#not ready for this week yet haha still working on the 2 ocs from last week

[filopay]

ELORA ESKILDOTTIR

thirty looking | she/her | 153 cm | Elf | Nord

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

Many times you were spared, oh, I did my best Every night you would call for me with your steps I was trying to sleep I was trying to sleep for you Under perfection I woke As you protected your home Oh, I just kept getting stronger I did my best to control The growing unrest in my soul — Wolfie's Just Fine

Prompt from:@oc-tober2023 [ I am not following the same order ]

CW: Drug use

~ Flashback

In a dusty corner, the sparse light barely makes the woman visible, buried beneath scrolls and books.

She slams another book closed, frustration eating at her every bone, while dark circles beneath her eyes seem to grow by the hour.

"Another dead end." She lets herself fall back into the chair, eying the scattered information in front of her. Nothing of value was found.

If only she would find an answer to her many questions, find a good lead to know how to continue. When frustration makes its way through, she starts to doubt her own decision. She chose this very topic of research, but perhaps it was never meant to be brought into the light. An answer never to be found.

She lifts her hand, pushing her sleeve up to reveal blackened veins running down towards her hand. It had been there ever since she was a child, she had read in the many books, that it was supposed to grow until it covers the whole of her body, but it had never changed. Not for her.

If only she could remember that day she got the black veins - but it was so long gone and she had been but a child.

Then by chance, her eyes landed on a detailed illustration in a book to her right. A mushroom, dried, used to clear one's mind. If she couldn't remember, perhaps that could force her memories.

"I need something very specific." Elora interrupted the cook. Her red flaming hair as passionate as her request.

"Don't you always." The cook didn't even look up from her work,"Found something interesting in your books?"

"It's research. Everything has the potential to be interesting, but only worth the goddesses' time, until I tested and studied it."

"What you need?"

"Dried mushrooms."

The cook lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Just any mushroom or a specific one?"

"The one that will give me answers about my own mind." The woman explains, dark circles beneath her eyes.

"By the gods, you better be careful with stuff like that. It can smoke your brains out, I tell you." Then the cook sighed, "There is no stopping you, however. I know what you need. Follow my instructions and you might be fine."

"I'll take the risk."

"You Heralds are crazy."

The smoke made her face heat up, cold sweat trickling down her neck as slowly her mind started to swim.

She didn't notice it kicking in, or so she thought, but as she started to stand up, everything was spinning and she was smiling.

"How could you do this to us!"

She knew that voice.

"You only ever think about yourself, so selfish and unruly. Is it my fault you turned out to be such an ungrateful daughter?!"

She remembers that memory. It was the fifth pursuer her mother had send after her and Elora had refused his advances bluntly so. Again.

"I will miss you, Élie'rel." 

Her sister. She could never forget her voice.

"Don't ever change, no matter what anyone says. You will find your answers and surprise everyone. I am proud of you."

It was the last time she had seen her, had it already been too long to remember? 

She shook her head. Focus. She was here for answers, not to feel guilty.

Back then Eyrier Lay, the white Valley, was prosperous and lively. The grand elven city En'ayn Mun stood proud and beautiful, the eye piece of the whole area. Lush forests and fields covered the valley. It were merry times.

She remembers the smell of the baked goods sold in the streets, the softness of her bedsheets, the warm sun on her skin when she drank her favourite tea atop the balconies.

She could feel it now. Her mother was smiling at her, her face younger, carefree. Elora can't remember a time her mother had ever smiled in her life. It was a foreign sight.

Everything around her was bright, she couldn't make out the details, but she felt her mother take her hand, they started walking down a copple stone street. Then suddenly, the light vanished, it was suddenly utter cold, the sky was black and she thought that black snowflakes were falling from the sky. Ash?

Then screams, her mother grabbed her small frame, hefted her up into her arms. Elora didn't see them coming, but she knew they were there.

Her mother only stopped when they reached their home. She locked the door, before asking Elora questions, she couldn't make out anymore. Perhaps even back then, she didn't understand them.

Then suddenly her mother was ripped from her view, she looked around, but her house was foggy, she couldn't clearly see. It was like a dream, no a nightmare.

"Mother!" She shouted, her small heart beating wildly in her chest. Then something gripped her wrist, tightly, she cried out by the pain, it was painfully cold, it was freezing her arm solid.

Then it let go and everything went dark, as she sunk to the ground of the library.

[kindness-bliss]

New Beginnings Ch. 12

Timothy Thatcher x OC

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: none

One year later   Tim looked at apartments with his fiance as they walked around, Emily was everything he could dream of. She had a good heart, educated, loved her job, was actually his age and extremely kind. It had started just days after that night at the club where she approached him at a coffee shop over the book he was reading, he was impressed that someone else could enjoy a George Orwell novel like him. From that day on it was non stop texting and late night phone calls which eventually turned into dates and then sleeping over at each others places and one day he just said fuck it and got a ring at a shop and proposed. It was nothing special truly, he didn’t even get down on one knee which he kind of regretted but not really. He liked her, he liked her a lot but part of him knew he didn’t love her.    “Sweetheart, are you alright ?” Emily asked petting his cheek “you look out of it”   Tim shook his head “Oh I’m fine, just thinking about what would be best is all. We looked at all the ones on our list and you seem to be keen on this area, this the one then ?”

 Emily grinned and nodded “It’s perfect, it’s near both our jobs and it’s a 2 bedroom just in case after the wedding you know….”   He sighed as he stepped back “Em, we’ve talked about this dozens of times already. I said I don’t want kids, I’m past that stage. Us together is enough for me and you said it was enough for you as well, remember ?”  

 “I did” she nodded “It’s just a maybe, like a what if situation kind of thing is all. I know where you stand on children and I totally respect plus we’re both 38, that’s a long shot honey”

Tim chuckled lightly, giving a nod “very true, but just maybe let’s leave it at that ?”. Nothing about moving in with her felt natural, nothing. He liked her a lot but he knew he had rushed things. Everyone had told him it was too soon and that he was only doing it to get over Maya but even they couldn’t stop him from proposing. The second he put the ring on her finger he knew it was a mistake.   

“I just think it’s good to talk about it because though you know I wouldn’t ever create an oopsie situation, it can still be a what if” Emily explained “Plus you told me at the beginning of us that you wouldn’t mind one, just one”   

“I said that almost a year ago, things and people change. Right now what matters to me is my career and your career and doing our own thing” he explains

“Wrestling won’t last forever Tim” she says softly “I know you plan on doing it for as long as you can which is great but we both know realistically it’s a good 5 years left before you have to call it quits for good. You should think about life beyond the ring, when it’s all done for good and you don’t have to put your body at risk every single day taking all those hits. I mean, do you ever think about that ?” “Clearly I do if we’re moving in together Emily '' he let out a little more dry than he had intended. It was one thing get on him about stupid shit like him leaving a plate out on the counter or leaving a damp towel on the sink but his job ? No way in hell he’d ever let anyone try to tell him what to do about his career.   

Emily sighed “Tim, I didn’t mean it like that at all okay ? I just meant it in the sense that there’s life after wrestling, a chance-”   

“I’ve heard enough” Tim said shortly “I um I gotta go, I’m late for some stuff down at the performance center. I’ll see you tonight”  he leaned over and kissed her forehead leaving   

He put his bag down in the locker room as he got ready and nodded at Oney “You look all sunburnt, were you at the beach ?”   

“Maya’s” he answered, lacing up his shoes “She had a small get together yesterday on a boat to celebrate her 26th birthday. The sun got the best of us” Oney chuckled   

“It was her birthday yesterday ?” Tim asked changing his tone

“Not yesterday exactly” Oney shook his head “It’s this Saturday but we celebrated it early since we’ve got that pay per view to get ready for , it was why I couldn’t go to dinner with you and Emily. I went to Marcel’s because he was surprising her with that and you know she’s grown to be like a sister to me, I couldn’t miss it”  Tim simply nodded, how was it that already a year had passed by ? How was it that he didn’t even know her birthday ? “How is she ?” he finally asked

“She’s good, doing really well” Oney nodded “You know her and Marcel are just still boyfriend and girlfriend, not engaged or moved in like you and Emily. But I mean in a way you two are alike, you both just had your one year come up”

“She and Marcel aren’t like Emily and I” he shook his head. “That's comparing apples to oranges man, two totally different things. Why even bring that up ?

“Because it’s clear you still like her, do you ?”

“Yes.” Tim answered

Oney sighed, shaking his head “Then why are you engaged and moving in with this woman ? Why did you fuck up so badly ?” “I don’t know and I’ll never know” he shrugged as he left the room and stretched in the ring. All great questions he had no answers for. ******  Maya sat as she rubbed her forehead and sipped her water on the couch “Baby do you mind getting me some tylenol ?”   

“Let me guess, once again didn’t eat anything but an iced coffee all day ?” he chuckled handing her two pills and sitting next to her  

 “Haha very funny” she rolled her eyes, taking them “Just feel tired, I’ve been working back to back and it’s getting to me is all”   

Marcel shook his head and sighed “You’ve been so out of it lately, we went to dinner last week and you fell asleep on the ride there, I’m getting concerned Maya”

She held his hand and scooted onto his lap kissing him “I”m fine, just work is a lot lately. I just gotta get it together is all, schedule things out better. Plus, I still have energy for plenty of things you know. Loads of them actually…”   

“I like that” he caressed her cheek leaning to kiss her and groaning as he heard the doorbell “That would be Johnny and Candice who you invited for a swim”  “I know” she giggled as she got up “deal with your blue balls somewhere else while I show them around”. Maya got up and shook off the slight dizziness she had going to the door “Hey guys” she smiled “Come on in”  

 “Jesus you said house not mini mansion” Johnny said as he barged in and put the cupcakes on the table “Damn Maya, is this what taking off your clothes pays for, because I might just change careers”  

 Candice shook her head as she gave her a hug “You know how he is, thanks for having us over before the week gets a bit chaotic. I feel like I rarely get to see you because of how busy you are, how are things ?”   

Maya grinned and took her to her backyard and sat with her “Things have been great truly, work is great and well as you can see things with Marcel are also still amazing. He’s here a lot but we don’t live together or anything like that” she admits taking a sip of her water “I see in your face you’ve got this look, like you wanna tell me something but you’re holding back”  

 She looked up and grinned as Johnny sat in the middle of them taking a piece of cheese from the charcuterie board and chewed “So did you hear Tim’s engaged to that one Emily chick ? I mean she’s pretty but she’s not as pretty as you and she has a boring job not cool like modeling. She’s a high school teacher ,math teacher or something dumb like that, and I heard from Eli that she’s his age so you know old and apparently they moved in-”

“Johnny !” Candice exclaimed with wide eyes as she moved her eyes in her direction

“Wh-what ?” Maya said softly “I-I had no idea, I haven’t seen him since um that night at EVE but it’s been a year, come on guys. There’s no need to tiptoe around things, that’s in the past and good for him. He deserves happiness as we all do, really Candice it’s not a big deal”   Lies all fucking lies she thought to herself, nothing but lies. Yes it was a big fucking deal, how the hell wouldn’t it be ?. What in the absolute fuck did she miss out on in a whole year ? She was having success, her relationship with Marcel was perfect yet her heart still fluttered hearing Tim’s name. Not only was he dating someone but he was engaged, engaged.   “Sorry” Johnny apologized as he put his drink down “I thought you knew since you seem to know everyone, I thought Oney had mentioned it or Alli”    “It’s fine Johnny” she grinned weakly “Really it is, there’s nothing you need to say sorry for at all truly. People are allowed to move on, I mean we never even dated. It’s nothing at all, look Marcel’s on his way out let’s get in before the sun goes down”  “I got you a little surprise” Marcel grinned, oblivious to what had just occurred. He smiled and put down the box in his arms “I know you said no gifts but I thought this one would be great for you” With a confused look Maya stood up and  grinned , walking towards the box and opening it slowly, smiling wide as she pulled out a golden doodle puppy “OH MY GOD YOU REMEMBERED !” She quickly kissed the pup and jumped in his arms. For the last 6 months, she had been going on and on about how she was ready for a dog and wanted one so badly yet Marcel seemed off to the idea and kept saying how they were way too much work and not even all that cute. Now she understood why, and her heart swelled in size.   “I searched and searched the entire state of Florida for this little guy” Marcel smiled. “He's about 8 weeks old, and when I saw him I knew he was perfect for you...for us. But he needs a name, any ideas ?”    “Biggie” Maya smiled “As in Biggie Smalls ?” he laughed   “Exactly that.” Marcel smiled as he put his arm around her and pulled her in for a side hug “You, me and Biggie”. He kissed her head as he pet their pup’s head and smiled, though far off and not entirely true it felt as if they were family already. Just them and their puppy, together and happy.   

The rest of the night was enjoyable as she sat and listened to them talk about the big pay per view that was coming up, everyone going on and on about certain feuds and matches. She turned and looked at Marcel who was in mid conversation with Fabian, sending him a wink as she got up and headed inside using the excuse she needed to answer an important phone call. Like clockwork she heard the screen door lock shut and laughed “It’s that easy huh ?”   

“You’re the one who gave me a wink” he answered with a crimson face “I-I assumed, I...I didn’t mean to”   “You assumed right” she grabbed his shirt and pulled him to her as she took them into the guest bathroom “we have 10 minutes max before someone realizes we’re missing so make it last”  

 Without losing any time Marcel lifted her onto the sink and slid off her shorts, rubbing at her core as he licked his lips “fuck you feel so wet already” he whispered getting a moan in response from her

“You talk entirely too much” she kissed him ,leaning her head back against the cabinet mirror gripping the back of his neck with her hands as she bit her lip to keep quiet   

“Fuck Maya” he mumbled as he began thrust in and out “you always feel so fucking good”

She whimpered in response “Baby….Baby please”

“You like that, I know you do” Marcel pumped into her with force, nuzzling his face in her neck as he did his best to keep his moans low, tightening his grip on her hips   

“I...wow” Maya panted as they finished, him still inside of her as she looked into his eyes “You do things to me you know, lots of things”

“And I always will” Marcel grinned as he wiped his forehead and kissed her lips softly “as long as you let me” “You’re so corny, you go out first so no one assumes” she chuckled as she closed the door and fixed her makeup. She opened a drawer to look for a brush, sighing as she picked up her birth control packet that had fallen.“Every time” Maya muttered as she put it away, feeling it slightly heavier than usual and opening the pack. With a shaky breath she slipped the packet out of the sleeve and widened her eyes when she saw 7 days of pills still in their spot, she had missed a whole week of birth control in the last month ***** “Would you just tell me what’s going on ?” Tim asked as he sat on the couch with Emily “it’s been a week and you’ve been quiet, you even missed a day of work which you never do. What on earth can be going on that has you like this ?”   

“Tim…” Emily spoke, her voice small and meek “Please don’t be mad at me, please. I...I went to the doctor for those headaches and fatigue and she-she had me to a blood and urine test and told me....she told me I’m pregnant. I told her it had to be a mistake, I have a patch and we use condoms, but she said it’s only 90% effective and there’s always a possibility especially since my ovaries release eggs during ovulation and well...I’m 9 weeks pregnant” she cried

 His eyes widened as he leaned back into the couch, feeling the air leave his lungs as he tried his absolute hardest to stop from dry heaving. He sat, rubbing his palms on his thighs and nodded over and again trying to convince himself things would be okay.   

“Then you’re pregnant and that’s that, accidents happen” he said softly as he scooted closer to her and held her hand in his sweaty one “Was this what we wanted ? No. But it’s what we’re dealing with and no matter what I’m here for you Em. I...I….I love you”   

“I love you so so much” Emily hugged him as she sniffled “I never ever meant for this to happen Tim, I swear to you. I’m so scared” she sobbed into his shoulder   Tim rubbed her back and sighed “It’s gonna be okay. We’re both adults here and this is something like the doctor said could always happen. I’m with you all this way, no matter what, but I must ask” he sits up and looks at her as he peels away from their hug “D-do you wanna keep this baby ?”

“I do” she whispered “I do, and you don’t need to stay with me. You don’t even need to help I can do this all on my own”   

He gulped taking her words in as he looked in her eyes, begging for her to just push him away and say she wants him out of her life but she didn’t. She wanted to keep this child and no matter what he was gonna stick by her whether he loved her or not. *****

  Maya looked up at Marcel as they waited at the doctors office, nerves eating up at her as she squeezed his hand in her lap. Immediately after everyone had left that day she sat him down and told him she had forgotten to take her birth control for a week and had reminded him they never used condoms. Just like she had assumed he was calm and collected and assured her he’d be with her no matter what and that he loved her. She broke down in tears that night on his lap crying until she passed out from exhaustion, when she woke up she found herself in bed with him. Now here they were one week later waiting to do some tests to get official answers, they had both agreed it’d be best to get answers from a doctor rather than a test at the pharmacy.  

 She stood up as her name was called and walked in with him, doing the usual routine with blood pressure and weight and finally getting her blood drawn and completing a urine test for them. The minutes seemed like hours as she sat in Marcel’s lap for comfort leaning her head over his.

  “I’m scared” Maya whispered looking in his eyes ``What if I am and it ends like…like how it did when I was 20 ?” she finally says

 “It’s different times” Marcel assured “6 years ago you were a kid with lots of stress that caused that to happen, now it’s different. And if you are, nothing bad is gonna happen. And if you aren’t, then we can go from there” he kissed her forehead. More than anything he wanted her to be okay, for them to be okay and just put that past life behind them completely.  

 Maya nodded and pressed her forehead to his, jumping up when she heard the door open and doctor come in

  “A-am I pregnant ?” she whispered quickly

“No” the doctor said softly “You are not, your tests all came back negative, what you do have to look out for is your severe dehydration levels. Other than that you’re in great health, and to be safe I’d stay off sexual activity until you can start a new month of birth control, and please use protection” she grinned

  “Oh my gosh” Maya let out a sigh of relief as she watched his face go back to its normal color “Thank you so so much”

 “It’s your life and your choices miss” she grinned “No matter what, I’m here to guide advice for whatever you need health related.”   

Maya let out a nervous laugh as she held hands with Marcel and walked out of the office, giggling when he spun her around in his arms

  “I love kids and can’t wait to have the, but this just wasn’t the right time” Marcel said softly as he kissed her “But our time will come soon, really soon”

“Sooner than later” she smiled as he set her down and walked down the hall with him, pressing the elevator button. She hummed happily as it dinged, gulping as it opened revealing Tim hand in hand with who she supposed was Emily with a barely there baby bump. She was sure she was gonna pass out had it not been for Marcel’s hand on her back.

  “Hi” Maya said softly, being the first to speak out of the 4 “Long time to no see”   

Tim stood speechless as he stared at her, unintentionally slipping his hand out of Emily’s and putting it in his pants pocket. He could’ve sworn he saw stars at one point from how dazed he felt seeing her in person for the first time in over a year.

