly boy, so easily tricked. Or maybe he wanted to be tricked? Either way, Y/N found this, by far, the most hilarious situation she ever faced.

By this time, Raian kept bugging on Y/N and Fusui for the whole day, and during the evening, at dinner, Erioh and Karla and her brother had them all eat together. Y/N looked at her friend, her eyes pleading, embarrassed at the get up she was wearing. Suddenly, the whole joke was ruined and she was the one being tricked. How can she possibly go eat dinner with their 1000 year old patriarch and the rest of the family, when she’s barely wearing Raian’s shirt, and albeit long enough to reach the middle of her thigh, it was still improper. Raian didn’t give her any time to beg Fusui for a proper change of clothes, for he grabbed her wrist and dragged her and his sister all the way to the table. He was also still shirtless, so it only made things worse.

Y/N kept her head down the whole time, hoping that her face wouldn’t betray her embarrassment. Karla, Sarla and Fusui were talking casually about their assassin work, Y/N threw some comments here and there, the old man was quiet, and Raian was... Being Raian, and wolfing down a shit ton of food. Until Karla suddenly noticed there was no more water, and the fight for who would be the loser to bring another water carafe started. It genuinely felt like all the Kure children were going to put down the chopsticks and start a brawl to the death - But Y/N broke the tension. “Ah... There’s no more water. This food is so good, but it got me so thirsty... Can you please tell me where the kitchen is, to get more water?” before the old man could blink, Raian had already returned, and was pouring water in Y/N’s cup. “Oh! Thank you, Jericho!” ... Jericho? Erio had no idea what was going on, but he was genuinely impressed by how this outsider managed to quite literally manipulate the most rebelious clan member to do whatever she wanted... And prevented a war. And he was also shocked when he saw Raian placing his small rice bowl over her face, and laughing like an idiot, to the point he was rolling on the ground like a manic.

Y/N slowly removed the bowl from her face and used a napkin to clean all the rice, and she sighed. “Alright, I suppose I deserve it.” her nonchalance was genuinely so weird for all these proactive people. “Your stomach is going to hurt if you continue rolling like that.” she warned. “Also, it’s not nice, playing with your food. What are you, a kitten, Abraham?” Raian straightened up immediately and glared at the girl, watching her continuing to eat without sparing him a single glance. “WHO THE FUCK IS ABRAHAM?! AND I’M NOT A FUCKING CAT, YOU STUPID BITCH!” he shrieked loudly into her ear, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, the hand in which she was holding her own rice bowl slowly made its way to his face. Raian’s whole face had rice all over it, and Y/N wasn’t removing the bowl. “Take this off me, bitch, or I snap your neck!” that is what he said - Or, at least, what he tried to say, for the rice kept muffling him. “It’s not nice to speak like that, especially in front of your family... Or... To me. You really made me sad...” her voice was pouty and upset - Erio couldn’t believe the power she had over him, and as far as he was concern, this was the first time they met. By the looks of it, everyone was still in shock. “Y/N....” she slowly took away the bowl from his face, and with perfect precision, used her chopsticks to take a single rice grain from his face, and taunted him by eating it.

The whole room was quiet. They were preparing for the girl’s funeral. That is, until they saw her turn her head to the side, biting her lip and her shoulders were shaking. Raian’s face also suddenly split in a wicked grin. Suddenly, a few rice grains started falling off his face, and Y/N couldn’t keep herself in check anymore, and she started laughing, and so did the psycho. Y/N took another rice with her chopsticks, and they ended up laughing even harder. “Weirdos.” Fusui smiled wryly, completely surprised that her friend was getting along with her brother better than with her. “Y/N’s going to be our new sister, Fusui! I want to take care of your babies with Raian! I bet they’re going to be so strong!” the laughter stopped, and the atmosphere changed immediately. Y/N looked down, her face red with embarrassment, whilst Raian immediately wiped his face and glared at Karla, shouting at her for being an idiot. After this, no other fun moments happened, and Y/N returned to Fusui’s room.

Surprisingly, Raian doesn’t always act like he’s fucked in the head, nor is his voice harsh and loud. Late into the night, he sneaked into the girls’ room and woke Y/N up, and with a playful smirk, he urges her to follow him outside, and he takes her back to the pond. The two didn’t speak much, and just gazed up at the stars for a while. It was a serene and comfortable silence, though there was a certain tension between them, and neither spoke. It was weird.

Raian would take off his warm jacket and put it over her shoulders, as she was still wearing just his cashmere shirt - He knew it would be chilly outside. He knew he wanted to see her, but he had no idea what to say. Karla’s comment really threw him off his grove, and it seemed to have done the same for Y/N, who was able to purposely get a raise out of him so many times in a single day, to the point that he was so hot and bothered that he’d have claimed her on the spot. A hundred times, and more. But that vanished completely, and now he annoyingly felt like some kind of awkward teenage boy, and he hated it.

“Hey, Bruce Lee.” Y/N’s voice wasn’t challenging nor provoking, and though it irked Raian to be called by a wrong name again, the softness of her voice only made him grumble. “Do you know how to put 100 babies in a single bucket?” “Huh? What the hell are ya on?” he snapped his head at her, looking with a weird expression on his face. Y/N turned to face him, and her smile grew, as if she was trying not to laugh at herself for the stupid joke she was about to reveal. “In a blender.”

Raian stared stupid at her, eyes wide, unblinking - He almost looked as though he was analysing the very milimeters of her ever growing grin. Raian’s humour was shit. Dark jokes that involve carnage, or simply shock value... Maybe even a shit joke, but with a good momentum delivery... And Y/N’s joke seemed to check all the boxes.

His laugh resounded so loud through the Kure village that the two actually heard “SHUT UP” scolds right back. Y/N was trying hard to stifle her chuckles, but to no avail. “You’re actually kinda cute when you laugh.” “What’s big and smells like shit? GENOCIDE!” he was choking from laughing so much, while Y/N’s mouth twitched. Shit joke, shit delivery. “Your joke was about as bad as your sense of humour, Jose. But it’s fine. I’ll be the funny one of us.” she looked away, shrugging nonchalantly. “If ya call me by another name ONE! MORE! TIME!!! I swear, I’ll fuckin’ kill ya, babe!” he sneered at her with a glare. “Do it, Dennis.” Y/N found herself being roughly pushed to the ground, though her head didn’t collide, as it was carefully pillowed by his palm. She did not see the starry night, but his face - Handsome, and so impossibly close to her own. He sniggered like a mischievous demon. “You’re trapped, babe~♪ What’cha gonna do now~♪?”

Y/N blinked, realising the situation she was in. Not only was she trapped in those big and warm arms of his, but his body was also almost flush against her own. They were so close, that she feared Raian felt how fast her heart was beating against her chest... And against his own also.

But Y/N’s response was unexpected - Gingerly wrapping her fingers into his cashmere shirt... Did he choose it intentionally? - She pulled herself up to plant tender kiss on his lips. For a maniac, he had very plump and kissable lips. Eventually, she pulled away and laid back on the ground, shyly looking at the completely unresponsive boy.

Kure Raian, the Demon, the Black Sheep of the Kure clan - Was blushing like a highschool boy with a crush. How is he supposed to react? What is he supposed to do? Just -- What just happened? He is so lost that he’s making Y/N uncomfortable with how he’s staring at her so intently.

“U-Uh... Wh-What do you call a baby with no arms and no legs in the middle of the ocean?” hearing her voice, albeit, shaky and unsure, unlike before, brought him back to reality. “What?” he breathed out. “...Fucked.” Y/N’s smile was so nervous and awkward. “Marry me.”

Since that night, Raian began his “Marry me” gimmick - And though it was obviously a gag, he half-meant it every time he said it.

Nobody ever believed that Raian would ever have a proper relationship, considering that everyone ostracizes him for being a merciless idiot, but the way he’s unintentionally simping SO hard for you is almost hilarious. How you learnt to tame the beast that he is, it’s a complete miracle. The Clan literally watches you, leaning at the base of a tree, reading leisurely, and you bait Raian into doing whatever you want, like - Make you a lemonade, or have him go get an ice-cream. All the weirdest things.

But if that wasn’t shocking enough, the fact that that boy can actually stay STILL for more than 5 seconds at a time, was absolutely fascinating. The patriarch would sit on the porch of the house and watch Raian sitting with his head on your lap as you absently play with his hair - And he actually stays there, and doesn’t laugh, or speak a thousand words per second, or throws profanities - He’s just laying there, a passive smile on his face, and living in the moment.

What a fascinating creature.

Raian always tells you all the most gruesome details of every mission he goes on, hoping he would creep you out - But you just nod at him dismissively and tell him to go on with his story.

Raian loves to show off when he’s training, knowing perfectly well that he’s attractive, wearing only his fighting shorts, with sweat dripping all over his flexed muscles... And then chases you around the garden to give you a hug, knowing you don’t want his disgusting sweat all over your clothes.

Fusui becomes your literal best friend, though you’re wary of Karla and her obsessive comments - She’s a good girl otherwise. Generally, you get along well with the clan, but both you and Raian agree that you need a break from them, so you crash at your own, away from all the madness the chaotic assassins dwell in.

When you’re hanging at your home, you feel more comfortable to act a bit more intimate. Don’t be fooled by his brashness, if you get together before he’s like - 20 years old, he’d probably brush off the idea of going any further - Unless you initiate it, then he’s game.

He just likes to be the best at everything he does, and while he was born into a family of fighting and killing, being intimate is something completely different, and it annoys him that he’s not a God from the very beginning - Although, he makes up with his eagerness and his absolute love of touching each and every part of your body and teasing you with a ton of kisses. He’s actually a natural, and the cute faces and sounds you make are his fuel, especially when he surprises you.

When you get intimate, he’s not afraid to experiment things and easily picks up on the things that you like and you don’t.

He also loves kissing you until you can’t breathe anymore.

Kisses with Raian are careful and soft at first, but quickly get deeper and more passionate, and he starts kissing and nipping at your bottom lip, licking and sucking on it before pulling you even closer to his body.

The problem is, he loves hugging you from behind and nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck that he forgets he’s not always at home, in private, with you only, and he starts nipping at the soft skin on your neck.

The inside joke of calling him different names continues well into the years, and it confuses most people - The problem is, you often forget what names you used, and he teases you by pointing out you called him the same name twice in a week.

He wants to see you wearing his shirt at home and preferably nothing else underneath, while he stays topless and purposely flexes, to the point that he’s ridiculous.

Raian is incredibly playful, even if it goes borderline genocidal, it’s just how he is - And you always make fun of him for trying too hard.

Years after you met, he gets in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, and of course, he refuses to go unless you’re with him - And honestly, how can anyone complain, considering you’re the only thing keeping him somehow stable? Though, you sometimes have the bad habit of letting him play around a bit too much.

You also kinda laugh when he’s threatening and playing around with Lihito in the bathroom, though you also scold him for dragging you in the men’s bathroom and unintentionally being forced to see that idiot’s... Privates.

You’re also a bit irked by his unnecessary sadist show against Mokichi, especially as he’s called out your name, and you wanted nothing to do with him killing the only guardian of a little girl.

When you scolded and refused to speak to him until he apologised, he got angry as all fuck and went on a rampage, and despite the Kure literally pleading to you to make him stop - You didn’t.

Surprisingly, though, he was humbled in the second round by Tokita Ohma - And you mentally thanked the brunet for being strong enough and putting a dent into Raian’s ever-going berserk attitude.

Though Ohma was in a coma, Raian woke up soon after, and he found in the infirmary, alone with Mokichi and Ohma.

The room was quiet, save for the beeping of the oxygen machines, and you refused to even look at him, which angered him.

But then you explained why you were pissed with him, and also, why he lost so pathetically - And though he wanted to snap your neck for scolding him, he also knows she was right, not that he’d admit.

During the coup d’etat, he threw all of his frustrations into mass-killing, but once again, his bloodlust made him lose focus, and he got injured again.

Though you didn’t say anything, you did patch him up - He was so silent, that it made you realise he was actually reflecting on his downfall.

And you kissed him.

Over the course of almost three years after the Kengan Tournament, when Ohma comes over to the village to life and train with them, you can see Raian focusing more, and though the brutality is still there, he can actually control it.

Ohma became a trusted confidant and good friend of yours, and the two of you could comfort each other with the two Kure obsessing over you.

Raian’s gimmick with the marriage thing was amped up, though it was more or less to make fun of Karla... Not that she’d realise.

Over the years, Raian made sure to actually teach you how to fight to defend yourself, despite priding himself with being being so powerful that she’d never get herself in danger.

When you reveal Ohma to the world and go visit Koga and Ryuki at the hospital, you see Raian had climbed up the 5th floor and was mocking the young boys.

So you went up to him and pushed him off.

Everyone except for Ohma gawked, afraid for his life.

You just show him the selfie Raian sent you, while he was falling - He was pulling an overly exaggerated kissy face.

Dork.

He was a bit annoyed with how empathetic you were, comforting or cheering every fighter (except for Akoya) for their matches, so he keeps you caged in his arms, teasing you with small comments and kisses to your neck and cheeks.

To stop himself from going ape-shit from the wait leading to his own match, he snatched your hands and would absently play with them or kiss them.

Though the whole Worm thing was worrying you - You didn’t want anything bad happening to the family, or these Kengan people. They all looked like good people.

But then Raian’s match came by and he was fighting Alan Wu, a clear enemy.

You pulled Raian into a kiss, more or less to have the time to warn him not to lose his cool and actually focus on the match, not on his bubbling emotions.

He just grins and brush off your worries, saying he’s a changed man and what not.

But then he gets threatened with a knife, sees Edward Wu in the hallway...

And he rips Alan in two in a split second, running after his arch enemy.

You stare at the mess left behind that was once a person, and you curse out loud - Raian’s lost it and he’s gonna get in trouble.

You don’t care that Alan was killed, but you fear Raian and his impulsiveness might get him in such a tight situation that he might get himself killed.

Even though Erio and the other two are there.

You and Ohma look at each other, and together, you pick Karla and rush to look for Raian, ready to potentially help him in a fight.

Only to see Kure Erio on the ground and dying.

Raian was sitting on the ground, livid with anger, feeling defeated.

