#one of the classes was in an older building with massive windows and i just love the vibe

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Danny and Jason

(cw underage smoking / smoking as a form of bonding) (cw Jason thinking Danny killed himself but its only for a moment) (cw depictions of murderous intent? Danny wants to murder the Joker and he's a little descriptive about it)

Now on ao3 :) (and with a response and a third one)

AND ALSO A REMASTERED VERSION THAT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO CHECK OUT BECAUSE I WORKED VERY HARD ON IT.

This is… aha. Massive. Word count check: 9k+

this has probably been done before but hey, everyone loves a good trope and I wanted to share my take on this idea. 👏👏 So, Danny Fenton and Jason Todd being childhood friends. The Fentons lived in Crime Alley for a good long while during Danny's childhood. Nobody wanted to fund their research and Jack and Maddie struggled to keep any form of work for a multitude of reasons. Jack worked in construction due to his big build and Maddie had another job elsewhere.

Danny and Jason were friends during that time, really great friends. I'm not super solid on how they met yet but I do know it involves Danny committing petty crime and Jason deciding to jump in and help when he sees Danny struggling. Danny was distrustful (as all crime alley kids ought to be) but they eventually became thick as thieves, committing petty crime together.

While it's all too easy to make Danny the weaker one of the two with Jason protecting him, I actually really like the idea that they protected each other. Growing up (essentially) on the streets means Danny forcibly had to grow a backbone unless he wanted to get trampled all over. He is just as willing to scuffle with the bigger kids as Jason is, and he and Jason regularly fought each other whenever they needed to let off steam, or just because. They were a duo, having each other's backs in tough situations.

(Sometimes the pair of them would sneak out at night and try and get a glimpse of Batman and Robin while they soared through the air. It was like a game between the two of them to see who could spot the dynamic duo first. When they were a little older, Jason would steal his dad's cigarettes and share them with Danny while they searched for Batman and Robin)

So when Danny has to move away when they're eleven years old, it's pretty safe to say that Jason didn't speak to him for a week afterwards. Nothing Danny did could persuade him to otherwise, even when Danny insisted that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't want to move away either, but he didn't have a choice in the matter.

When the week was over, Jason climbed through Danny's window and sat in his room, dead silent and looking upset. he didn't speak until Danny fished out a stolen pack of cigarettes from his bed and handed one to Jason.

(It was a ritual they had where if one of them was upset about something but wasn't saying anything, the other one could then hand them a cigarette -- whether it be the one they were using or a new one -- and that would be an open invitation for the person to vent. The other one who handed him the cigarette wouldn't speak until the venter handed back the cigarette. Then back and forth it would go until the cigarette was gone.)

Jason ranted about how pissed he was about Danny moving, and they promised to try and stay in touch after he leaves. Neither of them had phones, but Danny was determined to send him a letters.

Danny moves to Amity Park and it's... an adjustment, that's for sure. He's angry, grumpy, upset, and every other negative feeling under the sun. He was going to a new middle school with new people he didn't know, away from all of the people he did know and away from his best friend.

(He does however keep his word about sending letters, and mails one out to Jason at the first opportunity.)

He refuses to get along with anyone, butts heads with the teachers, is combative, rude, and openly smokes in class -- which gets him plenty of detentions and a bad reputation. He speaks in a thick Gotham street accent and wears hand-me-down clothes that are too big and baggy on him. (His parents have yet to replace any of their wardrobes as they settle into their new life, and Danny is hesitant to spend the money to get new clothes.)

He only manages to befriend Sam and Tucker because one of the football kids was bullying Tucker and Danny stepped in. It was some blond jerk named Dash and when Dash threw the first punch, Danny broke his nose. Tucker found him later that day and reluctantly thanked him for his help.

Sam and Danny do not get along for the longest time. Sam questions Danny about his upbringing, his accent, his smoking. She judges him for talking back to the teachers despite doing it herself and for ruining his lungs with cigarettes. Danny tells her to fuck off, and when she tries to judge him and Tucker for not being vegetarian, he calls her a privileged brat.

Sam doesn't even look at him for two weeks after, and Danny refuses to apologize. Tucker is caught between a rock and a hard place as his old friend and new friend are feuding with each other.

They... sort it out eventually.

Danny and Jason send each other letters near religiously. Danny complains about Amity Park, and Jason complains about how Crime Alley isn't the same without him. Danny talks about the school and what he's learned, about Sam and Tucker, and how he's been getting into the astronomy books in the library. He steals Jason a book and sends it to him.

When Jason tells Danny that he was adopted by Bruce Wayne, Danny calls bullshit. There's no fucking way Bruce Wayne would even look at Crime Alley, regardless of his charity efforts towards it. But when he checks Gotham news later that week, he's hit in the face with every single news article announcing Bruce Wayne's newest ward; Jason Todd.

Cue freaking out. Jason talks all about living in Wayne Manor and what it's like there. He says that there's a monster library in a part of the house that Bruce says he has free reign over, and that Jason can have anything to eat as long as he asks Alfred to make it and it isn't a desert, and that he has his own monster-sized room that he got to pick out himself and decorate.

(When they both get phones, the first thing either of them do is add each other's numbers.)

When Sam complains about having to go to a Wayne Gala that her parents are dragging her to one weekend, the first thing Danny asks is if he can go with. It surprises Sam and Tucker; Danny was the last person they would have thought wanted to go with. HE hates the rich even more than Sam does. Danny stands firm in his decision, and refuses to elaborate.

"Besides." He says to Sam, with whom he's begun to get along with via 'the enemy of my enemy is a friend'. "Would you rather go alone or with someone you can tolerate?"

She brings him with and convinces her parents to allow Danny to come along, citing that she'll be on her best behavior if they do. They agree, and buy Danny a suit when he says that he doesn't have one of his own.

(He discovers that he hates wearing suit jackets and ties, but vests he doesn't mind. He doesn't like that he has to comb his hair back, but he does to make Sam's parents happy. They give him a crash course in etiquette that Danny's going to forget the next day, and soon enough off they go in a private jet to Gotham)

(he does not tell Jason he's coming.)

he feels mischievous and nervous as they touch down, his stomach swirling as Sam's parents usher them to a high-profile hotel that Danny's only ever dreamed about going into. He feels largely out of place as they walk through the lobby, and falls back on old habits: square shoulders, set jaw, make yourself look like the biggest person in the room.

They get ready in the hotel room, Sam's parents primp and preen for the night incoming, and Sam is dragged into it by her mother. Danny does only what's required of him, and fiddles with the sleeves of his fresh-ironed button-down that's been tailored to his body. He's itching for a cigarette, and didn't bring any with.

Sam's dad helps him with his tie, a bout of kindness that Danny doesn't think is one. Just obligation to prevent Danny from looking like a mess. Sam pesters him again about wanting to come, and his reasons for it, and Danny keeps mum.

He's stone-faced with anxiety as they get closer to the gala, and before they leave the limousine the Mansons rented Sam links arms with him. A form of solidarity that Danny needs as he squeezes their arms together and smiles weakly at her.

The paparazzi are loud, bright, and demanding, shouting questions over questions at them like overlapping tidal waves. Danny ignores them all and focuses on the front doors instead. Sam's parents whisper at the stairs that they are to greet the Waynes first, and Danny's heart leaps to his throat.

His heart is in his ears as they drift closer, Mister Wayne is preoccupied with another rich couple, smiling that charming billionaire smile that Danny saw on every billboard in Gotham, and then some in Amity Park. Getting so close to him feels unreal.

And there by his side is the one and only Jason Todd, who isn't even trying to hide the bored look on his face as he watches Bruce interact with the other adults. He's gotten taller in the year they've been away, and healthier. His hair looks like its been cut professionally and he doesn't look as street kid skinny.

Danny's arm, hooked with Sam's, tightens up, and he resists the urge to rush forward and hug Jason. He watches Jason's eyes sweep left, away from him, and then right, towards him. The air stills for a moment as their eyes lock.

Danny grins toothily at him, lopsided and playful in nature, and sees the moment Jason processes the sight before him. His arm starts slipping out of Sam's at the same time as an ecstatic smile stretches across Jason's face.

His lopsided grin fills out on the other end. "DANNY!" Jason yells, cutting off whatever Bruce Wayne and startling everyone within earshot. There's barely a moment for Bruce to look down when Jason shoves past him and runs at Danny.

Danny yanks his arm out of Sam's, "JASON!" He yells with just as much enthusiasm, and Jason nearly topples them right over when he collides with Danny. His arms wrap around Danny's shoulders, holding onto him tightly, and they're both laughing, spinning around like tops out of joy.

"You didn't tell me you were coming!" Jason cries, sounding accusing. Danny hugs him just as tightly, and laughs when Jason pulls away momentarily to punch his shoulder.

"I wanted it to be a surprise!" He defends, laughing between words as their spinning comes to a stop. They're both reluctant to pull apart, but they do and clutch the sleeves of their elbows tightly. "How could my best friend be adopted by the Bruce Wayne and have me not come confirm it with my own two eyes?"

"I sent you newspaper clippings!" Jason says, narrowing his eyes while his smile betrays his face. Danny quietly notices that his Gotham street accent is faded slightly.

"Oh that's what it was?" Danny's grin turns again, edging into a smirk. He feigns innocence, "I thought that was fire kindling." He has the newspaper clippings hung on the corkboard in his room, proud beyond words about his best friend.

Jason punches him in the shoulder again, hard enough to leave a bruise. "You jackass." He says, ignoring Danny's laughter even when he's holding back his own.

There's a soft, sharp clearing of someone's throat, breaking their attentions away from each other to the one that made the noise.

Bruce Wayne was a tall man, taller than Danny expected, and he looks exactly like his billboards. If less promiscuous than his perfume ads. Danny expects him to be upset with them both for disrupting his pretty rich gala, but instead he just looks gently amused, with an arched eyebrow. Overall though, he just looks fond.

Danny would be the first to admit that Bruce had taken in Jason as a charity case, something to fill the void after his other kid Dick Grayson finally moved out. But Danny’s a good judge of character — or he likes to assume he is — and those are not the eyes of a man who would take Jason in as a charity case. Those are the eyes of a man who actually, genuinely, cares about one Jason Todd.

The wriggly protective thing settles in his chest.

He doesn’t let go of Jason, but he does twist his smile into something a little more polite. Mister Wayne’s eyebrow arches higher, and he turns his blue-blue eyes onto Jason. “Who’s this, Jason?” He has that fancy Gotham Elite accent -- something that sounds like a mix between old transatlantic and faintly British -- that Danny's only heard in passing when he and Jason snuck up to the nicer parts of Gotham.

Jason stares at Mister Wayne, his grip on Danny tightens as his eyes flick to the other onlookers in the room. “This is Danny, B.” He says once his eyes turn back to Mister Wayne. “We grew up in Crime Alley together, he moved to Illinois last year."

Danny can see the uncomfortable expressions cross every rich person's face, murmurs sweeping across the room as soon their uncomfortable gazes turned judgmental and flinty. He's kept track of the tabloids after Jason's adoption, the ones calling him a charity case and looking down on him for being a street kid.

He inches a little closer to Jason, straightening up instinctively, as if they were back in Crime Alley and facing a pack of kids that didn't like them. He can see Sam's surprised expression from the corner of his eye -- he never told Tucker or Sam about where he grew up, although he's sure they had their suspicions.

He looks back to Mister Wayne and meets his blue-blue eyes, his smile has slowly begun to fade. Mister Wayne doesn't miss a beat however, and his smile stays plastered to his face. If anything, it gets a little softer, a little wider. "It's nice to meet you Danny -- Daniel? I'm so glad that Jason has a friend here." He holds out a hand.

Danny eyes him unsurely, and then takes his hand. "It's jus' Danny, Mister Wayne." He says, some of his old accent slipping through as he shook his hand firmly. He would have done it harder, but this was Jason's new guardian, and from Jason's letters he didn't sound too bad. "It's, uh, nice to meet you too. Jason's told me lots about you."

Mister Wayne's brows jump momentarily, he looks intrigued. He looks between Danny and Jason, and claps his hands together softly. "Well, Jay, how would you like to stay with Danny for a while, hm? I'm sure you too have a lot to catch up on."

Hope simmers in Danny's heart, and he glances to Jason to see that same hope on his face. "Really?" He asks, and Mister Wayne nods with a laugh.

"Of course! How could I keep two friends apart? Go on ahead, chum. I'll come get you when the gala ends."

And just like that, Bruce Wayne leaves Jason with Danny, diving back into a conversation with one of the rich gothamites and taking the attention with it as if he were the sun and everyone else a planet orbiting him.

Danny and Jason share grins, and throw their arms around each other with laughter. Danny is on cloud nine, pressing his nose into Jason's shoulder and breathing him in, fingers digging into the back of his suit hard enough to leave wrinkles in his jacket.

Sam demands answers when they finally, for real this time, pull apart. Why didn't he tell her that he was friends with Jason Todd!? Danny slings his arm around Jason's shoulders and keeps him close, and tells her that it was because he wanted it to be a surprise.

Sam's parents have unreadable expressions on their faces, part greed -- Danny is their in to the elusive Bruce Wayne -- and part disdain -- a Gotham street rat. Danny ignores them, they're unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

He introduces Sam to Jason, and Jason to Sam. And off they go to a corner of the room near the buffet table where they can eat and shit talk everyone else in the room in peace.

At some point in the night Sam is called back to her parents to meet some other fancy rich kids her parents want her to get along with, and Danny and Jason go off to the west end balcony to avoid anyone who may try and approach the new Gotham ward.

Danny hops up onto the balcony railing, kicking his feet as Jason pulls a cigarette pack out of his inner jacket pocket, and grins. "Don't tell Bruce," he says, handing the box to Danny first. "He's been trying to get me to quit."

"Hah!" Danny takes one just as Jason slips out a lighter. "That sounds like Jazz. She's been trying to get me to stop since we moved to Amity." Granted, she's been trying ever since she found out before they moved, but now she was even more insistent. "She hasn't found my stash yet."

At the end of the night when the Mansons are leaving and Danny has to leave with them, he walks back to Mister Wayne with Jason to tell him that he's leaving. Mister Wayne mourns his going, and tells him that he's always able to come visit.

"Any friend of Jason's is always welcome to the manor." He says with a blinding grin, pulling Jason close to his side and squeezing him tight. Jason's nose scrunches up, but he doesn't push away.

It becomes a new routine for them. The Mansons are all too happy to bring him with to the Wayne Galas (of which they start receiving more invites to due to their connection with Danny) and Danny is all too happy to spend the evening with Jason again. No matter what, they always end up on the balcony at some point in the night.

And, eventually, Danny is invited to stay at Wayne Manor either for a weekend or for a break. He jumps at the chance when winter break rolls around and his parents start their debate over Santa Claus again.

Danny and Jason stay up late into the night talking or playing video games during their sleepovers, and in the warmer nights they climb out and onto the roof to stargaze. Danny points out constellations - - things he can find in neither Gotham or Amity -- and rambles on and on about space.

There are plenty of times during the Wayne Galas that the event gets attacked by a rogue. More often than he'd like he loses Jason in the crowd, and has later stopped Robin or Batman in his panic to find him.

The first time it happened, he was in tears with terror. He grabbed onto Batman's cape, stopping the man from going back in as he babbled that his Jason Todd was still inside, that he disappeared during the chaos and he couldn't find him. Batman took his hands and calmly told him that he'd find Jason for him, and that he was sure he was okay, but he needed to calm down.

He found Jason later once everything had calmed down, and he screamed at him for disappearing during a rogue attack, if he ever did it again he'll kill him. Then he cried.

The second time it happened, Danny didn't even realize that Jason was gone until everything was already over. They'd been separated before the attack happened. He stopped Robin and Batman before they could leave, trying to keep his breathing under control as he asked again, if they had seen Jason Todd.

"That- that asshole keeps fucking ditching me when these things happen." His voice has an embarrassing wobble in it. "Please-- please tell me you've seen him, that he's alright."

Robin this time steps up to reassure him, that Jason Todd was out of the building. He got him out. "He's probably looking for you too, uhhh..."

"Danny" Danny says, and eyes him up and down. "You're the new Robin right?"

Robin stilled up, and Danny could understand it a little. He'd seen the thoughts on the new Robin online. He wasn't very popular at first. Robin nods curtly, and Batman was shuffled a little closer to him, almost protectively.

Danny grins at him. "Cool." He says, "Me and Jay used to sneak out onto the rooftops sometimes to try and spot Batman and the first Robin, we made it a game." He holds out a fistbump, "Thanks for doing what you do, man. I might not live in Gotham anymore, but I mean it. You're a living legend."

Robin looks like there's something stuck in his throat, and after a beat he returns the fistbump tentatively. "Th- uh, thanks." He stumbles out awkwardly, and then turns away, "Me and B- uh, better go."

Before Danny could even respond, Robin already had his grapple in hand and was grappling away. "You too, Batman." Danny says before Batman can follow.

When Danny sees Jason after that, and weight lifts off his chest and he hits him in the arm again. And then complains that he should have gotten Batman and Robin's autograph, it would have been epic.

By the fifth time it happens, Danny is cussing up a storm when Robin saves him, cursing out Jason and claiming that he needs to put that boy on a fucking leash. "We're a duo!" He scowls when Robin gets him outside, "I got his back, he has mine! I can't have his back when he's got no back to fucking have."

The eighth time it happens, Danny gets held hostage by one of the henchmen. He's become a recognizable friend of the Waynes, and when the Waynes are nowhere to be found, then the next best thing was up to offer. Danny isn't even mad this time around -- just relieved that Jason was fucking off somewhere where he couldn't get hurt.

Robin, however, seemed furious when he arrived, and broke the hostager's jaw with a single flying kick to the face. Jason found him rapidly quick soon after the situation had settled, and apologized over and over again.

Danny slings an arm around his shoulder and laughs that it was fine, Robin saved the day! His legs were shaking with the worn off adrenaline, something he tried to hide from Jason. "I'm just glad it was me instead of you, Jay." He grins. Jason looks like he swallowed a toad.

Jason stops disappearing as often after that, sticking close to Danny's side until the attack was over.

When Danny is fourteen, Jason dies, and his world unravels.

He calls the manor on a late night in April after Jason had stopped responding to his texts. Danny knew that Jason was just recently in a fight with Bruce, but he knows that Bruce loves Jason. He would know where he is, right?

When he calls, Bruce answers with a hoarse "hello?" as if he'd been crying all day, and Danny's blood turns to ice. The anxiety he'd been feeling beforehand doubles in size, and he feels himself stammering.

"Mister- uh- Mister Wayne? Um, I'm calling because Jason--" he hears Bruce inhale sharply on the other line, and his anxiety skyrockets into fear. "--hasn't been answering any of my texts and- and I'm gettin' real worried."

There's silence on the other end, and Danny feels a rock forming in his throat, gross and heavy like he was on the verge of throwing up. "Mister- Bruce? Mister B?"

There's a shaky breath, and then Bruce's voice crackles through the phone. "Um-- Jason, he, he's--" there's a sound like rustling, "he's been killed."

Danny's vision whites out with skyrocketing terror, his mind skidding to a stop. His body rapidly grows hot, and then chills, like a blacksmith striking a heated weapon. "What?"

When the phone call ends, Danny screams himself hoarse. Jazz and his parents come running into his room, his parents equipped with ghost weapons. Instead, they find Danny curled up in his bed, sobbing hoarsely.

Danny almost -- almost -- refuses to attend the funeral, nearly paralyzed with grief. Jazz coaxes him to go, to find closure if anything else, and he drags himself out of bed to go.

He feels numb the entire time. It's closed casket, so he can't even see him for one last time before Jason is buried in the ground. He's silent, and if he think he looks bad, then Bruce looks even worse, like he hadn't slept since Jason died and worse.

Danny grabs his sleeve before he leaves, and when Bruce turns to him with a dull look in his once vibrant eyes, he clings to him tightly. And cries. Bruce clings back just as tight, Danny feels tears drip into his hair.

"Who did it." Danny whispers, voice too hurt to speak any louder, when he pulls back. His fingers curl around Bruce's jacket tightly, desperately. His eyes hurt with tears. "You said he was murdered, B. Please, who did it."

Bruce looks down at him, and for the first time it really does feel like he's looking down at him. His face is blank, and his eyes close in grief. There is no answer, a silent no.

Danny's face twists up all ugly like, and he shakes Bruce's jacket. "Bruce, please. Tell me who did it."

Bruce refuses, his face full of grief.

Danny never returns to Gotham.

Prior to Jason's death and post their reunion, Danny had slowly begun to improve in school. He started caring more, he was putting in more effort, he was doing his homework and was actually enjoying class. There was the bullying from Dash and the A-Listers, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle, he was ignoring them for the most part.

Come Monday after the funeral, and Danny breaks Dash's nose when he starts up with his shit. He withdrew into himself, and it was like he was back to square one again, except this time it was much worse.

Everyone knew Danny was close friends with Jason Todd. So when news of his death finally reached the ears of Amity Park, the students of Casper High School kept their distance.