“Hey” he finally said in response “um hey, this-this is...this is-”

“Emily” she spoke up quietly

“Emily yes, yes” Tim nodded “Um this is Emily my fiance, Emily this Maya and Marcel my...my…”

“Friends” Marcel grinned “So nice to meet you” he shook her hand gently “and um congratulations of course, what a beautiful thing”

 “Oh thank you” Emily smiled “Just here for our 14 week appointment, making sure all is well. You guys...are you guys expecting too ? Gosh that’s extremely invasive of me, I’m sorry I just assumed since this is the OBGYN side of the hospital and you two are together” she said softly turning red with embarrassment

“Nah you’re good” Maya shook her head “Just had a scare because I forgot to take my pill for a week and apparently the idea of condoms never came to my dumb ass brain that was too busy thinking about getting laid, but no babies in this uterus thank god” she tried to joke much to Tim and Emily’s wide eyes, Marcel being the only one laughing with her 

 “Alright tough crowd” she muttered to herself as she went through the middle of them into the elevator “But I wish you well, babies are super cute and stuff”

Emily grinned at her “You’re the sweetest, thank you ! Maya right ? Were you in a spread in Cosmo last month ? With the neon bikini in the pool for the safe sex while on vacation side ?

  Maya chuckled darkly.  She knew it was a dig, a sad attempt at one at least. “That’s me, that’s definitely me ! Got 20k for that spread, put a downpayment on a home with that shoot. I also did Maxim and got on the cover of that, I’m in Zara as well on a 10 foot poster right as you enter their store, and I just did a Victoria Secret ad that’s gonna be in every single mall in the states and that alone is probably gonna pay off my entire mortgage. You know, I did it once before in college and it paid off all my student loans too” she smiled “Now what is it that you do...M’am ?”

 Tim’s eyes widened as he watched the verbal drag go on, part of him knew he should’ve stepped in but he was too in shock to do a thing. “She’s a teacher” he answered sternly “A high school math teacher”

  “Still have those loans, but I love what I do” Emily nodded “It’s done for the love, not for the money” she hit back

“Aww” Maya put her hands to her heart “I remember when I used to say that too, I wanted to be a teacher so bad when I was teensy” she grinned “Then I realized how all teachers grew up to be nothing but bitter divorcees who thrive on making children’s lives miserable all whilst teaching pointless things like the Pythagorean theorem. Oh wait , that’s you ! My bad, my bad”

Marcel chuckled quietly as he bit the inside of his lip and moved his arm around her waist “We must go now, um congratulations on your child once again. Health and happiness for you both”. He smirked as he closed the elevator door and shook his head

  “Too far ?” Maya asked

“Just enough to piss her off” he answered back with a grin   Maya chuckled and looked down at her heels, trying to hide the disappointed in her face.

[dudeandduchess]

Sanemi x F!S/O: Slow Burn (Modern AU, SFW Scenario)

Summary: Sanemi wants to get married immediately for personal reasons, and it just so happened that a feisty woman at a restaurant caught his eye. Little did he know that she was going to be his future boss— and even knowing that didn’t stop him from wanting to pursue her. Cue (Y/n), whose siblings are all meddlesome and bratty; enough to tell their father that she had a boyfriend, just for laughs. Not wanting to disappoint him with the thought of her living the rest of her life by herself, she sets out to find the perfect fake boyfriend. Note: This was written waaaay back in 2017, but it never saw the light of day. But I rewrote it for Sanemi, and here it is now. This is only the first part, since i initially planned it to be a three-part fic. But, enjoy, bbys. Hopefully I get to writing part 2 soon. It really depends on your feedback. Haha. Words: 6,252

Warnings: This is more OC-insert than reader-insert. Weird kitchen terms will fly. Which is why I want to scrap the idea altogether, but not without sharing it first.

***

Being away from home was always hard; not only did the person that was away miss the people closest to them, but also felt like they were wedging a gap between themselves and all of their loved ones as time went by. The longer someone was away from home, the bigger the gap grew, and the clearer it was to them that life moved on without them in the picture.

It hurt— of course it did— because it felt like everyone that that person left behind had forgotten about them, like they had become insignificant. But life did go on, even for those who had been the ones to leave— still, that didn’t erase their longing for days long past when their world seemed a much smaller, and marginally simpler place.

Almost nine years had passed since (L/n) (Y/n) moved away from her home to pursue her dreams. She wasn’t going to sugar-coat her story and tell people that she struggled financially while studying at Les Roche International in Switzerland for her Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management, nor was she going to lie and say that she got into the New York campus of the Culinary Institute of America after so many setbacks.

She had been, however, downplaying her lifestyle after getting her associate degree for culinary arts at CIA. It was like she was leading a double life that the friends she made, while flitting from kitchen to kitchen, didn’t know about.

At 25, she had moved to Tokyo by herself to work at the city with the most Michelin Stars in the world; and now that she was at the cusp of turning 27, she was still in the same city, and the same restaurant, with the same one Michelin Star award— but she was a chef de partie now, which just meant more work for her.

Her one-year experience spent working in America after culinary school was a walk in the park compared to working for her current restaurant— well, three restaurants, if one were to be technical about things. Back at her old kitchen in the west, there was a full staff— and a very low employee turnover rate; in fact, it was rare to have people quit back there.

But her current place was— most possibly— worse than what everyone imagined when they heard the term ‘hell on Earth’. It was so bad that it was a regular sight to see people on the line quit on the spot, once they were so deep in the shits during service. She could have always left along with the others before her, but she found a perverse sense of joy from surviving in such a toxic workplace.

Not to mention the fact that she got to rub elbows with some of the best chefs from all over the world, when they came in as guests for one of the three restaurants.

The breakdown of the restaurants was the fine dining restaurant (where the Michelin Star was awarded), a gastropub, and a sub-kitchen for the events that they catered— as well as for those guest chefs that came in once a month for an entire week. The restaurant was huge— spanning 14,500 square feet, as well as a having a basement level where all the nitty gritty parts of the kitchen were.

When she first started there, she felt so exposed in the expansive open kitchen, that allowed the guests in the gastropub to see the hot line in the kitchen; while the pastry and garde manger stations were tucked away behind the wall, that separated the kitchen from the fine dining restaurant.

She couldn’t find a perfect way to describe the layout because it was just that big but, basically, the fine dining restaurant was tucked away from all the commotion— and people had to pass through a tunnel of sorts to get there.

While the gastropub housed both an open bar and the open kitchen, the event spaces as well as the sub-kitchen were hidden away at a loft-type space. It was so confusing to get around at first, but she eventually got used to it.

And now here she was, enjoying the last five minutes of peace of her supposed lunch break standing at the sauté station— her new station— and staring at the 22-quart Cambro filled with freshly-made Mornay, that she had almost shouted at one of the sous chefs about.

She was just lucky that she came in three (unpaid) hours early for work, because she wanted to get ahead on her prep; so she had enough time to squeeze in making the mornay with the other hundred things she had to do.

With such a big kitchen and a lack of people, everyone ended up stealing each other’s prep— whether it was for a VIP, or a party, or basically whatever that needed to be made. As long as it was in the walk-in fridge, it was fair game.

She was just happy to finally have been taken out of garde manger because— even if the station was meant for two people since it was prep-heavy (four if you count the two other people needed to take care of the parties)— she had been stuck working it by herself for the past five months.

“(Y/n), did you go on break yet?” The executive sous chef yelled from the pass— which was basically the area where their executive chef stood and expedited food during service; and just behind the pass was the stairs leading down to the basement floor. They also had an elevator, which was extremely helpful… when it wasn’t out of service.

“I am on break, chef,” the (h/c) haired girl answered with a laugh— when she just wanted to punch the guy square in the face, since he was the one who had used up the 14 quarts of Mornay that she had in the upstairs walk-in fridge yesterday.

“You know you shouldn’t be working, right?” The man asked her with a sardonic tilt of his head, that made (Y/n) want to scream. Just because he was higher up in the ranks than her made him think that he was the shit when, in fact, he was just shit— shit at his job, and shit as a person.

I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. She repeated her age-old mantra in her head, and then answered, “I know, chef. I’m-” the apology was about to slip from her lips when she caught it. “It won’t happen again, chef.”

“Make sure it doesn’t.” One of the banes of her existence called out before going down the stairs.

“Oui, chef!” (Y/n) cried, gritting her teeth afterwards, so she could hold back the snarky comeback that was threatening to spill from her lips. Really, she loved her job, but it was pricks like that who stressed her out.

And so, she took a deep breath and exhaled it in one strong gust— refocusing her mind so that she would be ready for the five parties up in the lofts, as well as the 250 covers that they had in the fine dining restaurant.

*** 

“Fire trio!” The executive chef, a 37-year old man from Florida (that used to be fit when he first arrived at the restaurant a year ago), called out from the pass— marking the ticket in his hand and tucking it into the slider bar mounted to the steel shelf that was mounted to the ceiling.

Everyone called out a loud chorus of ‘Oui’ in response.

Trios were there appetizer, and those got sent to the table before anything else, so it was synonymous with ‘another table just sat down’.

(Y/n) kept on making the orders that she had on her board, often moving from her stove to the Josper oven to put sauté pans with food inside. She was running out of burners on the stove, and it was starting to piss her off.

From behind her, the ticket machine whirred to life and started printing out an extremely long ticket. She internally groaned, before picking up one of the sauté pans on her stove and giving the mushrooms in it a little toss.

And all of that was happening while she had another ticket in her hand— memorizing all of her items on it.

“Order in! Four soup, two kale salads on the fly!” Whoever was serving the table on this ticket must have hated her, because she was already in the shits without any orders of their version of vichyssoise. But they just had to recommend the fucking thing now.

“Oui, chef! Four soup on the fly! Give me three minutes, chef!” (Y/n) yelled in a gruff voice— letting her frustration out in a non-hostile manner as she practically threw the pan of mushrooms in her hand, into the Josper behind her to cook them further.

Her brain was buzzing with so many things that she had to remember— the mushrooms in the Josper, the pan of broccolini she put in before the mushrooms, the truffle gnocchi that she still had to make in the next five minutes, and all of the other dishes from her station that needed to be up for the next table.

Sometimes even she amazed herself when she managed to finish a busy night, without getting yelled at even once.

“171 up at 15,” the executive chef yelled once more, and (Y/n) clicked her tongue as she hurriedly heated up the soup, while simultaneously plating her orders on that ticket— since it was already 7:14, so she had only a minute to get that done.

“Where’s my soup!? How long here, chef?”

“One minute, chef!” Her head was pounding with so much stress, but she pushed through it by taking all the food she had for table 171, and parked them beneath the heat lamps at the pass— calling out ‘hot, behind’ frantically at almost the top of her lungs.

“Fuck my life.” (Y/n) grumbled under her breath, as she plated up the dry components for the soup. She then grabbed her quenelle spoon from its secluded bain to make rochers of whipped crème fraîche. And once those were done, she poured the soup into four tiny, ceramic pitchers, before putting everything up at the pass. “Soup at the window, chef!”

No answer came, which was normal, so the (h/c) haired girl kept on cooking whatever was printed out on the new tickets that came in. It wasn’t until she picked up one of the pans on her stove that she froze.

She wanted to scream and let go of the pan because she had forgotten that she had just taken it out from the Josper, yet she couldn’t let it go, because it was filled with the truffle gnocchi. So, she slammed it down on the steel countertop beside her before she waved her right hand around.

There was a nice, clear burn mark where the piping hot steel handle had touched her skin, and she clicked her tongue as she resumed working; trying to ignore the pain as she put up ticket after ticket.

***

Shinazugawa Sanemi had been watching her all night from his table, that was a mere few feet away from where she was working.

The moment that he sat down and turned to watch the show inside the kitchen, his gaze instantly gravitated towards her. She didn’t stick out because she was a woman, no, he was used to seeing women not being forced into gender roles now— but she stuck out because of the way that she moved in there. She held herself with so much poise and grace, that it looked like she was gliding across the floor at times, all while yelling in a brusque tone.

He took a sip of his beer and licked his lips— eyes never leaving her. It was so obvious that she was getting overwhelmed with the influx of orders bombarding her every second, but he was impressed with the way she handled all of that pressure with a mere furrow of her brows here and there; until she burned her hand.

Sanemi expected her to stop the show to ask for help, and he chuckled in mild disbelief when she merely shook her right hand, before picking up where she had left off.  It was as if nothing had happened.

That woman was really something, and his curiosity was piqued.

Sanemi had to admit that he had been lacking female company as of late, because of four things; namely:

He had gotten tired of sleeping with his flings, because they always expected more than one night.

No woman had a personality that kept him interested for longer than a week, as every single one of them had a heart like a marshmallow— too soft and sweet.

No one could put up with his abrasive personality, and most importantly…

He wanted to get married. The sooner, the better.

Part of his desire to get married was because his younger brother, Genya, was already engaged and getting married next year— so he wanted to get another thing over his brother. He had been taught better than to think of a life commitment as a means for a competition, but he simply didn’t care: he wanted to have what his brother always said was unparalleled happiness.

But the more pressing issue was that… he was starting to feel lonely. He didn’t make a habit of getting jealous, but he found himself going green with envy whenever his married staff— both from his previous company and the new one— mentioned even the simplest night with their respective wives. He wanted that for himself as well.

Hell, he was prepared to pay any amount to any woman that could keep up with him, just so she would marry him. But maybe he was doomed to stay single forever— he didn’t know.

So, there he was— out drinking beer by his lonesome self on a Thursday night, because he didn’t want to be alone in his apartment.

He had thought that it was too small for his taste at first but, as time went by, he realized that it felt cold and empty without someone to share it with. After the party was done and all the bottles of alcohol were picked up, he was always left with a cold feeling of emptiness weighing him down.

“Would you like another pint, sir?” One of the waiters asked Sanemi as they were passing by. He didn’t even realize that he’d finished the whole glass.

The silver-haired man shook his head even though he wanted nothing more than to get plastered, so he could just amble home and instantly fall asleep on his bed. “No, thanks. But… could you get me a menu?”

It didn’t take long for the waiter to get back to him with a menu booklet in hand. He briefly thanked the man and browsed through the pages; lifting his eyes up to the (h/c) haired woman every once in a while. Based on what he had observed, the dishes that she was making wasn’t on this menu, so he flagged down another waiter.

“Are you ready to order, sir?”

“I was wondering if I could order some soup to start?” Sanemi asked in a no-nonsense manner, that he hoped would let him order something that clearly wasn’t on the menu for that part of the restaurant.

The waiter cast a glance over at the kitchen, and seemed to hesitate before nodding. “Of course, sir. Our soup is our chef’s version of a vichyssoise-” The young man drowned his voice out then, only half listening as is gaze flitted back to the woman. “Do you have any allergies or specifications?”

“No, no allergies.”

“Would you like anything else to go with your soup? A steak, perhaps? Or our truffle gnocchi; it’s one of our best sellers.”

He vaguely remembered her using truffles, so he found himself nodding in agreement. It didn’t even matter to him that he had no clue what gnocchi was. “Sure. And I’d like to send a glass of red wine to one of the chefs— the finest you have.”

Again, he didn’t know a lick about wines or any of the fancy food that they served. And since he was more of a beer and anything-with-rice kind of guy, who was trying to get her attention, he had to play it up. He did have the money for it, so why not?

“Very well, sir. To which of the chefs would you like me to give your present to?” The waiter asked graciously, and Sanemi pointed over to where the woman was still working.

“To her.”

“Oh, I… uh…” the guy stuttered uncomfortably, hesitating a bit as Sanemi raised his eyebrows at him. “Yes, sir. I’ll give it to (Y/n); may I tell her who it’s from?”

“No. Just tell her that it’s from a new admirer— and that she should get that hand checked.”

***

“Chef, I have tomorrow and the next two days off, okay?” (Y/n) chirped as she popped her head into the chefs’ office, only to see the higher ups filing last minute orders and double-checking inventories for the night. It was always like that every night after service; everyone on the line would clean up in the kitchen— consolidating their mise and storing them in the upstairs walk-in chiller— before scrubbing everything down and doing their own little tasks for their stations.

“Why?” The executive chef asked, turning his chair so that he was facing her. “When did you ask me to give you that off?”

“Two weeks ago, chef. Remember?” She rolled her eyes with a sigh, which she never would have gotten away with during service. But after she was off the clock was a very different story. “I even wrote it down on a blue sticky note— right there!”

The man laughed. “I’m just messing with you. Have fun doing whatever it is that you’re going to do.”

“I wish I could, but I know that it’s going to be boring as fuck.”

“You can always work.” He offered with a grin.

(Y/n) laughed and shook her head. “Nice try, chef. But no. My attendance is a must at this family thing.”

“You’re going home to Osaka?” The sous-chef asked, turning his chair as well, so that he could look at the (h/c) haired girl standing in the doorway.

“No. If only Chef Jason would let me have a week off, right, chef?” She turned to the executive chef— Jason— with an innocent grin. “But alas, he’s going to miss me too much.”

“Your station’s going to crash and burn without you,” Jason griped with a huff.

“You’ll manage, chef. It’s only three days. But please don’t burn through all of my prep. I already stocked up on the things I could stock up on, and the rest of the gnocchi is in the freezer. I also finished doing my prep list. So, I’ll be going now! Bye, chefs!” With a wave, (Y/n) hightailed it out of there before they could tell her to get a jacket on and help them with party prep for tomorrow.

Like hell she was going to let that happen again. Fool her once, shame on her; but fool her twice… then she was dumb as fuck.

Once she made it out of the restaurant, she slowly made her way up the street— thinking about whether she should call an Uber to drive her to her condominium building. It was only three blocks away, but her feet were already killing her.

In the end, she took out her phone and sat down at the nearest bus stop to wait for her ride.

She looked down at her hands under the dim light above her, sighing heavily as she took note of how her cuts and burns stood out starkly against her skin. What once used to be unmarred and flawless— the envy of her friends back in high school— were so different now. Ugly as fuck for everyone else, but for her… “It gives me more character.”

A quiet laugh escaped her lips at that, and she heaved another sigh when she was reminded of what she had to face tomorrow at Nanafumi’s 50th anniversary party. Had it been any of the other companies in the long string of companies under her family’s ownership, she wouldn’t have even bothered to show her face, but since it was her family’s flagship company in Japan, attendance was a must.

Nanafumi was the crowning glory of her father’s empire— and it was the closest to his heart, because it had always been his late wife’s dream to become a big player in the Japanese market. Fifty years later, and the company that she had helped build was still one of the biggest players in the business world.

Along with the news of how the upcoming anniversary was going to be extremely fancy, there were so many talks going around that (Y/n) was the one who was going to be taking over the company. Since it was a food manufacturing company, many people thought that it made sense for her to take over.

But she didn’t want to take over the company; not because she was being rebellious, but because she wasn’t born with her father’s business acumen or her mother’s sharp business mind. Her sharp tongue, yes, but her mind… not so much.

Hell, there were six other siblings of hers to choose from, and all of them were just as qualified as she was to run Nanafumi. She could run it, but she would be running it into the ground.

(Y/n) was shaken from her reverie when a car pulled up in front of her. She checked the plates, and once she confirmed that it was her Uber, she hopped in for the quick trip to her building.

Suffice to say, her living quarters were… more than adequate for one person to live in. It used to be where she and her family lived when they spent month-long vacations in Tokyo, and her dad had given it to her as a present… along with the building itself.

She didn’t want to accept it at first, but she was a reasonable person. Not only was the unit already fully-paid for (which meant no rent to think of), but she also used the profits from the building itself (from the commercial spaces on the first three floors, to the monthly rent that some residential tenants paid) to pay for her own expenses.