They should have won with no casualties! So why the heck did the old fart use himself bait?! And why wasn’t he strong enough to kill those fuckers without the need of aid?!

He was filled with so many feelings of self-hatred and anger, that even your arms around him, or your comforting words couldn’t drown them out.

You held his hand throughout the funeral and comforted him for days on end, but Raian was still bitter.

Since then, you took a more active role in searching for the Worms - You might not have been a fighter, but you were smart enough to come up with plans and do the brain work for them.

Since the patriarch’s death, Raian visibly mellows down, at least around you, and he finally realises how fragile life can be - And if even that old man, who was the strongest man he knows, who was the first Fang of Metsudo and whatever... If even he could die... What about someone like you, who’s such a fragile little bunny? What if he’s not there to protect you? Not that his presence mattered when Erio died. And, worse - What if you’re used as bait to get to him? What if you get killed in front of him?

Being an assassin means that he’s seen and done a lot of cruel things himself, so he puts all the worst in front.

The night of the patriarch’s funeral, you hold his body close to your own, his head on your chest, and you play with his hair, allowing him to vent his anger with any profanity he might feel the need to spew.

But his silence is far worse than all his anger.

During that very night, Raian came to the realisation of a lifetime.

He pulls you into a tight embrace, and hides his face in the crook of your neck, so you wouldn’t see the single tear of sheer self-anger and regret.

And in the most broken, vulnerable voice, you hear him voice the words that he’s been meaning to tell you for so long, but stopped himself, thinking he’d sound weak or something that didn’t matter anymore.

“I love you.”

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Being in a relationship with Wakatsuki Takeshi... Being in a relationship with Yoroizuka Saw Paing... Being in a relationship with Kure Raian... Being in a relationship with Tokuno’o Tokumichi... Being in a relationship with Kano Agito... Being in a relationship with Gaolang Wongsawat... Being in a relationship with Gaoh Ryuki... Being in a relationship with Narushima Koga... Being in a relationship with Hatsumi Sen

#kengan ashura imagine #kengan ashura x reader #kengan ashura #kengan omega #kengan omega x reader #kengan omega imagine #kure raian x reader #kure raian imagine #kure raian #kure karla #kure fusui #kure erio #tokita ohma #kure sarla

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lizard-on-a-window-pane · 1 year

Note

Could you a James Potter x reader fluff thank you so much

hope you like it!

pairing: James Potter x reader

tags: fluff, first date

word count: 2.3k

The Best Worst First Date

“Do you want to go out? Maybe tomorrow?” There. He said it. He couldn’t believe he said it. It had been weighing on him so heavily for so long; there’s no way he had actually asked. He probably just imagined it like he had a million times already.

“Sure!” you respond.

Okay, way too easy, definitely imagined it.

“Is there anything in particular you were thinking? I know Remus has been talking about that new restaurant.”

Dinner! Great, he could take you to dinner.

“Although, I know Sirius wasn’t super excited by the menu, so we should probably choose something everyone wants.”

Wait, what?

“Sirius?”

“Yeah. What? Is he busy tomorrow or something? Just us and Rem and Lily then?”

Oh, god. No wonder. How could he possibly clarify without loads of awkwardness? Maybe he should just forget it, go out with all his friends like every other weekend, you included. Or… or… “No, Sirius isn’t busy.” “Oh.” “As far as I know, anyway. I dunno, maybe he is.” Fuck, not relevant, not relevant.

“Ok?” “But, uh, I actually meant maybe, you know, not just us and Rem and Lily, but just… just us.” A beat. “If you fancy it!” God, too loud, shit. Had he ever had any game? or does he just lose it any time you’re around?

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

“Sure,” softer this time. Unsure? But you smile your adorable smile, the subtle one where your lips go more sideways than up and your eyes sparkle a little, though he almost misses that as you look down.

“Yeah?” hopeful, bright. “Yeah,” certain, warm.

“Brilliant.”

You’re not sure what to wear. James didn’t tell you what you were doing on your date. It is a date, right? That word never came up, now that you think about it (although, let’s be honest, it’s all you’ve been thinking about since yesterday; you’ve run it over and over in your mind about a million and a half times). But he wanted it to just be you and him. Sounds like a date. Right?

You try on all your favorite clothes, even a few you think might surprise you. Nothing feels quite right, but you opt for staying yourself, just yourself a little done up.

You’re considering changing or putting on more make up or perhaps spontaneously combusting when James knocks.

You run over, take a deep breath, and open the door to the most handsome man you’ve ever met. “Ready?” he asks. “You look lovely. You always do though.” It’s cheesy, but coming from him, and with that melting sincerity, it makes you feel warm and loved.

“Thanks, Jamie. You look lovely too.”

He blushes and smiles, adjusts his glasses, and leads you out.

He had it all planned. An early dinner first, a walk in your favourite park next, then seeing that new film you’d talked about excitedly last week. A bit typical, but hey, hopefully classic is classic for a reason.

He’d spent hours debating the right restaurant to take you to. He opted for somewhere that advertised itself as an intimate space with a home-cooked menu. Sounded wholesome. And romantic, hopefully.

You walk in to the restaurant, and his stomach drops. It’s not “intimate.” It’s tiny. And not in an exclusive way, or a cute way, or just a tiny way. It’s tiny in a dingy way, and he cringes as you struggle to get across the small space when the appearance of a waiter — a common occurrence at a restaurant, you’d think — fills the cramped space between tables too much for you to be able to get past without some awkward squeezing.

He’s grateful when you finally sit down… until your chair creaks and leaves you sitting lopsided. It gets a bit - just a bit - less mortifying when you laugh, seemingly actually amused at the situation. James chuckles with you.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, love. Um, excuse me? Can we get a different chair here please?” “Thanks,” you laugh.

You get a new chair, with plenty more awkward squeezing due to size constraints, but all seems to be going smoothly after that. You chat, you laugh, you order.

Just as James is settling in, thinking maybe this place isn’t so bad, though, the food arrives. And he wants to go bury himself in a pile of blankets at home and never face the outside world - let alone you — again.

It looks terrible. Terrible is a compliment actually. It looks downright inedible. “Home-made”? More like rubbish-rummaged.

“Uh…” you hold up a bit of it with your fork but plop it right back down. You laugh again, but this time James doesn’t join you. “Would you think I’m a terrible person if I don’t eat any of this and they have to take it back as is?” you ask, half joking. “No, no. I mean, it’s not great, but god, what’s the alternative?” He sticks his fork in his food, and the texture reminds him of 80’s horror movie special effects.

“I dunno? Food poisoning?” you respond conspiratorially. He can’t help but chuckle with you.

You fill up a bit on the stale bread, make a lame excuse about being in a rush, pay and start to leave. “I was thinking we could for a walk now? If you fancy it. That park you always talk about isn’t far from here, right?” That was a main consideration in choosing this crap restaurant, and he hopes it makes it worth it.

“Right! Sounds great,” you smile at him.

You squeeze past another unlucky couple heading into the restaurant and head out… into a cold drizzly evening. God, this had to be a cruel joke from the universe. It had been sunny just this afternoon.

James looks over at you and catches you tugging your jumper sleeves down and bundling into it as best as possible. He thinks of proposing a different plan, but he can’t for the life of him think of something else to do from how nervous he is. What do people do?? The movie isn’t for a while. You don’t say anything either, though, so he just smiles and turns toward the park. He takes a chance and puts his arm around you — a new thing for the two of you — and rubs your shoulders to warm you up. It definitely helps warm you up, for more reasons than mere body heat. You lean into him, and he can’t help but think that maybe this isn’t so bad. As he does, an icy gust of wind freezes his face and hands.

You trudge through to the park, getting only a bit damp but very cold. The park looks absolutely lovely in the wintry weather, but you’re more than a bit uncomfortable from the cold. You try to make conversation, especially because James looks stunned into silence, and you can tell he feels responsible for bad weather of all things. You can’t get more than a couple words out, though, from how hard your teeth start chattering.

It’s cartoonish, and it makes you laugh. James looks down at you as if you’ve gone mad, but at the sight of your laughing face, his stressed demeanor melts into deep laughter.

You’re still on the edge of the park, and at another gust of wind, you take his hand and pull him over to the small lane alongside it.

There’s a little shop there, and you pop in to see if there is a nice scarf, hat, mittens, anything really that might help. Others may have had the same idea, though, because there is only one scarf left, and it’s pretty horrendous. The patterns don’t match, and it looks more like a costume piece than anything else. But it also feels very warm…

James catches you eyeing it, and resting his hand on your lower back, asks, “You like it? I can get it for you if you want. It’s the least I can do,” he half laugh half grumbles.

“After what? You’ve not done anything wrong,” you say gently. “Well, I dunno. It was my brilliant idea to go walking in this welcoming weather,” he responds sardonically. You don’t know how to comfort him, so you just bump him with your shoulder playfully, shaking your head at him that it was no big deal. The scarf is horrible, but you are cold, so you pick it up. He takes it to the counter and buys it for you.

When he comes back over, your cheeks warm up dramatically, not from the warm shop, but from his wrapping it around your neck gently and carefully, his face scrunched up in an adorable and adoring concentration.

“Thanks,” you whisper. He just smiles.

You kill time looking around from establishment to establishment, and when the movie is near enough, James tells you you should head to the next part of the night. You follow him excitedly. As you near the cinema, your anticipation builds, expecting what the next activity is. You remember talking animatedly about this new film, and wrap your arm around James in a loving half hug, overcome with affection at how he always pays attention to and remembers what you say to him.

He reciprocates, squeezing tight and kissing the top of your head as you walk on. You’re surprised at how natural this all feels, all these new gestures between the two of you that just feel so right, exciting and comforting at once.

Lost in your thoughts, you’re confused and worried when James goes stiff beside you, stopping dead in his tracks. Looking up at him, you see his face paling, his eyes wide as he looks ahead. You follow his gaze to see the big “sold out” sign splattered on top of the new movie title. “Fuck,” you hear beside you. “Fucking hell,” a bit louder. He turns toward you, stress all over his lovely features. “I’m so sorry, love. I didn’t think to get tickets ahead of time. I’m such an idiot; I can’t believe I didn’t think of it; of course there was a good chance it would sell out; and if I’d brought you earlier instead of just killing time,” spills out of his mouth at top speed. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright, really, it’s fine,” you try to stop him. You rub his shoulder comfortingly.

He tilts his head back and groans.

“I can’t believe how royally I’ve fucked this up. I finally work up the courage, and then this is what I deliver? God, I wouldn’t blame you for regretting this.”

“I don’t regret this,” you say very seriously. His eyes meet yours and linger there. “You don’t?” he asks hopefully.

“Not even a tiny bit. Of course I don’t. It didn’t matter what we did, James; of course it didn’t. The worst restaurant, the ugliest scarf, no movie - none of this matters one bit as long as we get to experience it together,” you utter warmly, chuckling at your luck. “Shit, the scarf is ugly?” he asks aghast. “I was thinking it was about the only thing that had gone right tonight!”

You’re laughing hard at his horrified expression, and you have to wipe a tear from your eye as you tell him you love it.

“You just said it was horrible,” he challenges, but he’s failing to hold back his smile. “It is. Horrendous, really. But I love it. Because you gave it to me. And I’m going to treasure it always as a reminder of our first date.”

He playfully tugs on it, now fully smiling down on you. “Yeah? You want to remember this? Inedible food, freezing weather, not seeing the movie?” “Yup. Every second of it. I want to remember inedible food and the hilarious face you made when you stuck your fork in it, freezing weather and how much warmer I felt with your arm around me, not seeing the movie and having our first kiss outside the cinema instead…” Your voice is soft by the end, your nerves overpowering your hopes.

His face grows serious, and he takes a step closer to you. His hand comes up to caress your cheek gently, and you lean into it. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” he whispers, smiling softly, his face nearer yours than it has ever been.

You bite your lower lip in anticipation, and his eyes shoot down to it. You both inch closer, and your foreheads meet, and he bumps his nose with yours. It makes you smile, and a moment later, you are smiling into his kiss.

His lips are cold and a bit chapped from the cold, but they feel perfect against yours. His other hand comes up to the other side of your face, and he cups it gently as his mouth explores yours slowly. You tilt your head one way, then the other, following his movements. He sucks on your lip, and you chuckle in response, moving your hands from his shoulders to around his neck, holding him closer.

He pulls back a bit, gazing into your eyes, smiling, but as he goes to keep kissing you, your stomach grumbles loudly.

“Oh, god,” you say, embarrassed, hiding your face in his chest.

You’re worried his stress at the planning fiasco is going to return, but you feel him laughing against you, and the warmth of it fills you with a happy ease you know you’ll keep craving.

“What do you say we get some take-away then watch a movie at mine? Won’t be as glamorous, but I can promise plenty of blankets and shared body warmth,” he says, still caressing your cheek.

You lean forward, kissing him gently but lingeringly.

“Sounds absolutely perfect.”

#james potter one shot #james potter imagine #james potter fanfic #james potter fluff #james potter x reader #marauders #marauders fanfic #marauders fluff #marauder x reader #reader insert #x reader #fluff

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lovelyfanatical · 1 year

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I Get a Sugar Rush Whenever I'm With You - Chapter 5.4

Happy long weekend fellow Drukkari stans, or whatever day it is for you! We've reached the end of Desserts Week! If you're not on this chapter yet, I've made a table of contents with each installment, which you can find here! I'm also on AO3, but it's currently only available to registered users to avoid AI sweeping. The group is thinning out, but Druig has had a good week so far. Will he actually win Star Baker? Find out now in the next installment of Drukkari in the Great British Bake Off! (This is how I imagine Druig coming out of the hotel after last time)

The next morning, Druig was still trying to contain his smile. Makkari, the most beautiful woman in the world, thought he was handsome. At the same time, he did everything he could to tame the butterflies that that thought was giving him. After all, Makkari was right: he might have a chance at Star Baker that week, but he wouldn’t get it if he lost focus. Even so, after they greeted each other and were standing side-by-side with their friends in front of the hotel, he couldn’t resist giving her shoulder a gentle bump when no one was looking. She immediately bumped him back in a firm but still playful manner.