That following Friday, Danny dies in the portal and comes back. A month later he becomes Phantom, the ghost-fighting ghost. the ghost Phantom wears his hazmat suit partially undone, showing a tanktop he didn't wear in death under the initial suit while the sleeves are tied around his waist. Vicious, glowing lichtenburg scars travel up his arm and neck and torso, covering half of his face while a pair of scientist-like goggles covers his eyes. He's bitter and angry, showing off his death.

Look at me, Phantom's form says, I am a dead child. Look at me look at me look at me. Mourn me. I am a dead child. LOOK AT ME. MOURN ME.

A few weeks later he enters the ghost zone and realizes that he could find Jason. And he spends a weekend scouring the ghost zone for him. He finds Gotham in the zone, and rather than finding Jason, he finds Robin.

Danny didn't know he'd died. And he flies towards him, asks him if he's seen Jason, reveals that it's him, Danny Fenton. Robin stares at him, mouth agape, and peels off his mask to reveal Jason Todd.

They both cry, and when Danny tells him how he died, Jason looks pale in the face. "You didn't- you didn't kill yourself because of me, did you?"

Danny fervently denies it. No, no. He didn't, he didn't. It was an accident. Totally unrelated. But enough about that, what the hell happened? Bruce wouldn't tell him anything at the funeral.

Jason clams up, his ghostly face losing its color, and Danny curses himself. He tells Jason that he doesn't have to tell him, he doesn't have to say anything. They sit in silence.

"It was the Joker." Jason says.

That's all Danny needs to know. He nods quietly. 'I'll kill him.' He thinks to himself, a stubborn set in his jaw. "Okay."

It had always been a plan; a thought wriggling in the back of Danny's mind ever since Bruce told him that Jason had been killed.

Not died. Killed.

Danny wanted the fucker dead the moment he realized it. He just needed to know who did it. He thinks Bruce knew it too, could probably see it in his eyes the moment Danny asked him who did it. He isn't sure if he should hate Bruce more for keeping it from him now.

They spend hours together, just soaking in each other's presence. Danny tries to take him through the ghost portal, to bring him back to the land of the living. But much like Kitty, Jason's form is tied to the zone. Danny promises to visit every day.

And he does. Or he tries to. The grief doesn't go away, but with the comfort of knowing that Jason was on the other side, Danny feels a little better. He tells Jason about being Phantom, and Jason helps train him. It feels like they're kids again and are fighting just because they want to. Its a bout of familiarity in a place that feels unfamiliar. All they need are cigarettes.

And then six months later he loses him again. Danny scours the ghost zone for him for the second time, and this time he doesn't find him.

His haunt is still in the zone though. He didn't move on. He's still here, somewhere.

Danny is convinced that Jason was in the Elsewhereness, and looks for him in between ghost fights and his social life. He visits Jason's haunt every day, knowing that Jason should be able to feel when another ghost enters his home. He does not show up.

(He never thinks that Jason came back to life, and Jason doesn't remember his time in the ghost zone)

When Danny is nineteen, Vlad Masters blackmails him into going to another Wayne Gala. Begrudgingly, Danny goes. He's taller than he used to be, having inherited his dad's monstrous height and his mom's leanness. He has piercings, some of them he got after a lost bet from Sam and Tucker, and he's given himself an undercut.

He still prefers vests over suit jackets, and he still smokes. A little less than before, he sneaks a pack into his pocket before he leaves, along with a lighter. Vlad gives him a dirty look the whole time - he knows.

"Don't give me that look." "That stuff kills, you know" "I'm already dead."

It's like deja vu when he arrives; an awful bout of deja vu, that is. The paparazzi is still as bright and loud and annoying as it always was, and they don't recognize him at all. Something he thinks of as a soft mercy up until one of the reporters asks Vlad who he is.

Vlad smiles and tugs Danny into the camera frame, "Why, this is my godson!" He crows, and shoots Danny a look that is downright smug I'm sure many of you may know him as Daniel Fenton?"

If looks could kill, Vlad would be ash. Danny isn't quite sure why he still agreed to this -- blackmail or no. He felt itchy being in Gotham; jumpy. He's never forgotten his vow to kill the Joker, in fact it was something he still desperately wants.

But the threat of Rath, the name he chose for his evil future self, haunts him just as much as his murderous intent. If he kills the Joker, would he stop?

Danny's almost afraid of what he'll do if he ever lays eyes on the Joker in person. He doesn't think he'll be able to stop himself from wrapping his hands around that stupid clown's neck and watching the light leave his eyes.

He pushes the thoughts to the side, and smiles lopsidedly as cameras and microphones flood his face, reporters yelling over themselves as they clamor to get a shot of the old Wayne family friend.

Danny turns and walks inside without answering a single question, flexing his fingers in and out of fists. Vlad gracefully hurries after him, and Danny can hear his glare burning into his back.

"You told me to come," Danny hisses to him once he's beside him, meeting Vlad's gaze piercingly, "not that I should play nice."

"Don't embarrass me, Daniel." Vlad hisses back, trying to look the upmost calm as eyes turn onto them. "I'll make you regret it."

"You embarrass yourself, fruitloop." Danny shoots back, walking away before Vlad could get a retort in. He sees Bruce Wayne on the other side of the room.

His heart seizes with nostalgia. He hasn't seen Bruce since Jason's funeral, hasn't spoken to him either. He doesn't know how to feel about him, but he'd been keeping tabs on Bruce both as himself and as Batman.

Danny's feet carry him forwards before he can think about it, silently weaving between the throng of rich people vying for his attention. It's only when he gets closer does he see the little shadow clinging to his side: Damian Wayne.

The newest little bird, Danny realizes, and stifles a smile at the surly expression on Damian's face as two older women coo over him. He reminded him of Sam, who had long since stopped coming to these things the moment she was able to.

The feeling of eyes on him turns Danny's attention away from Damian, and instead finds them back on Bruce's, who stares at him with a little furrow between his brows. As if he recognized him, but he wasn't sure from there.

Danny grins crookedly the moment he's within earshot. "Mister B!" He exclaims, slipping into what remained of his Gotham street accent. Recognition flashed in Bruce's eyes, and the man smiled widely. "Long time no see, old man."

"Danny," Bruce says, his name breathing out like relief. He slips between the crowd surrounding him -- who are now watching Danny -- and pulls Danny into a close hug. "It's good to see you again."

Danny hesitates for a moment -- he wasn't expecting Bruce to hug him -- and returns the gesture. "It's good to see you too, Bruce." He admits. Bruce was still using the same cologne that he did when Danny was a kid. He blinks heavily.

He pulls away quickly, clapping Bruce lightly on the shoulder as Damian quickly latches onto his father's side again. Damian glares daggers at him, fingers digging into Bruce's pantlegs like a possessive little kid.

He made Danny's ghost sense tingle in the back of his throat, creeping up slowly like a spider before stopping suddenly before it reached his mouth. It hummed, and then disappeared.

Danny smothered a frown. Since when did Batman work with ectoplasm? “This must be Damian." He says to Bruce, and holds out a hand to Damian -- he doesn't crouch, he had a feeling that Damian would be less than appreciative if he did that. "You've really expanded the nest since the last time I saw you."

Damian's eyes narrow at him. Bruce laughs lightly, "Ah yes, Tim is around here somewhere. I'm sure you'll see him soon."

"Father," Damian says, his voice layered with an accent. He glares up at Danny with piercing green eyes. "How do you know this man?" He sounds distrustful, Danny respects that and drops his hand.

"This is Danny Fenton." Bruce says, and Danny lets him introduce him. "He was Jason's friend."

An expression similar to bewilderment flashes briefly over Damian's face, and he eyes Danny in disbelief. "Todd had friends?"

Oh. So that's how he wanted to be. Bruce had a little elitist on his hands. Danny's smile drops like a deadweight, and any lingering endearment he had hardens like ice in his chest, fury slowly taking its place like a flickering candlelight. "It's not polite to speak ill of the dead, Mister Wayne." He says coldly, his voice made of chips of ice.

Damian blinks, the disbelief disappearing from his face. The closest thing to a recoil Danny thinks he's going to get. He doesn't care. No one speaks about his best friend that way.

"I grew up with Jason, actually." He continues, breathing in slow and deep, trying to keep the ghostly possessive-protective-rage under control. "I was his best friend."

He turns, almost robotically, towards Bruce, and tries not to look so angry. "I'm going to go find Tim, Mister B." He says, and tries to offer up a weak smile for the man. It comes out as a grimace instead.

"And..." he pauses, flicks his eyes towards Damian, and then looks at Bruce. "I'll... try and keep in contact, B. Tell Dick I said hi, alright? I'll see you in a little bit."

Bruce nods, looking vaguely disappointed and sighing slow through his nose. Danny walks away as Bruce turns to address his youngest, and doesn't bother listening in on what he has to say.

He does, eventually, find Tim Drake. He spots him in a crowd instantly - it's hard not to, and he makes his way over to him. He's not sure Tim Drake would recognize him, Bruce didn't at first and Danny had been around him constantly.

Except Tim Drake does recognize him, much to Danny's surprise. They lock eyes and Tim immediately makes his way over to him. "Danny Fenton!" He says and stops in front of him, "What a surprise, we weren't expecting you tonight."

"Tim Drake," Danny replies, smiling a little as his earlier hurt begins to fade away. "I'm surprised you know me."

"There are pictures of you in the manor with Jason." Tim explains, stuffing his hands into his pockets with an easy-going smile. "It's hard not to know you."

"It’s hard not to know you too,” Danny retorts, a sly smile slowly spreading across his face. “Although you’re a lot taller than you used to be, when you were lurking around Bruce and Jason and I.”

Ohhh Danny recognizes him alright. One part due to all the news articles and tabloids on him after he was adopted by Bruce, and the other part because he remembers the little shadow lurking near plants pots and table legs that used to follow him and Jason around at galas just like these.

Knowing that Jason was Robin, he wonders if Jason knew he was there too.

The effect is immediate: Tim’s eyes grow comically large, and a red tint glows at the tip of his ears as he shrinks back like a turtle trying to hide into its shell. “You— you noticed that!?” He hisses.

“I did!” Danny grins, large and wide, stifling a laugh as the red tint spreads over Tim’s cheeks and nose. He looks mortified. Danny coos. “Aww, I thought it was adorable that Jason had a little shadow. I’m sure he would have loved you if you had just come over and said hi. He had a big soft spot for kids.”

Tim snorts and it— it almost sounds derisive? “Sure he would.” He looks sad, and the mirth in Danny’s chest shrivels up like a flower without light. The smile fades from his face, and all that’s left is a strange, staunch reminder that Danny and Bruce weren’t the only ones that probably mourned.

He touches Tim’s shoulder lightly, “Hey, I’m sorry.” He says, trying to look as apologetic as he feels. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m sorry, I miss him too.” Like a fucking limb he missed him.

There’s something that flickers in Tim’s eyes, passing through too fast for Danny to realize what it is. He assumes its gratefulness, because Tim relaxes a little and offers him a weak little smile. “I wish I had talked to him.”

Danny sees an out and takes it, he forces out a short laugh, grinning widely. “I can tell you all about him if you’d like,” he offers, “I told Mister B I’d keep in touch anyways. I’ve missed him and Alfred quite a lot in the last few years.”

“Not Dick?”

“That dipstick wasn’t around often enough for me to form any sort of emotional attachment to him.” Danny says in a half-complaining tone, placing his hands on his hips. “Although I did like his puns.”

Tim snickers, “I’ll tell him you said that then. Nobody likes his puns.”

“Go on ahead,” Danny grins, laughter swirling in his chest and making his core thrum with warmth. Damn, he’s missed this family. “I stand by my decision. Puns are funny.”

“Let’s get a photo then.” Tim says with a hand already fishing in his pocket for his phone. “He’ll be devastated to know that you were here and he didn’t get to see you.”

“Sure.” And Danny sidles on next to Tim, throwing an arm around his shoulders — and making a noise of surprise when his arm was able to fit comfortably — as if he was just resting it on a counter.

He totally forgot how tall he was compared to Tim. Forgot that he’d been looking down the entire time they’d been talking. “Why’d I get my dad’s height.” He complains, and bends his knees as Tim raises the phone with the front-facing camera on.

Tim snickers under his breath, and takes the picture while they’re both smiling wide. Danny immediately stands up, and peers over Tim’s shoulders to look at the picture.

It’s a good one, with the fringe of Danny’s curls falling slightly over his left eye and making the dimple on his right cheek more prominent. He could see the barely-there smattering of freckles he had across his nose, the ones that became more prominent when the sun was out. His smile was lopsided, Danny’s favorite kind of smile.

He whistles lowly, “That’s a good one,” he says aloud, and smiles impishly at Tim when he looks at him. “You should send that one, I look hot in it.”

Tim snorts, his ears reddening as he looks down at his phone. “Yeah sure, no problem.” He says quickly, and Danny looks away when he pulls up the messenger app. He’s never felt comfortable looking over people’s shoulders when they were on their phone.

“I’m gonna go take a smoke break.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and curls his fingers around the box and lighter inside. “I’ll—“

“Be on the west-end balcony.” Tim finishes, the red in his ears darkening as he glances up from his phone to smile embarrassedly. “I know.”

Danny snorts, “Okay.” His voice is thick with amusement. “Let me know how Dipstick reacts, alright?” He backs up slowly, awaiting Tim’s response. Tim merely waves a hand at him, a weak gesture of “yeah yeah” that makes Danny grin before he flips around and marches towards his favorite smoking balcony.

———————

(Tim pulls up the family group chat and loads the selfie into the text bar. His face feels warm with embarrassment even as his thumbs fly across the screen.

Tim: look who i found at the latest charity gala :) [image]

Hee awaits eagerly a response, and finds he doesn’t have to wait long. Dick’s thought bubble appears on screen, then Cass’s — of which it only exists for a moment before disappearing.

Dick: holy shit, is that who i think it is?

Tim responds quickly, and his message sends.

Tim: yep. He wanted me to tell you that he thinks your jokes are funny.

Dick: they are funny

Tim rolls his eyes and thinks for a moment, really thinks. He weighs his pros and cons. And then his fingers fly across the screen again.

Tim: hey Jason are you not gonna say anything?

There’s no response for all of thirty seconds — of which it stretches on to an uncomfortably long minute — and then Jason’s thought bubble appears.

Jason: what do i have to say to a bunch of idiots blowing up my phone in the middle of patrol?

Tim: harsh. do you recognize the guy in the photo?

Jason’s response is instant. Too fast for him to have actually looked at the photo itself. He’s just trying to spite Tim then. Tim doesn’t care, he has the upper hand here

Jason: no and I don’t care, i have patrol

Tim knows he didn’t look at the photo, and yet he can’t help stifle a shit-eating smile and feign innocence

Tim: really? You and Danny used to be so close, color me surprised

His teeth dig into his lower lip, he doesn’t need to in order to hide a smile. But it gives him something to do. Jason is worryingly silent for a long, long time, and Tim can almost imagine him staring long and hard at the selfie. Tim knows he will be later.

Finally, Jason’s text bubble shows up. It exists for a long time, before finally Tim’s phone buzzes with his message alert.

Jason: that’s danny?

Tim feels all too gleeful. Smugness swirling in his chest like kicked up sand as he types his response: yep! Apparently he showed up today, although I’m not sure with who since I don’t see Miss Manson around here.

Damian: Father says to get off your phone, Drake. We are at a Gala and your behavior is most unbecoming

Tim: can it demon spawn, I was just telling Jason that his friend Danny is here

Damian: He can’t be too important if he doesn’t even know Todd is alive

Tim: how would you know that?

Damian: When Father introduced him as Todd’s friend, I expressed my surprise that Todd even had friends, considering how unpleasant he can be. Fenton became quite cross with me after that and quickly excused himself thereafter

Dick: you said what!? Damian that’s not okay

Damian: Father made that quite clear after Fenton left in a huff. My mistake for thinking that Todd had told his ‘supposed best friend’ that he was alive.

Dick: he didn’t even tell us we were alive at first

Damian: He did eventually, didn’t he? Clearly Todd doesn’t seem to care too much about Fenton if he hasn’t even informed him of his being alive at this point.

Jason’s thought bubble quickly pops up, and then dissipates, then pops up again. Tim quickly pockets his phone before he can see Jason’s response. He doesn’t feel smug anymore, just uncomfortable.)

———————

Stepping out onto the west-end balcony feels like a blast from the past. A painful one at that. Danny’s fingers dig into his cigarette pack, and he pulls it out with a sense of bittersweet familiarity.

It feels like a lifetime ago that he once stood here with Jason. The package clunks dully as his fingers scrape against the side, and he fishes a cigarette out of the box before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Quite the night isn’t it.” He says to nothing, to ghosts of the past, to himself. He turns and sits on the railing, sticking his legs out like a tripping hazard while Gotham’s hot city wind blows through the air.

He looks up and only sees the ugly pollution yellow sky looking down at him. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to him. He loves the stars and yet when faced with a smog that covers it, he feels more at home.

Danny’s fingers find the lighter, and with a few clicks a small open flame appears in existence. There’s a poem here, he can feel it. But he feels too tired to find it.

The cigarette lights, and the lighter dies in response. Returning back to his coffin-like pocket until he needs to use it again. He pulls a leg up, resting his chin on his knee with a heavy, tired sigh.

He soaks in the sounds around him. The ugly city warmth nips at his jaw. The music inside is muffled by the force of two glass doors and walls on all four sides, and Danny can hear late night traffic coming by on the road nearby. It’s a special kind of ambience you can only find on the west end balcony.

Half a decade ago, Danny had played a part with that ambience with Jason. Now it was just him, and Jason was nowhere to be found. It left a hopeless kind of feeling in his chest. An all-suffocating kind of fear that filled him head to toe with an intensity only ghosts could have.

His body winds up like a spring, and Danny holds his breath. When he exhales two minutes later, the spring stutters and jolts, and his body relaxes with a tremble.

He misses Jason. He misses Jason.

Ghosts are emotional creatures. They feel it from their crown to their soles. And emotional wounds never really heal. They scab over and fester, waiting to be picked at again and again so it can bleed as fresh as it did when it first opened.

Danny’s grief is never going to go away, he thinks. It’s clung to him like a parasite; shaped him and molded him. The wound was too close to him when he died, and now it will stay with him forever.

He opens his eyes when his ghost sense tingles, a heavy feeling in his throat that is neither nicotine nor grief. It’s just like Damian’s, but stronger. Potent. Older. It reaches the top of Danny’s throat and sits at the base of his tongue, like a hand about to suffocate him.

He looks up, cigarette hanging off his lips, and the Red Hood drops down beside him. He stands in the same spot Jason once did, and that alone makes the ghostly core in Danny seize possessively.

Don’t you dare stand where he stood, it hisses, coiling around his lungs like smog. Danny grits his teeth and feels his ghost sense evaporate. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, and nicotine smoke pours out like a cheap version of his ghost sense.

“Red Hood.” He says plainly, his free hand coiling and uncoiling like cat’s claws against the railing. “A surprise to see you here.”

Danny knows through process of elimination who most of the Gotham vigilantes are: Dick is Nightwing, Bruce is Batman, Tim is Red Robin, Damian is Robin, and Cass is Orphan. There are a few who he doesn’t know, however. Like Batgirl and Red Hood.

It’s fine, he doesn’t need to know. Danny of all people understands the importance of a secret identity.

Red Hood doesn’t say anything, just stares at him as if he’s a deer in headlights. His body all tensed up like he isn’t sure what to do now that he’s here in front of Danny. Like he wasn’t expecting Danny to be here at all.

Danny’s brows furrow. “Sorry, am I in your spot?” He asks, and begins to push off the railing. “I didn’t think vigilantes used the Wayne Hall west-end balcony, I can leave if you want.”

He’s already begun to move towards the door.

The Red Hood lurches in his spot, “No!” He yells, and Danny stops in place with raising eyebrows. Red Hood’s fingers cringe, and he straightens up.

He’s shorter than Danny, he notes. Which isn’t much of revelation. Everyone is shorter than Danny.

“No,” Red Hood repeats, sounding sturdier than before, “No. You’re fine. I’m just stopping here for a quick rest before resuming patrol.”

…Danny doesn’t question it. It’s none of his business about other vigilantes and their practices. He shrugs and breathes out more smoke, “Alright.” He says, and walks back over to the railing to sit on it. “I’m Danny, by the way.”

The Red Hood nods, and a silence falls over them. Danny doesn’t care enough to make it feel uncomfortable, but the Red Hood seems unsettled by something. Lost in thought. He leans his back against the railing similar to Danny, and then switches a few seconds later to a new pose.

He does it again, and again, and again. Until finally he flips over and leans his stomach against the railing, arms resting against it. It is starkly like what Jason used to do, and Danny stares at him long and hard.

He frowns. And says nothing.

When Danny’s cigarette is nothing more than a butt of nicotine, he crushes it in his hand and watches the ash flutter down to the ground. The heat stings his hand, but its nothing his ghostly healing can’t fix.

The Red Hood is already holding out another one when Danny’s hand drifts to his pocket for the box.

Danny stares at him, sudden wariness opening up like floodgates that sit at the bottom of his stomach.

His frown deepens, his eyes flicker up and down at Red Hood. His hands hover over his pocket. “I have my own.” He says, and watches subtly as the Red Hood hides a wilt. As if he’d been expecting Danny to take it.