She was basically set for life, but she didn’t want to just sit back and be a bum for the rest of her existence. Her mother had raised her better than that.

Even though both of her parents came from old money, they were pretty decent people. They didn’t look down on others, and made her and her siblings know the value of working hard for something you were passionate about. She liked to believe that all seven of them turned out to be well-rounded individuals.

And they were. If only her four older brothers and two younger sisters weren’t batshit crazy.

If she were to be honest, her family was like a pack of wild animals when all of them managed to get together. Everyone was so rowdy (sometimes even herself), but all of that was due to their closeness with each other; not because they fought or anything like that.

Yes, they did fight, but that was only when a good number of them were drunk as fuck.

She was just about ready to collapse when she managed to enter her place, swinging the door shut behind her, as she kicked her kitchen clogs off in the foyer. With a sigh, she walked towards her phone and pressed the button to hear all of her messages.

In this day and age, only her family would still use landline phones, and leave messages on answering machines.

“(Y/n), don’t forget the party tomorrow. It’s at seven.” Her father’s deep voice rang in the cavernous living area, making her smile as he spoke in their native Kansai dialect. “And bring your boyfriend with you— Miko told me that you got one over there? Is he husband material? (Y/n), you’re already 27, it’s time you got married and had kids.”

A loud groan escaped (Y/n)’s lips, as she pressed stop on the machine. She was going to kill Miko— her youngest sister— tomorrow. But tonight, it was time to eat something for her first meal of the day, get showered to get rid of the horrendous kitchen smell, and then get some much-needed sleep.

There was a stigma about people who worked in a kitchen: that they always had time to eat because they had access to so much food, but that was a laughable rumor.

They didn’t even have time to breathe, because they were always so busy doing their prep for the day. The most that she could eat on busy days was a French fry, or maybe a piece of raw tuna, but that was it.

And there was that time, about two weeks ago, that she got a glass of wine in the middle of service. The waiter didn’t say who it was from exactly, only that it was from an admirer— someone that knew about her burning her hand.

It was weird, not to mention creepy, but she took the glass with fervor and raised it up to the dining room— thanking whomever had sent her the alcohol, before downing it.

It certainly wasn’t her most refined moment, but she needed alcohol in her system at that time— and that more than did the trick for her. She had a slight buzz going, which emptied her mind and made her work more efficiently, so whomever it was that sent her that glass of wine had saved her from losing her sanity that day.

The wine kept coming every other day or so for a whole week, until it just stopped. She was bummed at first— because hey, it was free alcohol— until she had almost completely forgotten about it; until that moment.

She grabbed a pack of instant ramen from her cupboard stash, and promptly set out to make it.

Another misconception about chefs was that they always ate the best kinds of food— even at home, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Most chefs— especially those who worked full time in a restaurant— ate junk when they got home. The quicker it cooked, the better.

So all those last-minute aglio olio dreams, that some people imagined that chefs ate at home were just those: dreams.

The irony wasn’t lost on (Y/n), though. She spent her days making some of the best and most expensive food for people, but she always ate like a broke college student at home. Hell, broke college students even had time to order pizza— and she could have done that, if she didn’t get out of work at 11 or 12 at night.

Still, she loved what she did. After all, she also had a little of the crazy gene in her.

 ***

Dresses weren’t really high up on (Y/n)’s list of things that she liked to wear. Not anymore, anyway.

When she was in university, she loved dressing up and putting so much effort into her make up, but when she entered culinary school (where everything that wasn’t an ingredient was a food safety hazard) she let go of all the make-up, and the dresses, as well as the high heels that went with them.

There was one thing that culinary school helped her with, though: her confidence. When before, she had a hard time talking to people and had to force herself to be sociable at parties; after culinary school, she was so used to being the center of attention, because some of her mentors had a knack for yelling at their students in front of the entire class.

Hell, in the restaurant industry, people tended to treat everyone like shit— so she had basically been through a few mortifying situations that toughened her up enough to be somewhat shameless.

A downside to being toughened up by the kitchen was the potty mouth that came with the territory, though. And so, it took quite some effort for (Y/n) to keep herself from slipping a few casual ‘fuck’s, ‘damn’s, ‘shit’s, and a few other choice words into regular conversation, like she was adding salt to a bland dish.

“(Y/n)!” Her second-oldest brothers— twins— chorused as she entered the expansive events hall.

“Hello, motherfuckers,” (Y/n) greeted with a grin, which made a few heads turn to look at her, because of her language. Frankly, she couldn’t care less. She then hugged her brothers tightly and kissed their cheeks. “I haven’t seen you two in forever. How’s life in sunny Australia?”

“Really hot,” Yoshio, the older one of the twins, answered— fanning himself with his hand to emphasize his point.

“Lots of kangaroos,” Ren, the younger one of the two, piped up with a laugh. “Some even find their way on campus.”

“And you didn’t bring one for me? What kind of brothers are you?” (Y/n) asked with a chortle, before making eye contact with Yoshio. He hadn’t been trying to be discreet with his perusal of the faint scars that littered the backs of her hands.

With a brief shake of his head at his twin, Ren vocalized his thoughts, “It’s part of her job, bro. And haven’t you gotten used to seeing them on her already?”

Yoshio didn’t even have time to answer, because he was suddenly tackled in a hug from behind. The same happened to Ren, and (Y/n) just about laughed, only to be cut off when a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around her in a bear hug.

“Akio-nii!” (Y/n) managed to breathe past her lips, and her older brother set her down once more. She whirled around to face him, and was about to hit his chest with the back of her hand, when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed an affectionate kiss to the crown of her head.

Out of all her siblings, she had to admit that she had always been the closest to Akio. They were the closest in age, but that played very little with their closeness. When their mother died a few years after Miko was born, Akio was the one who had doted on her. It was as if herself and her siblings had become self-sufficient once the matriarch of the house was gone.

The twins took care of Miko and Chiasa— which explained why the girls were clinging on to each of their brothers tightly. And while Akio took care of her, their eldest sibling— Masaru— served as their father figure, as their actual father was almost always away on business.

In line of birth order, it was Masaru, Akio, Yoshio and Ren, then her, which was followed by Chiasa, and last came Miko.

People were starting to stare at their sizeable group, but they paid the prying gazes no mind as they all caught up with each other’s lives.

“Where’s your boyfriend, (Y/n)-nee?” Chiasa asked aloud. Her curiosity wasn’t even veiled with any sort of pleasantry. It was plain as day that her younger sister wanted to meet this nonexistent boyfriend that Miko had been talking about.

“Boyfriend? There’s no such person?” (Y/n) answered with a glare at Miko. Her sister frantically shook her head and raised her hands up in mock surrender.

“It wasn’t me. It was Ren-nii that told me about it.” Miko replied in her defense.

All five pairs of eyes swiveled over to the man in question, who only balked before shaking his head. “It was otō-san. He told me you had a boyfriend.”

“But he left a message telling me that it was Miko who told him.” (Y/n) quirked her eyebrows at her sister, and then added, “Miko, tell the truth.”

“It really wasn’t me. I swear!” The youngest (L/n) pleaded earnestly, which made (Y/n) sigh and shake her head in mild irritation.

“(Y/n), there you are.” Masaru’s familiar voice rang out over the din of voices inside the ballroom. And all six of his siblings turned to look at him, as he crossed the room with an envelope in his hand. “Dad wants you to deliver the speech. Just read this. Come on, the program’s already starting.”

Her eldest brother didn’t give her much of a choice after that, as he took her by the wrist and dragged her over to where a stage was set up. She couldn’t even look over her shoulder to see their other siblings’ expressions, since she was too busy trying not to do a face plant on the floor.

It didn’t take long for her and Masaru to reach the side of the stage, where a lady in a pantsuit was waiting rather impatiently. She looked a bit frazzled already, so she didn’t want to add anymore to her stress. She knew what being under so much stress felt like, and she wasn’t going to be the reason why someone had a breakdown.

“I just need to read this, right?” (Y/n) snatched the envelope out of her brother’s hand.

“Yeah,” Masaru answered with a slight smile. He then wrapped his arms around his sister and pressed a kiss to the top of her head; which was an easy feat considering how tall he was. “Dad would do it, but he’s running a bit late. He said that he wants you to do it.”

That just sounded off to (Y/n), but she remained quiet. Now wasn’t the time for protests about taking over the company, or anything like that. If that wasn’t heavy implication coming from her father, then she didn’t know what was.

And with that, the lady with them explained her cues, before practically pushing her up the side stairs of the stage. She listened attentively to the host as he went on about useless drivel concerning the party, and then some of her background information, before finally introducing her to the crowd.

Gingerly, she made her way to the podium that was set up to the right side of the stage, and smiled at the crowd. She couldn’t exactly pick out who to smile at, since the spotlight practically blinded her, but she didn’t dwell on that fact as she opened the envelope and read through the speech that was written inside.

“What the fuck is this?” She whispered to herself, as she quickly skimmed through the contents of the speech. It sounded so impersonal and generic, even to her.

So, with a suppressed sigh of irritation, she folded the speech up and set it down on the podium. She reckoned that anything that came from her mouth would sound more sincere and personal than the drivel that was written in that letter.

“Good evening, everyone. It’s nice to see all of you celebrating with my family and I tonight,” (Y/n) began hesitantly, but eventually gathered up the courage to push through with her sudden change of plans. She just had to remember not to curse, and she would be good. “As all of you may know, Nanafumi was my parents’ dream fifty years ago. It used to be called Mochifumi, as my mother loved mochi very much. But it was changed around nineteen years ago, after my youngest sister was born. That made seven of us, hence Nana in the name, and Fumi— as in Fumiko, our mother.”

From the corner of her eye, (Y/n) saw her father enter through a side entrance by the stage. He even had the gall to grin and offer her two thumbs up, which made her chuckle and shake her head. Her old man had always been a sly one.

He had planned this; down to the shitty, pre-written speech.

***

To say that that speech had taken a lot out of (Y/n) would be the understatement of the century. She felt as if most of her energy was sapped the moment she got off that goddamned stage. And one measly glass of champagne wasn’t going to cut it; which was why she was already on her third one when he came up to her.

“That speech was quite something,” Sanemi hadn’t meant for his words to come out as mocking, but they had, and he already wanted to slap himself. Initially, he was surprised to find out that the lady that he had been so hard-up for at that restaurant was his boss’ boss’ boss’ daughter; but he had gotten over that initial shock and had carefully crafted a plan to get her to go home with him.

Or maybe even make out with him in a supply closet somewhere. Anything to get her to think about him enough to make her interested.

“Thank you, but… do I know you?”

Sanemi had to admit that the comment stung, but he wasn’t going to let that deter him from getting the (h/c) haired woman where he wanted her; preferably in his bed.

[smolbeandrabbles]

Sweet Spot - Danny Rayburn x Reader (Bloodline)

Sway: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6  / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10

All I Want For Christmas / When I See You Smile / Good Woman

@mandy23b​ @wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​ #mendotagsquad

GIF CREDIT: X

Author’s Note: Haha - So, this Midweek is my Sway Anniversary, and to celebrate this, I uhm... came up with an Anniversary fic for your Mendo Midweek-!! 😉

That’s literally all I wrote this for but I hope you can still enjoy it for what it is! 😁

Sweet Spot - Kim Petras ❤

Disclaimer: Bloodline characters not mine / All OCs are from Sway but you don’t necessarily have to know who they all are at all. / lyrics + gifs not mine!

Premise: Danny is always full of surprises - but it’s your anniversary today, and you wanna surprise him. If he doesn’t get too mad with you first!

Words: 2774

Warnings: Swearing / Drinking...sorta. / sexual connotations

____

See you dancin' like you wantin' my attention See you dancin', see you dancin' Now your body's movin' into my direction My direction, my direction

Baby, what you waiting for? You got the green light Don't you hold back no more Let's live our best life Everybody wants to leave here with somebody Everybody, everybody Time of night we start to dip into the candy Give it to me, give it to me

Baby, what you waiting for? You got the green light Don't you hold back no more Let's live our best life

So baby don't stop, don't stop We're getting to the sweet spot, sweet spot Baby it's a sure shot, sure shot We're getting to the sweet spot, sweet spot

I wanna with you, I wanna with you I wanna with you, I wanna with you 

---

Anniversaries weren’t supposed to start with fights; but yours did. You completely understood why, he wanted to spend the day together. It couldn’t happen; unfortunately the reason that Danny was able to spend all of today with you was also the reason that you were able to get away to execute on your plans, or rather, couldn’t stay with him. Danny had shut his restaurant – he could have taken the day off but no, he’d given everyone a break -  that was just the kind of man he was. You had other ideas. He didn’t like this; and whilst you didn’t really expect him to, you thought Danny might be a little more understanding than the argument you now found yourself in the middle of. “Baby, I’m sorry-!” “Are you kidding!? I’m taking the whole day off from work for this--! The restaurant is CLOSED for you!” for us you mean! But you held your tongue, Danny was hurt, but it really wasn’t your fault – as far as he knew! You tried your best, but placating him wasn’t working; “I know-! I know! And you’ve been excited all week but-” “Can’t you just tell them you can’t do it!” “Danny, if I could, then you know I would!” “This is fucking ridiculous! It’s a Saturday.” “At least it’s not travelling…!” That didn’t help things, and Danny scowled before dragging his cigarette packet off the kitchen table and slamming the balcony door closed behind him. What you had told him this morning was that work needed to pull you in on something. The truth? You were about to meet your parents, Nolan, Danny’s best friends (and coworkers!) Javi & Jason, and your best friends Amanda & Evie down at Viva Caputa and decorate for a ‘surprise’ anniversary party. Surprise only for Danny of course. But right now, you’d be lucky to get him out for it. You sighed gently and followed him outside; “Baby…” touching his shoulder delicately you rubbed soothing circles. When Danny didn’t turn to you, you pulled yourself into him. “Baby, I’m so sorry…” His breathing was deep and Danny took at least three drags of his cigarette before he spoke. “I know. I just can’t believe this is happening today.” “Danny, please look at me?” He turned, and gathered you in his arms, brushing your hair back from your face. He was trying his best not to look super pissed, but you supposed he wasn’t really angry with you. “I’m sorry, baby girl, it’s just… It’s not what I wanted.” “Me either, you know that. God, Danny, I wanna be here with you so bad…” You leant up, brushing your lips to his. He chuckled, deepening your kiss, tasting like smoke. “What if you skipped out?” You raised an eyebrow, hoping that he was joking with you. Danny’s smiled faded, “Right. Okay.” You held him closer running a hand through his tangle of curls, “Just stay here, relax, okay? God knows you deserve it. I’ll pick you up later and we’ll go out for dinner.” “At this place you won’t tell me about.” “Why ruin a good surprise?” You realised the double meaning of your sentence and grinned, “I promise it’ll be worth the wait.” He took a double meaning of his own from that; “OH, I’m assured it will be!” You kissed him once more, “I’ll be back soon, I promise.” “Yeah, yeah! Go on! Leave me!” He might have put on a pout, but you were almost positive that he’d be sulking all day. As you waved goodbye part of you wanted to race back to Danny and tell him everything. You couldn’t. For this to work you couldn’t.   *** You’d hidden your dress of choice and a bunch of decorations in the car, and as you pulled into the parking lot everyone was already waiting for you. “Happy Anniversary!” “Oh no!!” You held your hands up, kissing Nolan gently on the cheek as he came over to help you remove the boxes, “Not when my man isn’t here, and NOT when he’s already pissed at me!” “For what!?” Javi raised an eyebrow “Well I’m at work, as far as he knows.” “That’s typically Danny.” Jason scoffed, “He’ll be fully in love by tonight!” “If he’s not, this Anniversary is gonna turn into a funeral-!” “Yours?” You narrowed your eyes at Jason and had half a mind to slap him, considering his amused little smile, instead just shoving a box into his arms; “No. YOURS!” *** Despite Danny not being here, you made sure to keep messaging him every spare moment you had. Danny wasn’t a texter, but keeping him up to date with what you were up to was important. You called him during your lunchbreak only, he seemed pretty fine – and didn’t complain once, which you thought was good of him. But Danny certainly wasn’t in high spirits; hopefully you could change all that quickly. It was a lot of fun, helping everyone else put up decorations. As you did so they all kept shouting random questions at you about your relationship, wanting you to tell stories and talk to your favourite memories. To which they all added running commentaries or their own anecdotes – either on things Danny had said about you when you weren’t around, or, if they’d been a part of any of the situations, their own personal take on it. Towards the end of your decorating Amanda paused and turned back to you, it dawned on her – much as it had your own mind – what exactly this was for, and yet your participation in it. “Wait, shouldn’t we have been doing this for you!?” You shrugged “No. I mean you could have! But, the amount of stupid surprise parties that Danny has thrown me in here?” You pointed around the room, “That all of you were all in on, I 100% need to throw him one this time! Even if it is for our anniversary…” Then you smiled, “Which uhm, reminds me, I guess I best be saying thank you!!”

On the other side of Miami, Danny Rayburn was growing more and more anxious. It was getting later; about the time you should really be getting home, or at least picking him up. Yet he’d heard nothing, not a text or a call. Danny was ready: nice shirt, smart pants, he even had a jacket. He wasn’t exactly sure where you were taking him, but he could guess that you’d like to sweep him across town and into a 5-star restaurant with views of the Pacific. Danny would roll his eyes and say you were paying too much, and you would smile and say he was worth every cent; and he wouldn’t be ungrateful, Danny would surely enjoy every second of your company. Even more so now he’d been bereft of you all day. Now he was pacing, and sure that you wouldn’t make it - at the rate things were going you definitely wouldn’t be on time! – he’d already had a few cigarettes to attempt to calm himself in vain, Danny didn’t dare have another. Alternating between staring at the door and the phone; which one would alert him first? Turned out it was his phone and as he scrambled to pick it up, Danny was disheartened to find it wasn’t even you on the other end of the line, but his head waiter, Javi: “Danny you need to get down to the restaurant there’s a problem.” If it didn’t sound so urgent Danny would have left a longer pause; what else could possibly go wrong today? He didn’t dare ask that question out loud. “You’re fucking with me right!? I’m waiting to go to my anniversary dinner, everything’s already ruined because my girl got dragged off to work. Now there’s something wrong at my restaurant!?” “Danny we need you!! We NEED you!” Javi did his best to sound panicked, “But she… she’s gotta be on her way back by now… I can’t just drive down to ya!” “Y/N left you for the day man, that’s on her! Just get down here!” Javi shot you an apologetic look but you waved him off. All he had to do was get your partner to his destination, it didn’t matter how. Heck, for leaving Danny all day you probably did deserve some slander. Hopefully it’d all be worth the pain. “Okay. Okay. Just, hold on!”  Danny cut the line, sighing, well this was just GREAT. He scribbled a little note to you, hardly believing that after you left him this morning he was now going to have to apologise for this. In the state he was in though, Danny never stopped to ask the question; If everyone was off for the evening, what was Javi doing at the restaurant in the first place? *** Danny couldn’t pull into his parking space fast enough, Javi’s car was the only other one here (you’d all moved yours into a parking garage to keep from ruining the surprise until the last second.) and yet the restaurant didn’t seem occupied at all. “What the hell?” Danny muttered to himself. Locking his car, he sprinted to Viva Caputa’s front door, wrenching it open as soon as he could get the key in. Stepping inside he peered around in the pitch darkness, reaching for the nearest light switch; “Javi, I swear to GOD-” Danny didn’t get a chance to flip them, as the lights were thrown up from the other end of the room. All your collective friends and your family standing there. “SURPRISE!!” Banners and balloons and streamers decorated nearly every surface, and the more culinary skilled of the little group had clearly been busy at home. He quickly noted signature dishes of both your mother’s and Jason’s. Danny’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He just stood in stunned silence and shook his head, before his hands came up to his face and his eyes settled on you. No longer in the clothes you’d left in this morning, you’d changed into a gorgeous dress, standing in the centre of the restaurant with a glass of champagne in your hand; “Happy Anniversary Danny!” His hands came away from his mouth; “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’D PUT ME THROUGH A DAY OF HELL FOR THIS!!” Yet as he laughed and everyone joined in, Danny stepped quickly forwards, throwing his arms around you and pulling you into a tight embrace “THANK YOU!!!” “About time I threw you a surprise party, huh?” “Oh, baby girl…” He placed his forehead to yours, “You didn’t have to!” before kissing you to a room full of cheers. *** Nolan got the music going, a playlist you’d helped him put together, and the party started getting into full flow. Although Danny and yourself were the centre of attention, it was nice to lean back against him as he sat on a bar stool - arm around your waist and drink in his hand - and observe all your friends chatting amongst themselves and having a good time. “Sorry this isn’t the anniversary you expected.” He rubbed his hand over your hip and chuckled; “You don’t need to be sorry, I like this. Right here with the people most important to us...” Danny looked up to you with a smile; “As for this morning, you CAN take me to a 5-star restaurant to make up for it.” You shook your head at his cheekiness, but knew he probably deserved it, as you bent to kiss his forehead, “Okay, baby, it’s a deal!”