As for the rest of the day, Druig did his best to simply push down the nerves and get on with it. In the end, the showstopper couldn’t have gone better. While he was usually rushing to get things done, making his work messy, he’d given himself enough of a buffer this time that he finished right on time. Tasked with making a fairy tale-themed sculpture cake, he’d made a Beauty and the Beast-inspired castle, going all out with the decoration. Half of the castle was in ruin, representing the beast, while the other half was overgrown with flowers, representing beauty. Druig was proud of himself and his work, but he was still surprised when Arishem reached out his hand for a handshake.

While he and the others waited for the judges to deliberate, Druig found himself being bombarded with pre-emptive congratulations. Gilgamesh greeted him with a clap on the back. Ajak was beaming with pride. Sersi had complemented his piping skills before going to comfort Dane, who hadn’t quite finished his Green Knight cake before judgment time. To add insult to injury, the judges had found his cake rather dense and a bit bland. He had taken it gracefully, and with cameras in the waiting area, he was still holding it together pretty well. Even so, Druig saw the mask slip momentarily when Sersi covered his hand with her own. When Makkari saw them, she sighed and said, If he’s out, I’m really going to miss watching them together.

Detective Makkari, still out of cases? he asked.

Yes, but I still like to keep tabs on the old ones, she answered with a sly grin.

Makkari was sitting next to Druig when the hosts announced that he had won Star Baker. She immediately reached over to hug him, and despite being aware that the others were applauding and cheering, all he could think about was Makkari’s arms around him and how she smelled like cinnamon. It was a brief moment, but it still left him in a bit of a daze.

Sadly, Makkari had also been right about Dane. He was still taking it like a champ, even when Gil initiated a group hug. Once they’d all wrapped their interviews and were heading back to the hotel, however, Druig could see that his eyes were a little red and he seemed quite somber. He did perk up a bit during the shuttle ride when Sersi leaned her head on his shoulder. When he pointed it out to Makkari, he thought she might spontaneously combust from excitement. She was still talking about it on the train ride home.

Do you think he’s asked her out already? she asked, practically jumping up and down in her seat.

I dunno, maybe, he replied, unable to hide his smile. Makkari’s joy could be contagious.

I mean, he may need a couple of days after this, plus the whole jealousy thing, she continued.

I still can’t believe that happened, he added.

Well, Sersi looks like Sersi. I’m actually a bit surprised Dane doesn’t seem to have any competition besides Ikaris.

He certainly doesn’t have any competition from me.

You really never thought of her that way, Druig?

No. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s gorgeous, but after talking to her for a minute, she just kind of felt like a sister to me.

Same here.

Our first conversation was so awkward anyway.

Really? Makkari had raised an eyebrow at him, and Druig got the feeling his next answer would be carefully scrutinized.

Yeah. She was just asking me for my macaron recipe, but it was still early in the competition, and I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t say anything at first.

Wow, and she still said yes to dinner?

I recovered fairly quickly, thank you very much. But yeah, I was surprised she even wanted to come. Although, I did emphasize that it was a group dinner.

Ah, so she knew wouldn’t have to talk to just you. Coming from someone else, Druig might’ve been offended, but Makkari’s eyes were filled with mirth.

Exactly, he signed emphatically.

Speaking of recipes, she said, her eyes gaining a mischievous twinkle, I think I need that Mexican hot chocolate éclair recipe.

I already gave Ajak the paper copy. She called dibs.

I know, which was very rude of her when I’m the one with the craving, she signed indignantly, but the twinkle was still there. You know, you could make it up to me by making me my own batch.

Druig felt his eyebrows shoot up. Oh, really?

I’m serious, I don’t think I can go without them for much longer, she signed, trying to contain her smile. I can buy the ingredients and bring them over and everything!

So, you want the recipe, but you also still want me to make them.

It would be my first time making them, so they probably wouldn’t come out the same! Pleeeease? she pleaded, dragging out the sign as long as she could.

Druig sighed, making a show of his contemplation, but he already knew what his answer would be. With exaggerated reluctance, he answered, Okay, I’ll do it.

Makkari fist-pumped in celebration, causing him to chuckle. She was still thanking him as they pulled into their station. As they got off and said their goodbyes, she signed, Text me when is a good time for you!

I will, he replied. They said their goodbyes, and it was only when she was walking away that Druig even realized the full implications of what he’d agreed to: Had Makkari just invited herself over to his place?

Poor Dane, he had a rough week. As usual, likes, comments, and reblogs would be much appreciated! Let me know what you think!

Part 18

#lovelyfanatical shares #drukkari gbbo au #drukkari #druig x makkari #eternals fanfiction #eternals #makkari is a sneaky one #druig does not know what hit him

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agnol117 · 1 year

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Series I, Part XV

SCP-079 - Old AI

This one’s kinda funny and sad? Like, some kid programmed an AI, then got bored with it, and just left it in his garage to stew and get more and more advanced, and now it hates everyone. Which, honestly, relatable. I love it.

10/10

SCP-080 - Dark Form

Okay so I know it says not to refer to 080 as “the Boogieman,” but honestly, it’s the Boogieman. It’s a shadow creature that disappears in light brighter than a standard nightlight and causes nightmares. That’s a Boogieman. Sorry SCP Foundation, I don’t make the rules. I like that it can cause permanent psychological damage, though. That’s a neat addition.

8/10

SCP-081 - Spontaneous Combustion Virus

Spontaneous human combustion has always been a thing that fascinates me (I wrote a paper on it in college), because I’ve always been into weird shit like this (shocker, I know). The idea that it’s caused by a virus is actually kind of neat. I don’t even mind that it references real world events (documented cases of SHC), because there’s no “real” explanation for why it happens, so it doesn’t feel particularly weird or disrespectful.

9/10

SCP-082 - “Fernand” the Cannibal

So, despite being eaten alive being one of my biggest phobias, I actually really like this one. It’s very well written and well crafted. So I dig it. It’s kinda funny, what with the guy being tricked into thinking he’s the king of France, and then just sort of randomly attacking people when the urge strikes him. I also really like that it kind of ends on a joke? It’s great. Love it.

10/10

SCP-083 - An Abandoned Row Home

I really don’t know what to make of this one. It’s weird, and it’s certainly got a creepy factor, but like…I dunno. I find this one kind of unsettling, honestly. Not so much that the house changes its layout, but more that it might be inhabited and we’d have no way of knowing? Definitely spooky.

8/10

SCP-084 - Static Tower

This one creeps me out. I dunno why, but radio towers are creepy. All the extra stuff (trapping people there, weird photographs, etc) is just extra. Nails it in one.

9/10

SCP-085 - Hand-drawn “Cassy”

This one makes me sad. It’s another case of “if not for the Foundation, this person couldn’t live,” because obviously a person who is just a drawing on a piece of paper couldn’t have a normal life otherwise, but this one has the added tragedy of Cassy only existing because of the Foundation, which honestly makes it worse. Combine this with Cassy being aware that she’s a drawing and thus forever alone, and that she’s showing symptoms of depression because of this, and it’s just a generally super depressing skip.

10/10

#jill rates scps #scp #scp foundation #scp 079 #scp 080 #scp 081 #scp 082 #scp 083 #scp 084 #scp 085

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perate-ind · 1 year

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INTERNAL MEMO

i think tha bloody navs be up ta somethin shaddy again, draftin ships, 'avin meetins with tha boss n' in general bein more evasive than ussal...

if anyone catches wind a wha they be gettin up ta, please let me know, i'd appreciate knowin if i need ta invest in more psi-grenades, this goes equally ta ya lot out there in ovah empires, i know ya fekers be listen in on 'r memos, tha comms ain't exactly encrypted...

In moar positive news tha thumpahs just tested... somethin, dunno they ain't sayin but they seemed please with 'emselfes so there's that. Might be cause fer concern might not be, we'll seen in a week if lads start spontaneously combusting again.

#stellaris rp #peritainia

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ponds-of-ink · 1 year

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Notre Dame AU “Interlude” Chapter: The Press Conference

So, while we wait for more info on SB’s Ruin DLC, here’s a little “filler” chapter that takes place between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8.

I might write the rest of the fanfic and hope that I’m onto something, but I dunno. We’ll see.

–

A large crowd of reporters and civilians gathered around a small stage. Chattering flooded the room as two people climbed onto the stage. One in a t-shirt and khakis, the other in a mildly colorful business suit. “We’re almost ready to get started,” the one in the t-shirt casually announced through a cheap microphone. “If you could quiet down and let those with actual questions line up down the middle, that’d be great.”

The one in business clothes anxiously eyed the crowd. She exhaled deeply as she closed her eyes. “It’s all right, Jessie,” she thought to herself. “Just remember to answer straightforwardly this time. Fazbear is counting on you to get these facts out there before any dumber rumors start.”

“..Today we’ve got Jessica S. Turner, head spokeswoman of the Fazbear’s Kingdom department,” the casual one stated, lazily reading a small piece of paper. “For legal reasons, Fazbear Entertainment would like to clarify that any and all answers presented today are true to the best of the speaker’s knowledge. They are things even Miss Turner doesn’t know or even upper management, so please do not press for answers during those questions. The reasons why will be given during this questionnaire.”

Jessica walked up to the podium as the line approached. “Hello, sir,” she greeted. “What is your question?”

A young man pulled out a small Polaroid from his coat, then leaned his mic towards his mouth. “So, during the whole Festival of Tomfoolery incident, there was a small remote that messed with this.. bell ringer ghost guy,” he explained, holding up a blurry picture for the woman to see. “What is this thing and why did it give him such weird.. convulsions.. hallucinations.. Whatever made him think he was on fire.”

Jessica sighed. “That is–was– an employee-level control panel for the lantern on the clock tower,” she clarified, rolling her eyes. “One of them thought it would be ‘funny’ to make the bell ringer suffer and cranked up the heat on the lantern. Since those two are connected to each other, it didn’t take long for the same heat to reach the ghost as well. It doesn’t literally make him spontaneously combust, but it does give quite the sensation. Don’t worry about the instigator doing that again, though. He’s been properly dealt with– And, by that, I mean he’s no longer an employee.”

“Th-Thanks,” the man stammered nervously, putting the picture back in his coat pocket. “I, uh, hope the bell guy’s recovery goes well.”

“We’ll have to see,” Jessica answered with a bit more warmth, her eyes tracking the change in curious interrogators. “And what’s your question, miss?”

A woman pushed up her thick-rimmed glasses. “Who exactly is in charge in the Kingdom area?” she asked in a nasally voice. “Because this judge is doing a very poor job, if he’s the one in charge.”

”Judge Glitch was only meant an enforcer of the law,” Jessica said flatly, adjusting her bow-tie. “He was only supposed to guide the knights and tend to the bell ringer, but this whole Gregory thing has made him go off the rails– Or more off the rails than usual, given some recent accusations. Due to Fazbear Entertainment wanting to abandon the establishment, however, it would not surprise me if he’s made himself the ‘king’ of that area.”

“Does this closure mean that no one is allowed to step inside?”

“Yes, it is closed to the general public,” Jessica responded. “However, management has decided to send a friend of Gregory’s back into the building for inspection. And, before you get any ideas, it was the girl’s choice to volunteer. I’m not sure why either, as that particular meeting did not involve me.”

The nasally-voiced woman simply nodded in acknowledgement and walked away. Another woman with a two-toned shirt took her place. “On behalf of every fan of Sun’s Traveling Wagon, I have to ask,” she prefaced as she smoothed out her platinum blonde hair. “What happened to Sun? Is he okay? Did he.. Did he survive?”

Jessica grinned. “Well, that I can answer right away,” she said cheerfully. “We have a few recent reports that state that Sun is safe and sound. He’s a little worse for wear, but he is surprisingly intact. We’re not sure where he is currently, but he was spotted hiding out in the employee’s lounge at Fazer-Blast on the night of the fire.”

The blonde stared wide-eyed for a moment, as if trying to imagine what that must’ve been like. However, a joyful smile partially returns as she rushes out of the line. While she returns to some friends on the side lines, another person steps up. He flips a page in his notebook and readies his pen. “Given that Sun is ‘alive’, I guess I’ll follow up with the obvious,” he began nonchalantly. “Does this apply for all four of your main stars? Or Vanessa and Gregory, as they were last seen with Freddy?”

Jessica bit her lip. “Those reports for those were.. less glowing,” she said slowly, her hand now rubbing the back of her neck. “Three of the four were noted to have been heavily damaged by the fire, while Freddy and Gregory have seemingly vanished into thin air. Same goes for Vanessa, for obvious reasons. We have received transmission from someone who sounds like Gregory, but it could be anyone down there.” She paused to let the man finish his frantic scribbling. “Do you need me to give you a more concise version of that answer?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” the man replied as he shut his book. “I’ve got everything I need. Thank you.” He left quickly and quietly, making the line move up. A little girl jumped into an older person’s arms, waited until she was close to the mic, then clumsily grabbed the device . “Is the ghost man okay?” she asked slowly. “My brother got really worried about him. He said something about the grumpy bunny doing really mean something to him.”

“For all I know, the ‘ghost man’ is doing okay,” Jessica answered gently, leaning forward a little. “We haven’t seen any reports about any sad ghosts or very angry bunnies. The best we’ve got is a really big mess of wires and a new bunny tangled up in it.”

“Do you think that bunny needs help?”

“I.. don’t know,” Jessica murmured thoughtfully. “I’ll have to check with the team that’s sending Gregory’s friend.”

The girl gave a “thank you”, then hopped off her caretaker’s arm. A man in a clean-cut suit strolled up and took the microphone. “Speaking of Gregory,” he said straightforwardly, “I’m sure there’s one more thing we need to discuss: those charges of his that were mentioned on those uncovered recordings of that night. As there is a chance of Gregory being framed and/or manipulated by some unseen enemy of the company, will those charges be dropped?”

“If you are referring to the.. ‘disappearances’, then yes,” Jessica replied with a nod. “We have uncovered evidence of Gregory in the latter category. But, as of now, all charges might be dropped on account of him possibly being dead due to a number of potential fire-related injuries. This is why this upcoming inspection is crucial for this branch of Fazbear Entertainment.”