“Alright.” The Red Hood says, trying to sound unbothered. He retracts the cigarette away from Danny, quiet all the way. He’s looking away.

Danny plucks the cigarette out of his hand, startling the Hood enough that Red snaps back to look at him. Danny yanks his lighter from his pocket. “I won’t say no to a free cigarette.” He says, slightly muffled with the stick between his teeth. It lights.

Silence falls over them again, and when one minute stretches into five, whatever hope that had been digging into the shoulders of Red Hood finally pulls away and leaves him slumping subtly.

‘A ciggie for your thoughts?’ Nine year old Jason Todd whispers one night with an impish grin, holding up a cigarette pinched between his two fingers. ‘I stole it from my old man. He won’t even notice its gone.’

Danny is halfway through it when he speaks. “The Joker killed my best friend.” He says, and watches from the corner of his eye as the Red Hood flinches. Is he startled by Danny speaking, or startled by the bluntness of him starting?

“He beat him to death.” Danny continues, staring stone-faced away from Red Hood. His grief claws up his lungs and burrows into his heart again. His fingers dig into the railing. “He beat my best friend to death.”

The Red Hood is silent, his body as still as the grave. Silence stretches out between them both, and like he’d been thinking, the Hood finally speaks: “How do you know?”

He’s not holding the cigarette, he broke his and Jason’s rule. Danny bounces the stick between his fingers. “His ghost told me.” He says, taking a trembling breath. “His ghost told me so, before he disappeared.”

The Red Hood says nothing, and Danny gathers his thoughts. The ones that had been buried deep next to his core, shoved down ever since Danny learned of Rath and a terrible future where a world is destroyed by one ghost’s hands.

Danny has never said it out loud before. His face scrunches up briefly, and then smooths out when his eyes squeeze shut. “I’m going to kill him, Red Hood.” He murmurs when he opens his eyes, turning his face toward the vigilante. The sound is sucked out of the air.

The Red Hood stares at him, but he doesn’t say a word. Danny pushes on, teeth grinding into teeth as he flips his silvery scarred hand back and forth. Palm up, palm down. “It’s why I haven’t been back to Gotham in a while.” He admits, voice still quiet. “If I see the Joker I will kill him, and I won’t feel bad for it.”

“Not today though,” he says, and closes his hand, “today I’m here on a favor to Vlad Masters. Then after this I’ll go visit my friend. I need to apologize for not seeing his grave in a while. I’ll have to stop by a florist to see if they have any zinnias. Jay likes those.”

He takes out the cigarette in his mouth and breathes out one last cloud of smoke. And then he crushes the cigarette stick under his foot and walks back inside.

[hotchners-wifey]

Save Her

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader, Platonic!BAU x Reader, Morgan!Sister Reader

Summary: Y/N has a past she's never told anyone about, she was involved in some heavy things when she lived in England with her Aunt and Uncle. Things she thought were murdered along with her best friend, things she thought went missing with her boyfriend. Things that followed her to Quantico, Virginia. Previous Chapter~ Next Chapter Chapter Warnings: Cursing, Sicknesses, death A/N: I didn't want the character to get confused with Morgan so I put Y/L/N so just pretend your last name is the name you took when you moved with your aunt and uncle.

________________________________________ I got out and gave the keys to Benny and helped Penny get out of the car and into the building. I thanked George for holding the door up and we walked into the building. Still holding onto Penny I walked to the elevator and pressed the button. Emily groaned, "Ugh I just want to get into bed and sleep for thirty years." I laughed, the elevator doors opened and we loaded into the elevator. Penny leaned onto my shoulder and started to nod off. "Hey Penny try to stay awake, we still have to get you to my apartment and out of these clothes." She sighed and nodded slightly, the doors opened and we walked down to my apartment. I opened the door and we piled into my apartment. We all helped Penny change into her pink unicorn pajamas, before getting ready for bed ourselves. I decided to sleep in the living room with the girls, I pulled out the blowup mattress for JJ and Emily. Me and Penny got the futon, after getting ready for bed I laid next to Penny and wished the girls goodnight. I laid awake for a while before drifting off to sleep. ________________________________________ 10 years ago ________________________________________ Looking out the window of the airplane I couldn't help but miss home, I told my Aunt about what had happened and she demanded me to move back to America. And to bribe me she used the BAU, she knew I was interested in joining the FBI so she helped me get settled into an apartment in Quantico, Virginia. She also helped me get into a class for the BAU. I didn't want to leave my aunt alone but she always said the same thing, "I'm not alone, your uncle will be here to keep me company." My uncle who died three years ago from cancer and I always respond with "He'll always keep you company." and she would smile and give me a long hug. When the plane landed I arrived at the gate and spotted my brother and some bubbly broad next to him. I rushed towards him and gave him a massive hug. "Derek! I missed you so much!" I exclaimed and pulled away, "How's my older brother been." He smirks "I've been good, oh this is Penelope Garcia. Babygirl this is Y/N Y/L/N. Since you're starting training at the BAU you'll be seeing her a lot." I looked over at her and smiled shaking her hand. "I've heard so much about you, all good things I promise." She exclaims, I laugh, "He better be telling you good things." She giggles. "I don't need my soon to be team thinking badly of me." I say looking directly at Derek, he chuckles nervously and nods. We walk to grab my bags and leave the airport, "So I heard that Aunty set you up with an apartment. Is that true?" I nodded, "She wouldn't tell me how much the place cost because from the pictures she showed me the place seems pretty pricey." Derek shakes his head with a slight smile and grabs my bags. "Now you and I both know how stubborn that woman is." I laughed as we walked out the airport and headed to his black SUV. "Damn Der, where did you get this beauty?" He smirked, "Perks of the job sweetie. You'll get there one day." He placed my bags in the trunk and we got in the car, "Alright lets get you to your new home." He started the SUV and we drove to the building and when we arrived my jaw dropped. "Wow I didn't expect her to go this far with my new apartment." I got out of the car when a chauffeur came up to us, "Hello my name is Benny, I'm one of this fine establishments chauffeurs and this is Chris he will be taking your bags up to your apartment Miss Y/L/N." I looked at him shocked, "You know who I am?" He nodded "Your Aunt sent us an image of you so we knew to give you the right room." Derek gave my bags to Chris and he put them on the cart and entered the hotel. My aunt really outdid herself this time. I couldn't believe she would blow off this much money for me, I turned to the chauffeur, "Just out of curiosity, how much did my aunt spend on my apartment?" He smiled "She didn't spend anything on your apartment, she owns the place." ________________________________________ Taglist~ @sebastiansstanswhore

[bitchfitch]

chapter 4 from that elden ring fanfic (needed to post it on its own for a thing)

There was a rattling noise coming from the air conditioner in Radagon's car. No one could remember if it was Miquella or Malenia who shoved the folded up sticker responsible for the sound through the vent slats when they were four. The rattling and quiet purr of traffic filled the empty spaces of the car during the otherwise deathly silent ride.

Radagon kept his eyes on the road, his jaw tight, his grip at ten and two on the wheel. The tendons in the back of his hands flexed as his fingers twitched in their grip on the wheel. Tightening and loosening over and over again as Radagon picked through his own thoughts.

Miquella tried not to look like he was paying too much attention to the unconscious fidgit. It wasn't like he could divine his father's thoughts from the twitching of his fingers, but sometimes he wanted to believe he could.

The security guard in the little station by their school's fence didn't even look up from his book when he opened the gate for them. It always seemed a very blase response for a security guard to give a black car with heavily tinted windows driving up to a highschool on Saturday, even if Miquella knew they were an identifiable lot, Radagon with his massive build and bright red hair worn loose, and Malenia with hers tied back to make a point of not hiding the extensive scarring on her face, and Miquella... was there too.

When they parked Radagon cleared his throat before unlocking the backdoors to let them out.

"Mal, can you give your brother and I a moment? He'll be in right after you."

Malenia hesitated, waiting a beat for Miquella to give protest to the idea before nodding when none came. "Yes sir," She gives Miquella a tight half smile "I'll wait for you by the changing rooms," before grabbing her duffle and escaping into the parking lot.

The door closed with a dampened thunk that Miquella felt as much as he heard. Radagon was still staring forward. His hands still on the wheel. He sighs and lets his shoulders drop.

"I'm going to be gone a few days. But I was wondering if you'd want to do something when I got back. There's a suit shop in town, a proper one that tailors them to fit," he pauses, his eyes flicking up to find Miquella in the rear view mirror. "I wanted to wait until you were a little older to take you, to see if you'd get any taller, you know, but... with everything that's been going on, and your 16th coming up, I think it'll be a good thing for us to do. A proper father son bonding experience."

Miquella knew this was his vain attempt to make up for the dress, an olive branch being held out between them. He couldn't help but wonder what snakes were hiding in it or when it would be turned into a switch.

"Uh, I'll see what my schedule is like. Midterms are coming up and I don't want to lose too much study time-" Miquella tenses when Radagon's face hardens again.

"It won't take longer than any of your playdates do. I'll check your schedule and get an appointment set up for us, ok?"

"Ok," he knew when to let a fight be a loss, "Thank you but- Malenia- She needs help with suiting up. I don't want to keep her waiting too long," with that the door unlocked so he could step out into the late winter day. The light chill being a relief from the pressure of being alone with Radagon.

Miquella hurried to catch up with Malenia as his father's car pulled out of it's parking spot. Too focussed on willing himself into faux calm to notice the trio of boys from his grade loitering in the otherwise empty hall until it was too late.

The leader of the posse, a military brat who's name Miquella had never felt was worth learning, stepped away from his crew just enough to 'accidentally' hip check Miquella as he attempted to pass them.

"Hey what's the rush? Class doesn't start for another ten Euraidd," the brat sneered, clamping a hand on Miquella's bicep to make him freeze. Miquella didn't know when he learned that trick, or if he knew why it worked, but that never mattered when it happened. It always made Miquella stop dead like a deer staring down a semi's headlights.

"Probably just looking for her big sister," one of the lackies chimed.

"Weird to see them separated. Thought you were supposed to be the cripple's seeing eye dog," the third added on.

"Ptchssh, lay off her Ed," the brat steps around him to stand behind Miquella with his hands on his shoulders. The change in grip not at all helping when there were fingers digging into the flesh above his collar bones. "She's clearly a puppy, not a dog. I mean look at her! She's what, nine?"

They were trying to get him to be the one to start the fight, to escalate 'friendly teasing' into a thrown elbow that could justify proper aggression.

"Malenia is waiting for me," he tried to shrug off the brat's hands, taking a step to the side to escape the circle, but the grip only tightened as the larger boy dragged him back into place.

"Hey we're just playing Micky. No reason to go running off so soon. She'll be fine on her own for a bit. We had something we needed to chat about with you anyways," he lifts one hand from Miquella's shoulder to flick his braid back and forth over the nape of his neck. "Heard a nasty rumor and just needed to set the record straight with you so that next time we could defend him for you.

"A lil birdy said your brother knocked up some bitch before he killed himself."

Miquella bristled, for a moment loosing his temper and getting beat to shit before he was expelled didn't look like such a bad consequence for punching the brat. He was saved though, from cracking his teeth with the force of how hard he was clenching his jaw to hold his tongue, and from what would happen should he loose it, by one of the girls in their class shoulder checking the brat.

Finlay, Miquella knew her name because Malenia had once made a point of complimenting her skill, shoved the brat aside. She wasn't the biggest woman in the world nor was she the best fighter, but she had bulk to her and a stubborn fire that Malenia liked.

"Back off," it was a simple command, and one the brat moves to follow, holding his hands up defensively.

"Fuck sakes, Cleanrot. Don't spook a guy like that! I might have accidentally yanked poor- hey!"

Miquella took that as his cue to escape down the hall towards the girl's locker room. Though she was a bit shorter than the brat, Finlay had a foot of height on Miquella and, if he was remembering correctly, her father might very well be brat's commanding officer. Even if the trio felt comfortable going after him there wasn't a chance in hell of any of them touching her. Besides what help would he be in a fight like that.

The bickering faded as he rounded the last corner between him and the locker room, and with it he managed to breath a little easier.

Malenia was waiting for him just beside the door, her cane tapping against the floor along to the rhythm of the song playing in her ear bud as she typed away at a message to someone.

"We owe Finlay," Miquella said to her as he bent to pick up her bag, "The goons were bothering me and she stepped in."

"Why?" Malenia pocketed her phone and followed him through the door.

"Probably to make sure we owed her."

A few of the girls greeted them both, Miquella's use of the girl's locker room having not been questioned once in the time they've attended this class. As far as the other students knew Malenia needed help getting suited up, so of course her twin would follow her to the back corner and offer assistance while he got his suit on over his under clothes too. Everyone was fully clothed anyways, dressing in the locker rooms being more for convenience than modesty, and it wasn't like anyone of the young men and women that made up their class really saw Miquella as a boy equal to their peers. He was too... stunted for that.

"What held you two up? I was about to start texting Mal to ask if you two were breaking your attendance streak," one of the seniors, Tamra, asked.

"Our dad just wanted to talk to me about buying a suit," Miquella shrugged, not wanting to involve the others in whatever the goons had been attempting even if he was still simmering from the brat's attempted insult of Godwyn. It was a car accident. Miquella knew it was an accident. "He wants me to wear one to Malenia and I's birthday party."

"I can't imagine you in a suit... Either of you really," one of the other girls said as Miquella helped Malenia step into her trousers, she didn't need the help, he just needed to justify his presence.

"I could make a suit work," Malenia replied, leaning on Miquella's shoulder to brace herself.

"Yeah I mean you Could, but you're both so-" Tamra mimed doing a cute sway in a skirt "-You know? All graceful and pretty."

"My sister got married in this like, lacey dress suit thing. They'd both look good in that... Malenia especially. Like the lace plus the engravings she has on her bicep? Perfect look," the other girl chimed in as the door opened and Finlay stepped in. She was greeted much the same as the twins had been. Miquella makes a point of shooting her a smile.

"I don't think the place Dad has in mind will sell that kind. He wants me to wear a proper manly suit," Miquella directs the attention away from Malenia's looks with an eye roll. There's snickering at that idea from everyone listening. Miquella again bit his tongue to stamp down the feeling that came from the others finding the idea of him 'dresed like a man' comical. He was feminine and often he was a woman, but he was still a man most of the time.

"Why?" Tamra asks, "Also, who wears a suit to their sweet 16?"

"We do," Malenia sighs, "Same reason we're not inviting anyone we like. It's more for our mom and dad to show off how refined we are to their business friends."

"Yeah, It's all gonna be pageantry. But, since none of those people or their kids know us we do suspect we'll be making off with a good number of gift cards."

"We're hoping they'll try to outdo eachother to impress mom."

Some of the girls laugh, some who were closer to Miquella and Malenia's level and who knew what it was like to have their parties made into business meetings grimaced and offered quiet condolences. They were all done getting ready for the class now, their bags shoved in lockers and their helmets and sabers under their arms, so the herd moved from the locker room to the main gymnasium. The conversation between them drifting and breaking off to other topics amongst smaller groups.

After drills came the bouts. Malenia and Miquella found their usual spot on the bleachers. Low enough to have a good view, far enough away that Miquella's commentary wouldn't bother the other students.

"Tamra and Samira are up. Samira is stiff, I suspect her shoulder is still hurting her," the rhythm of narrating their fellows' fights was easy if dull for Miquella who didn't care much for the sport. Malenia loved it though and listened intently as she prepared to take her turn. Every described bout adding more and more notes to the library of strategy she had for taking on any one of their peers.

Though today it seemed they were destined to be interrupted.

"Finlay is approaching us from your side," Miquella warned as Finlay slid along the bench.

"Hey. Hi," she smiled awkwardly, sitting too straight as both twins turned their attention to her completely. "So, I heard what you were talking about in the locker room. Ok, and I just... Need a little favor. I need an invite to your party. I don't have to actually Go, but I need need need an invite."

"What?" Malenia raised a brow at her.

"You all will get this. My dad doesn't like my friends right, since you know, none of them are straight or-" she puts on a bad imitation of her father, "- of the right sort-" and immediately drops out of it to continue her ramble, "- So I thought if I could prove to him I was rubbing elbows with the Euraidd's it would get him off my back a little, you know?" There's a beat where they both just blink at her, she continues to run her mouth, "And You know, we're the only three out queers in our school, We should-"

"Stop. Who told you that?" Miquella interupted.

"We're not queer," Malenia tacks on defensively.

"Funny," Finlay snorts, "But I'm serious please- Wait you two are also being serious?"

"Yeah? We're both straight," Miquella lies and Malenia nods.

"Guys..." Finlay finally runs out of words, and takes a moment to gather more. "Listen, I won't tell anyone, but Seriously, everyone already knows. Or, they already know about Miquella being a girl. I think we all just, you know, assume you're into girls."

"I'm not a girl-" Miquella starts and then takes a deep breath, "Fine. If You're so sure about us, might as well let us be sure about you."

"She's a lesbian," Malenia answers his question before Finlay can.

"Bi but yeah, girls. Anyways. Invite?"

"You aren't going to drop that are you?" Miquella sighs, already forming a plan to get her off their back. She was stubborn and liked proving herself...

"Nope, not until I have it."

"Fine. A mat just opened up. Go beat Malenia in a bout and you can have an invite," it was a stupid bet and Miquella didn't actually care all that much if she was invited or not, but he resented her calling him a girl and so publicly bringing up the dirty laundry that was his and Malenia's atypicalities. Even if they did owe her.

"I can take you no problem -"

"I didn't say take me. I said take her. Besides, it's a segregated class boys and girls don't get to share the mats."

"I'll go easy on you," Malenia would have rolled her eyes. "C'mon Cleanrot. I haven't managed to get him to change his mind once, you aren't doing it today."

"But-"

"It's this or backing off." Miquella turned his attention to his nails with a huff, thoroughly being done with this argument.

"Fine. Fine, I get it, you two need to be like This about everything. Legally," Finlay stood and stomped after Malenia, her determination clearly winning out over her frustration with them.

Miquella didn't care for fencing, until it was Malenia holding the saber. Her modified prosthetic mimicked a real grip as best as the twins had been able to make it. To keep in line with unwritten regulations. But as she stepped to the mat and donned her helm it was easy to imagine her with a saber prosthetic actually made to compliment her instead of mimic others.

They were counted in. Finlay lunged first, Malenia countered easily. A fast exchange of swiping strikes and then the buzzer sounding as a strike finally found its mark on the other girl's vest.

Malenia held her saber too high in the final moments. It wasn't even a close miss. Miquella knows what it looks like when she throws, and aggravation boils his blood.

Finlay had won. Malenia let her perfect streak die to Give away a match.

Half sincere clapping spread through the watching students as the girls returned to where they had left Miquella. Malenia was a prodigy with no compare amongst them, even winning a thrown match against her was something worthy of praise.

"What was that?" Miquella hissed at her, letting his usual calm and sweet mask fall away into a bitter faced pout.

"Don't rub it in," Malenia's tone was utterly dry, "The first loss of the year always hurts the most."

"Invite?" Finlay's smug smile was the only thing more irritating than her victory.

"A deal ia deal," Malenia knew she didn't need to push it further than that.

"You're both the worst," Miquella pulled out his phone to find the text thread between him and the party planner, telling her to edit the invite for General Cleanrot to be for Finlay and company instead.

"Miquella, you're up." their teacher called. She let him slack off, knowing he was only here for Malenia's sake, but never did she let him escape a session without a bout.

He groaned, dropping his phone in Malenia's lap and sulking off to see who the least physically adept student would be facing today. Only to have someone volunteer instead of be assigned.

The brat sneered at him from the other side of the mat before their helmets went on. Miquella was just grateful he wasn't stupid enough to run his mouth while their teacher was right there.

They were counted in. Miquella fainted to the left before slapping his saber against the brat's right side. A quick and messy win that came only from the brat's muscle memory being developed against taller opponents, but a full win none the less. He disengaged the second the buzzer sounded. Stepping back and out of reach before he could be punished for lingering.

"Good job, both of you. Best two out of three?" the teacher pushed the idea of another bout, but Miquella was already unplugging his wires.

"Malenia needs someone to tell her what's happening," he lied, knowing the teacher didn't care enough to force him.

"It's not even a fair matchup, She should be in the kiddie league-"

"That is enough-" The teacher turned her full attention to the brat as Miquella trotted back up the bleachers to where the girls were now talking between themselves.

Malenia had moved into his seat to sit closer to Finlay so Miquella just took hers.

"We're going to Finlay's after this," Malenia says as he settles. "Her dad is out of town and she has the code to his sword room and wants to pay us back with a tour."

"That can be how she pays You back. You two can both pay me back by saying I was with you if anyone asks."

"Why?" Finlay laughs, "What're you going to be up too that's so cool you'll turn down a hands on look of some sick ass swords? Malenia said you were like, into making them and everything."

Malenia doesn't say anything now, Miquella notices how she stills though. She has an idea of where he'll be and he'll be hearing her disapproval of it the next moment they have alone.

"None of you business," he responds to them both as he begins counting down the minutes until Mohg would have someone come get him.

[nopenototdaysatan]

Me just over here wondering to myself I wonder what would happen if my lalafell warrior of light met the links from Linked universe....