With the music up it was no surprise that eventually Danny took your hand and suggested you make your way to the middle of the cleared space. “If you’re gonna stand there in a good dress, and you and Nolan built a playlist, it’d be a shame to waste it!” You couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled you out; “Just be careful, this isn’t a dancefloor in the middle of Little Havana.” “Oh, I think I’ll save that for back home.” You raised your eyebrows, with a small smirk at his suggestion; “That better be a promise, Danny Rayburn.” “Oh, you bet!”

You weren’t sure if shuffle wasn’t working, or the fact that Nolan was smirking and standing relatively close to the music player with Beth, Evie and Amanda had something to do with your realisation that it was slow song after slow song. Probably was your best guess – your friends would certainly love the opportunity to control the playlist. It didn’t matter to either of you; Danny held you strong, one hand in yours and one supporting your waist - everything about it respectful, perhaps even delicate. Danny cared about you more than anything and you knew that; his body close and tight, back sloping to fold into yours; head resting against your own as he spun you slowly around the floor. Every so often you’d catch his smirk as the lights glittered on your ‘D’ pendant - and that look on his face persisted as he continued to hold you. Sometimes you really did love that Danny made it so obvious, and you pushed up against him a little harder just to let him know you knew exactly what he was thinking about. As you did you Danny gave you a little look; ‘I’m trying to be proper here!’ And you laughed, ‘Yeah right!’

 Eventually others joined you, your parents, Jason and his wife, and you and Danny even persuaded Javi to stop making eyes at her from across the room, and go drag Amanda onto the dancefloor. When everyone’s eyes weren’t solely on the two of you, you were able to relax a bit; and his hands fell a little lower on your waist as you looped your arms around his neck. You still gave him your best ‘careful’ warning look, yet Danny’s little cheeky smile let you know that he’d heed your words, but only for a time. If he thought that he was going to get away with it, Danny was absolutely gonna get a little inappropriate tonight. It was your anniversary after all!

 You were in your own little world, that much was for sure. People were aware of what this meant, and let you have these quiet, private moments together - when all that mattered was each other. Danny grazed his lips to your forehead, and cheek before he chuckled: “You know maybe we aught to stop celebrating every special occasion here.” “You’re the one who doesn’t like taking big days off!” You were specifically referring to Valentine’s Day, but Danny’s look was sharp and you laughed, embarrassed. “Today is hardly the day to complain at me for that. Thank you for the surprise, all the same.” “You’re welcome, you deserve it... Happy Anniversary Danny!” He accepted your kiss with a sweet smile; “Happy Anniversary, baby girl...” You looked around at all your friends but none of them were paying attention, all in worlds of their own too; “Maybe we should make this tradition?” “Oh yeah, gone are the days of good meals out, it’s all about hanging at Viva Caputa!” Although his voice was purely sarcastic, Danny couldn’t help that little smile he flashed “Something like that...” You smiled back, kissing him gently again. Then Danny laughed; “I have to say though, considering your antics you’re lucky we got an anniversary at all-!” “Oh what, c’mon! Danny!” “You just wait until we get home, you’re in BIG trouble.” You weren’t sure you trusted the suggestive look on his face, and you tipped you head curiously. Danny however was under no illusions that you weren’t hopeful; “Good trouble?” “VERY good trouble.”

Danny pulled you into his body, and you locked your arms around his neck as he kissed you. That wasn’t a sweet ‘Happy Anniversary’ kiss, and his hands ran way lower than the respectful line of your waist as he kept you as near to him as possible. That only made you smirk into the kiss as he grazed his tongue over your bottom lip. The dancing had paused; and no wonder. You allowed him what he wanted, Danny hummed in approval as sweet and short became fiery, hungry and passionate. You were in half a mind to ask him to abruptly cut your own party and take you back home right now.

You wouldn’t; because this was just Danny’s way of teasing you. Merely a taste of what was in store when you closed your apartment door to the world tonight and the lights were off.

Very good trouble was damn right. And you couldn’t wait.

---

Thank you for reading *possibly* the most self indulgent thing I’ve ever written 😅

[castielartandcomics]

OKAY. THE TIME HAS COME FOR THIS POST TO BE MADE. Even if it will be just a bunch of projects and me talking about them, it’s something I’ve been willing to do since a lot of time, mostly for a bit of self-esteem and to let you know that I’m actually working on stuff.

Since this will be a long post with some pictures, everything is under the cut! >:3

Honestly, I could start with a list of all the reasons why I haven’t been posting much, but the main reasons are low self-esteem and little to no time to do my stuff. School has been killing me slowly in the latest times, so the main reason why I post so little it’s actually academic work, nothing more and nothing less. ... this being said, let’s begin from what is REALLY interesting. >:3c

Gastertale

First of all, YES, I’m still working on Gastertale! And I’m extremly sorry for the long gap between the pages: the next page IS done, I just need to add dialogues, but I still haven’t for the simple reason that I don’t want to publish it only to make you wait other three months for another page. Hopefully soon I’ll return to have a bit of time, and at this point I’ll make pages more often and way better. I’ve improved a lot in this months, and despite there will probably be a little gap of style too between one page and another, I think I’ll be able to give you something more! My objective when I’ll restart to post it is to make at least one page a week and give a bit of a regular schedule, but about regularity it’s something that we’ll have to see (again, academic work). But hey, at least I’ll try to make you wait less than three months for the next page! </3

Plus, to confirm that something IS actually done:

preview, WOHOO!!

Sonic Humanitymorph & Sonic Battle Remastered

Basically. I want to draw more Sonic, and I want to draw him with a purpose. It’s... kind of a long story, but I’ll make it short for you because I don’t want to annoy you with melancholic and dramatic stuff (?). In a few words, I want to build new memories with Sonic and company, since my first memories are... kind of lost. I literally grew up with him, yet I remember little to nothing about his stories and about me in that period, and it’s something that makes me suffer a bit. SO! I’d really love to build new memories and honour a hero I’m really fond to, and I’d love to make this with you all! Since I also noticed that you really like my human!Sonic characters, so-! /)u(\

So, basically, the ideas are: MORE human characters. I still have your suggestions, I simply didn’t have the time to think about them, but I will surely do it! I’d love to make a lot more of the characters, if not all of them! And together with it, also another thing inspired by @slightly-gay-pogohammer‘s adaptation of Rayman “I’m Only Human”, which consist in adaptations of some of my favourite Sonic’s games, but in human form. And with some basic differences of course. I’m already working on it - my idea is of comics (as you could imagine, since I’m writing this on my art blog) but with a “much faster” style that will let me publish pages with a pretty fast rate (gotta go fast). Basically, sketches, and my sketches are very clean so the result should be pretty good. I’m working on Sonic Battle (which name will be Sonic Battle Remastered), which... SOMEHOW is still one of my favourite games of ALL TIMES, but in the list there’s also Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. And for the otheeerrrssss... well. I’m open to suggestions? :3

Rick and Morty: Kattebel

Remember him?

Rick I-T2B2, my personal interpretation of Rick Sanchez. WELP, I made him with a story in mind - and I actually thought of this verse’s versions of Morty, Summer, Jerry and Beth, even if I still haven’t drwan them because, again, freaking academic work. I’m tired, guys. What I have in mind with them is telling the story via comics, but in a slightly different way. I have little images with them, nothing that can be considered a full episode “worth” of a classic comic adaptation, that I think would be pretty cool if done in the simplest way, like a series of images without the need of making a full page. ... I’m not sure if I explained myself correctly, but in two word: SIMPLER STUFF. I’d love to make them, mostly because it’s a little and fun way of exploring this verse and its dinamics more than with just drawings of the characters. After all, I do want to tell you stories, and I should start to actually do it FOR GOOD, even in the simplest of ways! ... despite... yes, I actually have a more complex comic with Rick I-T2B2, about the “origin” of the condition of him and Morty (and by reflection of the whole family). So I think you can expect something bigger here too, despite it will be a MUCH shorter comic!

DEPONIA LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW

[FINGERGUNS] LET’S TALK ABOUT DEPONIA. First objective: actually finish the games. I have them since... a lot, and I still haven’t finished them for-- well, you know by now. An objective is surely to finally play the last two chapters and cry my eyes out, but we’re here for art, so here’s my project with Deponia:

first, drawing it more. Like... a lot more. I have many little ideas for illustrations and many others for little sequences that I think are pretty funny that I’d LOVE to do. I just need to DO THEM. Also, I have a whole lyricstuck in my mind with the Deponia series, and I’d love to make it! Or at least try, I’m not used to lyricstuck. But they’re so good,, Then, I have two projects comic related: one is... little stories. Pretty much it. Something probably of no more than five-ten pages long per story, little missing moments that might be interesting. And angsty, maybe, probably, I’m not sure. The other is... adaptation. Yes, at this point you might have noticed that I love adaptations. It’s just a little idea, but I’ve always found (probably because I’m a comic artist tbh) that the Deponia games would be... really good in comic format. And mostly for training I thought, “hey, I might try some!”. An idea would be of making the whole series as a comic, but I’m not really sure I can do it - but I’m pretty sure I can make little parts of it! It’s a project I had in mind for quite some months by now, and I remembered about it some days ago since I was looking in my folders and...

a WIP was found. Ten points and a biscuit to whoever guesses the scene. This will probably be mostly training, unless things change or something very cool happens. I lowkey dream sometimes that they’ll hire me, but. It’s just a dream. On the other hand, I might open suggestions for scenes to adapt in the games! uvu ... when I’ll finish the games.

Left 4 Dead 2

Am I late?... naaah. You don’t even have idea of how many ideas I have for this fandom, and all in comic form, just to make my life easier. I have no idea of when I might make these, but will probably be sketchy, pencil stuff, and I will enjoy every moment of them. Boy, I love these characters. I want to tell stories with them,

Oxygen Not Included

I HAVE. A STORY IN MIND. And it will be long, angsty, harsh and tragic probably. I don’t have any WIP nor I can tell many details at the moment because,, I guess it would be spoiler? But, it will be an experiment and something that it’ll be interesting for me to try! All that is needed to understand is,, when I’ll be able to make it, honestly-

And for something less comic-y: references

Because I realized I often post sketches, but not actual references of my OCs. I mean fullbodies fully coloured, with palettes and objects and STUFF. It will be a pretty funny thing for me to do, because the versions I’ll give you of my OCs will be slightly different from the “final” version I’ll show you when I’ll be able to tell you their story - because YUP, I’m working on those too, but for now it’s still a very big work in progress, so I’m still not ready to show you stuff. ;3c But basically, an objective of mine is references. Make those darn characters references with nice palettes and cool stuff, so that you’ll actually have,, at least some more infos than a black and white sketch. ... and a good reference in case you want to draw them? I don’t know just,, dreaming a little bit,, I’ll make the references for the OCs I’ve published (so most probably the ones I’ve put and will put more on @mcmentics, because I’ll surely add someone else in there soon), and after making Leda’s reference sheet (because Gio requested him to be the first >:3c) I might put it “to the vote” to decide in which order make all the others. <3 ... or simply go and make them all with the order I want. I don’t know. Let’s see what the future will offer us. <3

And those other projects?

SECRETS (?) But actually, I have told you just the main projects I have. Some (many, actually) I’ll keep as a secret for now, some are just too vague to make a post about it. But, another project is surely to livestream more! Again, I’ll need to see when I’ll have some time, but as for now I’m starting to have some free moments for myself, and I’d love to share them with you! >:3

AAAAND okay, this post got really really long. </3 Sorry, I thought I would have been much faster, but I had so much to say, haha- I’m sorry if something isn’t explained very good, I’m a bit tired after waking up at 5am for academy (and it’s 10.30pm now so,,), but in case something interests you and you wish more infos, my inbox is always open!! <3

Have a wonderful day/afternoon/evening for now, and hopefully,, I’ll start to make something BIG soon! :D Thank you for reading! <3

[hdawg1995]

Chapter two, this time with the P4 cast!

The Cognitive net; a Persona 4 and Persona 5 cross over fanfic with OCs. Summary:

When a string of missing persons cases all seem to be linked by a far too familiar rumor, detective shirogane tries to enlist the help of her old investigation team. Unfortunately, not all of the original members are able to make it to shibuya-the sight of the latest case- but she finds help from an unexpected hacker and her friends. Elsewhere, a small team of brand new persona users have already figured out the “cognitive web” and it’s strange search engine. Will detective Shirogane and the hacker Alibaba discover the new group of heroes in time to realize this case is not city wide, but WORLD wide?

Chapter 2: one new message/a run down for the newbie

1/2/3/4/5

If the walls of Detective Shirogane’s office could speak, they would have very little to say but those words would be astonishing. 45 cases- murders, kidnappings, petty crimes and robberies- in the two years she returned to the force alone. The bluenette was diligently looking over the latest case files; missing persons cases that were handed to her not because they were another case to solve, but because SHE could possibly be the only one to solve them.

“5 people have gone missing in the past three weeks. The first went missing at 8am while in their own home. His mother reported him missing after she came to check on him. He had been playing video games…” she flipped to the other file. “This one went missing in the middle of school, the only thing the police were able to find was her cell phone…” Naoto stared at the file and made a note to make a request to look at the phone. She shifted though the other files and saw a pattern with those who went missing and leaving their phones behind. The 3 phones that were not locked led to a website and all apps aside from the web browser were locked.

There was something about these cases she couldn’t shake. They felt familiar and it sent a rock like weight down to her stomach.

“I need a second opinion… maybe a third.” She fiddled with the brim of her hat and reached for her cell phone. It has been a long time, least to her.

Opening the phone, she found the old text chat she had been added to the day it seemed everyone became adults and parted ways.

<Thisll b how we stay in toch!

<Yosuke please type like a normal person.

<yu, plz stp txtin lk a old man.

She laughed at the interaction between the two partners. Scrolling though the old chat she felt a wave of nostalgia. It was bitter sweet- she missed the old times and the silly things they would do, but all that changed a year and a few months ago. That was the last she talked to any of her old friends from Inaba.

>Hello Everyone. It Has Been A Long Time. I Wish I Was Contacting You All With Happy News Or Questions About Your Lives But I Have Been Given A Case And I Request Your Opinions On It.

She stared at her phone for a few moments. She did not expect the almost instant “many people are typing” notification and gasped when her phone buzzed with text messages.

<Naoto kun! I will be happy to help you! I’m taking a break from performing, so I’m all ears!

<Holy shit shes not texting in all caps!

>My Word Yosuke, You’re Texting In Full Words!

The chat grew abuzz with laughter and the nostalgia was fading. The truth was she didn’t have to stay in the past; her friends were right here, even if they were miles away.

<Naoto, I’m happy you remembered this chat but out of all the cases “The Returning Prince of justice” has solved, what makes this one special enough to ask for our assistance?

Senpai. Even in text form she was able to hear that suspicious tone he had when he knew she was avoiding something.

<oh man I’m not dreaming! This chat IS active again!

<whoa, Kanji! You’re not getting long distance charges are you?

<oh my that’s right! you’re in America!

<nah, don’t worry yukiko, i get free texts from japan since ma checks in with me. wait, Yosuke how did you know I would have been getting long distance charges?? What about you? Weren’t you in America as well?

The detective blinked down at her phone with shock. So much has happened she was almost floored. She made a note to speak with her friends more often.

<haha yeah. About that…

<guys! I love you all but I don’t have long for my break! Naoto still needs to explain why she is coming to us for this case!

>Yes, My Apologies. It Would Seem There Has Been A String Of Missing Persons Cases, Three Of Which I Have Noticed A Trend That My Gut Is Telling Me The Other Two Cases Will Also Exhibit Once I Investigate The Crime Scene Of One Case.

<I heard of this. Nanako mentioned it to me the other day. one of her class mates’s older siblings knew the 3rd victim.

<How is nana-chan, Yu san?

<focus yukiko! I heard about these too. My teacher at the training camp is working on the case with you Naoto!

>Does That Mean You Are In Shibuya, Chie?

The detective sat up strait in her chair. She reached for a note pad and pen when her phone buzzed, Chie confirming her location and adding she would be visiting the district her office is in with said teacher (he had planned to surprise her she guessed, but the cat is out of the bag now).

<hey I know! Lets all meet up!

<yukiko, what about the Inn? And Kanji is in America. Plus Rise is on tour!

<my Tour is ending soon Yosuke kun!

<WHAT? But I didn’t get to see you on stage yet!

<I’m sorry, the last 3 stops had to cancel due to

>Rise?

<I just realized! The last 3 stops had to cancel because the kids of the venue owners went missing! oh no Naoto kun I think I know why you want our opinions! Is it because they went missing like people from the midnight channel went missing?

Naoto smiled grimly at her phone. Rise may have been a bubbly idol but she wasn’t dumb like morooka had implied she was (least that’s what one of Yoskue’s stories about the former home room teacher suggested).

>Yes. I Am Afraid There Seems To Be A Connection To The Victims That Feels Far Too Familiar To That Of The Midnight Channle.

<Holy shit.

<Naoto you said you were in Shibuya?

>Yes, That Is Where My Office Has Been For Two Years Now, Yu San.

<I can be there in a few days to discuss things face to face.

<I will not be joining. Yosuke kun is right, I can not leave the Inn. Not yet at least. If the case hasn’t been solved in a month I will be joining you! But I certainly hope you will be able to solve this soon. Those poor parents must me worried sick.

<I can swing by in two weeks, Naoto kun! And my break is over, love you everyone! Tty real soon!