The crowd murmured. Some, approving the logic. Others, raising the obvious concern of a random boy being dead. One in particular raised her hand. “When exactly is this inspection going to be?” she asked as loud as she could.

”If all goes well with paperwork, next week,” Jessica called out to the hand. “If not, then this upcoming month at least.”

A flurry of more safety-related questions followed, which Jessica answered much more quickly. Every remaining detail of the mall was scrutinized. Every employee that was not mentioned was assured to be at the nearby hospital or back at home job-hunting. Any and all observed things from the camera footage was clarified– Aside from a mention of a possible “ghost family” guarding the bell ringer. That one couldn’t be explained due to how corrupted the evidential footage got at certain points. Was it the bell-ringer’s imagination somehow fraying the cameras? Was it the extra ghosts protecting him from future scrutiny from the mad-rabbit? No one was sure.

By the end of three hours, all of the questioners had run their throats dry. Jessica and the one in khakis shuffled their feet as the pain in their heels stifled their thoughts. Feeling the need to call it a day, the one in khakis gently grabbed the device. “Thanks for coming out today,” he stated tiredly. “If you have any more questions, please call the construction department of Fazbear Entertainment. Or don’t, I guess.”

“Thank you for having me,” Jessica wearily called out to the crowd, waving with a weak smile. She hobbled off the stage and sat down in a nearby metal chair. As everyone else left the large conference room, the man in khakis pulled up his own seat beside her. “You did great, Miss Turner,” he said, finally showing a smile. “I would’ve had such a hard time dealing with this crowd. So many questions being thrown at once!”

“That’s just a typical Monday for me,” Jessica laughed shakily, brushing back a strand of wavy black hair. “Except I usually have to deal with a full room of reporters or just a few concerned families. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many.. average?... people before. Just... random citizens showing concern for our characters and employees. Not to mention Gregory and Vanessa! I thought only the reporters would show up because of them, but no!”

“Well, I mean, both of them were pretty well known locally,” the man in khakis chuckled. “Gregory and his mall shenanigans, Vanessa and her whole ‘Vanny’ schtick even after you stepped in and helped her refine it.. Even this Agonia guy was the talk of the town for a while! Really got people checking out that Princess’ Perch more than they needed too.”

Jessica furrowed her brow in thought. “You don’t think..” her voice trailed as she leaned forward.

“Do I not think... What?”

“You don’t think that Agonia could.. thrive outside the bell tower, could he?”

The khakis guy scratched his brushy head. “Well, now, that’s a good question,” he replied. “I will say, given what I’ve heard today, it sounds like he’d be fine as long as that lantern doesn’t go out. Err.. Does go out? Not too sure which is right here.”

“Considering how burnt the glass must be, I’m not sure either,” Jessica hummed. “It used to be that if it went out completely, then that means he’d be completely gone. There would be nothing for his ghost to tether to, so he just vanishes. Now, however–“ She paused. Her eyes drifted upwards. “For all I know, there’s a chance that he’ll stay here even without the lantern,” she continued grimly. “And I’m starting to worry that this new wire-tied rabbit is the reason why.”

“‘Worry’, huh?” the khaki guy asked curiously, leaning forward in his folding chair. “Why? What’d be bad about that robot-bunny giving him a better body to run around in?”

“Because of who’d most likely be ‘helping’ him control it,” Jessica answered solemnly, rising from her seat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have much to discuss with Cassie. Have a good afternoon, Mr. Woodson.”

“You too, Miss Turner!” Mr. Woodson replied joyfully, waving his can of soda in the air. He chuckled to himself as he reclined in his chair. “Poor ol’ Fazbear needs to relax,” he laughed to himself. “Far as I’ve heard, Cassie sounds like the toughest little gal in the entire town. She can handle this dumb rabbit problem in one night and then some! What’s there to worry about that?”

#fnaf security breach #filler chapter #fnaf fanfic #fnaf ruin #notre dame au #so many one-off characters #jessica turner #now I want to draw her #or design her on a Picrew

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dalishthunder · 2 years

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A small excerpt from chapter 8 of GEO just because I know a lot of you are hungry and to show that I am still working on it, it’s just slow going:

It felt as though your heart were caught in your throat, palms shaky as you said that one little word. Because everything be damned, you weren't going to let this chance slip by like you had all the others. Because even if this wasn't real, you wanted so, so badly to pretend. Because god dammit did you like this stupid fucking shuckboy.

Cronus let out a little laugh, "I know, I know, you're in a loving, committed relationship with the guy of your dreams, kitten. I was just playin' around. You know I don't want to overstep your bound-"

He stopped. Then blinked. Then sat stock still with a blank expression on his face, before turning to look at you.

"I said sure." You thanked whatever celestial bodies were out there (if any at all), that your voice didn't crack. In fact you even managed to sound nonchalant. Unflappable. Calm, cool, and collected.

His mouth moved wordlessly for a moment, a weird stuttery buzz followed as he exhaled.

You tentatively pressed your hand to his cheek, hoping that he wouldn't notice that it was a little sweaty because you really wanted to play this cool and not like some dumbstruck teenager talking to their crush for the first time.... Though given the way your cheeks were flushing now, and the pounding of your heart, it was probably easy as pie to see through your careful ruse.

"I'm sorry, for a second I thought you said 'sure'." He said with an unsure smile. "But I think I might just be hallucinating. Or I'm in a dream. Deeps, did I get drunk again and fall asleep on the comfort sla- couch?"

"You heard me right, and I'm really hoping I'm not just a figment of your drunk dreams because damn this would be one boring ass dream." You just had to play it cool. Just play it cool. You were cool, and suave, and definitely someone people wanted to have a romantic relationship with. Try to play up that funnyman side.

"I dunno, seems too good to be true. Where's the sike, kitten?" Cronus asked, the cigarette tapping against his jeans.

"There is none, though I suppose I do have a clarifying question." You swallowed down some of his enthusiasm at his disbelief. Maybe he really had been kidding around about it and you had just misinterpreted it. "Would this be a friend date or a romantic date?"

"Depends on what you're willin' to give me," His voice was sheepish as he replied, eyes finally meeting yours fully.

(Everything).

Everything.

"Well there, chief, I was lookin' for a cool cat to tear up the town and get a burger with. Think you can handle that, stud?" You said in the cheesiest 1950s New Jersey accent you could muster, doing your absolute best not to fall into a mess. Because if you had to say everything just plain you were pretty sure you would just spontaneously combust (or break down into a blubbering little mess).

He stared blankly at you for a minute, skin becoming progressively more violet as his fins fluttered. Then he let out a little, incredulous laugh. "Name a time and place, and I'm there, kitten."

"I'm free now." You replied quickly. Probably too quickly.

Shit.

He made a startled little rattle. "Kitten, now? Don't you think that that's a little too soon? I need time to prepare. I ain't even properly dressed to take you out!"

"How about later tonight then?"

He nodded vigorously, eyes blown wide.

"Seven thirty work for you?"

He nodded again, a crackling noise filling the air.

"It's a date then."

He blinked at you, biting his lip and nodding again.

You nodded once (ignoring your burning cheeks), "Could I see your phone?"

He nodded, pulling it out and handing it to you after unlocking it.

And you did something you should have a long time ago; or you would have if you understood the language everything was in. "Actually, can you pull up your contacts list and add me?" He did as he was told, and you entered in your number. "There's a nice restaurant not too far from my apartment that I've been wanting to try. It's an Alternian/Earth fusion place called Stratosphere that's supposed to be a little bit ritzy. I'll see about making a reservation."

His eyes were shiny and wet, and you quickly looked away, hopping up and heading over to your car. You cast one glance back at him, waving and saying, "I'll see you tonight."

As you pulled out, you caught sight of him bolting inside in your rear view mirror.

#cronus ampora #cronus ampora x reader #Thunderous Applesauce #good endings only

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luwupercal · 3 years

Text

so, next betrayer quote. word highlighted is "tics".

'What do you want, captain?' Pain tics flawed one side of his face, leaving the other slackened in a dull snarl. She knew better than to ask if he was in pain. Angron was always in pain.

my thoughts on this are mostly that once i'm in an area where the wifi is more consistent i'm absolutely going to research tics like the ones described here, if only to see where the inspiration from the real world might've been drawn and what that could also inversely tell us about Angron's whole situation. if anybody experiences tics like his and would like to talk about it in relation to this passage, i would love to hear, honestly

and also, Angron's chronic pain... you know, if the emperor hadn't made the primarchs immune to medication, Angron could be functioning a lot better with meds. i think that's an interesting deconstructionist angle to take, and one of many flaws in the emperor's "knowledge" of the human body that Angron demonstrates just sort of through his experiences w the emperor

prefacing this by saying i'm physically abled, but it really is not talked about enough that the emperor's view of medicine and genetics, albeit not necessarily on purpose in part of the writers, is very much an able-bodied layman's. like, he thinks if you make a guy bigger and stronger and immune-er to poison it makes him objectively better. there is canon evidence to argue the emperor doesn't understand the theory of evolution. a lot of how the primarchs work — how space marines work, too — makes no sense, including the seemingly unacknowledged interference a certain square cube law would have on their bodies or how their knees would spontaneously combust or how two hearts is not really a solution for a really big body's blood pumping conundrums.

and i know we're encouraged to just suspend our disbelief, and i usually do that with Speculative Science Whoopsies, but i find it makes a lot more sense to me in this specific case for the emperor's pseudoscience to not work in-universe either without the assist of heavy duty witchery and psykercraft, which the emperor has in spades, because it paints such a picture of him

this is somewhat getting away from me but my basic point is that the emperor being a genius geneticist and/or a strategic genius is (just based on canonical evidence and things he has done) a deeply skewed untruth, and that Angron suffered bc of that, and that him being in pain all the time is fucked up, obviously, but it's even worse knowing that he's not even undergoing any mitigating treatment for his conditions, and in fact might not even be able to do so at all specifically because he was built to fulfill the emperor's idea of a superhuman

and i dunno i just think it's a really telling dynamic that the same guy who said "if you do daemon magic you will get pregnant and die" is the same one who also went "i'm maximizing the chances you will never get poisoned or hurt permanently, but if something Does break through your barriers you're fucked forever lololololol i guess, instead of trying to be flexible and maybe devoting less time to the barrier and instead spending it on any ability for you to bounce back from anything that might cross the barrier". very just... universally abstinence-only. and now angron's suffering because of that, potentially without even painkillers or anything available to him to mitigate that eternal pain

like "if you get messed up you're fucked. simply not be hurt ever lol"

i wrote a whole angry ramble here thinking about the person who said angron should be "put down like a rabid dog" to me that one time on here if anybody else remembers but i decided to excise it because im somewhat insecure of whenever i AngryPost because it never turns out good like i always regret it. but y'know i think Angron's disability doesn't mean you should strip him of his personhood, is basically my summary of what i'm saying here

also yknow Khârn's relationship w all of this is complicated and, yeah, Angron's rage at his mistreatment, pushed further and worsened by his nails, led to him deeply gravely mistreating the WE, and when Khârn calls him out, he's right in doing so, because he's actually hurt by the ongoing chain of harm that Angron very much perpetuates. but that doesn't give the audience a right to strip him of his personhood and not treat him with respect or basic dignity. i guess is my line there

anyway all of these people are adults in the military and they're all war criminals so i'm cutting it there but i... i dunno. i hope ive expressed myself well

#long post #betrayer thoughts #ableism cw #eugenics cw #ive edited this post like 500 billion times i will not lie

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blackroseraven · 2 years

Photo

So here I am with my busted old man hip, standing at the gate I just opened and looking out over the barn, thinking about what a stupid day it already is and how I’ve got to first open the whole-ass barn, then clean the whole-ass barn, with just my engineer-brain partner’s help.

So first I fix the fencegate that they apparently just. Pulled down, and then I gimp my way down to the barn. Lights are on, at least, and I can see Crazy Dave’s been here at least because Daydreamer is outside, and Soa’s been moved.

I go around and feed the horses, then grab the steamed haybags and take them out to Moony and Cheyanne. Some hay is out in random places but not a lot. Partner feeds the ponies and I close up all the pastures and then start putting out hay.

Partner comes out to help and this is where the engineer brain part comes in. I tell him “a flake in each tire” and he does exactly that. And does not put any flakes of hay in any of the feeders or other obvious hay containers, as they are not tires.

Still. It doesn’t take super long but it’s already ten degrees hotter than it said it was going to be and I’m cranky and sore by the time I start taking horses out. I don’t really label horses “good” or “bad,” but I do label some of them “difficult.” I always try and start with the difficult ones: horses who can’t go with anybody else, horses that spontaneously combust, horses who have issues with the gates or pens.

Once the trouble horses are out, it’s the paddock horses next. Look at poor Dakota, she got massacred by the kids yesterday at the event, apparently. I’ve been taking her out with Essie, and they seem to like each other even though they end up in separate paddocks. I might suggest leaving Dakota with her sometime, see what happens. Poor old mare needs a friend to complain about what the little kids do to her to.

Pen horses next. Buff and Ves are trouble horses but they’re not... like, difficult? They’re huge pains in the ass who literally both suck on my head, but I’m really comfortable with handling them because I just sort of. Get what to do.

And Jaeger and Hale were last, up in a pasture because Grandpa was spraying pesticide again or something out on the crops. I actually made sure to clean Jaeger’s hooves first before I took him up, since I didn’t think I’d get much of a chance to work with him otherwise.

Once all the horses are out, we go right into mucking. hooray.

Mucking isn’t terrible, but pushing the wagon was definitely not good for my hip. And uh. A photographer showed up. A young lady and her mother.

Jesus now I really do sound like an old man.

Anyway, they were doing pictures today, apparently. And I just had to. Patiently wait as they started right as I was at the end, finishing with the last stalls, and I couldn’t really. Clean while they were trying to take pictures of Athens and his owner right there.

Apparently there’s some trick with the way the camera detects the light, so when you’re standing just inside the barn doorway it creates a solid black background behind you? I dunno.

Once they were done, I head to pick up my wheelbarrow.

And a bird poops on my head.

yep.

I went over to my partner to make sure, with a wet rag. And he was like .”oh dear.”

yep.

SO.