Chaos insued:

First thought on my mind is size. My "this is the tallest I can make for his race" lalafell is probably four size. I can only wonder at them seeing someone older than four who is still four's size. It would really put into perspective his shortness.

Second thought: If my wol dance partnered four and then four used the four sword to split, what would happen? I've determined that that 2 minute buff window would become more like an 8 minute buff window. But also what if the dance partner attribute almost keeps four from splitting as if the ability doesn't want to have more than one user and will keep you from that to the best of it's ability.

Third thought: Time and legend looking at the dark Knight lore as if the dark Knight power source makes the most sense and in some way they want it.

Fourth thought: Everyone freaks out when Scholar!wol summons Eos or Selene. You cannot tell me that all of them wouldn't be somewhat concerned by a fairy appearing out of nowhere from someone not of their world. They then become very concerned when it's revealed where we place our fairies in battle. (Death comes to any who place a fairy under the boss while with the chain)

Fifth thought: Hyrule and a wol vibing together from having friends who were "sleeping" for hundreds of years.

Sixth thought: wild and the wol vibing over exploring new places.

Seventh thought: I wonder what would happen if you just let the chain fuck around with your soul crystals(changes your job in FFXIV).

Addendum kinda wanna give fun and interesting classes to them all. This is less about their abilities and more about the chain having fun.

Legend- Red mage: legend should absolutely be given the right to both sword and magic. He would also look perfect in the red mage's armor.

On the other hand a black mage who refuses to use thunder is hilarious. Everyone else in a dungeon gets pissed off legend won't use his dot.

Hyrule: Blue mage- Chaos time! Let Hyrule both heal and cause massive damage. Also, why wouldn't I give him the job that requires you to learn spells from monsters. It's probably where he learned most of his skills from.

Twilight: monk- kinda boring but his fists are rated teen for violence. Beast master: we don't have this job yet but it is coming so that could be my second option. Would friend every animal and then be confused when they have violence in their eyes when anything tries to attack him.

Time: Dark knight: this man would absolutely use his trauma to become better at saving people. Am I wrong????

Warriors: Paladin- but let's make it fun and make him self sacrifice by having him always use cover (takes 100% of damage from a chosen party member) on his party members...even when they are already using their own shields.

Sky: Warrior- I never wanna see this man pissed off. On a more vibe aspect: Bard- just let him play his harp till the enemies stop coming.

Wind: Ninja- shut up, I know he's pirate themed and I should give him a gun but who else but wind could have a bunny of "you missed up your mudras" and make that look cool. Plus I wanna let him go fast.( Ninja's have the highest speed.)

Wild: Blue mage: Again, the monsters taught him how to fight after waking up again. Second option: Gunbreaker- fusing. Enough said. (Gunbreaker also has the highest damage ceiling of all tanks. Of course I'm giving one of the best dpsing tanks to the link who takes on lynels for fun.)

Four: machinist- no one else fits the machinist's goal of creating new and better weaponry than four. All of the different mechanisms you use to fight as a machinist just fit fours need to build and create.

Addendum for colors:

Green: viper- wanted to give him a sword plus it looks fairly swooshy from the trailer (secondary option dragoon: let my second wimdy boi fly with those jumps)

Red: black mage- fire only. Everyone keeps telling him to use ice but he refuses especially when playing with blue. Second option: Pictomancy! - let red draw his way to victory.

Blue: Warrior- he deserves to have a big axe and this way he can use his anger to help bolster his damage.

Vio: Bard- but not your stereotypical bard no, Vio is singing or reciting old takes of wars and myths. He'll use all the darkest old tales to win a fight.

(Shadow[I just wanna give him a pretty weapon.]: Dark knight: emotionally he fits it very well but Reaper: a play style that has the coolest movement ability and lots of cool effects. He likes acting like he's actually death coming for people.

Kinda wanna do all the Zelda's......)

Either thought: if the chain played FFXIV what would happen? Legend would get every class as soon as he could and then level them all to Max first. He's also on the grind to get every single achievement. May his soul rest in peace.

Sky would spend so much time crafting. Main quest? No. Side quest? No. Carpentry class quest? Yes. (He also is one of those players who stands in one of the city states and plays music for others.)

Time and twilight have their fishing class at mat lvl and regularly do ocean fishing to relax.

Wild does ultimates for fun. He also has the best glams (don't tell wars) out of the chain.

Hyrule has all of the sight seeing locations done for every expansion. He likes to go and get lost in the new locations of every expansion. It takes him at least a week longer than everyone else to finish the main content due to this.

Four: most recent crafting recipes and island sanctuary (he's here to make cool shit and relax) I could see him also enjoying the tribal quests as well.

Warrior: the most mentor to mentor out of all mentors. He does the mentor roulette for fun the poor bastard.

Wind: rps with his friends. They have a rp going on in Limsa about a land flooded by the gods.

(I think that's all of my FFXIV x Linked universe hyperfixation, for now at least. CX

[the-stray-storyteller]

Havenpoint

Warning: Language

Prev Chap Next Chap First Chap

Note : this chapter and any chapter after this hasn't been beta read or edited which means it will have shitty grammar, a lot of spelling errors, annoying dialogues and overall just be shitty.

______________________________________________________________

Chapter 7 : The Mask Anne Gray

It was the last class of the day. The sun was high and the classroom was an oven. I could feel sweat drip down my back, sending a disgusted shiver up my spine. The humidity made the atmosphere drowsy, students falling asleep on the tables, and the teacher banged their table to wake them up.

I spent most of maths class sleeping. I looked down at the senseless doodles and kawaii figures I had made in my notebook and added one more to the collection. The teacher had his back to us, the new chalk screeching against the board as he solved a sum. His voice explained it with a heavy accent and droning voice, putting me to sleep. I tapped my pencil on the table unconsciously. 

Aidene, unlike me, was doing her work diligently. I had spent another good portion of maths sending 

glares at her direction, all of which she had ignored. 

Aidene was more than an annoyance. I would describe her as a bane, scourge. And a complete mystery.

It was bad enough Aidene had pulled me into her little adventure but agreeing to let Penelope join us had made it worse. I didn’t have a say in it of course, Aidene refused to listen to anything I ever had to say. 

Then there was the elephant in the room. Aidene had broken into my dorm just to tell me something stupid. Why?

I didn’t know Penelope that well. I had only met her two days ago. However, she knew too much and she knew how to find out more. That alone made me uncomfortable.Then there was yesterday. I was sure she had tried to pull a practical joke on us. She had taken us to Nicholas Perez believing that Greylight was only a myth. It would have been a fool’s errand if she wasn’t proven wrong. Then she wanted to join us on our search, why?

Aidene Rayners still was the greatest mystery of them all. She got over her spat with Penelope in a matter of seconds. That wasn’t normal. Moreover Aidene had seemed too furious to let go of it that easily. Then she invited Penelope to hang out. I pressed my eyes close, defending myself from the incoming headache. 

“Annie?” She whispered into my ear. Her leg bounced up and down under the table, energy building up and no release.

“What?” I clipped the word.

“ I am going to go. I can’t stand this any more. Meet me in the library.”

“Why?” I hissed out, but she wasn’t listening. A snake curled around my ribs, threatening to escape through my throat and throw its venom at her. I held it back. She slammed her notebook shut and shoved the singular pen she brought to class in her pocket. I watched as she handed over her completed classwork to the teacher and asked to use the washroom. She wouldn’t be coming back.

****

I had taken my time to arrive at the library, hoping I would get onto Aidene’s nerves a bit. I nervously looked at the door to the principal’s office which was barely a hundred metres away from the library. I wondered what that corpse was doing.

The wooden doors of the library were intricately carved, reminding me how old the school building actually was. The ceiling was high and arching, adorned by circular glass windows which made spotlights dance on the floors. The library had two floors, with a maze of shelves. Tables were pushed against the shelves, and there was an occasional long one in the middle. My eyes twitched at the massiveness of the place, how was I supposed to find Aidene in here. I could obviously just give up. I wanted to give up but some twisted sense of loyalty made me move to the librarian’s desk. 

There was a boy, a year older than me, sitting there. His long eyes open, and mind asleep. He looked bored out of his mind.

“Have you seen a purple haired girl anywhere?” I asked him. He sent me an antagonised glare. 

“A bit hard to miss. She went up to the second floor I think.” He leaned onto the desk and proceeded to fall asleep again. I wished I was in his place.

I roamed around the second floor of the library, pulling out random books and flipping through them. I started to walk around aimlessly, with no hope of finding the girl. 

“Down here Annie!” I jumped at the call which came from the floor. Aidene sat cross legged on the floor, a book in her lap.

“What are you doing on the floor?” I raised my eyebrow, “There are plenty of good tables over here.” She didn’t answer me, instead she got up and looked over my shoulder. She pouted, looking disappointed.

“I was hoping you had brought Penelope with you.” I rolled my eyes at her name and let out a frustrated groan.

“Why?”

“We could have used her help to search for the diary.” The sentence set me off. Any thought of Penelope Knight flying out of my head. Why was I playing along with Rayners?

“Let me get this straight. You want us to search the whole damn library for one notebook,” I raged.

“Well- it might not be in the library. It can be in any room in the main school building.”

“That does not make the situation any better,” I hissed out, trying my best to keep my voice lowered inside the library.

“Well we have no other choice.” 

I dug my nails into my palm trying my best not to murder right then and there. I made eye contact with her, trying to level her with a glare. Aidene looked disheartened, her lower lip jutting out into a pout. She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. The anger inside me turned to stone and dropped into my gut. 

“You really wanna go on this stupid ass hunt of yours, huh?”  Aidene’s head gave a slow dismal nod.

Aidene got on my nerves just by saying one word but she was the first one who had offered to be my friend. Yes, she rarely listened to what I had to say. Yes, she did sneak into my dorm at night. I could yell at her later for all that, especially the dorm one. Also, the sad kicked puppy look got on my nerves even more than her usual self. 

“We can start by asking the boy at the librarian’s desk. He might know where the old books are kept. We can start there. It isn’t much to go on but it’s the best we have got.” I tried for the most cheerful tone I could find in my. I placed my hand on her shoulder hoping it would make up for what my words lacked. Aidene gave me a small smile, just a tug of her lips. With a little bit of her energy revived she jogged over to the front of the library and I followed at my own pace.

****

Aidene slammed her hand down on the table waking the boy up. Her eyes widened with recognition.

“Hey!” she stretched out that word, “You are that Harris boy. Detention on the first day, right?” The boy’s eyes narrowed into a glare. 

“And you are that Rayners girl. You didn’t get detention on the first day.” Jealousy dripped heavy and thick from his voice. 

I quickly stepped in between them. I didn’t know how Aidene would react to this situation. She had gone ballistic on Penelope that day. I didn’t know what set her off, but I couldn’t risk it. 

“Where is the librarian?” I asked.

“She got sick or something. This-” he spread his arms, “-is detention.” He set Aidene with another sharp look. She let out a scoff, pushing past me to make herself visible. I hissed out her name, hoping she would take the hint and back down. But, to my surprise she had a calm composure. 

“Look. I know you are not happy with this whole detention thing. However, this has nothing to do with me. It was the principal’s choice. Nothing I can ‘bout that. So might as well be angry at him and not me.” Her look was stern but not angry. Guilt clouded the boy’s eyes. He seemed to think for a while.

“James Harris. What do you guys need help with?” he introduced formally.

“Aidene Rayners. Do you know where the old books are? Like the really old ones.” 

“I think they are in that corner of the library. At least it’s like the dustiest place in the whole place.” He pointed at the right most corner of the first floor.

“If it’s wrong, can I come and check with you again?” She asked with a pleasant smile. James rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah sure.”

“Thanks.” Aidene looped her arm through mine and dragged me off.

“I thought you would blow up like you did with Penelope the other day,” I admitted guiltily. 

“Penelope gets on my nerves. Her ‘know it all’ nature,” she rolled her eyes, “However, friends are useful.” She winked at me slyly. A cunning smile, shining on her face. She had a mask, one that I needed to be careful of. A mask that I didn’t mind, I realised with a skip in my heartbeat.

[the-firebird69]

The Rolls-Royce fit for a Billionaire 🤑🔥

It says it's half-assed and it is answer Sun and daughter actually so she says he's an it and fast. The skylight is not right it's supposed to be stars and where the positions and it's a hologram sort of that doesn't look good and then vehicles too skinny it's like a Cadillac that converted it's not but it just doesn't have the Rolls-Royce look pretty much at all and we're redesigning it before we issue it and people want it and we're going to have safety levels being security levels

Thor Freya

I want a level 9 while you're at it this has been a joke we've been beat up and can't do anything now are weak so I'm just going to order stuff and so he's submitting it as a pre-order and to contact me to see what I want on it so they make the chassis in the hall I'm going to go ahead and order stuff from the factory so they say okay I do get that and you have to make it on metal so it'd be a switch and yeah I'm looking to take over the factory and they're looking to take the hardware so it works for them.

Mike tew

The two are ordering the New Holland chassis and the interceptors order and to let his order go in and we will produce his and he says he's going to buy it from the factory but he'll look at ours and he says if he likes it he'll purchase it and we're saying that from the factory it's $2 million because they're not on the market and you understand that but it's $2 million dollars of stuff now he's starting to get it it's like buying a private jet it has the stuff in it and it's just not massively famous and that's how it goes with the first run and he's interested he wants to buy it just to have it and people think it's fake but it's real in a year they're going to be real and what's a lot more but until then they're going to be a safe vehicle to drive around in so he wants to order one too and we're going to do it

Thor Freya

Says it's his idea for the billionaire and he says it's not necessarily the SUV and he probably wants to introduce a trillionaire he says which is going to be a modernized older look probably not the massively old ones we use I feel like model t's but the conversion of the double and I kind of like that I want to see what a modernized version would look like he says there's plenty of room in the hood for a motor which is interesting to me

So I want one of those too

Mike tew

This would be a special release and it would have armor or metal in the middle is not real heavy it would have a rating of a 10 and special armor on the inside and it's deflective for heavy stuff and he's saying now we're talking and it would have obscure glass it's not really class it's lexan what is high strength and it's more like glass but it's lexan and can deflect ridiculous things we might have another version no we have upgrades and we don't want to say too many things about it but the armor would be excessive and the windows would be diamonds and it's the trillionaire release and he says that's not right and that's what I want he wants to see it first and we'll say we'll build one to your specs and sell it on prospect if you don't purchase it unfortunately you'll be making it worth more for the next poor fella. He agrees and says to build it

Thor Freya

We're going to use his idea and we're going to use that particular chassis and Hull and it will be modernized and it looks really really cool when you do that it's kind of like what it's easy top did but not as chopped and he says that's interesting it's awesome and yeah it's good to have a big 12 cylinder really big and fast big tires and everything and people will gock at it as if he's a truly there as if he is a trillion cuz he is a trillionaire. He says our current SUV is the joke and horrible it's a joke and the ceiling is a joke so they put it in the movie somehow with this son of panorama some sort of machine name for that solar system toy and that's what they say back but really it's kind of dumb it's not real hard to make and you would also have like a computer screen above you and people can look at it it's really easy you can see stuff watch movies while riding and recline in the back and people want that you can use it as a computer and see you documents and you can actually read it from where you are like 2 ft away is the letters will be bigger it's interesting to them

Nuada Arrianna

Actually I want this car first and he says that I'm the first requested and Mac is saying no this is an argument and say how about it at the same time but cuz we remember what he was saying this is yeah all right and this ain't Mack wanted one but didn't ask for one so I'm back in the first position and he agrees didn't really ask for when he said you could go ahead and do it but he didn't want it

Mike tew

Shit ok. I'll take the second one they release and I want to be a special one and to do that I just order the upgrades so I'm going to place it now

Mac Daddy

We'll have a new price up for the thing it's going to be probably above 10 million but it's going to have stuff in it and he agrees cuz it's all compact and you will have nice refrigerators and cigar humidors and more security sleeping quarters right now I was jumping at it the armor meeting of 10 or more and he said more and we're going to do that it's going to be a monster too kind of heavy you can tell big stuff with it not that you want to if you had to that's what Arnie was doing with it

Thor Freya you reinforced it too some people said it was as powerful as a train like Jay Leno but really it was powerful as a decent size Peterbilt with the torque

Olympus

[serendipitallay]

Butterflies ❦༊*·˚ Su Hyeok x Reader

Su Hyeok x Reader

written 7/2/2022

Y/N stared at the zombies that were after her, frozen in shock and mouth agape in fear. “Y/N!” She turned to see her best friend, Su Hyeok, pushing his way through other students who were running in the cafeteria.

She had been knocked to the floor by another student rushing past her earlier, and now a zombie had caught sight of her, mouth open, blood dripping out as it screeched. It ran toward her, and was now on top of her. Y/N tried pushing it off, but the zombie fought back with all it’s strength. “No!”

So this was how she would die?

She had expected herself to die in a hospital bed, surrounded by her loved ones, maybe even Su Hyeok, whom she had a crush on since they became friends when they were 12, beside her, older, but still as handsome as the day she met him. 

But if fate decided this was how she would go… then so be it. She continued fighting back, but she knew how this would end, with her being bitten by this brainless shell of a human and being infected by its disease, going after others unfortunate enough to be in her vicinity.

The weight of the zombie on top of her was pushed off suddenly. Y/N panted, looking up to see her savior, and found Su Hyeok panting, sticking his hand out to her. “Come on!” Y/N took his hand, and he pulled her up. She looked around her surroundings, horrified.

The cafeteria was in chaos, students running from those who had turned, and those in denial of the situation in front of them, frozen in shock like she had been. Students who had been bit lay on the floor, motionless, only to start rising again with the haunting sound of cracking and crunching bones. They weren’t human anymore, instead, mindless cannibals, waiting to devour anyone in their path.

“Are you insane? You should’ve moved your ass while you could!” Su Hyeok scolded her, gripping her arm tight and leading her through the crowd toward a window they could escape from. “I…”

Su Hyeok opened the window, helping Y/N out. He then came out himself, narrowly missing some zombies, who reached for them from inside the window. “Let’s go!” Su Hyeok led Y/N from the cafeteria, shoving away zombies left and right.

His hand felt warm in Y/N’s, and despite the life or death situation they were in, couldn’t help but make her blush.

1 year ago…

“Y/N!”

Y/N turned to see Su Hyeok, rushing after her, carrying a bag of Cheong San’s Chicken in his left hand.

Now beside Y/N, he rest his arm on her shoulders. “I can’t believe you left me, Y/N/N.”

“I didn’t see you anywhere just now. And I don’t want to be late again.” Y/N smiled to herself.

She had had a crush on Su Hyeok since the year after she met him. It started off with the increase of a heartbeat whenever she hung out with him, then a flutter in her stomach whenever he said her name, and it just spiraled into a massive crush from there.

She knew he didn’t feel the same, though. He always had an eye out for Nam-Ra, their class president, anyway, so she didn’t stand a chance.

Still, she never lost the feeling, and despite her efforts in ditching them, they always came back. Her love for Su Hyeok would hurt her, she knew. That’s why she hated it.

That’s why she was starting to ignore him.

The smile on her face was wiped off instantly.

“Alright Y/N/N, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird for weeks now.” Su Hyeok tried making eye contact with her, but she just ignored him, focusing her gaze intently on the school building.

“It’s nothing.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He pulled his arm from her shoulder, grabbing Y/N’s hand in his, stopping her in her tracks.

Her breath hitched.

Her heartbeat increased.

The butterflies fluttered around her stomach.

Still, she refused to look at him.

“Y/N…”

Finally, she had the courage to look at him, into those eyes she would always get lost in.

She wanted so badly to tell him how much she loved him, how thoughts of him plagued her nights, barely letting her get a second of sleep. She wanted to shout at him, for being so oblivious. She wanted to kiss him.

But she didn’t.

Today wasn’t the day.

Su Hyeok stole a glance at her lips, which she didn’t notice, much to his disappointment.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but shut it, snatching her hand from his, and walking away as quick as she could.

She smiled to herself again, her cheeks hot.

Su Hyeok stared at Y/N as she walked away, smiling to himself too, as he headed off to class.

Present day

“Get in!” Su Hyeok and Y/N had gone back into the school building, and were now in front of their class, where some of their other classmates were.

Su Hyeok slid the door open, letting Y/N in before himself, and sliding it, barricading the door with a table. Ji Min stared warily at the two.

“What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t know.” Y/N answered, walking closer to the group.

She found Gyeong Su holding the other door, and Cheong San and On-Jo near the teacher’s desk. The rest were scattered around the classroom, all cautiously looking out the windows. A zombie ran past, and soon after, screams were heard from down the hall.

Gyeong Su sat, staring up the door’s window. “Shit. Everyone’s gone insane. They’re all insane.”

Na Yeon clicked her tongue from the corner of the room, crossing her arms and glaring with distaste at Gyeong Su. “Shut up, idiot, you’ll attract the zombies.”

Gyeong Su glared back, deciding she wasn’t worth his time and stayed quiet.

Y/N walked off to wear the drawers were, slumping to the ground, her knees to her chest.

Y/N put her hand into her skirt’s pocket, feeling her name tag that she’d taken off earlier that morning, and the paper she’d left a note on.