<Count me out. Unfortunately I’m in America for the next year. I havn’t told you guys this, but I got invited to do a run way show a few months back and one of the companies loved my designs so much they offered me an internship.

<Kanji that’s amazing! You HAVE to make me an outfit some time!

<Rise go, you’re going to be late. As for me you know I will be there!

<sorry, I can’t swing the train ticket or plane ticket or… anything like that right now.

>Do You Need Me To Send You The Money? This Counts As Case Related So I Can Use The Funds The Department Has Granted Me.

<its not just that Naoto. I actually have to get going anyway, customer needs me. I Will explain another time.

<wow. Since when has yosuke been responsible?

<Chie have you never noticed his dedication?

<OF COURSE I HAVE! Its just. I don’t remember him putting anything before us. Shoot, he even let me buy teddie’s outfit with his money!

<hes an adult now. As we all have noticed we can’t put our friends first all the time anymore. As sad as that is, I am proud to see he is still dedicated to his work.

Naoto nodded at Yu’s words. She felt better about not speaking to anyone in such a long time and decided to make the notes she was beginning to make. First, to make arrangements for three of her friends to be a part of the case, and second… to visit the first victim’s home and investigate his computer.

“I certainly believe you are right Yukiko. Lets both hope we are able to solve this case before the Calvary is needed.”

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

meanwhile, in the world wide cognitive web, The Admins stood around, waiting on their leader. 

With a wave of her hand a blue room appeared. It was a box and it fit with the other random structures in the cognitive web. A door appeared with the number 5 on it. as everyone filed in Alpha paused and looked out at the ninja that was watching them a moment ago. Sure enough, he was still there, still watching, however now he looked ready to spring away into the artificial night the web was simulating.

“Alpha? [what are you doing?]” the rabbit poked its head out of the litteral chat room to become it’s partner inside.

She didn’t respond, she simply walked inside. Once the door was closed the 5 glowed for a moment before shifting to a 6. On the inside two couches and a coffee table appeared. J4k3 and Skitty took the one to the left while Click sat at the one at the back of the table. Alpha stood at the front and opened a text chat.

“whats with that? Were all here.” Skitty leaned forward and clawed at the table, testing the cutesy paws that appeared when she wasn’t thinking.

“that sillouete we all saw is Hero. He is a unofficial member of the Admins.” The toy rabbit leaped onto Alpha’s sholder as she moved the chat box to be at her right. “Alpha is allowing him to listen in if he wishes.”

“we figure hes mute since he doesn’t talk to us, but he has messaged us once. Is that what the chat is for? Incase he has something to say?” J4k3 gently took Skitty’s…paw? Hand? Into his to keep her from clawing the table any further.

With a nod their leader presented the group with the IP address she was able to trace.

“okay everyone! Since this is Skitty’s first meeting lets give a run down!” the rabbit hopped down onto the table and pulled up various floating documents. “our first rescue was ClickClickBoom, Alpha’s right hand man! He was support until I entered the web!” the star arcana explained as they puffed out their chest. “now I am support. I scan shadows and tell you their weaknesses.”

“shadows, Nyan?” Skitty tilted her head and click rolled his eyes.

“I’ll explain what shadows are if you agree to stop with the nyan stuff.”

“aww you’re no fun… but fine.” She purred as she leaned back in her seat and gave the youngest her full attention.

“Shadows are the manifestations of human hearts. There like personas, but bad. Your shadow can be your suppressed emotions, your over inflated ego, or even your inner darkness. They are always exaggerated tho.”

Skitty nodded “you explained that when I got Leomund. So all shadows are like that? Not just the ones that drag their other halves here?” the Magician turned from The Lovers and regarded the Fool, who simply nodded.

“Yup! They all have weaknesses, which means you also have weaknesses! We’ll figure those out later. Anyway, back to the meeting!” the rabbit sprang up and landed on a floating document.

“we have discovered that we have about a week to rescue someone. When you are dragged here you become data. Your shadow however starts to corrupt your data; if you become corrupted, your body can’t return to reality.” The air became somber as J4k3 leaned back.

“but even then we don’t know why some people can return and others can’t.” the Emperor reached out and tapped a floating file. The image of a chibi girl appeared. She smiled at the Admins and waved.

“This is Hallie. She was the team’s first rescue after me-“

“Rescue mission five!”

“-but like Gerade she became a data card instead of returning to reality.”

Hallie frowned and bowed her head. The robot reached out and hesitantly gave her a pat on the head. it wasn’t anyone’s fault she was like this.

“wait, so even if we save people they just become those cute tamagchi things? then whats the point!”

“its better then them becoming corrupted data.” Side Kick jumped up and flipped Hallie’s data card. “see? All of Hallie is right here. She is healthy and stable. She can return to reality once we figure out how to open her data card!”

The room felt warmer as click stood. “that’s our second job as Admins. We HAVE to figure out how to open the data cards and safely return the victims to reality.”

Alpha nodded and glanced at the text chat. there was a notification that a 6th persona had joined the chat room. She turned to the rest of her team. “Normally we have to trace the IP address that was used to access Cogntive.net, and then find a entry point. This takes a few days. At most 3. After that we track down the dungeon.” Alpha reached out and a map appeared. “These are the 9 dungeons we have found.” she grew silent to let Skitty look over the map when a block of pixels shifted to reveal a 11th dungeon. There was a ping and the Admins looked to the text chat to find a message.

Hero> I found a dungeon while you all were out. It was the “false alarm” you dismissed. I did not know dealing with the situation myself would affect the algorithm.

“Dude… you found a dungeon, took down a shadow, AND rescued someone in the span of a few minutes? That’s crazy!” J4k3 stood up to get a better view of the map.

“Hero, was the person… are they a data card?” Skitty also stood to look at the map better. There was another ping.

Hero> no, they will be assisting me. They insisted on it. You have two people on your side now.

Alpha nodded and went back to the map. “Any dungeon we encounter will become part of this map. However this is not a map of the cognitive web. The web is constantly changing. But when a new dungeon appears it rarely takes a day to travel to.”

Skitty blinked and her cat ears twitched. “you said “normally”. Does that mean this case is different? Is it going to be easier to find the dungeon?”

“yup!” click stood up and slammed his foot on the table, a wall of binary coming up. “since the victim used a public wi-fi we can just enter the IP address into the search engine and we’ll be teleported there! Public wi-fi isn’t password protected, that’s why you always gatta be careful when you’re using it, ya dig?” the motioned at the binary as it formed the cognitive net search engine, the IP already in the search bar.

“If we are ready, we can head out right now to save yuki mishima!” Side kick stated as the other gave their own affirmatives.

“one more thing!” Alpha stated as the chat room became barren again. “time is different here, Skitty. Don’t worry about things taking a week. Once we are in the dungeon it will feel like we’ve been in there for days, but in reality it had only been a few minutes.” She placed a hand on the cat themed idol’s shoulder. “are you ready to put your talents to good use?”

With a chestier grin she gave her leader a firm nod and The Admins were teleported away.

[thejokersenigma]

Joker x OC - Strictly Business Part 1

Hi guys, so this was a request I was given at the beginning of the week:

Hi there! I have a request if you don't mind ;) How about Joker got obsessed with a married woman? I'm just dying to see what he's going to do. I don't want to limit your imagination, but still a little application... I just see that marriage was more like marriage of convenience in a good way. Maybe this woman and her husband are like business partners too.

There were a few particular they wanted, but that would make this a long post (longer than usual) so I'll leave it at that!

After beginning to write this I figured it would be better as a 2-3 part piece, and as the Anon didn't specify if this was suppose to be a oneshot or not I've decided to spilt it up (otherwise it would be huge because I'm really bad at writing small pieces of work! haha

Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

Thank you to the Anon for the asking for the request - I hope it's what you were after - let me know if it's not and I can try again!

Masterlist

Strictly Business MASTERLIST

  I shuffled together the mass of papers that were splayed out over the expanse of my desk, shoving them into a neater pile and tapping them on the flat surface until they were inline, then placed them to the side of me.

I straightened up, hyperextending my back and feeling the ache ring through my muscles – maybe I ought to take up Yoga again – hunching over a desk wasn’t helping my posture or my back.

I pushed myself to my feet, the sun already beginning to fade behind the skyscrapers that filled the view from my large office window. It was getting late and I needed to get going.

I picked up my now-uniform pile of papers and nestled them into the crook of my arm, moving around my desk and heading for the door, grabbing my handbag and coat from the hook on the back of the door.

I locked the office up behind me, dropping the keys into the expanse of my back, before straightening myself out and walking the brief distance across the open floor of offices to the only other room as large as mine on this floor - and the entire building – my husband’s.

I knocked smartly on his door, pausing only a moment before I heard the faint acceptance into the room and I pushed the door open.

Though the room was as large as mine, it was decorated completely differently. Whilst mine took on a more modern look and was decorated to look sleek with its metals and sharp edges, Mathew’s took a more traditional, old-fashion design of dark wooden furniture and dim lighting – as close to a hunting lodge as he could get.

My eyes met my husband’s first when I walked into the room, he sat behind the large dark oak desk, his attention momentarily diverted from the folder in front of him. I gave him a small smile of greeting before turning my attention to his visitors who sat on matching dark leather armchairs on the opposite side. I nodded to them in greeting and they returned warm welcomes, knowing full well who I was.

“My apologies, gentlemen.” I said quickly, striding past them to my husband, who stood up to greet me. “Just some last-minute paperwork before I get ready for the gala tonight.” I explained handing the papers over to Mathews waiting hand.

“Off already?” He asked, surprised.

Ah Mathew – always the one to burn the midnight oil.

“It’s already getting dark.” I pointed, knowing full well he probably hadn’t looked at the time for at least 3 hours – too busy wrapped up in meetings or papers to ever look around his environment. He could work in the sewer and not care as long as the work kept coming in – it made me wonder why he’d bothered with such a nice office space. “Besides, I have to make sure everything is running smoothly,” I said, with a smile at the men sat across from me then smile in agreement, “and then I have to get ready myself – not all of us can just throw on a suit and turn up.” I added with a wink in the direction of the other men who chortled at my teasing.

“Fine, fine.” Mathew brushed me off with a slight hand gesture, too busy for my gentle ribbing right now and already flicking through the papers I had given him, his mind quickly becoming lost in them. “I’ll see you this evening then?” He asked, but I could tell he was already lost in the documents, so I gave him a small nod and headed for the door. “St. George’s?” Mathew suddenly called out to me and I turned to see him looking at me. I nodded again – his memory for things other than work rather poor. “Tonight then.” He said, half to himself, immediately re-immersing into his reading. over the corner of the dark wood desk to.

I gave a small smile to the other men and left the room.

I spent the rest of my evening darting around the venue for the gala later that night, checking the alcohol had arrived, the servers present, the decorations in place and any other little problem that was handed to me. It was a bit later than I hoped that I finally headed back to my flat. I spent the last few hours getting myself dolled up and ready to host, whilst also answering the phone that continued to ring for my attention – I never stopped working.

Work ruled my life now. It hadn’t always. I used to be young and foolish, carefree like many others in their 20’s. But then reality had hit me at 21 when I lost both my parents and soon found myself without any money. That had been a cold hard slap in the face at a time where I was used to having spare cash to throw around as I pleased. Suddenly I was forced to work to survive and I could no longer afford to be frivolous or waste my time on anything but improving my prospects.

But now I was better off than I had ever been – I made more money than anyone in my family had ever done, thanks to now owning one of the largest business in Gotham, rivalled only really now by Wayne Enterprises.

Yet I still worked constantly.

There had been a time when I was taunted by my colleagues for never 'letting my hair down', but I had simply regarded them as childish, they didn’t know me – no one really did, I had no friends left from the tie before my parent’s death – and no one could understand what my work meant to me.

I think I found enjoyment in it. In my work.

Before it had been a way to get money, to survive and then to be comfortable, and then secure.

Then it had become a coping mechanism to deal with the tragedy in my life, I had kept myself buried in the work load from the start to keep my mind busy on anything but what I had lost.

Now it thrilled me – the tense waiting for a deal to come through, the rush when you pulled off the biggest merger, the power of manipulation of those who hadn’t been in the game long enough to realise they could be so easily swayed by a few choice words.

It kept me going.

If I didn’t have my work - if I stopped for even a moment – I would surely collapse under the weight of everything I had been putting off for so long.

 After applying the last touch to my makeup I grabbed my clutch and shrugged a thin shawl over my shoulders, before I headed out into the night. I hailed a cab and sat silently in the back, tapping away at my phone and relishing in the peace behind I had to endure a night of socialising.

 I wasn’t a huge people person. I dealt with them because I had to, not because I wanted to - If I could have it my way it would be just my job and me, no one else. Not even Mathew.

Maybe that was why I didn’t mind manipulating and conning people the way I did, and maybe that was why I didn’t care that I never went out, my social life only comprising events like tonight - which was really just another night of working for me. After all, it was events like tonight where all the huge deals were make - there was at least one merger that hung in the balance this evening.

So that’s how I tricked myself into putting up with these things – it was just a large, slightly oddly laid out, meeting room, full of people to be seduced and persuaded into giving me their money and their businesses.

My problem was, few other people saw it like this.

And that’s how I ended up where I currently was.

I had entered the large venue room relatively late for the hostess and worked my way around a few of the groups of businessmen and socialites, chatting away where necessary, laying the foundation for further, more serious talks later. Eventually I had found my husband on the other side of the room, already engaged in a deep conversation with a couple of Bruce Wayne’s employees.

I had strode up to them, greeting the group of men warmly. Mathew had given me a small peck on the cheek – the obligatory mark of a man greeting the woman he was lawfully wedded to – no romance and little tenderness in the gesture, simply something to keep up the show of our relationship.

I had stood with them for a while, happily chatting about the ever elusive Mr. Wayne and how their company fared with the recent drop in certain stocks and rises in other areas, both of the sides staying just as closed up and carefully as the other.

If I could stay speaking to the men all night like this, these evenings were generally fine – all of us enjoying the discussions of numbers and profits. However, all too often I was singled out by my gender and driven over to the other women in the room – the businessman’s wives.

These ladies had no idea what a profit margin was or the difference between fixed and variable costs and instead insisted on talking about their family lives and the gossip amongst the rest of their little group.

My problem was, I didn’t care that Junior had just started walking, or Mary had just made it to high school, I didn’t care that Mark had just proposed to Sue or that James seemed bored of Kim. I had no interest in children – other peoples or my own – and I didn’t care about romantic partners – despite marrying Mathew.

But that had never been romantic – it had never been for ‘love’.

When I was younger my parents had always pushed that they wanted me married, and I had fallen for everything a young naïve child does about love at first sight and the hopes of being swept off my feet by a handsome stranger across the room.

Of course, that had gone with the rest of my foolishness after my parents had passed, but the question of marriage never seemed to leave the conversation - in fact, as I got older, the question of my single-hood became more and more repetitive.

That was about the time I had met Mathew. He had been in charge of a company of similar size to my own and we had been on the war path for quite some time - always trying to outdo one another. I had seen nothing there but two businesses fighting it out to be on the top.

Mathew had not.

After a particularly heated meeting between our two sides he had pulled me aside and waved a white flag, asking me to drinks that evening. I had seen it as a chance to ply him with alcohol and get some information from him and had accepted.

Information was not what I got however. I got a marriage proposal.

I thought it had been ridiculous at the time  – a simple whim from the man after too many whiskeys. But - ever being a business woman - I had not turned him down straight away. I let the offer linger.

The next few days I had considered my options, planned and reworked every outcome possible from the different sides of this ‘deal’ as I called it. I couldn’t see a reason not to say yes – if he agreed to my conditions.

And so, we had struck a deal. Our companies would merge, both of us would be joint, equal partners with it, and I would marry him - thereby removing the pressure of society off my back.

I never truly understood what he got from it – had he wanted the companies merged? Surely there was another way around other than marrying me? Had he ‘loved’ me? I was never sure and I still wasn’t sure of anything but that he definitely didn’t ‘love’ me anymore.

“So, any sign of children on the horizon for you, Leah?” The voice forced me to focus back in on the conversation around me as the 3 elegantly dressed women in front of me chattered away. This was the new repetitive question to replace that of marriage.

For the millionth time I shook my head, “We’re both so busy people.” I explained, “We don’t think it would be fair.”

“Me and Harvey thought that initially, but our nanny is perfect!” Explained the tall, stick thin woman to my right. I nodded and smiled as the conversation now switched to everyone’s current or previous nanny and nursery services.

I downed my glass and excused myself for a new drink, making my way over to one of the many small tables laid out with refreshments, in case the servers were busy elsewhere. I grabbed a fresh glass of champagne and found myself stood by the entrance to the vast room, hidden away from the pressing crowd behind a pillar.

I sipped at my drink, watching the tendrils of bubbles swirl and waltz in my champagne, as I recuperated from the suffocating mass of bodies.

A movement to my right caught my eye and I turned my head to see a man walking through the large double door entrance way to the room. He wore a tuxedo that fitted his frame perfectly, with no tie or bowtie and the top few buttons of his shirt undone to leave the muscles around his neck clearly visible. He carried a cane with him, occasionally using it, but mainly swinging it at his side in his white gloved hands.

This is in itself was unusual, but was not what initially caught my eyes. No, my eyes had been dragged by his long vibrant green hair that was slicked neatly back in place and the bright red lips that were only emphasised by his very pale, almost alabaster skin.

I couldn’t seem to look away from him, I was too intrigued by his appearance and the power he seemed to just exude as he stood there surveying the room. There was something very odd about him and I was certain he couldn’t have been on the guest list – so how did he get in?

He looked almost bored as he glared out into the room. He held himself different from anyone else, with a vast amount of self-confidence that suggested he was far more important than any of the other millionaires in the room and he seemed to be almost assessing the room, like a lion assessing a herd of prey. The look in his eyes made me shiver.

The movement seemed to catch his eye and his gaze darted straight to mine. I was used to people trying to stare me down to intimidate me - and I was good at holding my own -but the intensity of the look he gave me seemed to burn my eyes and the itch to drop my gaze was agonizing.

He started to step toward me, and even his walk was different, it was precise and graceful and it felt like he was stalking me. It was only as he got closer that his appearance became stranger, he didn’t have any eyebrows, and there was a ‘Damaged’ written in cursive on his forehead and a small J under his left eye.

“Well hello there...” He growled, eyeing me up and down, swinging his cane as he approached. “Aren’t you… Beautiful…” He snarled, his voice sounding sinful and - though I scowled at his vulgarity - I wasn’t nearly as disgusted as I should have been, instead I could feel my temperature rise by a few degrees. He held my gaze a bit longer, the icy blue seeming to trap me.

“Why don’t you be a doll, doll, and go get the man in charge.” He purred at me, breaking the eye contact off and surveying the crowded room.

"You’re looking at her, doll.” I mimicked, not amused by his patronising comment.

He raised his invisible eyebrows at me, “Hmm,” The pale man seemed to consider me with interest, “Fiery little cracker aren't ya, doll?” He asked, stepping closer towards me with a sneer on his face. I read the power play in his movements, many a man having tried this on me before - even Matt had attempt it when we first met. I stood my ground, reminding myself repeatedly that I could have this man thrown out of here easily – though I would prefer not to make a scene.