Finish cleaning. Liming and bedding are relatively quick. Raking the paddock goes smoothly and easily because heat has baked all the manure into tough little balls.

I am extremely sore at this point. I have aggravated whatever went wrong in my hip. But I still go up and get Quattro and Q, and bring them down so I can clean their hooves, groom them, and then take them outside to do a little easy riding.

I ended up riding them both in the. Weird outdoor. Since there was a show yesterday they set up like, a pipe fence around the arena as the “show area,” because it’s supposed to be like. A specific size and everything? But I mean, it didn’t hugely matter since Q and Quattro both just hacked around.

And then Zara came out and very purposefully just. Walked up first chance he got and stomped the piping to knock it over.

Some horses are like that. They just. Like knocking stuff over. Apparently after I brought Q and Quattro in she did it again, too.

Of course once we put the horses out, we find they have no water. And. We have no tractor, no mule, no way of hauling water except by hand.

Except I have a genius idea: I’ll sit in the open back trunk of the car and just hold the water buckets.

Guess what as stupid as it was it actually worked and we were able to do two loads without spilling a single drop.

This is what you have to do sometimes. Improvise. Barn work is hard work but it’s also “everything’s broken all the time so get some string and tie it together.”

I have a lot of respect for the fact that people do this every day. And honestly it felt good, even if my entire body was covered in poop and I was in agony from my stupid hip.

I feel like I could do this every day. I mean, not with a barn of this size and having to put up with this fractured or bruised or damaged whateverthehell in my leg but, you know what I mean. A few horses, maybe some goats or something.

But I’m also a person who enjoys... having something to do. The regularity of it. And I envy having a purpose: taking care of animals is such a clear purpose to me. Often, writing commissions and stuff... feel purposeless. It’s just something I do because I need something to do to make money and buy my little things.

Caring for something else, building it, helping shape it; that’s purpose. That’s something special.

Anyway. It’s Father’s Day or whatever, so it’s time for my rare glass of whiskey. I have a bottle of Jack Daniels to finish off and loudly complain about how gross it is. But hey, maybe it’ll help distract from the fact my whole leg is just a sizzling mass of ouch.

We do what we must because we can.

#horse #quattro #q #life

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ickle-ronniekins · 4 years

Text

the switch

request from nonnie!!! : Hey, love your writing! I would love to read a Fred x reader where like him and George are trying to convince you they are each other but you know which is which. And then you like go along with it because you get fed up of them messing you around and it becomes like a game to see who gives in first? Preferably Fred! Thanks!

pairing: fred x reader

word count: 1.7k

A/N: adorable. just adorable. love this idea. love cheeky fred. love it all. just trying to bang these requests outta the park lol

tag list: @mintlibri @seppys-return-to-madness @how-do-life-does @fopdoodledane @fredd-weasley @iprobablyshipit91 @semmelsemi @cottageoflove @laneygthememequeen @snakesonaplane-7 @lupinsx @keoghans @helloallthethingsilove @bobduncanlover @dreamer821 @the-hufflepuff-of-221b @62442-am | message me to be added lovelies!

It was late in the afternoon when you heard a bunch of laughter and whispers from behind you. You noticed their reflections in the window and sighed. These two were about to squash any hope that you had of finishing this Divination paper before the end of the evening. You put your quill down and took a deep breath.

“Hey,” Fred said brightly. You turned around to see them taking their places on either side of you.

“We need your help,” George told you plainly, crossing his arms and leaning back against the table. He pushed your parchment to the side so as not to smear the wet ink. “Pretty please.”

You folded your arms across your chest and rolled your eyes at their request. You already didn’t like this. “And what, may I ask, d’you need my help with?”

“Georgie here needs some assistance with his Potions essay, and we all know what a great Potions master you are, Y/N—a young, female Professor Snape, if you will.”

You sneered at them both as they erupted into laughter. You furrowed your brows in confusion. You looked back and forth between the two of them quite hurriedly—wasn’t it George who’d just spoken? Before you could make any snap judgements, the twin on your left continued with a cheeky grin— “I’d assist him but I’ve still got detention with McGonagall for trying to transfigure that Slytherin into a fish during class.”

“So what do you say?” the twin you knew was Fred asked you, pouting a bit. “Will you help me?”

You felt your heart begin to pound against your ribcage as Fred pleaded with you—the thundering of your heart began for no reason, of course, other than that you were worried you weren’t going to finish your Divination assignment in time. You suppressed the thought. It occurred to you that whatever type of mischief they were up too, they’re not going to go down without a fight. So at this point, you might as well just go along with their harmless little scheme.

You licked your lips impatiently and said, “Okay then, George—” it was quite obvious to you that it was Fred you’d been speaking too; you’d know that smirk from a mile away— “Let’s get started, then. Have a grand old time in detention, Fred. I reckon you probably deserve it.”

Fred laughed haughtily while he pulled his spellbooks out from his bag; George, on the other hand, stood up rather begrudgingly and slumped his shoulders, not looking too keen on going to detention for his twin. “Yeah—not one of my brighter ideas, I reckon,” he complained through gritted teeth with a sneer at Fred. He left you both in the crowded Great Hall and vanished in the corridor with a wink as quickly as he’d arrived just a few minutes prior.

“So what’s this assignment?” you asked.

“Have got to finish this essay on Everlasting Elixirs,” Fred replied, pulling at his hair. His frown deepened when he looked down at the half finished essay in front of him.

“And why’ve you come to me for this?”

“You’re the best at Potions in our year,” he told you, as if it were obvious. You couldn’t help but grin at him. “Well, at least that’s what Fred says.”

“Oh really?” you asked. You couldn’t help it. He’d piqued your interest.

“Can’t say I don’t agree with him,” Fred smirked, “bloke knows what he’s talking about.”

“Sure does,” you replied, feeling your heart rate increase a bit, “but the lad still ends up in ridiculous schemes that land the two of you in detention more often than not.”

Fred frowned again before a small grin began tugging at the edges of his lips, “Yeah, well—what can we say? Always trying to impress people, we are.”

“Mhmm,” you agreed, peering down at the parchment to see just how far he’d gotten in his assignment. Not far at all. You had quite the evening in front of you. “Alright, so, let’s open to the chapter..”

You hadn’t quite noticed just how much time had passed until you looked up and noticed the dark sky outside the windows. Was it really almost time for the feast? Fred was scribbling his conclusion down onto his parchment while you did the same for your Divination assignment.

“So what’re your plans for Christmas, then?” he asked, not looking up from his bit of parchment, “Staying for the Yule Ball or heading home?”

You paused for a moment, taking this in. Yule Ball talk? Was he trying to ask you to go with him? Wasn’t he already going with someone? Why was Fred bringing this up in conversation? It is possible that he knew, deep down in his heart of hearts, that you wanted him to ask you? How had he possibly found out? You seemed to be so good at hiding your feelings—even from yourself. But then, you remembered, he was supposed to be George, and so you kept on. “I reckon I’ll stay—won’t you?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Fred smirked, dipping his quill back into his ink quickly. “Besides—mum and dad are already going to Romania to visit Charlie, and I don’t fancy being in an empty Burrow without my mum’s cooking.”

“You going with anybody, then, Georgie?” you continued on, biting down on your lip to suppress a large grin, trying to keep calm as your heartbeat increased.

Fred stopped for a moment to consider the conversation. He stressed, “Nope. Not yet, anyway,” and winked, “have got to help Freddie first, haven’t I?”

You had to give it to him, he was pretty good at staying in “character”—not once slipping up at this so-called act of pretending to be his twin brother. Identical in looks, yes, but not in personalities. But help Fred with what, exactly? You tried desperately to hide how interested you seemed; you glanced back down at your parchment and blew gently on the drying ink. “Helping Fred find a date, huh?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“That’s sweet of you, that is.”

Fred sat up straighter and you could tell he was feeling much more confident (if that’s even possible). Then, he began, much to your surprise, “He wants to take you, you know.”

You were almost sure you’d spontaneously combusted in that exact moment. Your entire body nearly went rigid at the thought: Fred Weasley wanting to ask you to the ball? What kind of rubbish game was this anyway?

You swallowed thickly, not looking up from your parchment. You tried to paint the most amused expression on your face to hide any signs of pure glee at the thought of Fred, the boy you’d been head over heels for forever, wanting to ask you out. You realized you should probably say something back; you didn’t want to look so incredibly speechless at this sudden turn of events. You raised your eyebrows and cleared your throat, hoping to stay in some type of control, and said a bit incredulously, “Is that so?”

Fred shrugged a bit and smirked at you. “That’s what he tells me, anyway.”

You realized, as you sat across from Fred who wanted you so desperately to believe him to be George, that these twins could be right geniuses when they wanted to be. You licked your lips, swung your bag across your shoulders and replied with batted eyelashes, “That’s cute. It’s too bad I like you, Georgie.”

You could hear an audible scoff from the table behind you as you made your way out of the Hall, heart thundering against your ribcage as Fred followed you swiftly. He grabbed your arm just as you’d exited; you tried to paint the most innocent expression on your face to keep from laughing.

“Hey, wait up, Y/N!”

You turned, your back now facing the wall, as Fred looked both impressed and a bit intrigued. “You—you like me?”

“Yeah,”

You found his furrowed brows and slight grin much, much cuter than you wanted too. Why was he smiling? “Oh, well—I reckon we should go together, then.”

You cocked your head to the side as if to say, I see right through you so you’d better give it up, and peered up at him with what can only be described as puppy-dog eyes.

Realization washed over Fred like a cool tide; you watched as his expression of pure mockery turned both cheeky and excited. He told you, “You know it’s me.”

You slapped him across the chest playfully with your spellbook. “Well of course I do, you git! You two can’t get anything past me.”

“Well, I dunno about that,” he said through a laugh.

“Fred, if you wanted to ask me to the ball, why didn’t you just ask?” You couldn’t help but grin at him. Even through all these hoops he made you jump through, these harmless games he loves to play, it’s extremely difficult not to turn to complete putty in his hands. “Why this—switch?”

“Wanted to mess with you a bit,” he replied, leaning against the wall behind you, “wanted to get a feel for things.”

“Hmm. It’s a shame I’ve told you that I fancy George, then.”

His smirk deepened at your teasing; he inched closer, making you press your back into the wall behind you and drop your bag to the floor, “Love, you can’t get anything past me, either.”

You groaned at how obvious you were about just how much you fancied him; hearing his laugh so close to you made your heart flutter. You swallowed down a lump in your throat and avoided his eyes at all costs. Guess you couldn’t really hide your feelings anymore, not with him mere inches from you. You began to fumble nervously a bit with his tie— “All this just to ask me out. And you’ve made your poor brother go to detention for you?”

Fred laughed, moving yet another inch closer, “Have got to buy him an excessive amount of butterbeer and Zonko’s products to make up for it.”

Feeling confident, you pressed your lips together and asked, “Worth it?”

“Definitely.”

You found that his free hand was tightly wound around your waist; it’s not possible, you thought, for your heartbeat to be any louder than it is right now. You’re quite sure he could hear it.

“So what is this, then?”

“Well I’m hoping,” he replied, bringing his other hand around the back of your neck, “that this means you’re my girlfriend now.”

Everything you’d ever wanted since you first met him all those years ago was right in front of you. Feelings came rushing to the surface. You swallowed thickly again; he always knew how to make you breathless.

“How does that sound?”

You nodded and let him press his lips to yours before you could say anything since it was evident to you both that you were certainly at a loss for words, anyway.

reblogs & feedback are appreciated, thank you for reading & requesting darlings x

#fred weasley #george weasley #fred and george weasley #weasley twins #weasley twins imagine #weasley twins fanfic #weasley twins fanfiction #fred weasley reader insert #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fanfic #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley imagine #hp imagine #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction

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kissimirrit · 3 years

Note

Just dropping by to tell you that your Goncore and Killuacore tagged posts are hilarious and extremely accurate. Also I dunno why I feel like ur a good writer. I just have this impression. (I'm also very much here for it if you wanna share your writing if ur comfortable with it of course.)

YESSS THANK YOU!!!!!! THEY EXIST SOLELY FOR THAT REASON!!! hxh may have faded from being my hyperfixation (the manga hasn't updated in like 3 years ]: it might come back if it updates again? i just felt too starved for content) but i still love tagging things as goncore/killuacore/kurapikacore/leoriocore because i think it's so so funny? they're always on my mind <3

ALSO AAA THANK YOU!!! i actually publish my writing on ao3 anonymously but because i'm not like, ACTIVELY writing for hxh anymore, i feel a bit more comfortable sharing a few of my favorite lines from some of the stuff i've published? i hope that makes sense.

so here's some of the killugon stuff i've made! [: i've only really shared my full writing with less than a handful of people (links to what i have published on ao3 and links to my google docs, etc.) so haha this is a big step for me.

^^^ that was technically my first fanfic ever, from early 2020. i'd never really written before i had written this fic! and then someone did a dramatic reading of it and made fun of it really hard where i saw and i took a long hiatus from writing, never finished WIPs, and exclusively published works anonymously from that point onwards. it really messed me up, but it's been over a year since then and i've been growing my confidence back up.

anyway here's a myriad of random drabbles from killugon fics of mine. none of them are related. i like writing from gon's POV the most.

this is an au where killua is a siren and gon is a marine biologist (there are many benefits to being a marine biologist)

ok this is all i'm sharing before i feel like i'm about to spontaneously combust!!!!!!!!

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imbellarosa · 4 years

Text

did someone say they wanted a small, sad SPN 15x20 rewrite (of sorts)?? it’s under the cut. the point of this is to show that they could have made it (mostly) tragic without making it Completely Pointless. this one’s for @queenlokibeth and @treatlouwithkindness who are grieving with me and for @dependsonwhospitching and @belgianreader2 who have been WATCHING me grieve for this fandom they knows nothing about and being the best kind of friends and also for anyone who asked what my writing looked like! this is a bit of an unbeta’d mess but here it is!

They keep going. The road is in front of them, and they keep going, and they don’t stop until they run out of gas. Dean blasts Led Zepplin until his ears hurt, until his throat is raw from shouting the lyrics. He had forgotten that Cas had left his mixtape in the car last time they’d driven out. A trench coat, too, as it had turned out, a clean one. Guess Cas had gotten used to having his shirt ripped too many times to not have a spare handy.