She had stopped trying to deny her feelings for Su Hyeok a few months ago. It was impossible for her to stop liking, or rather, loving him. Not a single soul would be able to really get rid of their love for someone; that was how it always was. Love is something that attaches itself on to you, like a tree, growing from the ground. As time passes by, its roots only rest in the soil stronger and stronger, making it impossible to pull out.

She was in too deep now.

Often times she thought of why, of all the people in this school, she had to fall in love with the one person she held so dear to her. These feelings would definitely strain their friendship if he didn’t reciprocate her feelings, and it scared Y/N.

Fate had a twisted way of making one’s life interesting. It had decided to have Y/N almost killed earlier today, and decided to make her be head over heels in love with the one boy she couldn’t have.

It was all a silly crush at first, she thought it would dissipate after a week or so. It was just some puppy love and strong admiration for her best friend! There was nothing more to it. Until of course, there was. Love was a strange thing, so strong yet so fragile.

Y/N was still sat against the drawers, stuck in her thoughts as she held the name tag and note telling Su Hyeok to meet her on the rooftop in her hand, wanting to pull them out.

Originally, she had wanted to give it to Su Hyeok during recess; on the rooftop of the school, to finally get everything she had bottled up out of her chest, but then the whole zombie attack happened, so her plans were foiled.

But maybe now was the best time to give it to him.

The whole zombie apocalypse thing gave Y/N a jolt of confidence. She didn’t know when either of them or their classmates could die, or get bitten, so now was the time for her to do whatever she needed to settle with her classmates, and right her wrongs.

And confess to Su Hyeok.

If this ruined their relationship, then she’d just throw herself to the zombies. It was that simple, really. Y/N scoffed at how nonchalant she was about it all.

She closed her eyes, and felt the warmth of a person sit next to her, surprising her into looking at them.

“What’s so funny?” Su Hyeok asked teasingly, his brow quirked.

“Su Hyeok.” Y/N breathed out.

“Y/N.”

Y/N shook her head, feeling that familiar flutter in her stomach, the quickening of her heartbeat and the heat rushing to her cheeks.

Breathe.

They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, enjoying each other’s company in the brief tranquility they could have while in their classroom, while the rest of the school turned into rampaging monsters.

“I know you’re scared. I am too, but we’ll get through this, alright? I promise.” Su Hyeok reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers together, taking Y/N aback. He grinned at her reaction, which she reciprocated with a small smile. “I don’t doubt it.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before turning to face Su Hyeok.

Breathe.

“Su Hyeok, I need to tell you something.”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You can tell me anyth-”

“Shit!”

Gyeong Su’s yell alerted the rest of the class, panic starting to set in. Su Hyeok gently released Y/N’s hand, getting up to see what was going on.

The screeching and groaning of the zombies outside as they banged and clawed at the windows was haunting.

“You idiot… hold the door tighter!”

“You don’t think I’m doing my best, asshole?” Gyeong Su shot back at Na Yeon, who was red in the face. You could almost see the smoke coming out her ears.

“You asshole!”

“Shut it guys!” Cheong San shot, glaring at the two.

“Even in a time of crisis you just have to pick a fight, huh Na Yeon?”

Na Yeon mocked Cheong San under her breath, going back to her corner of the classroom.

“We have to cover the windows.” On-Jo remarked, picking up a textbook and ripping a page out.

The rest of the class followed, covering the windows with tape and glue. Now done, they sat down at their original spots, with Gyeong Su still holding the door.

Su Hyeok tried to make eye contact with Y/N, but no matter how many times he did, she never bothered to look back.

“Y/N, you said you needed to tell me something?”

Now with Y/N looking back at him, he smiled at her. Y/N tensed.

There he goes with that gaze of his. The gaze that made her fall harder for him every single time.

“It’s not important.” She turned away from him, about to walk away.

“Y/N-” Su Hyeok grabbed her by the arm, turning her around to face him.

Time stopped.

Deja vu enveloped Y/N, reminding her of the day she just left him at the gates of the school after he confronted her weird behaviour.

The day Y/N almost blurted out how much she loved him, and how much she couldn’t believe he was oblivious to it all.

Now she had much more self control.

“Su Hyeok.” Su Hyeok turned around, finding Cheong San calling him. He glanced back at Y/N, who wriggled her arm free from him, walking away and looking out the window facing the courtyard, her back to him. Su Hyeok watched her go, dejected.

“Yeah?”

“We can’t just stay here. You know we can’t.”

“What do you suggest we do? We’ll be killed if we go out there.”

“I have a plan.” Cheong San confidently replied.

𓂅⊹.

“Fuck.” Cheong San cursed, the phone he’d taken wasn’t working, no matter how many times he tried switching it on.

Su Hyeok threw him a another from the table, fighting back zombies with a chair. “Here!”

Cheong San caught it, and tried to switched it on, finding it working, but at 20%. It would have to do. “Alright! Let’s go Su Hyeok!”

Su Hyeok grunted as he kicked away a zombie. “There’s too many of them, you go ahead I’ll catch up!” He shoved another zombie away, pushing another few with the chair.

“No-” Cheong San tried protesting. He was already at the window, the phone in his hand as he readied himself to escape through. He was just waiting for Su Hyeok before leaving.

“Just go!” Su Hyeok assured.

“You want some more, undead scum? Come and get it!” Su Hyeok shouted, attracting the zombies away from Cheong San as he hesitantly escaped out the window, climbing up the rope.

Y/N sat with Nam Ra at a table, anxiously awaiting Su Hyeok and Cheong Sans return.

She told him not to go.

Stubborn jerk.

Cheong San climbed into the class, the phone safe in his hand. Y/N perked up at this, rising from her chair and eagerly waiting Su Hyeok to climb up after Cheong San.

He wasn’t there.

“Cheong San.” Y/N called, seeing the group dialing 119.

“Where’s Su Hyeok?”

She dreaded the answer.

She told him not to go. No. No.

No.

“We got separated, he was fighting zombies so he told me to go ahead without him.” He replied, not meeting Y/N’s eyes.

“No…”

She sat in a chair near her, denial flooding her. He was alive and well. He’s okay. He’s okay.

“No…” Y/N repeated.

𓂅⊹.

It’s been a day since they were separated, and the group collectively decided they’d all move to the music room, where they saw Su Hyeok using the drones from the science lab.

Y/N felt empty without him here. Without him to comfort her through this hell.

‘We’ll get through this alright? I promise.’

His words echoed in Y/N’s mind all day long. Su Hyeok never broke his promises, so that sparked a small feeling of hope in her.

She should have told him when she had the chance. She should have told him how much he meant to her, then maybe he wouldn’t have gone on that stupid mission yesterday. The phones didn’t work anyway, so it was all for nothing.

“Y/N?” On-Jo called, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll find Su Hyeok, so don’t worry anymore, okay? He’s alright.”

“I hope you’re right.” Y/N smiled back. She’d be optimistic, for Su Hyeok.

And when she saw him next, she wouldn’t delay it any further. She would tell him how she really felt.

𓂅⊹.

It was a close call, the zombies were right on their tail, but they made it in time, sliding the music room door shut. Luckily, the only zombie inside was crushed by a piano, so it couldn’t get up and attack them.

The zombies all pressed themselves against the windows, blood smearing on to the glass as they screeched and bared their bloody teeth at the students.

Su Hyeok was nowhere in sight.

Y/N’s heart dropped.

“Damn!” Joon Young locked the doors, barricading them with chairs and tables.

“We have to cover the windows again!” On-Jo reminded, and everyone got to work, using spare posters and paper they found.

A clatter was heard from inside the music room’s storage room.

The group shot their attention to the door, which opened, revealing

Su Hyeok.

“Su Hyeok!” Y/N almost couldn’t believe he was here, alive and well.

She ran to him, arms open. He embraced her back, smiling and shutting his eyes in relief. Of course Y/N was safe. Y/N pulled away, and Su Hyeok expected her to say something along the lines of ‘I was so worried, I love you, Su Hyeok.’ ‘You’re so brave Su Hyeok.’ But instead, he felt a sharp pain in his cheek.

He hissed in pain, looking at Y/N, eyes wide and mouth agape in astonishment. She slapped him!

“Idiot. I told you not to go. I told you, and you were stubborn as always.” She fumed, crossing her arms.

“I thought you’d be relieved to see me!”

“Who said I wasn’t?” She countered, fighting back a relieved smile.

“This girl…” He muttered, clenching his jaw, earning him a giggle from Y/N. “I’m just glad you’re alive, dummy.” Y/N finally said.

She went to hug him again, relishing the embrace for a few more seconds, before pulling away to meet his gaze. “I want to tell you something.” She said, shifting her gaze to the storage room. “In private?”

Su Hyeok nodded, looking to Cheong San. He nodded in approval, giving a thumbs up.

Shutting the door, Y/N faced Su Hyeok. The boy she befriended all those years ago. The boy she fell for. Her best friend.

Breathe.

“I…”

The air was suddenly sucked out of her lungs, and the butterflies fluttered their wings stronger in her stomach.

“Su Hyeok, I’ve always…”

“I like you too.”

His declaration came so suddenly, Y/N had to process it one more time. Did he really say what she thought he said?

He stepped forward, resting his arms around her waist

“I’ve always loved you. I fell so hard for you, I could barely sleep at night; I could barely think straight, because all I thought of was you. You kept me grounded, kept me sane. You are my world.”

Y/N’s breath hitched, watching Su Hyeok lean closer to her, their lips close to touching. She closed her eyes, the moment she’d be dreaming of finally becoming reality.

It felt like the world stopped spinning as they kissed, Y/N felt bliss and joy flutter through every inch of her body. She tangled her hands in his hair, and he pulled her closer, as if she would disappear lest he hold on tight to her. They pulled away for air, eyes still closed, resting their forehead against the other’s.

“I love you too.” Y/N whispered, smiling until her cheeks hurt. Su Hyeok smiled just as wide, hugging her tighter.

She was his, and he was hers, and that’s all that mattered now.

Who knew a zombie apocalypse was all it took for love to finally bloom?

𓂅⊹.<3

thank you for reading <3 have a great day!

requests are currently open, so feel free to drop me a req!

[wkil-109-fmx-radio]

[Zone Info]

Events:

Helium I - Fought between 1993 and 1998 when tensions between governments around the world finally turned to war. Nuclear warfare wiped out Northern-Middle Eurasia, most of South America, South-Eastern North America, and Southern Africa. The war ended when what was left of Europe and Asia surrendered.

The Rise of Better Living Industries - BL/ind started as a weapons manufacturing/power company that rose into a major monopoly and self-governing body that overthrew the US toward the end of the first Helium War. It immediately began an effort to bring “peace” to the nation by ridding the country of all individualism and “radical” beliefs, believing that different ideas would turn into conflict. This quickly turned into ridding the country of creativity and self-expression to make a perfect, crime-free society.

Helium II - Fought between 2006 and 2011 when Better Living Industries had taken control of what was left of North and South America and began attacking the rest of the world, trying to rid the planet of ideas that didn’t match theirs. The East Coast started rebelling against the West Coast, where BL/ind had established their capital in what was once Los Angeles but had been renamed Battery City. A wall of nuclear bombs was dropped around the Rocky Mountains and thanks to the radiation around the globe affecting the radio waves, no one knows for sure whether there is anyone else living on the planet outside of Battery City and its surrounding Zones.

The Rise of the Rebels - Since the very beginning of Better Living Industries’ reign, rebels had appeared. When Battery City was established as BL/ind’s capital city, settlements started popping up in the desert outside of the city. On the East Coast of North America, a massive rebellion effort was led against BL/ind during the second Helium War. As the years passed, more rebels started appearing in Battery City and moving to the desert, eventually renamed The Zones, especially after BL/ind seemed to have destroyed the East Coast rebels. Rebels in the Zones became known as Killjoys and rebels in the city became known as Juvie Halls. Rebels began attacking Better Living Industries factories and facilities, hoping to weaken the company but only resulting in angering BL/ind.

The Fires of 2012 - From April till August of 2012, Better Living Industries began lighting fires across the Zones in an attempt to destroy the Killjoys, as they had grown out of BL/ind’s control. The Fires got out of control and ended up spreading to some Better Living Industries camps and buildings that were still stationed in the Zones. As a result, BL/ind blamed the rebels for the Fires and denied any claims of the truth. The blame being placed on the rebels sparked the start of the Analog Wars.

The Analog Wars - Fought between 2012 and 2017 or, to some, from 2012 to the present. The Analog War wasn’t your usual war; it was mostly small battles in the Zones or sabotage of BL/ind or rebel facilities. Better Living Industries describes it as “an effort to suppress the rebels and their radical and dangerous ideals.” During the war, BL/ind established the Draculoid and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W units.

The Pig Bombs of 2017 - On July 4, 2017, Better Living Industries dropped a series of bombs in Zone 8 to destroy the Killjoy farming communities that were settled there. BL/ind had previously withheld using nuclear weapons in the Zones because they didn’t want the radiation destroying Battery City so they settled for dropping them in Zone 8, although they ended up also destroying several important Better Living Industries facilities in the process. The bombs wiped Zones 7, 8, and 9 off the map, left some places in Zone 6 uninhabitable, and created a wall of radiation around the Zones and Battery City, trapping them and isolating them from the rest of the world. This marked the end of the Analog Wars, although some believe that since there was no official surrender or treaty, the war is still going on.

Places:

Battery City - The capital of whatever is left of the US that Better Living Industries can control. In Battery City, the citizens are required to take “Happy Pills.” In the city, BL/ind controls the weather, the way people dress, where kids go to school, and where adults work. Every citizen has a set routine, sent to them in the morning along with their medication. In the center of Battery City is the Better Living Industries headquarters which is the tallest building and largest complex in the city and home to the Director, the head of BL/ind.

The Underground - The subway systems under Battery City where many juvie halls live and plot against Better Living Industries. “The Underground” doesn’t always literally mean the subway systems and can be used as a relative term for anywhere juvie halls may live.

The Outskirts - The edge of Battery City, bordering Zone 1. This is where lower-class citizens live, along with some juvie halls, as this is the least regulated part of the city.

The Zones - The desert surrounding Battery City, where the Killjoys live. As the number of the Zone gets higher, so does the population, as the Killjoys like to be as far away from Battery City and BL/ind headquarters as possible.

Route Guano - The most used interstate in the Zones, running from south-eastern Battery City all the way out past Zone 6.

The Getaway Mile - The interstate south of Route Guano, which is shorter and goes more south but is often used for quick escapes from Battery City.

Death Valley - The area outside of Zone 6 that is dangerous and completely uninhabitable due to the extreme radiation.

Lighthouses - Well-known places across the Zones that provide sanctuary for Killjoys on the run

Train Station Avenue - A popular lighthouse along Route Guano in Zone 5 that is notorious for fights, food, and hitchhikers

The Nest - The largest lighthouse in the Zones, located next to DESTROYA in Zone 4

DESTROYA Site - The home of DESTROYA, a massive droid built by Better Living Industries to destroy the Killjoys during the Analog Wars but ended up malfunctioning and turning against them. The droid was shot down and has remained there ever since.

The Bunker - An underground bunker turned nightclub in Zone 6, popular for raves and huge amounts of attendees

Witch’s Hut - A small hut in Zone 6 where a supposed prophet of the Phoenix Witch lives

The Tracks - A race track in Zone 5 used for competitive drag races where parties are held and bets are placed for your favorite racers

Vocabulary:

Angel Cake - Killjoys who travel across the Zones selling food for cheaper prices

Audition - Initiation rituals that gangs in or outside of Battery City may have for you to be able to join. What you have to do varies from gang to gang

Babysitter - a term used to poke fun at a gang leader but also used as a genuine term for gang leaders who may be visibly older than the rest of the gang

Bacon - dead or dying Dracs and Crows

Batt out of hell - a term for new Killjoys but not used in a derogatory way

Batt Rat - a derogatory term used by Sand Pups to describe new Killjoys who just escaped the city and don’t know the Zone ways

Black Smith - someone who’s good at repairing or modifying technology or cars

Bifrost - places in the Zones that were so greatly affected by bombs, that the sand turned to glass

Blanket drive - driving at night with the headlights off, the windows down, and the music turned up loud

Carbons - The currency used in Battery City and the Zones. One carbon equals four dollars

Chilly - something or someone that’s suspicious

Clap - a physical fight

Cloud - A large group of Draculoids and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W traveling through the Zones

Compass Rose - a Killjoy who knows the desert like the back of their hand

Costa Rica - things that went crazy or got out of control

Crash Queen - a daredevil or thrill seeker who is known for doing things that could easily get them killed and doesn’t care

Deadfaced - taking Battery Acid

Dead Pegasus - a fuel company in the Zones

Debut album - someone’s first love

Digital - An important moment shared amongst two or more rebels that they know they will never forget

Draculoid - droids and brainwashed Killjoys designed to kill rebels. Also called "bats" or "Dracs"

Drifter - someone who lives a nomadic lifestyle and strays from commitment in relationships

Drifting - A relationship that isn’t strictly anything but simply some sort of attraction between two individuals. A sort of go-with-the-flow, whatever happens, happens kind of relationship

Drive sidestreet - another way to tell someone to piss off. Also could use “get off the highway”

Dust Trail - an urban legend or a term used by non-religious Killjoys to describe religious Killjoys’ beliefs

ElectroKat - the most popular battery brand in Battery City and the Zones

Exterminators - High ranking Better Living Industries officials placed in charge of S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W units

Fact News - The one news program in Battery City, notorious for spreading lies to the citizens

Favorite Record - someone’s significant other

Firefight - a fight using ray guns

Fly half-mast - that state after having recently lost someone close to you

Gearhead - someone who’s obsessed with all things mechanical

Gemini - someone suspected of being a spy for Better Living Industries

Ghost Chase - Searching the Zones for someone who is possibly, or most likely, dead

Ghosted - killed. Also can use "dusted"

Graffiti Bible - A collection of religious writings across the Zones, mostly talking about how DESTROYA will come back to life and destroy Battery City and the Phoenix Witch

Gravehead - crazy Killjoys who have lost everyone and everything and throw themselves into dangerous situations

Gravity - anything that brings you down

Groupie - someone who travels with different gangs and trades favors for food, water, and protection

Halo Head - religious Killjoys who believe their beliefs put them above everyone else, especially non-religious Killjoys

Happy Pills - Pills issued by Better Living Industries that they say will lift your spirits and protect you from the radiation but make you more submissive and easier for BL to control. The rebels call them "Battery Acid"

Hit the red line - run away, usually from a bad/dangerous situation

Icy - when someone dies or goes missing in a suspicious way

Juvie Hall - rebels who haven’t left the city, usually because they can’t or because they’re working with the Killjoys to smuggle supplies out to the Zones and/or give them information from the city

Killjoy - rebels who live in the Zones

Lawyer - someone who ruins all the fun

Mailbox - small landmarks in the Zones where an old mailbox is painted and decorated and filled with letters, mostly to people that other Killjoys have lost. The more religious Killjoys believe the Phoenix Witch delivers the letters put in the mailboxes to the dead

Maple Plaza - Places in Zone 6 where radiation is still very thick and dangerous

Mega - interchangeable with "wicked"

Motorbabies - people who live and breathe all things car-related

Mousekat - a cartoon character from Battery City

Murder - a magazine in the Zones with Zone news

Pangea - A friendly gathering of two or more gangs

Paperboy - someone who travels across the Zones collecting news, gossip, and reporting deaths, usually for Dr. D or Murder magazine

Phoenix Witch - a supposed deity of the Zones, looking out for the rebels and carrying the souls of the dead into the afterlife

Pigs - another term for Dracs and Crows

Plus - A battery replenisher used by droids that are known for being highly addictive

Power Pup - a pre-moistened dog kibble brand that is often the only source of food in the Zones

Ray Gun - guns that shoot high-powered lasers instead of bullets. Rebels often customize them

Rebel - anyone who actively works against Better Living Industries

Ritalin Rat - drug addicts, usually used for those addicted to Happy Pills but can be used for Zoneweed addicts as well

Robin Hood Honey - party going Killjoys that look beautiful but don’t act like it

Rongee Kay - Killjoys who wander from party to party

Royal - something fancy or high end

Runners - juvie halls who smuggle supplies into the Zones

Sand Pup - someone born in the Zones or someone who has lived there most of their life

Sand Worm - a derogatory term for Killjoys used by Better Living Industries

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W - BL loyalists specially trained to destroy anything they deem worthy of destroying. Also called "Crows"

Screwhead - someone who parties too much and thinks too little

Shiny Magazine - a magazine for mature readers in the Zones

Shiny - interchangeable with "awesome" or "cool"

Shower Curtain - A rare day when the sun is behind the clouds and the heat isn’t so unbearable

Smiley - someone acting suspiciously

Sour - something off

Squeaky - not having committed a crime against Better Living Industries but still wanting to rebel against them. Also used when someone seems to avoid fights or dangerous situations even though they’ve never done that before

Static - another word for sand or remote areas of the Zones

Trojan Horse - a painfully obvious lie

Tumbleweed - someone who wanders the Zones, living a nomadic lifestyle, having no home or gang

Vend-a-Hack - A device used by Killjoys to hack into Better Living Industries vending machines to steal various supplies

Vending Machine - Dispense a variety of items, including ray guns, batteries, ammo, stickers, stress toys, Plus, Power Pup, and water

WKIL 109 FMX - Doctor D’s pirate radio station that plays news and music

Zone Rat - a derogatory term for Killjoys used by Better Living Industries and some Battery City citizens

Zoneweed - a popular drug grown and passed around in the Zones

[notnctu]

through the lens ❀ l.jn

❀ lee jeno x fem!reader ❀ genre - slow burn, smut/mature content, fluff (romance?), slight angst ❀ details - photographer!jeno, model!reader, college!au, shy!jeno but he aint shy in bed, strangers to fuckers!au ❀ word count - 8k (this is the longest thing ive ever written) ❀ warnings - nude modeling, swearing, oral (f/receiving), some sweet love makin’ ❀ brief synopsis - jeno asks you to model for his internship project, but little did you know, it was going to be a nude photo shoot.  