“No, sir.” I replied firmly, not amused by his childish mocking, “ I am just a woman hosting an important business gala with a very strict guest list. And I am certain that no child entertainers were required.” I told him sternly, eyeing him up and down with a look of distaste - though I had to admit some of it was forced - the sight in front of me not wholly unappealing.

The man’s upper lip curled at my comment, “Oh I can show you entertainment doll,” He purred threateningly, stepping even closer.

“Another step, and security will be in this room in less than 2 seconds, I guarantee it.” I warned him fiercely, standing tall and confident in my heels, determined now not give in under his intense blue stare.

He didn’t come any closer, but he also didn’t retreat, he just stood, a wide grin now stretching across his face and showing metal caps on the visible teeth, the shiny surface glinting in the overhead lights.

“So, tell me doll…” He growled lowly, placing his cane in front of him and leaning over on it so he came closer to me without taking a step, I scowled at him. “Who are you?”

“Who are you, and why are you here?” I asked instead, not willing to play his little game.

He grinned at me, “You don’t watch a lot of news do ya, doll?” He asked, a knowing gleam in his eyes that I didn’t like. I scowled at him moodily, “jeez doll, are you always this grumpy? He asked with a hint of mocking in his tone. “Won’t give without a take, hmm?” he asked with a tilt of his head, “Alright doll, first you, then me.”

I stared at him coldly, still refusing to be ordered around by this unusual man.

“Fine!” He moaned dramatically, exaggerating his eyes roll at my stubbornness. “I'll start.” He said, “I'm here to rob the place.”

At first, I thought this was just more of his seemingly twisted humour, but he sounded so serious…

“I'm calling security.” I stated, no longer wanting to put up with this strange man, and I made to move past him, heading towards the  service phone I knew was out in the hallway.

“Ah ah ah, doll.” He tutted at me, swinging his arm out to catch me as I strode past him. He was stronger than his thin, chiselled face led me to believe and I could feel the muscles in his arm flex under his jacket as he wrestled me backwards. One step back from me was all he needed and he swiftly pulled his arm back, now pushing a sharp point into my stomach. I gasped, tensing my stomach, trying to withdraw it from the point, but too scared what he might do if I moved. “Don't be such a tattle tale,” He sang playfully in my ear and then placed more pressure on the knife, the point digging through my dress and into my skin. I was forced to step backwards, and he only eased up when I was back to my original position.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” I demanded, though keeping my voice low to avoid making a huge scene over something I hoped I could handle.

He held up a finger to me, gesturing for me to wait, then, keeping the knife against my stomach, he used his other hand to dig into his jacket pocket to pull out a playing card which he handed over to me face down.

I took it wordlessly, wondering if he suddenly wanted to perform a magic trick. I frowned at him confused and turned the card over to reveal a joker.

I shook my head in confusion, “I don’t –“ I began, when I suddenly remembered. It was true, I didn’t watch a lot of local news, especially if nothing to do with stock markets – I didn’t have the time, I usually had someone else just produce a summary for me of all the daily costs and profits that would come in due to local occurrences – but I had heard the name Joker. An escape of Arkham Asylum and a crime lord on the streets of Gotham.

Was it time to get someone’s attention now? Should I scream?

Suddenly there was a finger inches away from my face, “Not a word doll.” He purred, pressing the knife harder into my stomach and I gasped.

“You're going to rob this place on your own?” I scoffed through the pain, trying to keep my cool, even if I was at knife point.

"Never underestimate a man without a plan!” He grinned sadistically at me and I could see the true sick and twisted nature in his eyes.

“Now doll…” He snarled dangerously, “Shall we continue?” He asked, his voice suddenly sickly sweet and painfully pleasant, “What is your name and what is it you do?”

I swallowed, trying not to move my stomach against the weapon too much. I was truly afraid for my life now, the truth of my situation only too clear now. “My name is Leah. I'm a partner of INK.” I quoted out as the knife bit into my skin.

“Wow, doll. A real successful business woman.” He seemed impressed, “Who are the other partners?” He asked, pushing even harder on the knife.

“Just my husband.” I gasped, scrunching my eyes closed at the pain, the pressure forcing me to bend over slightly.

He retracted the knife slightly, giving me a small amount of relief, “Your husband, hmm?” He asked, as though generally intrigued, “And where is he?”

I didn’t know why the psychotic clown wanted to know and I definitely didn’t want to answer – I wouldn’t sell out my husband to this criminal clown, but I also knew I was about to be skewered with a knife if I didn’t tell him. “Whatever you want with him you can take up with me!” I told him fiercely.

“Brave, doll, I see.” He muttered, nodding, “But that wasn’t an answer to the question, was it?”He snarled, “So, I’ll ask again,” He said, a fierceness in his voice this time that made me cower until his gaze, “Where. Is. He?”

I swallowed again, trying to embrace the pain like I knew some people were able to. I continued to refuse to answer, staring at him in a stubborn silence, fighting against the tears of pain that were threatening in the corners of my eyes.

“Come on now, doll.” He urged, his teeth clenched together like he was restraining himself from doing something, “It’s only a simple question of interest,” He sneered, “Promise I won't harm him.” He pleaded mockingly, but at the same time I felt the knife again, and I scrunched my face at the pain.

What was I going to do? He had promised not to hurt him after all. Sure, I doubted an Arkham patient and crime lord was going to be a man of his word, but it was better than nothing right? Or was that just the pain and alcohol talking?

I didn’t want to be the reason Mathew got hurt, but here I was being basically tortured into giving information.

Whilst I debated in my head, eyes on the floor, and partially doubled over in pain, the Joker leant over me, bending down to my ear, “If he was in your position, would he be as gallant for you?” His warm breath brushed past my ear and I wasn’t sure if I trembled or shivered, the movement causing the knife to cut a bit deeper.

Would he, though? I wondered. I wanted to say I couldn’t be sure, but deep down I felt like I knew the answer.

I pulled myself upright slightly, ignoring the protest of my skin as the blade point scraped down my skin. At the movement, the Joker released some of the pressure on the knife, giving me a brief relief from the pain, though the now-tender skin still stung with the memory.

I didn’t say anything, feeling the knife drop away completely as I turned my back on the Joker. I scanned the crowded room until my gaze fell on a group of three men in suits stood chatting, each holding a small glass of an amber liquid. My eyes focused on the tallest man, neatly shaven, his brown hair combed neatly back and in a smart black suit with a crisp white shirt underneath.

“Ahh...” the Joker breathed behind me, confirming that he had seen the man. “Now tell me doll, has he even spared a moment for you this evening, hmm?” He asked quietly in my ear, another shiver passing down my spine at his breath on my neck and how close he was behind me.

 My eyes were glued to my husband’s figure, begging him to turn around and look at me, see the fear and panic in my eyes, if only for a moment.

But he didn't feel my gaze on the side of his face, or if he did, he chose to ignore it, continuing his conversation animatedly, without a care to the trauma his wife was experiencing across the room.

“Shame.” Purred the Joker behind me and I felt his hand drift to my hip, the knife point now digging into my back.

tags: @carouselcurls @6fish6 (I wasn't sure who wanted to be tagged in this as it's not Deadly voice - but the 2 I have tagged seemed to enjoy all my work so I thought you might want to read it?)

[canaryatlaw]

okay, it’s late and I’m tired. today was a little crazy, but overall pretty good. got to sleep till 6:30 which was nice, I’ll be up at 6 for the next three days at least and possibly Friday too. Got work no problem, helping my work buddy open clinic when he remembered he had a case up so he sent me up to court to cover the case for him, which took all of about 10 minutes, easy enough. I went back to the office and started making calls to new clients offering them representation. normally this was the job done by the client support coordinator, but ours left last week and we’ve yet to find a replacement, so everyone’s making their own calls for now. I got a shit ton of cases assigned to me (like 10) so lots of calls to make. Clinic was also off the wall crazy, so I ended up helping out with that for a lot of the day too. thankfully we had a good amount of volunteers to help the clients, because there were so many. the SA’s office sent us over 3 felony review cases in one day, which we’re pretty much obligated to take, even if we don’t really have volunteers we can allocate towards them. there’s a weird little loophole in the law where if the person is being charged with a misdemeanor they can enter a criminal order of protection from the start of the case, but if there’s a felony investigation going on it takes them longer to bring charges and sort it all out, so the SA’s office will send them over to us to get a civil order. these are pretty much always very serious cases, by nature of them being felonies- lots of very visible injuries, as that tends to be one thing that motivates the SA’s office to actually take the case (which is really sad actually, but it is what it is). so that thrown on top of the cases we already had left us scrambling sending volunteers from one case to the next and trying to keep track of it all. I ended up screening like 3 or 4 of them, which is super easy to do, and I kind of like getting to talk to them and let them know we’re going to help them (in the vast majority for cases anyway, we very rarely reject cases at that stage). The last felony review came in at like 2:30, and we have to have everything filed by 4:30, so it was going to be close, but god my heart broke for her, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone beaten that badly before, her injuries were horrific. but we got her up to court and good to go, so that was good at least. I also ended up spending some more time on the phone with existing clients trying to figure things out, including a motion I got from the OC on the case that is legit wrong on the law in all of its arguments, but is still technically right in conclusion which is super frustrating haha and I may just tear his arguments to shreds anyway just for the hell of it, I’ve never met him before just one phone call and over email, so if he turns out to be a nice guy in person maybe I’ll take it easy on him, but if he’s an asshole he’s going to get it, lol. anyway. I ended up heading out around 5:15, chatting with one of our volunteers who is currently a student at the school I graduated from until he had to get off the train. there was like hella delays on the train which were super annoying and then of course there was traffic so I didn’t get home till like 6:45 which was really annoying. I got some food and watched the first half of Madam Secretary that my dvr managed to catch, it’s always thrown off time wise because of stupid football but the dvr settings just record that hour of tv, regardless of what is actually on it. but after that I switched over to Black Lightning. I have to say, I haven’t been crazy about this season’s episodes of BL, which is disappointing because I really loved the first two seasons. I wouldn’t say they jumped the shark, but they maybe jumped the gun bringing in the occupation so suddenly without really an adequate build up that, IMO anyway. once that was over I went over to netflix and watched another episode of The Crown, I have to say, goddddd do I hate Phillip so much!!! he’s such a whiny baby all the time and like him constantly giving Elizabeth problems to deal with when she’s already FUCKING QUEEN is just bullshit. but yeah, good episode there. After that I showered and started getting ready for bed and now I’m here and very much ready to go to sleep, so that’s what I’m going to do now. Goodnight friends. Hope your Monday didn’t suck.

[thenerdytomboynewb96]

Samantha Allan Park Ch. #14

Any references to TMNT or anything from popular media and culture is NOT MINE. I only own my OC's.

Chapter #14

*Saturday May 31st, about 2:00p.m. Channel 6 news station*

April was talking to Irma, one of the receptionists at the Channel 6 news building. The two friends were having lunch in April’s office when they heard a knock on the door. To April’s surprise, two young teenagers were standing in the doorway to her office, and one of them she had seen before. “Oh, Kris. Is your game over already? We still have some time before I have to take you to your appointment” Irma said to her son. “Yeah. Both teams were all ready to go, so we got to start early since the game before ours had been canecled. One of the teams was from out of state and they had some complications in finding the field. So here we are!” Behind Kris was a silent but smiling Sam, who felt a bit awkward at the moment. She knew where Irma worked, and she also knew that April was a new reporter for Channel 6, but she wasn’t really prepared to meet the woman just yet, but Irma’s presence helped lessen the awkwardness that Sam felt in this situation. “Oh Sam! It’s been way to long since the last time I saw you!” Irma said as she stood up and quickly walked over to the young girl, throwing her arms around her and giving her a big hug. Sam laughed as she hugged the woman back. “Hey future family, long time no see.”

Irma took a step back, playfully glaring at the girl. “And where have you been all this time? Even if you’re not my family yet, I still worry about you very much.” Irma’s expression then softened some. “Have things slowly started to go back to the way they were before, in anyway?” Sam looked at the woman and gave her a sincere smile. “Yes, things have gotten much better. They’re still really tough, but I’m slowly crawling out of the cave I’ve been hiding in. Things will never be the same, but I can honestly say that they have been much better lately.” “Umm, should I go?” April asked, feeling a bit odd just standing there as the two seemed to be having a personal moment. “Oh April! I’m so sorry, let me introduce you two, since you’ll probably see each other again at the wedding anyway. Remember when I told you about Brenda’s boyfriend, Jay, the man everyone KNOWS that she will be marrying one day? Well, this is his younger sister, Sam.” Sam walked over to April and extended her hand out. “Hello ma’am, my name is Samantha Allan Park, it’s nice to meet you” Sam said sincerely. April smiled at the girl and shook her hand. “Hello, my name is April O’neil, it’s nice to meet some of the future family that Irma has told me so much about.” Sam raised an eyebrow at Irma. “You talk about us?” “Just a little bit, I mean jeez Jay and Brenda spend so much time together. It’s impossible for me not to talk about all of you, haha.” Sam chuckled. “Hey Irma, what’s the name of those juice box looking drinks that you buy every so often?” “Ummm, well it depends, since there’s a lot of different brands with a lot of different flavors.” “Can you text me a list later of stores that have a variety of these different brands and flavors?” “Yeah sure, no problem!” “Hey mom, we better go soon or I’m going to be late to my doctor’s appointment” Kris chimed in. “That’s right, Sam are you leaving with us? I’d rather you not go walking around on your own even if it is still sunny outside.” “Actually I can stay with her” April cut in. Both Irma and Kris gave her an odd look. “Are you sure April? We do still have some time before we have to-” “Irma, its fine! You’re always helping me out in many different ways. I can easily give the girl a ride home. That is, if Sam’s okay with it” she said as she turned towards the teenager with a questioning look. Sam pursed her lips and nodded. “Sure, why not, how often do you get escorted by a celebrity?” Kris chuckled. “That’s definitely a Sam response.” “Alright, well if either of you need anything then call me! No texting if it’s an emergency, I expect calls!” Irma exclaimed as she pointed at both women in front of her. “I hear you loud and clear Irma. Bye Kris, nice seeing you again” April said as she waved to him. He replied with a sincere smile and returned the wave. “You to Ms. O’Neil. Have a good day.” Irma and Kris left, leaving Sam and April in the room together. Sam didn’t want there to be any awkward tension between the two, well she actually wasn’t sure if there was any. She knew that she had been a bit jealous of April when she first met her, but now knowing her relationship to the turtles made her feel guilty of these original feelings. So, did April feel any weird or awkward feelings towards her? Is that why she had offered to take her home? “So, Ms. O’Neil, what’s the motive behind you offering to take me home?” Sam asked as she leaned up against the wall. April smiled at the girl as she began packing up her belongings. “Nothing serious, I just wanted to get to know the ‘thief’ that is now supposedly allowed back into the lair” she said as she started walking towards the door. “Where are we going to talk about this exactly?” Sam asked, concerned about talking about the turtles in an open location where eavesdropping ears could listen in, including Foot members in disguise. “Don’t worry, we’ll go somewhere private. I know it’s dangerous to talk about them in public” she said as she gave a face that said ‘Seriously? I know better than that, have some faith in me.’ Sam followed April out of the building and into the Channel 6 news van. The two got settled in the back. “So, we’re just going to sit here?” “Of course not, Vern’s going to drive us. He’s already met the turtles so it’s safe for us to talk about them in front of him.” “Yup, you can trust me” a voice said from the front of the van. A head then turned around and smiled at the two of them. Sam’s eyebrows went up. “You met the turtles? How?” “Somehow I got wrapped up in helping them fight off Shredder, you know, hero stuff, the usual.” Sam saw April roll her eyes, making her laugh softly. She extended a hand to Vern in the front seat. “My name is Samantha Allan Park, nice to meet you. I’m the newest member of the turtle’s band of misfits.” Vern shook her hand and the two went back to their seats. “So, what exactly did you want to talk to me about?” Sam asked. “Well,” April began, “I just wanted to know who you were, what you want out of being their friend, that sort of thing. I don’t want to seem vicious or threatening towards you in any way, I’m just…looking out for them.” Sam smiled. “I understand, you’re just looking out for them like an older sister would, I mean you are the great hogosha” she teased,” and I can relate to that, the sister part that is. Well, the first time I came across the lair, it honestly was just by chance. I wasn’t specifically searching for it, it just happened to be the mysterious thing that was there. I stole the flash drive from Donnie’s lab because I wanted to learn more about what I had found, but within a week they hunted me down and I got my answer as to what was hiding down in the sewers. I wanted to get to know them better since, well they’re incredible! Both in the sense of them scientifically being one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, but personality wise they’re all so unique as well. Mikey came to visit me the following night that I met the four brothers, and he’s become my best friend ever since. I just…feel happy and comfortable with him, with all of them…oh god please don’t tell ANY of them that I said that or they’ll be weird about it I just know it!” Sam said as she cringed a bit. April laughed at the girl’s reaction to her own words. “Don’t worry, anything said in this van will stay in this van. But your comments answered some thoughts I’ve had in my head for a while.” Sam gave the woman an inscrutable look. “What thoughts would those be?” “Well, let’s just say that Irma has talked A LOT about her daughter and future son in law, which means I’ve also heard a lot about his past, which means I know a lot about what’s happened to you as well.” Sam just sat there silently with a bleak expression on her face. She wasn’t sure exactly how to respond for a few reasons. Her main fear was that she may tell or might already have told the turtles about her harsh past, and she wasn’t ready to talk to any of them about that yet. Sam was also now trying to stay calm and collected since she was now being forced into a situation where she had to talk about her past, something that she hated very much. Little to no notice beforehand to allow her to calm herself ahead of time made talking about this very difficult, and she hated showing this weakness to people. As she sat there silently, April began to talk again. “If you’re wondering if I told the guys, then you have nothing to worry about.” Sam’s head shot up as she heard this.

April gave her a small smile. “If I may be brutally honest, the night I first met you and you told me your name, I knew it had sounded familiar. Once it finally clicked in how and why I knew you even though I had never met you before, it made some sense to me as to why you would be creeping around the sewers looking for ‘adventure’ as Leo put it, hehe. That’s also why I hung back in advising them to look further into any background information on you. I actually convinced Leo and Donnie to drop those thoughts and convinced them that I would take care of it, and I sort of white lied and said that I was still in the process of looking up information when really I wasn’t looking into your background at all. I wanted to confront you before ever telling them anything personal about you. I wanted to see if your intentions in seeing them were good or not, and if they seemed so, then I vowed that I would continue to keep your secret. If you seemed suspicious or anything then honestly yes I was planning on telling them. But I know that you’ve lost a lot, and based on what you just told me a minute ago, the reason you seem to like hanging out with the guys so much is because they remind you of what you lost years ago.”

Sam paused to collect her thoughts. “Honestly, it sounds like you’ve put a lot more thought into why I feel so comfortable around all of them than I have. But you’re right, each of them has qualities that are so similar to all of my siblings. You might as well label Leo as Jay junior” she said with a laugh. “But I swear on my life that I just want to be friends and hangout with all of them. Ever since…the incident, I’ve been alone a lot more than ever before, and within the past few years I’ve really grown to look for something adventurous, something that will give me a huge adrenaline rush, and Mikey alone has helped with that. I more so recently just got the other three to really start talking to me, but that’s another first for me as well. Kids at school only talk to me when they need to or when no one else is around, and I’ve grown to not care about that, but…for whatever reason I don’t want it to be that way with these guys. Even if they’re just starting to or still barely even care for my company, I really do want to get to know them. Thinking back on it, what you said about wanting to hang out with them because of their similarities to my siblings makes a lot of sense.”