(“Why would he not bring another one,” he had asked about Star Trek once, after Kirk’s shirt had been ripped again.

“Not the point, Cas,” Dean had rolled his eyes and taken a swig of his beer.)

Sam looks at him like he’s worried, talks to him like he thinks Dean might spontaneously combust at any second. Dean tries to not feel offended. It isn’t like Sam’s wrong, but he wishes that they could act like everything was normal, for a second - like they used to, before Demons and Angels and Apocalypses, and trials and falling and flying. Eileen calls on the third day and shatters the illusion. It’s not that Dean isn’t happy to hear from her - of course he is - but it reminds him that he is acutely alone, and that it’s always going to be that way. They make a sharp U-turn, and start driving in the direction of the coordinates Eileen gave them.

They stop in a small town along the way, meet some vamps ( “fuckin’ vamps,” Dean grumbles as he decapitates the last one), and keep moving west. Around Pontiac, Illinois, Sam stops the car and gets out.

“Dean,” he sighs, “what are you planning?”

“What’d’ya mean,” he replies, knowing exactly what he means.

“Really?” Sam looks at him. “You want me to believe that Cas is dead and you’re just - what? You’re just accepting it? That it’s fine?”

“It’s not fine, Sam,” he snaps, then takes a deep breath, and tries again, “it’s not fine. But what do you want me to do? Man, we just went up against God, and we won. Haven’t we learned that every time we play with these big, cosmic pieces that things just get more screwed? We can’t do that again, Sam, Cas wouldn’t want us to do that again. He’d want us - you - to get that apple pie life. So let’s just. Let’s do that for him, okay?”

“And what about you, Dean,” Sam doesn’t quite seem to believe him. Hell, Dean doesn’t really believe himself yet. “What are you gonna do?”

“I dunno,” Dean rubs the back of his neck and looks at the trench coat in the backseat. “I’ll probably go back to the bunker, find a new job. Hit the road for a while” - he glances at Sam, who’s hair is almost long enough to tie into a bun - “you and Eileen could come with, if you want.”

Sam sighs and seems to consider it, but Dean knows what he’s gonna say even before he does. Dean has always known his brother better than himself.

“Nah,” Sam glances at him, then at his phone, and then at the sunset. “I think I’m gonna go try that apple pie life for a while. Or at least get as close to it as two former hunters can get.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Thought you might say that.”

“Hey,” Sam grabs his forearm. “If you ever need anything - help on a case, or a place to stay - anything - just let me know.”

“Yeah,” Dean turns and faces his brother, and it feels like goodbye, even though he knows it isn’t.

They reach Vermont - where Eileen had popped up - and met her in front of a bed and breakfast by a lake. She said that she just...appeared there one day, without a phone or money or a place to go. She’d borrowed the owner’s phone and called Sam as soon as she could, and had done some hustling for starter money. Sam stares at her like she’s a miracle, which, Dean supposes, he is. It’s the second time she’s come back to him, and Dean can see that Sam knows the absolute unlikeliness.

“What. Uh, what happened,” Sam clears his throat and tries to rub the tears out of his eyes. “How did it..how are you here?”

Jack, she signs, he said. He said that everyone should be with their families.

“So, uh,” Sam looks at her like she’s going to disappear any second, “everyone’s...they’re okay?”

Well, she shrugs and smiles, and Sam had missed that mischievous glint in her eye, they’re all probably a bit confused, but we’re ..

”not dead,” she finishes verbally. Dean looks away, frozen like a deer in the headlights, or a boy lost in a crowd.

Sam grabs her and he hugs her and she’s small and slight, bones and edges and he can feel the outline of a gun hidden in waistband and he wonders how and when she got ahold of that, but mostly, he holds her and when he breathes in her hair smells a bit like apples. He doesn’t notice he’s crying until she pulls away and reaches up to wipe his tears.

“It’s okay,” she says, and then signs, I’m okay.

“I missed you,” Sam says, “I just. I missed you.”

I was gone for a week, she signs and rolls her eyes theatrically, what would you do without me?

“Uh,” Sam gives a watery chuckle, “Let’s never find out, okay?”

That’s when Dean clears his throat. It’s not that he doesn’t love his baby brother, that he isn’t over the moon for him, because of course he is, but...

“Everyone’s back,” he clears his throat and checks his phone, “all of you?”

“Dean,” Eileen says, and her voice is kind. Dean thinks that he should learn more sign language. If she has to speak his language, he figures he should learn hers, too. And then he thinks that that sounds like something Cas would have said, and he looks back at Eileen, who’s trying to meet his eyes.

“Is Cas...” Dean trails off, because he can’t ask the question - he knows the answer.

“He gave me a message for you,” she says, and she moves out of Sam’s arms to stand in front of him. “He wanted me to tell you that he’s okay. That Jack pulled him out.”

“So where is he,” Dean growls, turning away. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Sam interpreting, and it strikes him just how much Sam loves this woman - this woman who was one of them, who had fought beside them, who had made her way back to them. He faces her again. “Where” - his voice breaks, and he almost wishes Sam weren’t here to see it - “where’s Cas?”

“He told me,” Eileen continues, signing as she speaks, “he told me to tell you that he meant what he said. He said that he wanted to come back and see you, but that his son needs him. That your son needs him. He said that Jack might be God now, but he’s still his son, and he needs help now more than ever. That maybe God needs family, too, to remind him to be kind. Cas” - Eileen is crying now, too, she can’t help it - “Cas said that you’d understand that. That he’s going to be waiting, and that it’ll be sooner than you expect. He says that he’s gonna see you again, and that he knows. He told me to tell you that he knows what you were gonna say. And that he’s always going to...have his ears on.

“I don’t know what that means,” she finishes with a small shrug. “I’m sorry.”

And so Dean does the only thing he possibly can do. He gathers his sister, and he hugs her, too.

“Yeah,” he says, letting go. “yeah, I get it. Thanks. That, uh. That means a lot to me.”

Sam looks at him with those puppy dog eyes he’d had since he was a baby and Dean waves him away.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he says loudly, “Come on, Sammy, let’s go start the rest of our lives.”

They turn back, and go inside the inn.

“Hey Cas,” Dean whispers into the dark, the moon just a hang nail crescent shape outside his window. A new lunar cycle. He’s got twenty days ‘til werewolf time. He wonders if he’ll ever stop keeping time with monsters. “Eileen says you have your ears on, so. I mean, here’s hoping she’s right. Uh. I get it. Believe me, man, I do, Jack needs you. Hell, one of the last things I told him was that he wasn’t family and I was wrong - I was so wrong. Tell him. Tell him that I miss him, too. That he’s always gonna be my kid, you know? Even if he is all powerful now.

“Um. But. I miss you. I know that you’re up there, and I’ll see you again but that’s gonna be years from now, man, and I just don’t know how to wake up and not see you in the kitchen trying to figure out how the coffee machine works. I don’t know how to watch a movie without looking over to see if you got the joke. Damn. So much for no chick flick moments, huh? Eileen said. She said that you knew and I didn’t have to say anything, but that’s how we got in this mess to begin with, so uh. Here goes, I guess. You gotta know that you’re it for me, man. I’m not as good with words as you are, but at the end of the day, I guess I always kinda thought we were gonna grow old together, you, me, Sam, in the bunker watching bad movies and finding new cases and just...making it up as we go along.

“I thought that one day you’d just...I don’t know. Move in with me, I guess? And that would be that. I thought we had all the time in the world, and then we had no time, and I didn’t - I froze. I’m sorry that I was a coward. I’m sorry that I didn’t say this - any of this - when you were here to hear it. But, uh. Hope you’re hearing it now.”

Somewhere, a bee hums its way back to its hive, singing in tune with a prayer. Somewhere, a boy laughs loudly, looking down at his little brother and thinking I will always keep you safe. Somewhere, a car moves down the interstate, music at full blast, driver high on life. Somewhere, a writer writes, and the world does not change at all. And, outside his window, Dean sees a falling star, and pretends that it’s an angel with a crack in their chassis, making their way down to find someone who loves them. When he falls asleep, he does not dream.

Dean goes back to the bunker. It’s big and empty, but it was Cas’ home, and so it’s his, too. Sam and Eileen go back with him, but he knows they won’t be there for too long.

“This will always be your home, Sammy,” he says when Sam loads his boxes onto an old trailer of Bobby’s, because Dean’s trying to say all the words he feels out loud these days.

“I know, Dean,” Sam says, even if he doesn’t, and then he hugs his brother tightly, not for the last time, but for the last time in this moment, as the people they once were. When they meet again they won’t have grown together, and so they will be strangers, in some ways.

Maybe, Dean thinks, that’s how it’s supposed to be. He watches Sam and Eileen climb into the truck and head North, and he calls them at the end of the day to make sure they haven’t run into trouble.

“You don’t need to come save me yet, Dean,” Sam scoffs, but he’s secretly relieved that they’ll always have this, and so he doesn’t hang up until Eileen shoots him that look that says ‘I’ll murder you if you don’t hurry up’, and he’s more scared of her than Dean, so he hangs up and keeps driving.

Sam doesn’t stop driving until they make their way into Texas, into a small town with a house that sits on a large lot of land, and has a storm cellar in the basement. They raid the local grocery store for all the salt they can find, put rosaries into the water tanks, and then they start unpacking their boxes. Sam thinks that he’s never gonna be out, not really, but he’s not gonna be in either. He needs this for a while - the trees and the long grass and the woman beside him and nothing that goes bump in the night. He sends a quick thank you to Jack and Cas and thinks that maybe they can start to heal.

Dean watches movies on Thursday nights. At first they’re movies that he meant to show Cas but never got around to: Lord of the Rings, When Harry Met Sally, James Bond. Then he gets around to watching those dumb nature documentaries Cas would always put on when he thought no one was paying attention - Dean was always paying attention, and now that he realizes it he just...he feels so damn stupid. But he watches them anyways, because he thinks Cas would have enjoyed it if he’d sat down with him and watched a thing about bees, just once.

“The things I do for you, Cas,” he says out loud every time he picks a new one. “Gotta admit, though, that David Attenborough - he knows what he’s talking about.”

He tries watching a horror movie once, but it hurts, looking at the demons on the screen and remembering Meg and Ruby and Crowley and Lucifer and Michael and Cas. It always comes back to Cas.

“I just miss you, man,” he says to his room, his car, his cup of coffee. He keeps the dog named Miracle, and he thinks that Cas would have liked that, and he takes him on walks every morning and pretends that Cas is with him.

“I got a call from Jody last night,” he says to no one, though he puts headphones on so that people who see him don’t think he’s all sorts of wacko. He could just be on the phone. He wishes he was on the phone. “She says that Claire and Kaia are getting really serious. Says they want to move out and start hunting together, and she wanted to know what I thought of it. Can you believe that, Cas? Told her to give her a bit of space, and remind her that she’s family. You probably would have said it better, but. It’s the best I got. I’m not used to this whole...talking thing yet, okay? Claire’s 21 now, Cas. I feel so old. Maybe I’ll invite Jody and Donna and them for Thanksgiving. Sam and Eileen, too, of course, but we have more than enough space in the bunker.”

Dean will never stop saying ‘we’.

Sam has a kid and names him Dean and Dean cries for hours when he finds out. He calls Claire and tells her to drag her ass over for a visit next month, he knows she and Kaia are busy saving the world, but to not forget about him in the meantime, and she agrees and tells him to get his ass off the phone and enjoy his nephew.

“You’d love this,” Dean tells Cas, “he’s such a good kid. He never cries. Sam and Eileen almost thought something was wrong with him, Sam even took him to a priest to have him checked over, what with the...you know. But nah. He’s a perfectly normal kid - or, as normal as you can be, if you’re Sam’s kid, I guess.”

Dean laughs, then sighs, looking around Sam’s house, how he and Eileen have built a life and then babyproofed it. Sam hasn’t hunted a single monster in over nine months, and the world is still turning, somehow. Ten years ago, he never would have believed it. But now, well. He has faith.

“Tell Jack I said hi,” Dean whispers to Cas. “Tell him I miss him, too, and that this kid is gonna know all about him - you, too, you know. I’m never gonna shut up about you.”

An owl hoots outside of baby Dean’s window, and Dean chooses to believe that it’s Cas laughing at him.

He gets old. Every Christmas, he sets up a small tree, and at the top of it, he puts an angel with a blue tie and a trench coat. He takes up Bobby’s phone banks, and suddenly he’s got Sheriff’s from all over the country asking him if he’s agent “Swift” or “Spears” and every time he hears the names, he smirks and glances upwards and says, “Yeah, hello, who am I speaking to?”

Big Threats pop up, and before long he realizes that he’s built quite the network of hunters to deal with it, that he no longer needs to hit the road himself. So he starts buying up classic cars, and he fixes them up. Chevy’s, BMWs, Fords, you name it, he buys it, then he restores and sells them, and uses the money from the sale to buy the next one. He puts the extra cash back into the network of hunters, making sure they have fakes, supplies, and a safe place to go if they need it. And so, over the years, the bunker becomes a sort of Hunter Hub. A home base.

Sometimes, couples would leave their kids with Dean while they went out on jobs, and he would tell them stories of when he was young. He’d tell them of his brother, who had brought about and then stopped the apocalypse, of the demon who became a friend, about Ellen and Jo and the Roadhouse, how it had been a place like his for people who needed it, he told them about Bobby, the man who raised him and loved him even though they weren’t blood, and he told them about Kevin and Charlie who had been so young and still fought so bravely and taught him so much. He’d show them the postcards that Charlie sent him - was still sending him - from her and Stevie’s world travels. And, of course, he’d tell them about Cas. Always Cas. The angel who saved him from hell, who revolted against heaven for the sake of the whole world (for Dean’s sake, because he loved him), who became a man and kept fighting anyways, though he didn’t know quite how. He told them about Cas and Metatron and Cas and Lucifer and Cas and Naomi and Cas, Cas, Cas, everywhere.

Sometimes, when the children were older, he’d show them pictures to go along with the stories. A copy of the last picture he has of Jo and Ellen, standing there with Bobby and Sam and him and Cas and he tries hard not to think about how its just him and Sam left. He shows them pictures of Cas in a cowboy hat and Jack in stupid sunglasses. He shows them pictures of Sam and Eileen, even though they don’t visit very often.