❝ jeno was too shy to hold eye contact, but he stared at you endlessly through the lens. ❞

❀ a/n - hihihi this is author doie❀ ! im bad at writing smut so pls dont hate me ah ha lol i tried my best i also dont model/do professional photography so really apologize if i butcher any terms lmaoo the only thing i am is that im in college and im shy

Jeno had applied to almost a hundred internships and almost close to none returned with an offer, even after a whole month of waiting. He absolutely needed to start building his portfolio before the beginning of his senior year of college. The embarrassment of possibly graduating without any experience loomed over the desperate boy. 

Photography had been more than a hobby to him, to the point where he wanted to take it seriously. His parents weren’t the most supportive of an Arts major, but that couldn’t stop him. Jeno saw the best through a camera lens. He had a special eye for beautiful moments and the impressing urge to capture it forever. 

It was too late to change his major, if he wanted to graduate with all of his friends. If he wanted to be successful, he had to act on it now. 

The swoosh! of a new email startled the sleeping boy. He stared at the brightly lit screen, reading the words over and over again to make sure it was real. Jeno was so enthralled with excitement that he scrambled out of bed to wake up his roommate, Jaemin.

He shook him so violently that the sheets fell from Jaemin’s warm body. “Dude! I got an internship!” He spoke with incredible glee, a wide smile couldn’t leave his face.

Jaemin groaned and had to hold Jeno by the shoulders to halt the boy from causing the room to spin. “Why--What is going on?” He dazely rubbed his tired eyes to blink at his giddy roommate.

The screen blinded Jaemin as it was shoved too closely to adjust. “Whoa--,” he pushed it away and shut his eyes, “--repeat what you just said one more time.” Jaemin held a finger up and Jeno grabbed it, jumping onto his best friend’s bed.

“I got an internship. Someone got back to me.” Jaemin returned the same excitement the moment he processed his words. He shot up in bed and hugged his friend tightly. 

“Wo-w, dude! Congratulations!” The two boys hurried on their feet to cheer together. There was no concern for the rest of their housemates, only celebration that roared throughout the entire night.

+

Truthfully, Jeno had no recollection of applying to this studio. It could have been a random link on a job scouting website, but he couldn’t be more grateful. An internship was long overdue and Jeno had been itching to get some recognition for his craft. 

“Hello, I’m Lee Jeno.” He bowed slightly at the receptionist, who had a stern stare that made him feel vulnerable. The first thing he noted about the office: white and minimalistic. 

Jeno’s specialty was landscape photography. His aesthetics consisted of black and white filters, city lights, dark mood lighting, and background commotion. He enjoyed capturing chaos the most, a scene where more than one thing was happening. The only reason being that there was more to look at. 

“Nice to meet you. The name is Lee Taemin, but you can call me what you please.” A young, lean man strolled his way towards Jeno with a wide grin and his hand for him to shake. Taemin was slightly shorter than him, but his stylish, expensive boots made up for his height. He had to be only a maximum of five years older than Jeno as Taemin appeared relatively youthful. 

Taemin’s firm grip pulled Jeno along inside the studio. A small gasp escaped from Jeno which earned robust laughter from the older man. “I hope you can break out of your shell soon. There is no room for timidness around here, Mister Lee.”

“Please, you can call me Jeno.” He smiled, quite awkwardly at the beautiful man. 

The tall glass windows, the concrete, gray floor, the white doors that lined the hallway, had to be all too predictable. Jeno envisioned this is what high class must look like. It was the pristine, bright feeling and the smell of vanilla that lingered distastefully. There was chatter behind the closed doors --- mainly directing, and high praises. 

The only off-put was that photographers worked behind closed doors. From the few studios he has visited previously, photographers often worked in open spaces due to lighting fractures or the ability to roam more freely. 

“I’m actually very ecstatic you signed up for the internship, since you do seem a bit on the younger side.” Taemin gestured toward the sofa in the middle of his massive office. Jeno sat across from him. Water was already placed on the glass coffee table that separated the two. A laptop was opened to face Taemin.

Jeno slyly rubbed the condensation from his palms on his jeans. Taemin’s stare bore deep into the shy boy, who had to break eye contact from time to time. “I know.” Jeno chuckled nervously, “thank you for getting back to me. I was really hoping to gain work experience through mentorship.” 

Taemin nodded at everything Jeno was saying. His face being completely expressionless. Jeno sipped his water to regain moisture in his dry throat. Taemin was more intimidating than he was anticipating. “Sounds great. Happy to have you here. It might be a small business, but the experience is worth investing in. Every photographer who has come in and out of my building has found their forte. Let’s say, it’s eye opening.” 

“That’s exactly what I was looking for actually.” As scared as he was of this mysterious man, he really enjoyed the comfort the environment radiated. 

Taemin leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “I noticed in the portfolio you sent that you don’t have any portraits or any people, in general, in your photos. Do you have any works with people? Since this is a studio of fine art nude photography.”

Nude. Jeno practically choked on the last remaining spit he gathered. Taemin acknowledged the boy’s shocked reaction and tilted his head curiously, “you did know that I specialize in contemporary fine art nude photography, right?” Unfortunately, Jeno did not. 

Jeno cleared his throat, “yes, of course. I wanted to challenge myself.” He had to lie, there was no other way to cover up his disbelief. This internship was the only hope left for him to gain something. Though, even the thought of shooting a naked body made him anxious.

He hated how timid he was. His friends and family say otherwise, mainly for the reason that Jeno automatically lit up behind a camera. In all honesty, he hid behind it. It was the only safe place that Jeno knew what he was doing. However when it came to real life situations without it, he lacked the confidence to be himself.

As ironic as it was, he hated being seen. He liked to be the background character in his own life, because the main character took too much of a toll. It could also be his deafening insecurities and lack of self esteem, but Jeno didn’t mind not being the center of attention.

“You like a challenge?” It was more of a statement rather than a question. Jeno caught a glimpse of the twinkle in Taemin’s dark eyes. “Then for your first task, I want you to show me that you can take on this role.”

Jeno scrambled for his phone to jot down notes. “Send me an emotional portfolio, model of your choice. They could be a friend of yours that you feel comfortable seeing naked. It must include a variation of headshots, full body, and body details. It must also be raw and unedited photos. I want to see if you have the eye for the art to capture these types of images.”

“When would you like it by?” He stammered, completely winded at the sudden project that unloaded on top of him. 

“Next Friday, and you’ll present it to me here in person. Feel free to use this studio if you don’t have a place of your own with equipment. All you need to do is book a room with the front desk. Any other questions?” The sound of the laptop shutting caused Jeno to look up at the brilliance in front of him. He needed Taemin to help him succeed. 

“Why do you take nude photography?” 

Taemin was unable to stop the laughter that erupted into the room. “I don’t run a pimp business or sell soft core porn, if that’s why you’re staring at me so funnily. What I make is an art masterpiece, it has nothing to do with physical features or desires. It’s the pure emotion that clothing distracts from. Clothing conforms the model into an aesthetic, and while that works for editorials, it won’t be a consistent thing here.” 

Jeno nodded understandingly. Overwhelmed and lost at words. He was unsure what he had gotten himself into. Where was he going to find a model on such short notice on such lewd conditions? He was really going to need to step out of his comfortable zone, in his photography and social skills. 

Taemin stood up and extended his hand once more. “I take pride in my art, so I hope you, too, start finding that in your own.” 

+

Jaemin held his stomach from the endless laughter, tears welling up in his eyes. “Nud-Nude photography? And you didn’t know?”

“Jaemin, keep it down.” Jeno whispered and cautiously peered around at the few people flooding into the small lecture hall. “I don’t want everyone in our club to misunderstand and think I’m some creep.”

His best friend straightened up in his seat and placed his hand on Jeno's slumped shoulder, “first of all, you’re a complete idiot for not researching. Secondly, it’s an art form. If you really got yourself a shady, rated R internship, I would’ve told you to drop it instantly.” 

His spirits were slightly lifted, but he was still struggling with who he should ask to model for him. As much as he’s already seen of Jaemin, being his roommate, he honestly would rather leave the rest to imagination. Jeno wasn’t purposefully searching the room for a candidate, but he could not stop his eyes from drifting.

He spotted the most attractive side profile that sat two rows below him. He shook his head to make sure he was seeing her correctly. Peering around, he looked for another possible face to shoot. But oh god, how she caught his eye every time she even slightly moved.

You smiled happily with your friends by your side as your club’s executive board members introduced this year’s goals and events to attend. It had to be the smallest amount of alcohol still running in your system that caused you to giggle every time guys tried to turn around and hit on you.

“Why don’t you focus on our club members instead?” You smirked at the smug older boy, who had poorly attempted to grab your attention. “I think this information is important to you. These events could help you develop your social skills to be much better.” Your voice was barely above a whisper, but your girl friends scoffed by your side.

He got up in disbelief and quickly walked out of the room. There was a brief pause at the sudden movement, but the announcement carried on per usual.

Jeno impatiently waited for the club meeting to finally be over, so he could talk to you. The longer it dragged, the more his confidence was subsiding. “I’m heading to study, wanna come with?” Jaemin poked at Jeno’s knee.

“Yeah, but you can go ahead first. I need to talk to someone.” His voice was shaky and his throat went so dry. Jeno’s shifty eyes scanned the room, hoping no one saw how nervous he was acting.

Jaemin’s eyebrows lifted suspiciously, “who? I didn’t even know you talked to anyone who came today. Donghyuck and Renjun aren’t here---”

“--her, Jaemin... her. I’m going to ask her to model for me.” Jeno motioned his head. His heart beating faster at seeing a small grin appear on your face from a comment someone made.

Jaemin hummed, “good luck with that, bud. I’ve got two shoulders for you to cry on after.” The extra hint of sarcasm only made Jeno sweat nervously. He was seriously doubting his decision, but it wouldn’t be a challenge if he didn’t do it. He knew he’d regret it more if he didn’t just ask you. 

Once the meeting was dismissed, you wanted to get out of the room before the heavy rush into the hallways. Unfortunately, a few frat guys pulled you into their conversation and chatted up a storm. Your friends played into their foolery, but you stopped paying attention when they asked for your numbers.

There was a faint tap on your shoulder and you turned to see who the culprit was. You didn’t seem to know him, because you would’ve remembered such a demeanor. His eyes were glued to the floor behind you and his shaky hands ran through his brown locks. His shyness was quite endearing, yet alarming since you weren’t sure why exactly he had approached you.

“Yes?” You asked curiously.

The moment Jeno heard your delicate cadence, he melted like a popsicle left out in the sun. He peered up, but quickly reverted his eyes to the white tiles when he noticed how beautifully you stared at him.

He counted his breathing to calm his rapid heart beat. He cleared his throat to introduce himself, “I’m Jeno. I’m a third year Arts major, um-- I was just--- I know we don’t know each other. I wanted to ask, uh-” Jeno was horrified at how he stammered over his own words. His cheeks burned with a red glow, and if he couldn’t look you in the eye before, he definitely couldn’t now.

“Hey, see you later.” One of the bulky frat guys called and you waved back weakly. 

A guy who had been chasing you endlessly scoffed at the pitiful sight and smirked at you, “see you at my house tonight? Been missing you in my bed lately.”

“Thought you would’ve guessed the reason why I stopped coming around.” Jeno heard the sting in your remarks and the disbelief in the male. 

You honestly could have left, Jeno knew that. But you stayed and waited patiently for him to finish. Jeno could tell how strong you were just by your intimidating aura that practically suffocated him by standing in close proximity to you.

You sighed and reached to grab your jacket on the folded seat, “look, Jeno. It’s nice to meet you and all, but I gotta get going.” 

Shockingly, the shy boy reached out to stop you by your fingertips. His touch lingered before he dropped your hand quickly. “I’m sorry. Are you free this Monday?”

“Uh, that depends. If you’re asking me on a date, then I’m busy.” Rolling your eyes, you weren’t sure why you still stayed to listen to what this random stranger had to say. If it were anyone else, you would’ve walked away the moment he asked if you were free. However, you acknowledged his timidness and the courage he must have mustered up to approach you.

Jeno shook his head violently, completely in shambles from that type of misunderstanding. “Not a date. I need someone to model for my portfolio photos that my internship assigned. It’s actually very important to me because it’s the first internship that responded back to me when I had applied to so many a whole month ago. Basically, I really need this and you because I think you’d be perfect to take pictures of. Oh-- wow! That sounded very bad --- uh --- what I meant is that your facial proportions are perfect and---”

“I’m free Monday.” You cut off his endless ramble and gestured toward his phone. He handed it to you without any hesitation and you typed in your number. “Text me the time, place and what I should wear.” 

“Oh actually, it’s a nude photoshoot.” Your eyes doubled in size, completely offended by that statement.

Jeno felt the sudden shift in the air and brought his hands up to block himself, “to be more clear, it’s a contemporary fine art nude photography studio. The pictures are pieces of art and to be seen as that only. I have no intentions or ulterior motive to sleep with you, see you naked or sell, leak your nudes for the profit of your body. But, I understand if you no longer want to do it because it sounds super strange now that I am explaining it.” 

Your shoulders relaxed and the fist that formed unraveled. You exhaled deeply, “I’ll do it. We can talk more about it on Monday and I get to leave on my own accord if I don’t feel comfortable. We work on my conditions.” Picking up Jeno’s chin, he was absolutely petrified at the forced eye contact and your incredible, powerful gaze. He was mesmerized by the fire in your eyes, and if he stared any longer, he could’ve lost himself in them. 

“Of course.” With that, you dropped his face and left without another look back. Jeno looked down at his phone and the new contact name, (Y/N). It had slipped his mind to even ask what your name was and he slapped his face in utter stupidity. “Do better, Lee Jeno.” It was a remainder to himself to, hopefully, be better the next time you two speak.

+

Monday, 3:03 PM. 

Jeno paced back and forth in the brightly, lit white room. He was trying to find any blinds or curtains to cover the tall windows of the high rise building. It should not be too much of a problem, the extra lighting was a positive. Jeno was only worried for your comfort of the openness. 

There was a soft knock before Jeno practically tripped to open the door. His breath hitched at the sight of your bare face. This time, you were the vulnerable one. Jeno only saw purity, yet impressed at how your tired eyes still managed to bid him a soft smile. He admired your uneven complexion, and the sparse moles that dotted your skin. 

“Okay, so you want to see me naked now or later?” Filled with jokes, your voice was light and airy this afternoon. There was a bit of a contrast from the first time you two met. Softer, enchanting, almost ghostly. 

Everything in the room was white. The mattress on the floor had a white comforter and white sheets. The backdrop. The walls. The hardwood floor. The only color was the blue sky that the tall windows let in.

“Here’s a robe. You can change in the bathroom.” Jeno scratched the back of his neck and his eyes wandered everywhere, but your’s. 

“Would you be okay with me just taking off my clothes in here?” You saw the light tint of pink cover his face, and spread to his ears. You examined more of the shy boy’s embarrassed face, finally getting a really good look at him. Jeno was very attractive, and you could only imagine how beautiful he must look if he fully faced you.

Jeno fiddled with his camera strap, “only if you are okay with that.” Clearing his throat, he stood next to the window to give you some privacy. “I’ll go over what I plan on doing. I’m going to take photos of your face details, parts of your body, full body, and portraits. You can lay down on the bed and I’ll direct you in poses. Have you modeled before?”

He was scanning the bustling city below his feet. Cars zoomed quickly and crowds of tiny people flooded the streets. He brought his camera up to his face, not being able to resist the urge to capture such a thrilling sight. 

“If Instagram counts, then yeah. Professional model gig would be a no. Nude photography is a definite no, unless we are talking about being filmed during sex.” Jeno chuckled, while also holding the camera steady and stealing a few moments to keep for himself.

For a strange reason, being naked for a non-sensual reason felt even more vulnerable. Laying on the soft fabric, you felt oddly exposed and slightly more reserved. You’ve had countless strangers see you naked. Men were sexually desiring to see a sexy picture. You were always lusted after, but this feeling of nakedness was special.

“Are you ready?” Jeno gulped, finally setting the camera down. 

You hummed cheerfully. Your heart was leaping out of your chest as the boy shifted slowly to face you. As he turned, you noticed he had his eyes sealed shut, which caused a small laugh to erupt. “Jeno, you have my permission to open your eyes and to look at me.”

Holy shit, he was trembling with an inexplicable fear. The camera was slipping from his sweaty hands. His mouth was as dry as the desert. Jeno’s pounding heart was loud in his ears. 

Jeno has seen his past girlfriends laying naked in bed, but this situation was too different. When he saw you laying there in absolutely nothing, he was overwhelmed, yet astounded at how graceful you appeared.

There was no exchange of words and no exchange of eye contact. He towered over your lying figure and shakily brought the camera to his eyes. He selfishly wanted to capture your elegance. Through the lens, he saw all of you: the curve in your eyelid, your curled eyelashes, the small mole next to your soft lips, the sharp color of your eyes, the way your hair frames your face.

This was the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen. You were comparable to the arts found in popular museums. Your body lines were enticing and an impressive shape. Your breasts pooled on your chest, the round nude nipple in the centers. Your details had to be sculpted by gods, who took their sweet time making you. You were a true masterpiece. 

Confused, Jeno felt a huge mixture of emotions. Was he aroused? Was he infatuated? Did he just fall in love with a complete stranger? He recognized the same thrilled feelings he felt taking landscape photos. With each click, he grew more excited with how beautiful the photos were turning out.

“Sit up and rest your chin on your left hand. Lean your weight on your right leg.” Jeno’s direction was clear and firm. There was no evidence of a smaller tone he usually spoke in. Sitting up, you placed your elbow on your upper thigh to steady your chin. Jeno had already gotten down to floor level to you. 

Without the camera that separated you two, it had to be the first time he faced you completely in such close proximity. There was so much to admire about Jeno. He remained concentrated on his craft, but it was actually very sexy to see his dedication. It was almost like he was a whole new person, like all the shyness drifted away. 

Jeno couldn’t take his eyes off of you. It wasn’t simply your beauty that amazed him. Your confidence made everything easy. There was something about your blank stares, when he asked for an emotion, you portrayed it perfectly.

“Can we talk while you shoot?” Your sudden voice startled the photographer. He lowered his camera and his gaze automatically wandered off behind you, which didn’t go unnoticed. He nodded after a short pause and the shutter noises continued.

“Why did you choose me as your model?” 

Jeno peeled away from the device, “because you’re you.” He didn’t even know what that statement meant. It wasn’t like he knew you before the first time he asked you to model for him.

The corners of your lips dipped down, drawing an evident frown. Click. Jeno loved that image especially. It was a simple way to get real, authentic facial expressions. He marveled at the photo, but registered the reason behind it. “I wanted to ask you the second I saw you. I just knew that I wanted you.” 

“But you don’t know me.” 

Jeno looked through the lens once again, welcoming a full view of your stunning attributes. He spoke in a low voice, “then, let me know you.” Click. 

It would be the biggest lie to say that you weren’t aroused by Jeno at the moment. He was cool, without trying to be. He really did shine when he had a camera to work with, like a star to a dark night. While he had a distinct demeanor off the bat, you enjoyed unraveling the rest of him. He was, also, the first man you met that didn’t seem sexually driven by a naked woman in his presence. 

You had to resist every urge to push the camera away and share the few seconds of his entire gaze before it wandered away. You wanted to rock his world, he was so innocent and beautiful. You wished to wreak havoc on him, have him show you how much he wanted you. 

+

You anticipated an awkward photoshoot, but Jeno made you feel safe and comfortable. He made sure to adjust the temperature when goosebumps rose on your arms and when your nipples became painfully hard. He never touched you or came too much into your personal space. He always asked for your permission. 

Nude modeling was a new experience for you, but you were surprised at how much you liked it. or how much you liked Jeno taking your photos. He sat next to you on the bed when you put on your articles of clothing and panned through several shots to satisfy your curiosity.

Leaning close, your head ducked to see the photos. A gasp escaped your lips when you saw just the first few. “Is that really me?” The pictures made you feel an abundance of emotions, you felt what they reflected. Sadness, melancholy, happiness, confidence. You didn’t know images had that much power to make you feel that, especially photos of you.

Jeno nodded, smiling so wide that his eyes turned to moon crescents. He was so in love with the results. He found respect for Taemin’s craft and he was right, he might’ve found a new forte to experiment with. “I can send you the photos digitally too, if you want them.”

“Maybe I’ll print them out, frame them, and gift it to every horrid man who has tried to flirt their way to my body since they want to see it so fucking bad.” 