April smiled and put a hand on the girls shoulder. “Don’t worry, they’re all very protective of one another, and as they get to know you bit by bit, they’ll open up to you. But that means you also have to slowly open up to them as well. That doesn’t mean telling them every detail of your past at one time, but slowly talking more about your siblings, things like that. Prove to them that you really do want to become their friend.” April then turned her head towards the front of the van. “Hey Vern, can you drop me off at the usual place?” “Yup, sure thing April. Tell the guys I said hi when you see them.” He then started the van and merged in with the traffic. Sam smiled at the woman in front of her. “Thanks for this April, it really means a lot that the great hogosha approves of me seeing her friends.” April rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well, thank you for talking to me with seriousness and honesty. And hey, if you ever need anything,” she said as she stuck her hand out and waited until Sam put her phone into her hand, “let me know okay?” Sam nodded her head as she looked at the new name and number in her contacts list. “And I can’t thank you enough for keeping my past a secret.” “Don’t worry about it, you’re not the only one that’s lost someone.”

Vern parked the van and let the ladies out, covering for them as they made their way into the sewers. As Sam and April exited the van, they continued to talk the entire time they walked to the lair. April shared about losing her father at such a young age and how that affected her, and for the first time ever, Sam was able to share how she felt about losing her own family members, in a comforting setting that is. This wasn’t therapy, this was a real person who wanted to talk to her and get to know her, and that meant everything to Sam, especially since she hadn’t had someone that she could view as a sister figure in a long while. Sam had sadly cast Irma and Brenda out some time ago, but slowly she was letting them back in bit by bit, and this conversation with April made her realize that as much as she loved being a tomboy and hanging out with guys, she truly did miss talking to other women. Sam was happy that she had the chance to talk to April like this and she hoped that it wouldn’t be the last.

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*Saturday May 31st, the lair, late at night*

Raph had been watching t.v. in his room and had headed towards the kitchen for a late night snack. As he entered the main living area, he noticed someone laying in one of the hammocks in the top left opening that lead into the dojo. He was prepared to prank whichever brother had fallen asleep there, but as he got closer he realized that it was Sam who was laying there. He knew she must be thinking about something personal and emotional again, or else she would have cracked some type of joke at him once he had entered the room. She always knew when someone had entered the room when she was training with Mikey, even when she couldn’t see them. She had proved that she had incredible sensory skills, but whenever her emotions got the best of her, those skills went flying out the window. Raph climbed up to where the hammocks were and laid in one, leaving some space between where he and Sam were lying. He could tell by her glassy eyes that she must have let a few tears slide earlier, but that she was much calmer now.

“You know you can’t see the stars from down here, right?” he said as he looked up at the ceiling, just like Sam had been. She continued to look up as she spoke. “Tch, I know. Just because I’m looking in one direction doesn’t mean I’m focusing my eyes on anything. My gaze just drifts off when I’m lost in thought.” “These thoughts have anything to do with your little brother?” She squinted as she looked over at Raph. “You’re so interested in meeting him now, aren’t you?” “It’s not every day you meet a fellow sai master.” “Sai master?” she asked mockingly. “Yes, I’m a master, a pro at what I do.” “And I can fly around this room with my eyes closed.” “Yeah, you can with that board of yours.” Sam was silent for a second. “Oh hey I actually can now” she said with a laugh. “Aw crap, I just agreed to calling you a master without meaning to. I have dishonored my family.” “Way to go slick” he teased, happy to see the girl smile again. “Happy? Why the heck am I happy that she’s smiling? I don’t care about how she feels. That’s right, I don’t care about this chick, so then why the heck am I up here-” “So why are you up here anyway?” Sam asked, cutting off his thoughts. Raph’s face was blank and calm, but mentally he was freaking out. He didn’t want her to know that he sensed she was upset and then went to talk to her, he couldn’t believe it himself that he was up here for that reason. He needed an excuse and fast. “I needed a spotter.” She gave him a questioning look. “You’re working out in the middle of the night?” “Yeah, I finally have some peace and quiet now that you two aren’t training and goofing off in the dojo” he said as he tried to maintain a serious look and sound tough as usual rather than revealing how nervous he was. Sam shrugged her shoulders. “Fair enough.” She sat up and walked over towards the pole near the opening and slid down to the ground floor where the workout station was. Raph was just relieved that she bought his excuse. “Alright, I already exercised earlier today, so I’ll make this as quick as possible and I’ll head back to my room. Then I won’t have to talk to her anymore.” As Raph headed down towards the workout station, he was shocked to see Sam adding weights to the barbell. “Where does your strength come from?” “Hella sports” she said as she placed the last weight on. Raph grinned. “You need to add more weight to it. Her eyes went wide. “The weights 450, how much more do you need?” “All the way up to 580.” “…I feel like a twig…” Raph laughed. “I’m sure you still bench press a lot more than most people your size.” Sam looked over at him. “No way, I’m not telling you.” He put his hands up in defense. “I promise I won’t judge.” “…150…” “How much do you weigh?” “Dude! You NEVER ask a woman how much she weighs!” “You do when you’re trying determine whether she’s pulling her weight, literally.” Sam glared at him. “I’m 120” she mumbled. Raph nodded. “Then you’re actually doing better than you should be” he said as he laid down and grabbed onto the barbell and started his reps. Sam stood behind some, but still made sure to keep an eye on him just to be safe. “I am?” “Yeah, someone your weight should be lifting somewhere between 80 to 125 pounds, so you lifting 150 is pretty damn good. Guess I can’t call you a twig anymore” he said with a grin.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes until Sam realized that she should take advantage of this time where Raph was calm and be honest with him. “Sorry for beating your high score in that racing game. If I had known it was such a big deal than I wouldn’t have played it.” Raph peeked over and noticed her gloomy expression as she stared at the t.v. over in the living room. “Tch, I just wish I knew how you reached a score that high. I’ve never gotten that close. Must be lucky, since it was your first time playing” he said bluntly. “Heh, obviously that was a lie. Sorry for that as well. I’ve played that and other racing games tons of times, so I’ve gotten really good at finding cheat codes and secret techniques and all kinds of things that help boost my score.”

Raph could tell that Sam was slowly starting to get depressed again, so he decided to change things up. He placed the barbell in its holder and stood up. “So, how many pushups can you do?” She shrugged. “You don’t know?” he asked as he paused his reps and stilled the barbell, placing it in its holder. “I’ve never counted before.” “Well, start counting now.” He motioned for her to follow him as he walked into the dojo, and with a smile she did just that. The two faced each other as they got on the ground and began their pushups. “So, do your brother’s bench press?” Sam asked. “Yup.” “How much?” “Ummmm, from what I can remember, Mikey was next in line at about 540, Leo wasn’t far behind that at about 525, and then Donnie comes in last with 450.” “Jeez, being thin doesn’t mean shit when it comes to that guy” Sam said in amazement “I mean the other day when you guys were training, he literally flipped Mikey over his shoulder. How is he not the same size as the rest of you guys?” “Heh, he used to wonder the same thing and it really bothered him for a while. Then he got older and when he beat us in speed and height he didn’t care so much, he can be a real ass when it comes to being the tallest though.” “You just called someone else an ass? Is it snowing outside?” she mocked.   He stopped and glared at her. “I’m not always an ass you know, I can be a nice guy.” “And I’m a Victoria’s secret model” she said as she miserably failed at holding in her chuckles. Playfully, he leaned his weight onto one arm and pushed Sam over. Jokingly she glared at him. “Dude! What gives?” “Oh well, guess you have to start all over.” “And what was that about not being an ass?” Just as she was getting ready, he pushed her over again. “That’s it” she said as she swung her foot around, hoping to knock him off his balance as well. Of course, he just stayed still, knowing that her kick wouldn’t harm him at all. Sam withdrew her foot and pouted at the fact that she couldn’t do what he had done to her. “How’s it feel to hit steal?” Raph said with a huge smile. “Soft and squishy, like flubber.” Raph rolled his eyes as he stood up. “Well, since you failed to keep your balance while doing pushups, we’ll try pullups next.”

Without either of them realizing it, the two talked while going through one of Raph’s normal workout routines for many hours throughout the night. Raph enjoyed working out with his other brothers, but sometimes it was more annoying than anything. Some days Mikey was a fun and serious work out partner, and then some days he just goofed off a bit too much. Leo was odd in the sense that one day he might talk away while working out, and other days he wanted it to be dead silent. Donnie had his own workout routines and usually completed them when others weren’t around, since he still slightly detested that he couldn’t keep up with his brothers strength. Knowing all this, Raph enjoyed having someone he could talk to while going through his normal routines. Of course he would never admit to himself or to anyone that he actually enjoyed the girls company. He would take it to his grave that she was the one who came to him and wouldn’t leave him alone. Sam knew this, but she didn’t mind. She knew that everyone needed a first step when getting to know someone, and even though she had a feeling Raph would always deny it, she knew that this was his, and early the next morning around 6a.m. when Mikey wondered where Sam had been since she wasn’t in his room and he found her and Raph asleep on the couch together, as he moved Sam to the bed in his room he also secretly knew this about his older brother as well.

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*Sunday June 1st, early morning in the lair*

“Okay, now you crack the egg on the side of the pan. You have to do it hard, but gently at the same time” Sam explained. Leo looked confused as hell. “So, which is it?” “Ummm, right in between. As best as you can get to that” Sam said as she shrugged her shoulders. “You’re not good at explaining things, are you?” “Not really, I know what I do and try my best to put that into words. Sorry.” Leo did his best to crack the egg ‘hard but gently’ and luckily he got a solid crack on the egg. He went to open it and put it in the pan, but Sam lightly grabbed his arm and slid a small bowl in front of him. “Drop it in here.” “Why would I put it in a small dish?” “In case there’s any shell. Trust me you don’t want to eat that.” Leo nodded. “Makes sense, good call.”

Sam had recently learned that it was Mikey and Donnie who did a lot of the cooking in the family, and that Raph and Leo knew little to nothing. So, she offered to teach him some basics. She wasn’t a master chef or anything, but her older brother Brian had taught her everything she really knew about cooking, so she tried her best to pass these basic teachings on to Leo.

“This is just fun to watch” Mikey said as he sat at the table in the eatery, his chin resting in his hands, his elbows resting on the table. “Hey! Hushity-hush! Don’t distract my student!” Sam exclaimed. Leo turned towards her and gave a blank expression. “I’m sorry what?” “You can call me sensei” she said with a beaming smile. “Not. A chance. Ever.” “Master?” “Nope.” “Teacher?” “Never.” “How about-” “You should just stop now” Leo said with a sarcastic smile, resulting in chuckles from Mikey in the background. “Whatever you say oh fearless leader” she said, throwing the sarcasm and mockery right back at him. As Sam turned back towards the stove, Leo shot his younger brother a small grin. The two boys could tell that Raph must have allowed some time to talk to the girl, since Raph was the only one that called Leo this literally all the time. Leo’s suspicions seemed to prove true when later on Raph entered the room and walked over to where the dojo was, since this was one of the times he usually trained on his own. Leo heard the sound of some paper crinkling and when Raph had left the room, he noticed Sam staring at what it was that he had dropped, a magazine that he had been reading.

Throughout the rest of the day, Leo knew that something was up since Raph kept looking around for the magazine, and later found it in a place that they both knew wasn’t where he had left it, but of course Raph wouldn’t question it because that would be him asking others for help, and he tried to refrain from that as much as possible. “Huh, I wonder what that kids up to” Leo thought, as he then wondered why he cared in the first place, since he was supposed to be like his younger two brothers and not care about the girl or what she did. At least, that’s what the three continued to tell themselves.

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*Monday June 2nd, 4:00p.m.*

Donnie was currently working on his and the brothers truck when Mikey walked over asking for his assistance. Donnie hopped out from the back opening of the truck and walked over to his brother. “Hey Mikey, what’s up?” “Follow me!” he said, a skip in his step. “*sigh* why now?” Mikey turned back to face him with an irked look. “Dude, it’s nothing major, but I think you’ll like it. Come onnnnnnnaaa!” Donnie rolled his eyes and followed his brother. They walked out the exit way that the truck would use to get onto the streets. When they reached the exit way that lead into the city, Mikey pulled up the door and there was Sam, using all her strength to push an extremely old and worn out motorcycle into the sewer walkway. Donnie was shocked, and very confused. “Why? And how?” Sam stopped and leaned on the wall, catching her breath. “Your annoying older brother keeps complaining that he doesn’t have his own wheels, and he’ll never admit that he actually talked to me first and not the other way around. He thinks he hates me, but he’s wrong” she said as she pointed to Donnie in confidence of her words. “So, after I fix this up, we’ll see how much he still ‘hates me’ then.” “Sam, where did you get this? Did you pay money for this?” Donnie said with a mix of amusement that she would go so far to help Raph, but also in frustration that she would spend so much money on helping them. She shook her head. “Naw, found it in a junkyard. And it only cost the truck that got it here about 8 bucks since the drive wasn’t that far away. I might have to spend some money on certain materials like paint, but if I got help finding spare parts and things like that then it would be a lot cheaper” she said with a wide all teeth showing smile. “Heyyyy, how come you’re not asking me to help?” Mikey pouted. “Do you know how to get a motorcycle up and running?” “…no…” he said in defeat. “Don’t worry fam, if your brother helps me out, then you can assist us. I don’t have the strength to do everything on my own” she said as she put a hand on his shoulder. “Hmmm, I don’t know,” Donnie cut in, “I mean I already have a lot to work on right now with the truck and the med wing, things that could really benefit us in the long run.” “I can help with those.” “Really? How can you help?” “I have some basic skills when it comes to construction and rewiring, you know, things along those lines. Plus I can help you get materials. My brother somehow has friends in all types of different career fields. Oh! And I have these!” she said as she tossed him a bag. Donnie curiously inspected the bag. It seemed to be a cooling bag that could keep materials that needed to be refrigerated cold. He unzipped the top of the bag and inside were tons of different Japanese juice boxes of all different flavors. His eyes went wide as he rummaged through the bag, observing the countless flavors. “How did you know I drink these?” he asked in amazement. “Not gonna lie, it was a huge hunch. I had a strong feeling you would like these. Guess I was right. Told you owing you wouldn’t be a big deal” she said with a smile. “So, whaddya say?” she asked, raising her eyebrows and nudging him with her elbow. “Alright, it’s a deal” he said as he playfully pushed her away from elbowing him. “Come on Mikey, we’ll find ways for you to help out if you want.” “Sweet! And don’t worry I’m the best at keeping secrets!” he exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around the other twos shoulders, and they all walked off to find a spot where they could work on the motorcycle in secret.

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*Friday June 6th, later in the evening*

Throughout the week when she wasn’t teaching Leo how to cook or helping Donnie with their new projects, Sam continued to train with Mikey. The two were currently on break from another training session. Raph was working out at the moment, mainly because this is what more than half of his day consisted of, but also because he liked to monitor the girl’s progress in her training. Actually, all the remaining brothers liked to see Sam progress in her training with Mikey since she was already decently skilled to begin with, but her movements had gotten much faster since the first time they had all met her, and visibly she was changing as well. Her muscle size hadn’t increased dramatically, but they were a bit more toned now, and even though she was still very thin, the fact that she even had muscle was very recognizable, unlike in the past when her muscles couldn’t be seen except when being used.

Raph glanced over at the two friends who were getting a drink in the kitchen when he noticed that Sam was staring off into space. He looked in the same direction she was and noticed that she was staring at the spot on the weapons wall where the sais were. Raph kept a straight face, (there’s no way he could smile in front of the other two) and walked over to where they were sitting. Sam was still staring off into space for a few more seconds before she realized Raph was heading over in their direction. Mikey on the other hand instantly sensed when his brother began walking over in their direction and quickly turned to face him. He saw that Raph’s eyes were on Sam and he paused, nervous about what his brother was going to say to the girl.

“Wanna take em for a test run?” Raph said facing Sam. She turned to him, her eyebrows raising. “Hm?” she asked as her brow furrowed in curiosity as she wondered when Raph had entered the room. “Do you. Want to. Practice with them?” he said as he pointed towards the smaller set of sais. Sam turned towards Mikey. Even though her face was blank, he knew that she was asking for his approval since she didn’t want to just abandon her friend. Mikey smiled at her. “Your brother has been distracting you for the past half hour. Go make him proud” he said as he tilted his head towards the back wall. Sam gave him a huge smile and darted towards the weapons wall. Raph looked at his brother with curiosity. “You knew about them belonging to her brother?” “Yeah, she told me about them belonging to him and she brought the second one every day once she discovered its partner was here, waiting for a safe moment to put it back. How did you know they belonged to her brother?” he said, squinting his eyes at his older brother. Raph froze before he spoke. “She got caught, but I decided to let her off easy. She seemed upset about it” he said, trying to shrug off the situation. “So why didn’t you take advantage of that? You passed up a chance at attacking her at her weakest point? You didn’t continue to verbally beat the shit out of her?” he said in a bogusly serious tone. “Oh I’m about to beat the shit out of someone” Raph said as he cracked his knuckles.

*Themes: BTS-Back Breaker (audio) BTS-Silver spoon (audio) G Dragon-Obsession (audio)*

“Are we doing this or not?” Sam called out from the dojo. The two boys looked away from each other and over at her, both interested in how these events would play out. Sam was standing on the right side of the dojo, lightly jumping and getting her body warmed up for the sparring that would soon prevail. Raph leaped down from the small ledge and walked over to the left side of dojo. “You ready?” “Eh” she shrugged. “Don’t expect anything great, I’m still rusty.” “Heh, well let’s see how you hold up” he said with a grin.

And as soon as those last few words left his lips, the two were charging at each other. The two moved swiftly as the sais from one fighter clashed with those of their opponent. Raph waited for an open moment and swung his elbow in an attempt to push the girl forward, but what he wasn’t expecting was for her to jump back some when he did this and to then hook her sai with his and try to move them around together. Usually when someone did this, it was to move and then pull the sai out of their opponents hand, which normally this would have worked, but since Sam was obviously much weaker than Raph, this move backfired and it was Raph who actually knocked Sam’s sai out of her own hand.

“Dang, if only she had more strength” Donnie said in excitement. Sam looked over at him in confusion, wondering when the heck he got here. She then noticed that Leo was sitting on the other side of Mikey who was sitting in the middle of the group of three. She wondered what was with these guys wanting to watch her whenever she was sparring with someone. “Hey slick, stay focused” Raph said as he tossed Sam back the second sai. She shrugged. “Okay” and then ran back towards him at full force. That quickly the brawl was back on and the sounds of clanging sais could be heard all throughout the lair, which was what drew the other two brothers over towards the dojo in the first place.