(”I can’t, Dean,” Sam had said. “I can’t raise my kid how dad raised us. I have to be out.”

“I get that, Sam,” Dean had nodded, “But this is my life. I gotta do this, not just for me.”

“I know,” Sam had said, and then, “Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Love you, jerk.”

“Bitch.”

And they had laughed, and Dean would go to their house for Christmas and the New Years and they would go to his for Thanksgiving, and he would meet up with Sam once a month in a small bar in Oklahoma, halfway between Kansas and Texas, and it would be good. Dean would never have believed it, before, but this was...good.)

Dean lives ‘til he’s eighty two, and he never once stops talking to Cas as though he was still around. Sam still prayed, sometimes, but not like that, never like that. Dean, ironically, was the most devout person most people knew. He always said that a parent should have faith in their kid, and as his kid was God, well. He had no choice but to be faithful. When he was older, his neighbors would laugh - what a crazy way of looking at the world! Dean would smile and wave them off and put his headphones in, ‘call’ his partner, and walk his dog.

He dies quietly, one night, and, in the morning, the hunters that had been staying in the bunker find him in his bed, smiling, with an old mixtape on the nightstand. They call Sam, who is an old man himself, and he calls his son (who has kids of his own, Sam can hardly believe it). Dean Jr. (DJ, he’d decided when he was seven, and stuck to it ever since) picks his mom and dad up and takes them to the bunker, where they wrap dean in cloth, build a pyre, and then salt and burn him. A proper hunter’s funeral for a man who never stopped fighting.

Claire and Kaia are there, and they bring their kids. Sam hugs them, and presses the keys to the bunker in Claire’s hand.

“You keep this place up,” he tells her with a smile, “Dean would have wanted that.”

She’s older now, well in her forties - the same age Dean had been when he’d started to run his home like a hostel for hunters - but Sam still sees the eight year old girl who’d loved her dad so much she let an angel possess her. He thinks, our bodies, possessed by light, and then he thinks about Cas properly for the first time in many years. Take care of my brother, he prays, and then turns to Claire and leads her inside. They have pie together.

When Dean opens his eyes, he’s in the bunker. He feels lighter than he has in decades: his back doesn’t ache and his joints don’t creak, and he hears someone bustling around in the kitchen. Probably Claire, he thinks, and then moves to sit up before noticing his own hands. The wrinkles that had become so familiar are gone. As are the permanent grease stains from spending so much time under the hood of a car. His old hunting boots are by the door, and a plaid overshirt is bunched in the corner of the desk, like it had landed there when he’d tossed it off the night before. But...he was pretty sure he didn’t own that shirt anymore. He can hear a radio crackling from the living room, playing Ramble On. He hasn’t listened to that song since...well. In a long time.

Slowly, he makes his way down to the kitchen, and stops dead when he reaches the door.

“I,” he starts, and his voice is young and strong and nothing like he remembers it being when he went to bed.

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, and then the bacon catches fire.

“Woah,” Dean exclaims, rushing over and crowding the stove - it used to be like that, he remembers, between cases - Cas never could figure out how to cook and Dean would always end up shooing him out of the kitchen. Can’t have you killin’ us here, Cas, he would say, and finish the meal for both of them. Then they would sit, have a beer, and not say much of anything at all. Dean had almost forgotten. He turns down the stove, tosses the burnt bacon, and clears his throat. “Well, guess it doesn’t matter if you burn the food here, ‘cuz I’m guessing you can’t kill us.”

“No,” Cas agrees, looking very much as lost and disbelieving as Dean feels. “We’re already dead - or, you are. My condolences.”

“Nah,” Dean huffs a laugh, “it’s okay. My life was pretty good, you know? But it was probably my time - way past it, even.”

“Your life was remarkable,” Cas looks at him solemnly. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“You could hear me?”

“Were you not certain of that,” Cas raises his eyebrows.

“I had faith,” Dean hip checks him, and smiles. “Thanks for listening.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” Cas says softly.

“Jack needed you, I get that. And look,” Dean catches his eye and grins, “here we are anyways. Not like death ever stopped us.”

They cook in silence for a moment.

“How long has it been, for you,” Dean asks him.

“A week,” Cas shrugs and looks away. “Maybe two. Time moves differently here.”

“It was forty years, for me,” Dean says.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. My life....it was good, Cas. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but I did alright. And I was never alone. I had family. I had you.”

“Well,” Cas catches his hand and pulls it away from the new pan of eggs, “you certainly have me now.”

The second pan of eggs burns, too.

#supernatural #15x20 #dean whinchester #no spoilers because i completely started over there haha #this isn't the happiest ending but this is more the ending i expected from them #so there you have it this is what i thought i was gonna get and then i didn't and id thought about it so much i decided to write it myself #maybe i'll put it up on ao3 who knows #i write sometimes #thats my new writing tag #SOMETIMES being the operative word #if i put this on ao3 i'll likely expand it a bit #but for right now this is 4.3k words that are all better than the finale even though no one has read this over for me lmao

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sirloozelite · 4 years

Text

Galaxy-8: Tano gets captured... again!

(Galaxy-8 is an insane AU where everything is out of control and nothing makes any sense whatsoever. Everyone is OOC... and the entire AU is one step away from spontaneous combustion. Do not take the contents within seriously. It’s not meant to be. Enjoy the madness)

Scene: The Cargo bay of a VCX-100 Light Freighter. Jedi Master Ahsoka Tano and her Padawan Anakin Skywalker find themselves captured by a pair of evil Sith Inquisitors who are about to interrogate them. Tano and Skywalker’s hand are tied together in a slip knot with some rope.

Anakin: Well Master... I think we are screwed.

Ahsoka: Nah... don’t count us out yet Skyguy.

The Inquisitors approach. One of them is a green skinned Twi’lek female. The other a human male.

Ahsoka: Soooo... you are the bad guys that beat us huh? What do you intend on doing to us? Anything... ‘fun’?

Anakin: Master!!!! Is now really the time for that!?!?

Ahsoka: There is always time to be a flirt Anakin, especially around such a air of specimens such as these! (raises her eye brows in a flirty manner)

Evil Hera: Your temptations will not work on us ‘Master Tano’. Darth Plo warned us you might be like this!

Evil Kanan: Yeah... not gonna work! My wife here is the only woman for me!

Evil Hera: Thank you husband.

Ahsoka: Oh I dunno... I’ve changed the minds of a married couple before. XD

Anakin: Masterrrrr!!!!!

Evil Kanan: Now... tell us Master Jedi... what secret plans do the Jedi Council have to try an stop us?

Ahsoka: I dunno... I’m not on the Council.

Evil Kanan: ... Bugger!

Evil Hera: Nevermind my love. Next question. Padawan Skywalker, does it not strike you as wrong that you are being made to fight in this war? You are barely a teenager after all.

Anakin: Oh no... you ain’t using that on me. Fighting in the war is purely voluntary. No Padawan is forced to.

Evil Hera: ... double bugger!

Evil Kanan: It would appear Darth Plo’s information is outdated.

Ahsoka: (overly sarcastic) Noooooo..... reallllyyyyyy?????

Evil Kanan: -_-

Evil Hera: Very well then Tano... if you will not cooperate willingly, then I guess we will have to force you to!

Ahsoka: Oooohhhh! I like the sound of that! Who’s going first? (flirty winks)

Anakin: (rolls eyes)

Evil Hera: Grrrr... not like that!

Ahsoka: Shame. You might be evil, but you are still both hot!

Evil Kanan: 0_0

Evil Hera: How the hell do people put up with you!!!!

Anakin: I’ve been asking that question for years!

Ahsoka: Well... some just ignore me, others are scared of me, some more respect me, and some put up with me by being under me... or on top of me in Kaeden’s case! XD

Evil Hera: (Pterodactyl screeching)

Evil Kanan: ...

Anakin: Welcome to my world.

Ahsoka: Sooo... is this interrogation gonna go anywhere... or can we leave yet?

Evil Kanan: Pfffttt... please... you won’t be escaping. Not today.

Anakin: ...

Ahsoka: No? Oh... well then you shouldn’t have tied our hands together with a simple bloody slip knot. Easily undone... ya’know. Here... I’ll demonstrate. (Ahsoka easily undoes the slip knot rope around her hands. Anakin does the same)

Evil Kanan: 0_0

Evil Hera: KANAN!!! YOU IDIOT!!!!

Evil Kanan: Oops!

Ahsoka and Anakin summon their lightsabers back to their hands from where Evil Kanan had put them a few feet away.

Evil Kanan: Double oops!!!!!

Evil Hera: WHY DID I MARRY YOU AGAIN!?!?!?

Ahsoka: Good question. Far more fun being open and free! Now... since we aren’t sparring in the ‘fun’ way together, I suggest we get this fight over with quickly. Don’t bore me.

Anakin: Ha! Or me!

Evil Kanan: 0_0 (ignites lightsaber)

Evil Hera: Oohhh bring it on!

#galaxy-8 #ahsoka tano #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #anakin skywalker #Kanan and Hera are evil!!!

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typewriterghcst · 4 years

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Title: The Willow Bud Processional

Fandom: The Cat Returns

Characters: The Cat King, Natori, brief mentions of others

Summary: The Cat King discovers that in all his time in court, Natori has never learned to dance, and heroically takes up the position of dance instructor for himself. It’s about damn time he got to feel like the smart one.

Notes: hi i’m here to regale you all with a tale of two old dumb cats interacting with each other like they think the other one will spontaneously combust at some point even tho they know each other so gd well they could probably quote each other word by word :v

i will say this one is Unfinished, but the missing parts are explained orz i’ve honestly just run out of steam on this one. me writing this was like ‘oh two characters dancing together in a casual setting? excellent my favorite’ and then the slow, sad realization that i’d have to actually write The Dancing and slowly losing that motivation until i was a dehydrated husk lying on the floor

i also listened to this song like. Way Too Much while writing this

[ insert a beginning Narration detailing that this is some nice party probably celebrating lune and yuki’s wedding or something SHHH the king is feeling weirdly down, lacks the emotional intelligence to put a word to What He’s Feeling, so wanders out onto a balcony to sulk, and is eventually followed by natori jfjfkd; ]

It doesn’t take long at all for him to be followed, of course. He hears Natori’s arrival not as a patter of careful footsteps, but as a slight, brief increase in the music volume through an opened door, one that is just as quickly diminished. And he knows his visitor must be Natori— no one else will so consistently come looking for him.

“Did you find yourself needing some fresh air, sire?”

“Yeh,” the king decides to agree, turning to look at his new companion. Natori almost always appears quite polished, those moments he’s comically caught off-guard aside, but there’s something implicitly different about him when he’s clad not in his usual dark linen, but what looks to be plum-colored silk. Were he feeling slightly more charitable, he’d most likely mention to his advisor that the color was appealing on him.

Instead, the indistinct melody he catches from indoors hogs all his attention.

“...eh? Is that the Willow Bud Procession they’re starting up again? They already did that one tonight.”

Natori, surreptitiously glancing back through the glass doors to the dancing pairs inside, responds, “Yes, but I’m led to believe a striking number of the courtiers are quite proud of their costumes tonight. I assume they all wished for another opportunity to show them off.”

“Oh, yeah? If that’s the case, I’m surprised you’re not out there with them— that shiny stuff you’re wearing had to set you back a pretty penny.” It comes out perhaps more sullen than he’d intended, and he can’t quite place why.

Regardless, he makes no move to amend his tone.

Natori turns a studying look to him, one paw still on the frame of the door. The king shares his gaze for only a few seconds before he hastily looks away, back out into the sun-drenched hills of the Cat Kingdom, where his attention falls on Little Sister Lake. There’s birds there now, cranes— tall, white. Formless. Hm, he thinks then, perhaps they’re not birds, after all. They’re occasional visitors, but no cat in the kingdom has yet been stealthy enough to see them up close.

Natori has remained silent for so long, he’d almost forgotten his advisor had joined him. Nevertheless, he eventually says, “...I might say the same for you, sire. You seemed quite enthused about your crown’s replacement earlier tonight.”

The reminder brightens the king’s mood a little.

“Yeh— Natoru did a top-notch job on it, didn’t she? I’d give her a promotion if I could remember what her position actually was. An’... you know, if I wasn’t retired.” And there, remembering what the original topic was, he follows that up with a more subdued, “Eh, but everyone’s already seen it. Also, I never liked that stuffy procession, to tell you the truth. ‘Willow Bud Processional’ is a pretty whimsical name for what amounts to shuffling rhythmically around the dance floor. Drove me up a wall having to practice it all the time as a kitten.”

Were he facing Natori, he’d see the other cat visibly relax. Alas, he only turns to face his advisor after the revelation Natori sees fit to offhandedly drop on him.

“I’ve never actually learned the steps to it, myself.”

He turns back to survey Natori with some measure of disbelief. “You don’t know how to do the Willow Bud Procession? How have you survived all the parties without knowing?”

Natori hesitates here, and the king reads a definite embarrassment in it, as if the other cat is uncertain what he should admit to. It seems he does settle on honesty, however, as he soon after offers the king a rueful smile and an apologetic tilt of his head.

“I’m afraid I don’t often do much dancing during them, ha.” Too focused on keeping you out of trouble, he doesn’t say, but they both know.

The Cat King thinks on this for a long moment or two, gaze drawn back out to the distant white birds bathing in the kingdom’s cherished lake, the Not-Cranes. In silence, casually, Natori joins him there at the balustrade, and the air is distinctly companionable until the king speaks up again, distracted.

“It’s not hard. You’d probably pick it up in no time, babe.”

“Perhaps you might teach me, then, sire? It sounds as if you’re quite the expert.”

The king pauses, trying to ignore the bloom of smug delight that comes with being referred to as an expert of anything, but, of course, not very diligently. It’s not like he’ll correct anyone who wishes to feed his ego, least of all Natori.