Jeno peered over and saw the tiny glimpse of pain in your orbs, “why would you give horrible people what they want?”

“So they can finally shut up and leave me alone. Plus, this is art and if I tell them it’s actually me, maybe it’ll change their minds to start treating me like it.” 

He held his palm up and almost immediately, your fingers filled the spaces between his. “I’m going to need you to start treating yourself as fine art.”

“Keep taking more photos of me and I just might start thinking I’m Mona Lisa.” Your laughters blended nicely into each other. There was mutual mental acknowledgement of the happiness you were both feeling.

Jeno never let go of your hand, and there was a short moment of comforting silence where you two sat in each other’s existence. You were the one to break it, “are you doing anything after this?” 

He shook his head. “Well then, you’re mine for the rest of the night. We’re going to pretend we’ve been close friends since first year and eat take-out on my bed because that’s what I need at the moment.” 

+

“I know you respect my body and see this as an art form, but I’m genuinely surprised that you didn’t feel aroused at the slightest.”

Jeno didn’t even realize how much time had already passed being you. You two ate and chatted as if you’ve known each other forever, as if the friendship wasn’t established several hours ago. It felt safe and right, like you two belonged in each other’s existence and nowhere else mattered.

He felt warm inside from your hearty laughter and courage, like he was watching a painting come to life or a photo in movement. You were smitten over how endearing and complex he was. He was more than what meets the eye and that alone drew you towards him.

“Okay, I’ll admit,” Jeno paused to watch your reaction, “in the most respectable way, I was somewhat turned on. But! Before you trail blaze me for being just like every disgusting male in your life, I genuinely didn’t have any sexual thoughts during the photoshoot. That was all professional and it will continue to be like that.” 

Getting up from your bed, your mind was working at lightspeed to process his confession. Jeno was fast to pick up someone’s personality, what stood out and what was kept hidden. He knew quicker than anyone else that you were not someone to offend because you were a strong, straight forward woman.

His personality breakdown went like this: you knew what you like, you knew you were going to get what you want, you enjoyed flirty banter (with people of your choice), you weren’t afraid to be blunt, or kick someone’s ass. You carried yourself with confidence that graced your every step, which makes anyone attracted to you instantly. Bold, confident, sexy had to be what came to mind whenever he thought about you. 

Nonetheless, he really liked you as a person. He could pat himself on the back all day long for just approaching you, but he knew the real reason as to how this all happened. It was you saying yes to a stranger’s odd photoshoot. You made him the luckiest man in the world. 

“Continue? Are you looking for excuses to keep seeing me?” You smirked and Jeno’s voice grew small. 

“I--- uh, well,” there goes the nervous stammering, “I know the conditions were a one time thing, so I understand if you don’t want to do it again.” As the night had progressed, Jeno gradually began to hold eye contact and actually looked at you directly without the help of seeing you through a lens. This was the first time he broke it. 

“Hey now, I’m messing with you, Jeno.” He had been sitting on your floor, at the end of your bed. You crawled on your elbows to reach him, and to hold his chin to face you again. Deja vu. “I’d love to get naked for you again, and again, and.. as many times as you want me to.” 

He stared at you with his mouth hung open in disbelief. His eyes scanned your beautiful face to see your lips pull back into a mischievous smile. Gulping, he swallowed every ounce of courage he had left. “You don’t have to say it like that.” He tried to remove your grip, but it latched onto his hand. 

“You’re finally looking me in the eye, sweet thing. I don’t think you realize how much I had been wanting that from you.” You caressed his cheek, rubbing small circles on his texture. 

“What else do you want from me?” His implication sounded suggestive, even if his curiosity was innocent. 

Your hot breath brushed against Jeno’s lips. “I can show you.”

Jeno, the one and only college guy who has seen your naked body in a non-sexual context. Jeno, the shy, sweet boy who appreciated and recognized you as a form of art. Jeno, the talented and skillful photographer, who consistently made sure you felt comfortable. Jeno, the only person in the world who you’d model nude for. Jeno, the dazzling character behind the camera who you wanted more than anyone else you’ve ever met. Lee Jeno.

He seemed like he was inching closer, already tilting his head to fit your’s. You smiled to yourself, seeing that your words were received well. Diving in, your lips swam together fervently. 

The poor boy found himself lost in your enchanting, alluring gaze. He let the trance consume him, selfishly kissing the art he admired so dearly. A small part of him felt the guilt and confusion that began to rise. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly wished to feel your lips on his neck, or run his hands across your hot skin. He swore these thoughts were not present earlier. 

A small pop! and Jeno held your shoulder to pull away. “I’m sorry, did I do something?” You asked, honestly concerned that you were taking more than you deserved. The least you desired was to hurt Jeno, who had been nothing but nice and sweet.

“(Y/N),” you could listen to your name roll off his tongue all day, “I feel somewhat guilty. I don’t want things to be misunderstood.”

“Which would be?”

“I don’t want you to think I coerced you into being my model just because I had intentions to sleep with you.” Jeno was already gathering his things, but you hopped off your bed and placed a hand on his chest. “Because that’s what it’s starting to look like at the moment.”

“Was that something you did though? Did you have those intentions?” Your stare bore right through him. The warmth of your hand relaxed his racing heart.

“Never, (Y/N), I would never do that to someone.” Your hand traveled down to grab his belongings and tossed it back onto the ground. 

He silently watched as you took off your pants, and stood in front of him in your underwear. “Then, we’re fine. I know your intentions have always been pure. But truthfully, Jeno, seeing you focused while you worked sparked something in me. You don’t understand how aroused I got and how badly I wanted you to fuck me on that bed.” His hand trailed up your exposed thighs, finally touching your softness. “You’re the one guy I wanted first, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that.” 

“I-- I don’t know what to say.” His cheeks revealed how embarrassed he was, but his dark, lustful eyes were telling a different story.

A smirk fell upon your face, “then don’t say anything.” 

Jeno devoured you, inhaling the light hint of vanilla that still lingered. He hoisted you onto your mattress and kissed you like his life depended on it. His antsy hands roamed your free range, exploring, holding, gripping the parts he marveled over. Small moans from the back of your throat encouraged him to continue.

No one has ever kissed you with the amount of passion Jeno did. It was gentle, with enough vigor to cause your panties to dampen. It wasn’t sloppy, where previous guys had a problem of missing your mouth entirely and slobbered your chin. 

His lips worshiped you, highlighting your good sides. Flashes of the photoshoot popped into Jeno’s head as he left purple marks on the places he loved capturing the most. He pushed up your shirt, exposing your chest to him again. His tongue circled around your hard nipple as he made sure to give the same amount of attention to each one. 

Jeno knew he was too shy to hold your intense stare, but getting to know you during and after the photoshoot, he could see the softness in your gaze. He was, now, able to see all of you. The sight of you through the camera was addicting enough, so finally taking you all in was more than satisfying. 

Your hands ran through his hair as he kissed down your torso. His thumbs hooked the waistband of your underwear, and peeled it off your body. You gasped as the cold air from your apartment grazed against your exposed figure.

Jeno paused to admire your glistening pussy, “would it be okay if you let me make love to you?”

Your heart burned, not out of embarrassment, but at how he still managed to ask you for your permission in the sweetest way. You rested your weight on your elbows, “no one has done that before, would it actually make me want to fall in love with you?”

“It wouldn’t be too bad. I have a lot of love to give and you look like a person who deserves all of it anyways.” Jeno’s finger ran over your wet slit and rubbed your clit slowly.

Your moans filled the room as the electric jolted throughout your veins. The wetness grew, seeping out of you like a waterfall. Jeno dropped down to his knees, and lifted your legs on his broad shoulders.

“Are you usually this wet, baby?”

Chuckling, you smiled at his bold choice in using pet names, “Just for you.”

He hummed, chiming at how he liked your answer. Spreading you open, his tongue met with your swollen bud that begged for his licks.

His tongue darted side to side, up and down and in result, your back arched in pleasure and a darkness clouded your mind. His name and mindless profanities streamlined their way out of you as Jeno ate you out in such a precisely delicious way.

Grabbing a fist full of hair, you pulled him closer, even if there was no more space to fill. Looking down, you two exchanged glances before he thrusted a finger into you. Your hips bucked harder as he eased in another one.

Jeno curled his fingers in search of your sweet spot and found it when a deep moan escaped your throat. His fingertips rubbed and pressed into your plush flesh, causing you to practically scream and squirm in his mouth. 

He suckled your clit and fingered you simultaneously and quickly. The pleasure was overflowing and you released his hair to grip your sheets below you. Your legs shook and trembled as he had no caution to stop.

“Please, I’m going to--” you could barely talk due to your face contouring to the splurge of pleasure every single time Jeno rubbed your spot. “--to explode.” 

He had to take back what he thought earlier in the day. This was the most beautiful sight he’s ever laid eyes on. The whole scene played like from one of his favorite films. It felt like he was giving his photos life. Your body twisted and turned, accentuating the curves of your lines. 

Jeno had become painfully hard against the fabric of his jeans, but seeing you fall apart because of his minimal movements exhilarated him. “P-Please, don’t stop.” A breathy moan followed suit and your thighs tried to press themselves together. Jeno didn’t allow it, his free hand hooked underneath your left thigh to pull one side away from his cheeks.

Your high gradually grew so tall that it all eventually came cascading down. Your legs shook violently and sat up from the euphoria that took over you. Jeno prolonged your buzz and you screamed loudly, having to bite down on your fingers to stop yourself from angering your neighbors.

Jeno drank you up, letting your wetness cover his chin and drip down his knuckles. He pulled away, at last, and you took deep breaths to control your heavy breathing. It was like Jeno knocked the wind completely out of you. 

He stood up and you saw the outline of his hard bulge straining itself through his jeans. The next scene was quite animalistic. You, still embodying your high, sat on your knees and unzipped his pants with your needy hands.

“Now, it’s your turn to get nude for me.” You whispered, tauntingly. Jeno groaned when you reached down and gently pulled him out. He stepped out of his clothing, all of it. His shirt was lost in the corner and his bottoms were scattered over your floor. Mirroring his actions, you took off your last piece of cloth.

Jeno was built. Though his biceps did not go unnoticed during the photoshoot, you were surprised at the lines of muscle that sketched his body. It made your mouth water, seeing his extremely hard dick stand against his toned abs. His red tip fell just below his navel. Jeno only kept getting better as the night continued on.

Pulling him closer, his hand found their way to the back of your head as you aligned your mouth to the wetness that spilled from his tip. “I want to make you feel good.” Jeno’s hoarse voice made your knees weak.

Peering up, you batted your eyelashes at him fondly. “Just a little taste?” You begged, having to hold his shaft with both of your hands because of his thickness. Your tongue was already stuck out, your hot breath causing the tiniest bit of sensation for him.

He nodded and his eyes were trained on you. He didn’t want to miss any second of your kitty licks. You flattened your tongue against his warmth, dragging it up to the top. The saltiness hit your palette as you swirled around his redness. “Oh--” Jeno threw his head back and bit his lip, “--lay on the bed now.” 

You smiled sweetly and gave his member a quick kiss before reaching for a condom in your drawer. Jeno climbed onto your bed and situated the rubber comfortably. You laid on your back and he was fast to pull your legs around his waist. 

He lined himself at your entrance and eased his tip in slowly. Squirming, you craved him to fill you up to the brim. He leaned down to kiss you, letting your tongue lap with his. It’s your hands with the mind of their own when they flew automatically to hold his face whenever you wanted to deepen the kiss. Then, Jeno stretched himself all the way in and he caught your gasp with his lips. He groaned, feeling the mess he created merely minutes ago. 

His hips moved so easily with your wetness, but he went slow. Dragging out each pull and then, pushing himself back in roughly. “Jeno!” Your body jolted up the bed each time. His body fell over yours to hold you intimately, letting you bury your face into his neck. Your lips latched themselves onto his sensitive skin, painting a purple sunset. 

Jeno’s arms snaked underneath your thighs as he pressed them to your chest, folding you almost into a ball. Your mouth hung open as he fucked you harder, rougher, deeper yet keeping the tempo rhythmically slow. At this point, you could feel his hits in your gut. Your weak hands gripped loosely around his strong wrists that held your legs down. “You’re pussy is so tight and holy shit---, you keep getting more beautiful.”

A familiar burning sensation set in your chest as you saw how concentrated his face had become. You were so fucked out that you could barely speak, “you—” his hips mercilessly slammed into you powerfully, enacting a low moan every time he reached your sweet spot. “—keep surprising me.” His actions came to a halt and he stared deeply into your soul. 

You whined, wiggling your hips for any friction. He held them down into the mattress, knowing his grip was strong enough to leave a mark. “I told you, I was going to make love to you tonight.”

“I’ve already fallen for you.” You said breathlessly, tracing the side of his face and pecking his lips softly. 

“You don’t understand what you’re doing to me by saying those things.” He whispered and pushed his entire shaft to fill you to your brim. 

You yelped his name and gripped his shoulders, but he wasn’t done yet. “Show me how badly you wanted me the first time you saw me.” Jeno blinked at you in slight shock. 

As he continued to hold the deep gaze, he kept pushing his dick further and further into you. He was balls deep, almost impossible to keep going. He fucked you without the need to pull out, just burying his cock deeper into your wet pussy. You exclaimed, moaned, cussed at every push. Holding the stare was more than enough to lose yourself all over him again. 

Jeno was drunk with the image of your fucked out expression and every time the mixture of pleasure and pressure caused your eyebrows to crease and mouth to open release sensual sound. He had been trying his best not to come undone, to fixate another climax for you.

The feeling of you wrapping tighter and tighter around him drove him insane. “Give it to me, please.” Your muffled plead called for his release, but he could feel that you were close to your second.

Jeno sat up on his knees and pulled you into his arms where your thighs fell over his. You groaned at the empty feeling, though it was quickly replaced with a gratifying moan when he inserted himself again. Your arms dangled around his neck, foreheads touching intimately. 

The fucking eye contact again, how could you get enough of it? You giggled, amused at how different Jeno was when he eventually opened up. He wrapped his strong arms around your back and thrusted his hips up into you. The way this man made you squirm, scream, and shake were nothing you’ve experienced before. 

He smirked, placing a gentle kiss on your cheek when he went rampage on your pussy. “Not laughing now, are you?”

You whined in pleasure, brushing your fallen strands of hair out of his face. “Shut up before I make you.” 

“Then I’d rather keep going.” Kissing up his jawline, you lead your way to his pout. His kisses intoxicated you with his passion and madness, like the most intense part of a symphony, or when the bass drops after a long build up in a song. 

Jeno sped up, ramming up into your slick pussy over and over again. He even brought your hips down to match him, guiding you down as he went up. The headboard was knocked against the wall, your windows steamed up, cries of pleasure from the both of you created the ambiance, the smell of sex filled your lungs. Jeno reached between your bodies to furiously rub your clit to where it felt almost raw. It all sent you into the clouds, the familiar queasiness settled in your lower half.

Your eyes rolled back and your back arched, having to pull away from the desirous kiss with Jeno. “I’m cumming!” You announced before the tension unraveled, causing you to see absolute white. The second wave was much more uncontrollable, Jeno felt you squeezing radically around his dick as he tried to fuck you faster to prolong the feeling.

Your legs shook around his and your upper body went limp with pleasure. You reached the peak of the mountain and it came crumbling down underneath your toes. It was catastrophically enthralling, to the point where you physically felt something leave your body.

“Oh shit..” Jeno stopped his motions at the sight of you squirting over his lap. He pampered your torso with fluttering kisses, hoping to calm your spastic body. “...baby, are you okay?” He asked with a bit of concern of how lack of life you seemed. 

This man just gave you the best climax in your whole life and he asked if you were okay? Regaining your senses, you sighed a small yes to reassure him that he didn’t actually murder you. Hopping off, you pulled the condom that restricted him.

He hissed when you cupped his balls in your palm. “Cum, my sweet thing.” You purred and Jeno’s hand pumped his member aggressively. You leaned in to help, sucking the tip and flicking your tongue over his slit. 

His other hand gripped your neck, causing you to drip on your sheets. Jeno was panting and with every tug, it became louder. He seemed so desperate to release that it made you smile to be the reason behind it. “Can you lay down,” A grunt followed his question, “please.” He huffed.

“Because you asked nicely.” Smirking, your back hit the sheets and you opened your legs to give Jeno a view. He situated himself above your stomach, as he fucked his tight grip.

“I’m cumming---” He couldn’t look any more amazing. With a final moan, the white streaks streamed out in short sequences. It landed across your abdomen, over your nipple, and pooled around your belly button. 

Bringing himself back to reality, Jeno stepped back to marvel you, his masterpiece. The white streaks coated your purple skin and your chest rose fast to catch your reality. Gazing upon your naked body, he was utterly infatuated with all of you. He was so in love with the sight of you that not a single photo could capture the beauty that you were. 

Jeno pondered the thought of how merely a day changed a small part of him. You were life changing, addicting, an incomparable character that he felt like he’s known forever, and now, couldn’t live without. It was the taste of your juices on his lips, your sweet melodic music that was your voice, your daring smile that enticed him to never peel away from you. It was simply you. 

He leaned down to rub his knuckles against your cheek, planting a lovingly peck on your forehead. “I’ll go start the water for you.” 

+

Jeno anticipated the reaction of his mentor. He found himself at the same scene he was when he was first given the task. Taemin sat across from him, hunched forward to analyze his new set of photos on his laptop. Raw, unedited photos of you, your body, your details. 

The hum of the air conditioning droned on, driving him mad. Jeno needed one reaction, but Taemin had been silent and expressionless for the past ten minutes. Whenever he did move, it was to click through to the next picture. 

Suddenly, he shut it closed and stood right up. Jeno, panicked, did the same. Taemin stuck his hand out and Jeno hesitantly grabbed it, incredibly unsettled and unable to read the older man.

Taemin received it firmly, giving Jeno a good handshake. “Welcome abroad, Lee Jeno. I expect even more great things from you.” 

Jeno registered his delightful mood switch and he was fast to follow up, “my photos, --- you --- like them?” 

Taemin nodded generously, patting Jeno on his shoulder. Taemin reached up to tap his own eyelids. “What you can see, is very special, kid. You’re an artist and I’m here to recognize that for you. It seems to me, you can do more than take pictures of sidewalks.” 

Jeno smiled happily, his eyes disappearing from joy. He couldn’t wait to tell you about it. 

The rest of the week, leading up to Jeno’s appointment, had felt nothing short of blissful moments together. You and Jeno spent almost every waking minute together without the cost of your friends’ time. He walked you to your classes, some even being across the campus from his own. You accompanied him for meals, even sitting in his lectures to just be with him.

There were no words that established what you two had become to each other. Jeno wasn’t looking for that anyways, in fact, he somewhat liked the ambiguity. If only he could tell you how making love to you made him begin to actually fall for you.

You were never one to hold a serious relationship, but you found a small want for that festering in Jeno. It was hard to admit to yourself, but Jeno saw you for all that you were. He truly saw you, whether it had been through a lens or through his own eyes. He captured your rawness and you were able to find vulnerability around him. 

He ran to you, where you sat in the lobby waiting for him to finish his meeting. Peering up from your phone, you noticed the beaming smile on the boy’s face. You couldn’t hold back your own grin, seeing him apparent with so much joy. “I’m guessing good things?”

“I got it, (Y/N)!” He jumped into your arms and you laughed at the sudden affection. “He loved my photos.” 

“I didn’t doubt it for one second. You’re an artist, Jeno. You create masterpieces that make even someone like me, feel like art.” 

Jeno hugged you closer to his chest, giving you a tiny squeeze. Pulling away to face you, his eyes examined your outstanding grace. You knew what he was already going to say, but simply wanted to hear him say it. “That’s because you are art.”

[mha-platonic-yanderes]

Settling In - Public Figures: The Todoroki Name

Inspired by: @i-cant-sing

Unlike the other mornings during the past three weeks, Rei doesn’t wake you up to lead you into another part of the house to monitor you in. Today, she gets you up and ready for school. Rei eventually conceded, letting you go to the Somnei Private Academy.

You don’t know how you feel about this new school. It isn’t the first time you’ve had to transfer schools, but it’s certainly the first time you’ve gone to an elite private school. The black, houndstooth skirt and white blazer combination is stiff, but it’ll become more comfortable as time passes. That’s at least what you hope will happen—with this outfit and living with the Todorokis in general. This place is too nice, this home is too large. They’re so much older and different from you, completely foreign to how you used to live.

It’s different, but you’ll manage. Besides, it’s not a bad different, just… different.

Rei set out the red blazer, white socks, and black Mary Janes in the living room. After she made you breakfast (which you ate all of, on Rei’s insistence), she helped you into the rest of your uniform. You haven’t had someone do this since you were just starting primary school, but Rei seemed so happy doing this. You wouldn’t want to ruin this for her, would you?

She passes you your bag and then a cellphone. It’s a coral color with a clear case. Not what you would’ve chosen, but cute nonetheless.

Rei puts her cold hand on her shoulder, “Y/N, listen to me. This phone is for emergencies, alright. If you need anything, anything at all, call or text one of us, alright? We’re here for you, alright. And we want you to be safe at school. So if we text to check in on you, text back quickly, alright. We don’t want to worry about you.”