“How does she know how to hold them correctly?” Leo asked aloud and then turning towards Mikey. “I don’t know what you’re asking” he stated with his eyebrows raised. “What he’s asking is how does she know where to place her fingers when using the sais? Since if you place your fingers in the wrong spot and if you hold them incorrectly then every time you pull the weapons back you can easily cut yourself. But Leo’s right, she’s holding them the correct way, and she’s doing a pretty good job at defending herself, though she has to fight very defensively since Raph’s strength outweighs hers.” “Oh, I guess her younger brother taught her” Mikey replied. “Her younger brother?” questioned Leo. “Hey man, you’ll have to ask her about that, it’s not my story to tell” he said defensively as he gave his brother an innocent yet serious look. Leo nodded and continued to watch the fight.

The two fought on for a good while longer. There were a few times where Raph was able to knock Sam back or knock her down, but each time this happened, Sam would always swipe and curve her sai upwards in attempt to bring his leg up and have him fall on his back. The first couple of times she tried, she came close to succeeding, but by the third attempt she knew she was making herself easy to read, so she had to try out a new move.

Sam ran forward and twisted the blades so that they were facing away from her opponent and then threw her right arm up towards Raph’s shoulder. He twisted his blades so that they faced away from Sam as he blocked her hand. At the same time, Sam had performed the same move but with her left arm swinging down towards Raph’s waist. This was also blocked, but for a split second Sam had a chance to perform a move she had only seen once in her lifetime. While both Raph’s arms were currently blocked, Sam leaned back as far as she could without falling, brought her knee up, and then aimed at kicking Raph in the chin. Raph however had performed this move thousands of times and knew that Sam’s positioning was a bit off, so he easily dodged the attack. Right after, he swung his right arm out of Sam’s grip and lightly hit her in the shoulder, resulting in her jumping back and calling a truce.

“Anddd I’m out!” she exclaimed as she put her hands up in defense while still holding her sais. “Awww, what? Come on!” she heard multiple voices calling out behind Raph. “Aren’t those my lines?” he joked as he turned around to face his brothers. “Hey, you three take a solid blow from that!” she said, pointing towards Raph, “and then you can complain!” Raph chuckled. He enjoyed when people pointed out how strong he was. He then turned towards Sam. “Who taught you how to do that last move?” “No one. I saw someone do it once and I attempted to copy it. I was running out of moves so I had to come up with something.” “Was it your younger brother?” Leo asked. Sam turned towards Mikey with wide eyes and a fake smile, signaling that he wasn’t in trouble, but that she was still irritated depending on what exactly he had shared with his brothers. “All I said was that you younger brother might have taught you to fight that’s it!” he exclaimed in one breathe. She nodded as her expression softened. She then turned towards Leo. “Yeah, it was my younger brother actually. He took some self-defense classes with me in the past and these specifically were his weapon of choice” she said as she held up the weapons in her hand. “I saw him perform that move once during training and I tried to copy it.” “Wait, you only saw him perform that move once?” Raph asked. “I told you my moves were rusty!” Sam exclaimed. Raph rolled his eyes. “I ain’t complaining, I’m asking because that was way too accurate for a first time try-out.” “That was good? I totally missed.” “Yeah, because you’re going up against a pro. What you just did would have easily knocked out any amateur on the street.” Sam started brushing off her shoulders, pretending to act like she had known what she was doing all along. “Did you guys ever practice with any other weapons?” Donnie cut in. “Uh, yeah a few different types. Why?” “You ever learn to fight with a bo?” “A little bit yeah.” “Alright, my turn!” he said as he hopped off the ledge. “Do I get any say in this?” she asked playfully. He breathed in, and exhaled a “No” with a smile. “Eh okay, hey Mikey-” “Already on it!” he shouted as he ran back into the room and tossed Sam her two tonfa. She then extended them both, collapsed the handles, and then connected the two together. Raph smiled as he walked by Donnie. “Don’t go easy on her, she’s tougher than she looks.” “That or you’re just weaker than you thought” he teased. Raph nudged his brother. “Heh, smartass” he joked. As Raph took his seat next to Mikey, Donnie got his bo ready as he pushed it forward and it also extended some. He got in ready position on the right side of the dojo as Sam also prepped herself on the far side of the dojo. “321go!” Mikey shouted, and the two charged at each other. Donnie was shocked at how easily Sam was able to keep up with his movements. Every time he brought his bo up to swiftly bring it down for an attack from above, she always knew how to position her weapon so that she could block the attack. The two were neck and neck for a while until Sam got a quick second for a fake attack. She made it seem like she was going to push her bo forward for a central attack, but instead, when Donnie moved his bo forward to block the attack, she pulled her bo back and then grabbed his. Once he was in a position where for a split second he couldn’t move, Sam turned some and brought her leg up and pushed Donnie back some.  

Raph rolled his eyes. “What part of ‘don’t go easy on her’ didn’t he understand?” he mumbled. “He’s not going easy on her, he’s shocked that that even happened. She’s obviously way more skilled with this weapon” Leo said, not realizing that there was a small smile creeping upon his lips. He found this girl intriguing. You never knew what she was hiding up her sleeve or what she was going to do next.

Donnie stood for a couple of seconds in shock at the strength that this girl now had. He knew her muscles were much more visible now compared to when they first met, but he hadn’t realized just how strong she had become. Knowing this, he knew he could play a bit more on the offensive side now rather than just fighting defensively.

It took a while for Sam to realize just how fast she and Donnie had been moving. Both of their movements had been so swift and fluid that she hadn’t realized just how much the fight had picked up speed. Unfortunately for her, Sam ended up moving a split second to short at one point and Donnie took full advantage of this as he hit his bo against hers and then swiftly moved the two in a curved downwards position where Sam’s bo was pushed outwards, leaving the entire front of her body wide open for an attack. As Donnie moved forward and swung his bo with him aiming for the center of Sam’s body, he could see in her eyes that she knew she had messed up, and because of this she knew exactly which way to move when dodging the attack. As she dodged in the same direction that his bo was moving in, she then just as quickly spun around and tried to attack with her bo as it was held in a long upwards position, but already Donnie had moved back to a position where he could block the attack. With quick spontaneous thinking, she then tried to swing the bottom half of the bo back up in an attempt to knock the opposing weapon from Donnie’s hand, but he sensed this attack coming and quickly moved back some with his bo in front of him. He then twisted his bo sideways and pushed it forwards when Sam’s was in the middle as he then spun around and swung his leg up. Sam was able to duck in time, knowing that with the momentum of his swing, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time and bring his leg down to hit her.

The two continued their back and forth fight of attacking and dodging until Leo had grown impatient. “Times up!” Leo called out. Donnie stopped and faced his eldest brother. “Exsqueeze me?” “This fight been going on longer than Raph’s.” “Oh, really?” Donnie asked. “I dunno, but you’ve stopped now” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “HA” Sam quickly shut her mouth and looked away, trying to hide how hilarious she thought that situation played out as Donnie turned back and playfully glared at her. Mikey couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing. Even Raph was chuckling a bit. “Dang Leo, that was messed up, I totally approve though.” Donnie rolled his eyes as he turned back towards Sam. “You’ve studied the use of that weapon wayyyyy more than the previous one” he said with a smile. Sam rubbed the back of her head. “Hehe, yeah. This almost became my weapon of choice, so I practiced with this one a lot more than the others. Yes those others include katanas” she said as she gave Leo a playful yet serious look. He paused for a moment, a bit dazed by the fact that she had answered a question he hadn’t even opened his mouth to ask yet. As the two opponents continued talking, Leo walked over to the weapons wall to get some katanas for Sam. “So” Donnie began, “what made you turn towards your weapon versus mine?” “Well for one, tonfa allow wider and more flexible movements, which I personally liked better. Second, your weapon is good for people whose strength is more so in their legs than their arms, not saying that bo users have no arm strength, but from what I’ve seen it’s a good weapon when it comes to being quick on your feet. Overall I was good at this, but apparently various tests showed that there was a slight difference in how I applied strength using my legs and feet versus my hands and arms, so I was also recommended my weapon.” Donnie nodded. “Makes sense, I get this feeling you were also told that it would have benefited you more if you were taller because then it might have been a bit easier for you to provide stronger blows from your legs rather than your arms” he said with a  smirk. She squinted her eyes at him. “So you are smart enough to read minds.” “Heads up” Leo called as he tossed a sword towards Sam. She caught it and gave him a doubtful look. “Are you expecting me to fight with this? Dude, how strong do you think I am?” she asked as she tossed it back to him. At the same time he had tossed her another sword, and she replied the same way. This went on for a few seconds until finally they found a perfect match. Sam looked over the katana and was glad that there was a set that had some strength behind it, but wasn’t too heavy for her to swing and fight with. “Alright, this will do.” Leo tossed her the matching katana and the two went to their sides of the dojo. Donnie took a seat on the other side of Mikey as the three boys got ready for the next fight. “Annnnddd 321go!” Mikey called out. For the most part he had actually been watching quietly, but that was because he had been taking mental notes on both how his best friend had been fighting and things she needed to work on another day during training, and also on how his brothers acted and reacted towards her fighting and to her personally. Overall, Mikey was satisfied with everything that he had observed so far that evening.

Leo and Sam rushed towards each other, once again creating the loud crashes of their katanas colliding with each other and echoing throughout the lair. Instantly Leo could tell that Sam was back to the way she was when she had been fighting against Raph. She knew some basics like how to hold and slice with the katanas and how to quickly dodge attacks, but her movements definitely weren’t as fast as they were when she had been fighting Donnie. Knowing this, Leo decided to try something different. He anticipated that she would block his attack when bringing both his blades forward, and she did just as he predicted and blocked in the exact stance that he foresaw as well. Instead of standing in place when he attacked, he began walking and pushing forward. Sam hadn’t anticipated this and not knowing what to do, she continued to push forward as well. Leo continued to quickly walk forward and push Sam with him, waiting to see what she would do next. “You gonna fight back, or are you dead already?” he mocked. Sam struggled as she continued to push forward until she saw a crack in the floor that looked to be about a decent size. Without time to think, she shoved one of her katanas into the crack and quickly swung around, so as Leo went forward, she was now behind him. She would have had the upper hand if she could have pulled the blade from the crack, but she had used too much force to get the katana in, and now she couldn’t pull it back out. Sam backed up some and put her hands up in defeat. “Well guess I’m dead” she said with a mix of humor and frustration in her voice, upset that the fight was already over because of her blunder. “Not yet” Leo said as he pulled the katana out of the crack and then tossed it and one of his own off to the side. Sam understood and smiled to signal so, and the fight went on. The two sliced, swiped, and dodged for a while. Sam seemed to be much better at fighting with one blade rather than with two since her movements were suddenly much quicker. Leo thought that if the girl just had more strength to her, then even masters like Karai would shiver in fear when fighting her. If she was this quick and this skilled as an amateur, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fight her as a trained ninja with more strength, speed, and skill behind her. What amazed him the most was that every time he thought she was at a weak point, she quickly found a way to try and use that to her advantage. If he moved closer and used his arm to push her back or knock her down, she somehow found a way to then come back at an unexpected angle. Leo stepped forward and pushed her so that the only way to block the attack would be to turn and leave her backside wide open. Instead, she turned completely around and swung the blade over her head and behind her to block her back, and then as she pulled her blade forward and made Leo’s katana pull back up, she then swiftly turned and tried to swing her leg near Leo’s thigh. Once again, he knew that in a normal fight she would have spun further and aimed for her enemy’s stomach and landed the kick there, but because her weight was outmatched, she aimed for a lower ‘softer’ part of his body instead.

The two continued to fight some until Mikey grew tired of sitting in silence. “Leooooooooo! I want a turn!” Mikey whined. The fight ended, but Leo noticed Sam shaking her head with wide eyes and slowly backing away. “If you want me to fight with your weapon then I’m out, I surrender now, I’m bailing.” All three of the older brothers looked over at her, their jaws almost touching the floor. “Wait, why?” Leo asked in shock. “Because I don’t know how! After all I’ve done so far, I’m not embarrassing myself by fighting with a weapon I don’t EVEN KNOW HOW to fight with yet!” “Lameeeeee” Mikey teased, “but fine, pick whatever weapon you want.” Sam went back over, disconnected her tonfa, and ran back over to her side of the dojo. “This ought to be interesting” Leo mumbled as he sat between Raph and Donnie.

It was this fight that truly displayed how much Sam’s training had paid off. All three observers were blown away with how rapidly she threw punches and kicks and with how swift and fluid each and every one of her motions was. It was extremely obvious that this was the weapon she had practiced with the most.

“Hey do the move” Mikey said as the two continued to spar. “What? No way. I’m not going to attack with a move when you know it ahead of time!” “That’s because you can’t do it.” Sam glared at her friend as they fought, playfully signaling that she hated that he could read her like a book. With his short amount of teasing, Mikey backed up as Sam ran forward as she swung her right leg around, leading her to leap and spin herself in the air as she brought down one of her tonfa above Mikey’s head. He blocked the attack by holding each handle of one of his nunchuks and pulled them so that Sam’s tonfa connected with the chain of his weapon. “Nice, but you still need to get higher” he said as the two continued to fight. This continued on as Mikey continued to call out moves and techniques that he wanted her to try, and their actions went more so from fighting to having Sam display all the moves she had been practicing. After a while, it was obvious that Sam was tired out. “Awww there’s no round two?” Raph called out. “Dude, I just fought four people in an amount of time that surpasses any of my games or performances. Give a girl a chance to breathe” she said as she fanned herself with her hand. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.” Leo raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going home?” “No, it’s Friday, and I have a late game tomorrow, and then an even later rehearsal. I always stay late on weekends.” “Might as well just move in” Raph said, his speech filled with sarcasm. “OKAY!” Mikey shouted, followed by a small grunt after being shoved by Raph. Ignoring his brother’s antics, Leo walked over towards Sam. “I get this feeling you’re going to be here even more once school ends right?” “Yup!” Sam replied with a beaming smile. “You interested in training with us?” She stared at him with a blank expression. “What’s the joke?” “There is no joke.” “…So you’re serious?” “Yes.” “You swear?” “Yeah.” “Positive?” “Do you want me to say no?” “No I’m good!” Sam said, failing to hide her smile.

She expected to hear complaints from the other brother’s as Leo turned away to head towards the kitchen, but they never came. All she heard afterwards was Donnie talking to Leo about some stuff he had found online about the Foot clan, and Raph teasing and wrestling with Mikey. Not too long after, Splinter had entered the lair from the entrance closest to the kitchen. He saw Sam standing in the entryway to the dojo and walked over to her. “Ah Samantha, how are you doing this evening?” “…what?” she asked, seeming a bit dazed. “Did something happen my child? Something good, bad?” “Um, that depends. Are you okay if I join you and your family every now and then when you guys train together?” Splinter successfully hid his joy in knowing that things must be going well between her and his sons for her to be able to ask him this question. “Hmmm I don’t know, do you think you’ll be able to handle the same rigorous routines that they go through?” “Sir, I got this, especially after what happened today.” “Then I don’t see why not. Oh, but you’ll have to call me sensei from now on though.” “Got it, understood.” “Come, why don’t you join me in getting some refreshments from the kitchen.” “Alright, thanks sensei” she said with a sincere smile as she walked over with him and joined the brothers in the kitchen.

Splinter continued to act natural, but he couldn’t wait until much, much later that night when he would get a chance to sit down with Michelangelo who would update him on all that had happened while he was away from the lair.

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*Later that night*

It was about 3a.m. when Leo awoke on the couch. He had been sitting in a half upright half slouched back position with his head leaned back against the top of the couch. He slowly lifted his head up as he realized that he must have fallen asleep in the living room. Just as he went to stand up and head to his room, he realized there was some weight on his left thigh. He had to squint for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted to the darkness (there were various small lamps throughout the lair, but overall it was still hard to see unless the lights were turned on.) As his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was Sam who had laid her head down where his thigh was. The last thing he remembered was watching some re-runs of The Big Bang Theory with Sam and his brothers, so he assumed that maybe he had fallen asleep on the couch first and that everyone else had headed to bed before Sam decided to get cozy in the position that she was. He began to blush a bit, but then he realized that he had seen this happen a few times recently.

One of the more recent times was earlier that week on Monday. Sam had been working with Donnie on the truck when they both discovered they were both fans of the new Planet of the Apes films and decided to watch the first two so that they could start preparing for the third. The two had fallen asleep together on the couch with Sam’s head at one end and her lying across the couch so that her feet were at the other end, and then Donnie vice versa. He had seen this happen a few times between the two now that they were finding more movies and shows that they were both fans of.

Also, a couple of days just before this, Leo woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go to the kitchen to get some water only to find Raph and Sam asleep on the couch together. They were in the same position that he and Sam were in now, except it was Sam who was sitting upright and Raph who had his head on Sam’s lap. He assumed that Raph had curled up in this position once Sam had already fallen asleep and assumed that he would wake up in time before anyone had caught him, even though both he and Mikey had caught Raph like this.

And then there was Mikey who was always snuggled up with his best friend. Sometimes Leo wondered about the two of them, since they would lay on the couch together with Sam lying right in front of Mikey. When he confronted his younger brother, he insisted that they both found lying down to be more comfortable than sitting up. When he then asked why sometimes Mikey would have his arm around the girl when lying on the couch, again he said that that way was more comfortable. Mikey also insisted that there could never be anything romantic between the two because A. he was into blonde girls with blue eyes, and B. because Sam was into Asian guys, so their relationship ‘obviously’ would never work out. There were a few times where Leo also confronted Sam when no one was around and asked her similar questions and oddly got extremely similar responses. She said the same thing about their personal preferences, but she also admitted that being a tomboy, she saw it no different than when she saw close male friends from her k-pop groups do similar things with each other. It didn’t mean there were any romantic relations between the groupmates, it just meant that they were all that close with each other, that they each had unique friendships and just did what felt comfortable (though in their cases it was also for fan-service). Both Sam and Mikey recognized that they were a guy and girl hanging out, but since Sam dressed and acted in a way that made it seem like she was just ‘one of the guys,’ it broke some barriers, resulting in the non-romantic feelings of cuddling up with each other on the couch. It was a bit odd and sometimes didn’t really make any sense, but it was just how the two were.

Leo decided to roll with it, since both Sam and Mikey were very unique characters in his book. He continued to think back to moments where he could sense Donnie and Raph slowly warming up to Sam as he also began to realize that there hadn’t been as much arguing and yelling, well, at or with Sam that is, since Raph was always yelling about something, and Mikey was just always loud in general. He carefully lifted her so that he could stand up, and then he gently lay her back down. He walked and got a blanket from his room and draped it over her as she slept soundly.

As he headed back to his room he realized that as much as he felt defeated by it, he couldn’t deny that he now saw the girl as a friend. She was talking with all four of the brothers more and more and had even been holding conversations with April, and he’d be a liar if he said that he didn’t enjoy the conversations that he had had with her himself. He’d also be a liar if he said that he didn’t enjoy the sparring from earlier that day. Each of his brothers had chosen their own weapon that only they had truly mastered, so it was fun getting to fight someone else who could use the same weapon as him. Once again, he had walked all the way to his bedroom without realizing there was a smile on his face, but there was a difference in this situation. This time, if someone had told him that he had been smiling, he wouldn’t have denied it.

 Author’s Note: So, are the fight scenes still decent? Is there anything I need to improve on? Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! J