He looks to Natori and finds that his advisor is regarding him with an expression he can’t quite define. Concerned? Affable? Sly? It’s somehow all of them. Not for the first time, he finds himself wondering if Natori has some obtuse plan he’s orchestrating in subtle ways the king himself can’t quite catch. He’s been proven wrong in this line of thinking so many times before and yet still can’t shake its occasional return in those times when his advisor seems particularly unreachable.

“Hmm. Yeah, babe, I can do that.” The idea of teaching his ostensibly better-read advisor anything is perhaps unsurprisingly enticing. He gives the empty balcony behind them a cursory inspection. “We can have a lesson here. There’s space.”

[ insert the cat king teaching the steps to the ‘willow bud processional.’ if you’re really curious what this might look like, pls feel free to look up ‘pavane’ on youtube. at some point, the king still feels Ignored (or, more accurately, like he’s not Truly Connecting and Socializing with someone), so like a sullen two-year-old he gets natori’s attention by tossing a wrench into his plan ]

“I want to hear a story,” the king says airily.

Natori, who had been gazing down at his feet with a faraway stare, looks back up to him with a raised eyebrow, and somewhere inside, the king whoops at his tiny victory. “Now..?”

“Yeh. Now.” The Cat King takes Natori’s apparent break in concentration as an opportunity to spin the two of them across the balcony, as if they were hapless passengers on a carnival ride as opposed to two old friends trying to have an impromptu dance lesson. Natori stumbles but doesn’t fall, righting himself with a deceptively practiced air, even if his grip is noticeably tighter than before. “Tell me a story, Natty.”

Natori, feeling the situation so characteristically slip from his grasp, glances down to his feet again to gather his thoughts.

“Well…” He eventually starts. “What kind of a story, sire?”

“Hmm. I dunno.” Another too-fast spin. He’s fairly certain he’d seen both Natori’s feet leave the ground for a fleeting second. The other cat definitely looks a touch aggravated now, though he’s trying bravely to hide it. “Tell me one you might have told to your sisters once upon a time.”

It isn’t often the topic of Natori’s family arises between them. The boundary between his advisor’s working family and his personal one often feels like an insurmountable wall at times, one which he doesn’t always possess the interest or fortitude to scale. The oddness of it seems to add only more tinder to Natori’s uncertainty, but in his usual way, he manages to sidle past it. In the meantime, also, the king slows their pace, this time only holding their joined paws in the air and waiting (Natori seems to twirl under their ‘canopy’ without thinking, still too engrossed in choosing a suitable story.)

After a long couple of moments waiting, the king finally speaks up again. “There were that many?”

Natori laughs, genuinely (the king can tell by the way it —). “It’s been a long time since I was the storyteller, sire. Lune always did prefer Natoru’s stories to mine.”

“Hers always involved more explosions and punching. You were outgunned.”

The king watches Natori’s eyelids flutter slightly from long-cold exasperation. “...Indeed.”

“So tell me one of your favorites. One you never did get to tell Lune.”

Natori doesn’t say that he has the less-than-flattering suspicion the king’s attention span and his appreciation for fairy tales are about on par with his son’s as a restless, curious child, but he’s certainly thinking it quite loudly. If the Cat King has even an inkling of the same thought, he’s for once discreet enough not to mention it.

Natori blows out a breath and an uncomfortable laugh with it, and starts. “...I suppose my favorite was always the one that explained why the sun lived in the sky.”

The faint strings of the Willow Bud Processional from the open door leading onto the balcony begin to fade, and instead revive themselves as another familiar dance, a much slower, more intimate one (one Natori recognizes as the charmingly-named Lilycat Waltz). The king wonders if perhaps the bride and groom had requested a quiet moment. He and Natori move away from each other, standing across from the other in apparent uncertainty over what to do next.

“...You know how to do a waltz?” The king finally asks Natori, though he’s already guessed what the answer will be.

“You’ll have to show me, sire.” As expected. Yet with a bit of good humor mixed in. The king thinks to himself that the two of them are sharing an inside joke neither has yet spoken aloud, and it’s a familiar and comfortable nook they’ve settled into.

“Alright, babe, alright. So stand here— give me your paw—”

Natori complies with both directions with little hesitation, and he raises no protests when he’s pulled close or when he’s otherwise (perhaps less-than-gently at some points) guided into the right stance and position.

And when they’ve gotten situated into another habitual nook, this time closer together in the easy, thoughtless way only the oldest of friends can manage, the king speaks up again.

“You took right to it, babe. Said you’d be a fast study— didn’t I tell you so?”

“You did tell me so, sire,” Natori replies indulgently. Seemingly as a consolatory afterthought, he then adds, “Are my feet in the right position? It feels off.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re new to it.”

Their words, now, feel like a recital, a carefully-rehearsed script. The king thinks it’s about time they broke away from it.

“I have a question for you, Natori.”

“Oh? If it’s important, there’s no need to keep it to yourself, then, Your Majesty.”

“Why does the sun live in the sky?”

Natori laughs. Surprised, perhaps, self-effacing, because he’d been waiting for the question on both their minds, not a request for the continuation of a story he’d assumed had been forgotten.

“His Majesty has a long memory.”

“But you already knew that about me, babe.”

"So I did." Yet Natori continues where he left off readily enough. “The story goes that once, long before the world as we know it was formed, the sun and the water were close friends. Inseparable, one might say— and both lived on the earth, of course. The sun would make frequent visits to his friend, but the water never once returned the favor.”

“Hmph.” The king sounds somewhat discomfited by this beginning, and the intense contemplation Natori spies in his expression tugs at an unexplained apprehension within him. He doesn’t otherwise respond, however. Natori continues, perhaps more gingerly than before.

“Well, of course the sun would find himself curious, if… ah, perhaps suspicious, over this odd discrepancy. He finally saw fit to go to the water themselves for an explanation.”

“That was an awkward conversation.”

“Ha— I always thought so, too, as a child. When my—” Here Natori stumbles just slightly, and the king has little reason to wonder why. “--my mother used to tell the story to me, I always thought of it as the worst part. I always thought… well, if I ever did end up in the same situation, then nothing in all of the kingdom could get me to approach this friend of mine.”

“Were you expecting to make friends with the lake, or…”

“I was five, sire,” Natori deadpans in response to the king’s jest seamlessly.

“Oh, so you definitely were.”

Natori doesn’t answer— he’s too distracted by the faint increase in pressure where the king’s paw is holding his waist, and how the cat suddenly spins them around and then leans the both of them forward, to the degree that Natori’s balance is compromised. In the heat of the moment, he can’t decide whether crashing to the floor or clinging to his self-proclaimed teacher will prove to be the most embarrassing option, and in the end is relegated only to grasping his partner by the arms, stiffly holding one leg outwards in a weak attempt at a counterbalance. (He does not have the core strength to keep this up for long, he can tell that already.)

He’s been exceedingly patient before now, Natori thinks, in dealing with the king’s antics, but this finally proves too much.

When he speaks, it’s softly, but there’s an undercurrent of resigned exasperation, and his expression, he knows, must fail to belie his chagrin. “...sire, I’m not certain how being tossed across the, er, balcony like a bag of rice is going to teach me any of these dances.”

The king snorts in apparent amusement as he pulls the two of them back upright, much to Natori’s relief. “What’s the matter? You don’t trust me to hold you up..?”

You don’t have the most promising track record runs through Natori’s mind, but it’s gone so quickly it might as well have stayed obscured, he thinks in light resentment.

“Sorry, Your Majesty,” is what he says, but his grip hasn’t yet slackened.

The king doesn’t respond for a concerningly long time, staring at Natori for so long, and in such a sour manner that speaks of stewing rumination, that the other cat finds himself feeling distantly nervous. Yet, ultimately, he seems to decide against speaking entirely, gently prying Natori’s paws away and back into the air beside them (the other resting quite naturally along the king’s arm).

Without another word on the matter, he compels the two of them to start the dance all over again. And Natori lets him. After a lengthy minute of this loaded silence, the king’s gaze distant from morose thought and Natori’s eyes averted elsewhere, Claudius finally speaks up again.

“So, the sun went to bug the water about the situation. What was the water’s excuse?”

Natori appears surprised, but duly grateful, to be given this escape from the awkward energy that now smolders between them. Given time and distraction, it will die back down again, as it always does. He clears his throat.

“The water’s excuse— y-yes. The water... expressed their sincerest apologies, but explained also that the sun’s house was not big enough for them and all their people to visit, and to do so without heeding that fact would be to drive the sun from his own home. ‘If you do so truly wish for me to visit, then you must build a house large enough to hold me,’ in the water’s own words. But, they warned also, it must be quite substantial, as the water was immense and their people were many.”

“Sounds like too much work if you ask me. Might as well just keep the same old setup.” Seems the king is still feeling a touch cross.

“To travel a great distance, and to always be the one to make that trip, might prove tiring after so many times, as well, sire. Don’t you think?”

The Cat King frowns, more pensive deliberation, but this time he speaks up. “...I don’t think it would.” Then, in a lighter, more promising manner, “He’s gonna do it, though, isn’t he? The sun?”

Natori nods once with a permissive blink.

“Indeed. The sun agreed to the challenge and waved off his friend’s warnings.”

“Think I see where this is going, babe,” the king says lowly as they spin lazy circles across the balcony.

Natori laughs again. “It’s not quite a mystery epic, is it?”

“Alright, so how does the sun mess this up?”

“Well. The sun built himself an enormously vast house. There’s no telling how long it took him. But when it stood finally finished, he invited the water to tea and waited. And when the water arrived, one of their people called up to the sun— ‘We are here! Is there room for us all?’ Of course, the sun, being the passionate host he was, again told his friend not to worry and invited them in.”

The king snorts. “Here we go.”

Natori smiles. His eyes are still closed. The king thinks he looks oddly content like that. He scarcely remembers the frustrated betrayal he’d been afflicted with just moments earlier, and the abrupt, brisk spin he’d been on the verge of executing also fades before it’d even legitimately formulated.

“The water began to flow in, of course, and with them, all the creatures of the seas and the rivers and the lakes. It didn’t take long, now, for the water to fill the sun’s great house to a depth that would easily surge far over a cat’s head.”

“And the sun just let it keep happening without a word, I’m guessing.”

“He didn’t know any better,” Natori attempts to clarify, eyes opening now to fix his companion with a rueful look, one side of his muzzle quirked so that he looks vaguely hapless. “His assumptions were woefully imprecise because of it. It’s a misfortune.”

“Hmm. Up for another spin, babe? They’re my favorite part.”

Natori’s startled confusion is evident, but the sudden change in subject registers soon enough. Something else lingers, though, echoes of a rapt surprise.

“I don’t mind, sire.”

“Good, ‘cause I was gonna do it no matter what, heh.”

“Hm. I appreciate the considerate word of warning, then.” Spoken dryly, but it lacks the exasperation the Cat King had been expecting.

Natori is clearly preparing for the breakneck whirlwinds he’d endured earlier in their ‘lesson’, but it’s not what he receives— the king is sure of that this time. The music which had begun as an overtly intimate, if not downright romantic, waltz now boasts a noticeable bounce and pep in its tempo, and to himself Natori gives some silent thanks for the shift. This soft, slow dance would be quite hard to justify were he still hearing those faint notes of sweetness from the barely-open door.

He’s struggling already to justify the warmth of his companion’s paw, again settled loosely at his waist, and the perfect fit of the king’s other paw which folds mildly, tenderly, over his own— all have been present for some time now, since they began their so-called waltz, yet Natori is only just now noticing them.

Staring up at the sun-streaked sky of their kingdom, swaying idly side to side under the king’s lead, he continues then, unprompted. “...To the water’s credit, they did ask for reassurance that the situation was still acceptable time and time again. But even by the time the house was crowded with so much of the water and their people that he was forced to sit on the roof of his own home, the sun refused to withdraw his invitation.”

“Why would he do that?” The king sounds baffled.

“I don’t know,” Natori admits. Then, gently, thoughtfully, “...I suppose if one truly wants something, and has their heart set on it, they might be quite amenable to bearing more hardship for it than others might feel is strictly necessary or appropriate…”

The king doesn’t respond to that, and Natori feels perhaps rather oddly like he’s crossed too far over an invisible line, and nervously, resolutely, says no more. What had been a companionable air now lies stretched too thin over the pair, teeming with uneasiness. Eventually, the king does speak up again, and his voice is too low for Natori to discern his mood with any measure of accuracy.

“Gonna take a stab at guessing the ending to this one, babe.”

“...please do, sire.” It’s a near whisper.

“The sun never told his friend ‘no, that’s enough’, so the water never stopped, and the house flooded so much the sun had nowhere left to sit. So he went up into the sky and never came back down. And I guess never did speak up, either.”

Natori smiles, weakly. “You guessed it.”

“The water, too, never put two and two together, huh..? I’m not the most sensitive of the bunch, but I think even I’d know something was up by the time a friend of mine had to hang around in the sky because I was taking up too much space.” The king snorts.

“Do you?” Natori’s voice remains faint, timid, even; he feels still like he stands at the edge of a great crevice, and he’s not yet sure what lies at the bottom. The king seems also surprisingly fazed or rattled by the further, simple question.

Gently, so much so Natori almost doesn’t notice, he rests his chin on his companion’s shoulder.

“...well. Maybe not,” he eventually says, nonplussed.

They lapse into another silence, then, one that doesn’t quite recapture their earlier easy comfort, but neither does it feel intrinsically charged, either. Natori finally turns his gaze from the unchanging sky to their other surroundings. They’ve been out here together, away from the other guests, for some time now. He’s surprised no one else has come searching for the two of them yet.

He’s just about to echo the king’s movement and lay his head down when the other cat suddenly speaks up again.

“I’ll tell you one thing I do notice, babe.”

“Mm? What’s that?”

“When someone who obviously knows how to dance says they can’t.”

[ and here we see that i ran out of steam before writing the ending rip natori admits he already knew the steps to the dances, the cat king has long since come to the conclusion that natori lied in order to have this long dance together (also briefly joking that natori clearly just wanted a romantic moment, which natori will vehemently deny) and that it speaks to a kind of comforting Idea that natori knows him Very Well, being aware that the easiest way to cheer him up would have been to Make Him Feel Smart ]

#the cat returns #this honestly feels like it's All Over The Place but i'm so out of steam i'm sorry lies down

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