“Okay.” You reply, “Can we get going or…”

“No!” She exclaims, digging through the navy blue purse on her side, “I need pictures! I never want to forget this!”

“Oh, alright.” You stand there, smiling. Rei’s camera light flashes almost continuously for half a minute. You don’t know how many photos she took, but you’re definitely seeing flashes of light afterwards.

She wraps her arm into the crook of your own, “Now we can head out!”

With the camera’s flash affecting your vision, Rei’s able to guide you out. She keeps you two locked together until you make it to the car. A driver silently takes you to your school, which leads Rei to fill the space.

“You don’t need to be nervous, you know.” Rei obsessively fixes your hair, even though she did it this morning.

You don’t stop her, but you do correct her, “I’m not nervous, really. I’m just—”

“You don’t have to lie to me Y/N.” Rei cuts you off, “It’s perfectly fine if you’re nervous. It’s natural when you’re leaving somewhere so safe and comforting to such a scary and unknown place.”

“I— alright.” You bite your tongue. No school is inherently as scary as moving into a new place like the Todoroki residence. But you wouldn’t tell her that. You’re just going to smile and nod and keep her happy and content, like a good daughter should.

===

The driver pulls into the drop off lane. The all white, shining academy is surrounded by a massive gate, which you had to wait to go through. Rei just sat there and chattering on.

Kids walked across the campus and you can look at them outside the bulletproof glass of the limousine. You want to look more, but Rei gathers your attention.

“Y/N, baby,” She looks you in the eye and fixes a piece of your hair, “are you going to be fine?”

“Yeah, Rei.” You nod, “I’ll be fine.”

“Make sure you text us back if we check in on you.”

“...I will.” You make a promise you know will be difficult to keep. If this school was like most of your other schools, they'll take away your personal technology if they catch you on it. You doubt they would be happy if on your first day gone, you got your phone taken away.

“If you need any one of us, we are literally a text away.”

“Alright…”

“Love you, Y/N.” She replies, “Wait! I took the liberty of printing off your schedule!”

You ignore the ‘love you’ in order to grab the piece of paper she had folded in her purse. She waves at you through the window and you wave back. You eventually have to leave her. She wants to watch you enter—making sure you’re safe every step of the way.

===

Going inside of the building was easy. This would be a breath of fresh air. It was your first time leaving the Todoroki Residence since the shopping trip Rei took you on. Three weeks of an isolating spring vacation now leads to you returning in time for your final year of junior high.

You head to the front desk. The front desk lady always knows where everything is. This isn’t the first time you’ve had to move around. “Excuse me,” you ask, “can you print out my class schedule and point me in the direction of my new class?”

“A new student, huh?” Her accent isn't Japanese. She’s not from around here. It’s sophisticated, like one of those high society ladies you’d see on television. You hear it more when she continues speaking, “give me your first and last name and I’ll call in the Class Head for whichever class you have and they’ll be your new guide.”

“Y/L/N, Y/F/N.” You fiddle with the strap of your bag. She types it into the system and then places a phone call. A name you wouldn’t recognize is mentioned, but you don’t catch anything else. She then turns to you to hand you a slightly warm piece of paper, “Do you mean Todoroki Y/F/N?”

Todoroki? You didn’t think they’d sign you up with their surname, but nevertheless, you answer, “Yeah, sure. Sorry about that.”

“No problem. So your teacher is Ito-san and your Class Head will be here any minute to escort you to your new classroom.”

“Thanks.” You go to wait by the office doors. They separate the front desk from the rest of the school and thus give you a chance to breathe. You probably won’t be here long and then you can go to a school that fits you better. Private school—you silently laugh at the idea. You never thought you’d get here.

The kid is in a similar uniform, except he’s in a pair of well fitting pants. He introduces himself and you sigh—at least this’ll only be temporary.

===

You didn’t expect much from this school and in all honesty, you’re happy that the day’s over. The teacher’s alright and the kids are all in their little cliques, but it’s not anything you didn’t experience at your other schools.

Though, one thing sticks out at you. Everybody called you Todoroki. It was a surprise. Even if you live with them, you aren’t a Todoroki. You’re just Y/N.

The same car that Rei dropped you off in picks you up. Rei opens the door and steps out. She’s the only Todoroki there. You don’t know how you feel about that.

She frets over you, as if she didn’t text you thrice today to see how you were doing. Though, you try to push down any amount of unease—your mother did the same thing, some time ago.

You step into the vehicle and Rei sits beside you. She’s the first to speak, “So… how was school?”

“It was alright. Just like any other school.”

“That’s good!” Rei exclaims, “Did you make any new friends? Was the teacher nice? How was lunch? I can start packing your lunch if it isn't good. Just say the word and I’ll do it!”

“Lunch was good. So was everything else…” You broach the subject of your name, “Hey, uh Rei? Why did you all sign me up under the Todoroki name?”

“You’re one of us now, silly.” She laughs, “Didn’t want you thinking we’d give you up whenever you got difficult. You’re a part of the family.”

“Oh, alright.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rei replies, “You can do your homework before dinner and afterwards we can watch a movie, your pick. Doesn’t that sound nice.”

“Uh… yeah.” You tell her, “Yeah it does.”

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

The Weather In PJO (brought to you by gods and demigods)

*alternating colors for ease of reading

**page numbers look weird because they're copied/pasted from ebooks

“Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I’d ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.” - TLT pg 33

“One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.” - TLT pg 65

“Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. [...] Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.” - TLT pg 156

“There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.” - TLT pg 176

“I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn’t dreamed that.” - TLT pg 491

“It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me.” - TLT pg 520

“BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.” - TLT pg 629

“The weather had completely changed. It was stormy, with heat lightning flashing out in the desert.” - TLT pg 988

“In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades’s fault.” - TLT pg 1191

“I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned.” - SOM pg 10

“After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead of us came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea-an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.” - SOM pg 598

“A storm raged that night, but it parted around Camp Half-Blood as storms usually did. Lightning flashed against the horizon, waves pounded the shore, but not a drop fell in our valley. We were protected again, thanks to the Fleece, sealed inside our magical borders.” - SOM pg 1045

“Sleet and snow pounded the highway. Annabeth, Thalia, and I hadn’t seen each other in months, but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do, we were too nervous to talk much.” - TTC pg 11

“Old spirits are protecting the bad boat.”

“The Princess Andromeda?” I said. “Luke’s boat?”

“Yes. They make it hard to find. Protect it from Daddy’s storms. Otherwise he would smash it.” - TTC pg 210

“Clouds seemed to be swirling around its peak, as though the mountain was drawing them in, spinning them like a top. “What’s going on up there? A storm?”

Zoë didn’t answer. I got the feeling she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn’t like it.” - TTC pg 751

“I will do my best to destroy his boat with storms, but he is making alliances with my enemies, the older spirits of the ocean. They will fight to protect him.” - TTC pg 886

“We were standing at the dining pavilion, just where we’d last spoken before I went on the quest. The wind was bitter cold, even with the camp’s magical weather protection. Snow fell lightly against the marble steps. I figured outside the camp borders, there must be a blizzard happening.”- TTC pg 915

“The wind whipped cold off the bay. In the south, San Francisco gleamed all white and beautiful, but in the north, over Mount Tamalpais, huge storm clouds swirled. The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists couldn’t see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn’t give any hint that anything was wrong.

“It’s even worse,” Annabeth said, gazing to the north. “The storms have been bad all year, but that—” - BOTL pg 359

“I had no choice. I called to the sea. I reached inside myself and remembered the waves and the currents, the endless power of the ocean. And I let it loose in one horrible scream.

Afterward, I could never describe what happened. An explosion, a tidal wave, a whirlwind of power simultaneously catching me up and blasting me downward into the lava. Fire and water collided, superheated steam, and I shot upward from the heart of the volcano in a huge explosion, just one piece of flotsam thrown free by a million pounds of pressure. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was flying, flying so high Zeus would never have forgiven me, and then beginning to fall, smoke and fire and water streaming from me. I was a comet hurtling toward the earth.” - BOTL pg 618/619

“Mrs. O’Leary howled. I patted her head, trying to comfort her as best I could. The earth rumbled—an earthquake that could probably be felt in every major city across the country—as the ancient Labyrinth collapsed. Somewhere, I hoped, the remains of the Titan’s strike force had been buried.” - BOTL pg 1005

“I remembered what Tyson had told me at the beginning of the summer. “The old sea gods?”

“Indeed. The battle came first to me, Percy. In fact, I cannot stay long. Even now the ocean is at war with itself. It is all I can do to keep hurricanes and typhoons from destroying your surface world, the fighting is so intense.” - BOTL pg 1066

“Then the entire sea grew dark in front of us, like an inky storm was rolling in. Thunder crackled, which should've been impossible underwater. A huge icy presence was approaching. I sensed a wave of fear roll through the armies below us.” - TLO pg 153

“I saw a bank of storm clouds rolling across the Midwest plains. Lightning flickered. Lines of tornadoes destroyed everything in their path— ripping up houses and trailers, tossing cars around like Matchbox toys. “Monumental floods," an announcer was saying. "Five states declared disaster areas as the freak storm system sweeps east, continuing its path of destruction." The cameras zoomed in on a column of storm bearing down on some Midwest city. I couldn't tell which one. Inside the storm I could see the giant—just small glimpses of his true form: a smoky arm, a dark clawed hand the size of a city block. His angry roar rolled across the plains like a nuclear blast.” - TLO pg 216-218

“Over the city, a thunderstorm boiled—a wall of absolute black with lightning streaking across the sky. A few blocks away, swarms of emergency vehicles gathered with their lights flashing. A column of dust rose from a mound of rubble, which I realized was a collapsed skyscraper. [...] Wind whipped her hair. The temperature was dropping rapidly, like ten degrees just since I'd been standing there.” - TLO pg 468-470

“She faltered as a mighty groan cut through the sky. A blast of lightning hit the center of the darkness. The entire city shook. The air glowed, and every hair on my body stood up. The blast was so powerful I knew it could only be one thing: Zeus's master bolt. It should have vaporized its target, but the dark cloud only staggered backward. A smoky fist appeared out of the clouds. It smashed another tower, and the whole thing collapsed like children's blocks.

The reporter screamed. People ran through the streets. Emergency lights flashed.” - TLO pg 470-471

“Listen to me!" I said. "Kronos's army is invading Manhattan.'"

"Don't you think we know that?" East asked. "I can feel his boats right now. They're almost across."

"Yep," Hudson agreed. "I got some filthy monsters crossing my waters too."

"So stop them," I said. "Drown them. Sink their boats."

"Why should we?" Hudson grumbled. "So they invade Olympus. What do we care?"

"Because I can pay you.” - TLO pg 654

“Water sprayed his face, stinging his eyes. The wind picked up, and Hyperion staggered backward.

"Percy!" Grover called in amazement. "How are you doing that?"

Doing what? I thought.

Then I looked down, and I realized I was standing in the middle of my own personal hurricane. Clouds of water vapor swirled around me, winds so powerful they buffeted Hyperion and flattened the grass in a twenty-yard radius. Enemy warriors threw javelins at me, but the storm knocked them aside.

"Sweet," I muttered. "But a little more!"

Lightning flickered around me. The clouds darkened and the rain swirled faster. I closed in on Hyperion and blew him off his feet.” - TLO pg 903-904

[captainsimagines]

Titanic || H.S

Part Four || “April 10, 1912″

“I’m the king of the world!”

Warnings: This book contains mature themes and discussions, such as gun violence, emotional and physical abuse, attempted suicide, mentions of blood, character deaths, heavy sexual content, and reference to the real maritime disaster of the 1912 cruise liner Titanic.

     Bells were ringing for miles as crowds formed both before and at the ports, the buzzing of excitement and utter joy radiating through the doors of your overly-crowded automobile. Cheers from all the awaiting passengers contradicted your current mental state. For you, it was just another ship - simply new. You had stayed in overpriced rooms before, eaten at countless never-ending buffets, been given towels with a special “scent” which simply had a hint of cheap perfume, and even eaten from plates and utensils engraved with real gold. So the size of this ship, the luxury it supposedly had, or the brilliance of its story, did not do much to excite you. 

     You rolled a piece of thread in between your fingers and looked out your car window at the street. You could feel their shouts vibrating from the street below you, adding an extra rhythm to the automobile that seemed humanly impossible. You watched people dance and drink, and it took you only a moment to realize that these people weren’t even going to travel with you. They were simply here to enjoy the momentous atmosphere, watch history in the making, and say goodbye to their loved ones. 

     With your mother and Cal in deep conversation and George focusing on the outside world as well, you actually allowed yourself to smile. Perhaps this was a good thing - to travel back home and see just how much had changed. You admit, the political and social world was most likely unchanged and that London was much more lenient to who joined certain higher-ranked circles, but America must have some good qualities they adopted over the years. New inventions, food, culture and religion, play-writing - anything that you had an interest in you tried to think of as brightly American. You removed your hat to comb your hand through your thick hair and to wipe the excess sweat building on your hairline, the summer air becoming a little too musty for your liking.  Your smile remained bright as you reached the long lines of actual passengers, both second and third class, going through their health inspections and bag checks. Lots of them would stop and stare at the first class carriages and automobiles that passed them quickly, some annoyed and some fascinated. It never bothered you when the lower class mocked you or spoke ill of the current political and economic systems, as you whole-heartedly agreed with them. If your late father taught you one thing it was that the system was deeply flawed and would remain that way as long as those in power who have never experienced injustice in their lives were allowed to live believing in business as usual. And yet, the total irony of you marrying into one of the wealthiest and greediest capitalist families in Europe was forever going to feel like a knife twisting into your back. 

     Just as your car passed the last round of third class health inspections, you leaned further toward the window to get a better view of the group of children laughing and pushing each other side to side. You grinned widely as you passed them, but your face fell almost instantly as you noticed the look of disgust from an older man. In the short seconds of that encounter, he had looked through your veil of upper-class protection and judged the color of your glowing skin, something that most people in your social circle in London chose to ignore. With your father’s influence and money, this issue was never even labeled as such, but to someone in another world, you were likely worth less than the piece of paper granting you passage on board. 

    You swallowed hard and leaned back against the red velvet seat, pulling your hat right back on to avoid the stares of the real world. 

     Over on the other side of the docks, just a mere distance from all the packed commotion, Harry held onto his sister’s hands as she said her goodbyes. 

     “Don’t you go spending all that money on art and women, you hear?” 

     Harry gasped and faked a gag, smiling down at his sister. “How rude of you to even think of me spending money on art I can simply draw myself and women I can woo with no fee.”

     Both his sister and mother leaned in for a giant shared hug, each one already imagining the next time they would see each other. 

     “It’s only a few months. You’ll be in the states with me before you know it,” Harry snuggled closer to his mother as she hugged him tighter. 

     “I know, but it’s the first time you’re leaving home on your own and…” she choked on a gasp, barely holding it together. The amount of prayers she recited last night didn’t seem efficient and she made a mental note to say double the moment she returned home. 

     “I’ll be okay. I’ll write as soon as I’m settled.”

     “Just be careful, okay? I hear they’re not as kind as we are here across the Atlantic,” his sister laughed, giving him one final, tight side squeeze and handing him his carry-on bags. 

     “You know, I heard that, too,” Harry joked. 

     “Be careful, we’re not joking,” his mother said, grabbing his chin gently and turning his face toward hers. “We’re not joking. Be safe.”

     Harry leaned down and kissed his mother’s forehead, rubbing her back up and down rapidly as if that somehow kept his own tears at bay. But he grinned brightly and placed another kiss on his mother’s forehead and on his sister’s, and reached down to pick up his two carry-ons and his father’s briefcase. 

     “I promise. I love you both. The stars will tell you where I am and who I’m with.”

     His sister was the first to let him go, “Alright, my little scientist! Get going and make us some money!”

     Harry laughed loudly, patiently waiting for his mother to release her grip. “Not a scientist, but an amateur astronomer!”

     His mother sniffed into her elbow and quickly rubbed her cheek, looking away momentarily before she collected herself and gave Harry her best broken but proud smile. 

     “Love you.”

     Harry nodded with deep understanding, leaned in for one final goodbye kiss, and crossed into the massive crowd. He looked over his shoulder and yelled out for both of them. 

     “I promise to make my girls proud!”

          It looked like every other ship you had ever been on, minus the shiny new floors and number of installed elevators. It almost angered you how disappointed your own disappointment made you, like nothing ever made you feel truly elated, truly surprised, truly ecstatic. But as you ignored the looks of other passengers and the excessive whining from your own mother, you started to see the little details other passengers were sure going to miss. Like the delicate stitching in all servant uniforms, the woodwork on the massive clock leading into the dining area, and the use of electricity in even the thinnest corners of each room. 

     Even the servants knew better than to comment on your true royal status with Cal beside you, who was in fact failing to find even one flaw on the ship. You quite admired that actually - something you could fully agree on. 

     “This is so gorgeous,” Cal whispered beside you, your arm intertwined with his. You nodded in agreement, absentmindedly keeping the same pace as him. It took a few more minutes to finally make it to your living quarters - three separate rooms, each with their own living rooms and bathrooms. You thought it too much for yourself and wondered why your mother didn’t request adjoining rooms between you and her. 

     Without even entering your room first, your mother ventured into her own and started ordering her maids and servants around. You breathed in deeply, ready to see your living situation but were gently pulled back to let Cal walk through the door first. You stopped momentarily, puckering your lips in slight annoyance but followed behind him nonetheless. 

     “Even more beautiful than the hallway!” Cal laughed after his joyous exclamation, falling lazily on the first couch he saw. You couldn’t help but giggle at his childishness, watching him with a tiny grin as he reached over to play with the fresh flowers and their heavy vase. 

     “Perhaps the open sea breeze makes a person absolutely giddy because I have never seen you smile this much from inanimate objects,” you said, placing your handbag on the circular table and removing your gloves. 

     Cal rolled his eyes playfully and jumped up from his laying position to run to the brunch table full of sweets and bread, a first-class greeting for Titanic’s most distinguished guests. He popped the first sweet he saw into his mouth, closing his eyes and savoring the flavor. He groaned softly and waved you over, already picking up the second serving to give to you. You walked slowly, eyebrows furrowed due to his laid back nature, but decided to give in and lean your head forward, mouth open to be fed. He placed the sweet on your tongue and awaited your reaction as you chewed, grinning widely once your eyebrows raised in amazement. 

     “I am never wrong!” Cal laughed, picking up some bread instead, and offering you a piece. But before you could reach over and grab it, Cal threw it in his own mouth and ate it. You gasped playfully, mouth wide open and genuine laugh escaping from it. Cal smiled wide enough to crinkle his eyes, and he reached over to wrap you in a backwards hug, with your back pressed against his chest and his head in between your neck and shoulder. You howled with true happiness, your sounds becoming louder as he proceeded to step with you all over the room and tickling your side at the same time. With enough strength you pushed him away and ran to the outside deck with Cal hot on your trail. He ran after you, dodging the servants with luggage in their arms and their questions of where to put them, following you out on deck and gripping your wrist in time to twirl you around beautifully. This time you ended up face-to-face, gripping onto each other and chests still racking with laughs. 

     The crinkles on both sides of his eyes remained, and you felt your heart stir for him. He was always so rigid but in this moment he was carefree and young, absent from duties and absent from the raunchy world he was so accustomed to. Here you saw a side of him that you could definitely get used to. But that’s just what it was - a side, not all of him. Before you could assume more of the negatives of this situation, Cal leaned down and captured his lips with yours. His lips were smooth and experienced, moving slowly against your timid ones. And just how quickly the kiss came, it disappeared. The minor moment of intimacy was too little for your liking, but it still counted as the first time you weren’t disgusted by Cal’s attitude or personality. It confused you how swiftly your mind changed and concocted the perfect fantasy of Cal and your upcoming marriage. Like a spell’s flame ignited and burned your whole internal wall down. 

     Before either of you could comment, you were interrupted by a servant who began rapidly excusing himself. He exited the deck and left you there, still in Cal’s arms. You wanted to speak but Cal simply smiled, kissed your forehead, and let you go. 

     “We must finish unpacking and decorating if we want to be front row during the Captain’s welcome speech.”

     And with that, Cal stepped back into your living room and began helping the servants put up the paintings he had dismissed you on earlier. You stood there perplexed and could only muster up enough energy to lean over the railing and watch the waves hit the side of the ship and the docks you still hadn’t departed. 

     Apologies sprung from Harry’s mouth as quickly as he ran, pillowcase full of clothes over one shoulder and his father’s briefcase with all the family’s important documents and the freshly printed photographs in the other. He bumped into dozens of shoulders but even as he yelled his apologies, he didn’t look back. He was finally leaving for the promised land of opportunity, a place where he and his family could establish themselves and their business. New flavors introduced to the Americans would for sure boost business, and Harry was so excited to be the first of his family to step foot outside of London. Just being at the docks was the farthest his family had traveled. 

     The ship was vast in length, somehow seeming larger as Harry ran toward the third-class boarding area. He could see the crew was beginning to clean up, unhitching the ropes from the dock and removing the boarding stairs. His feet were already burning, but he sprinted as fast as he could, yelling at them to wait for his arrival. People stared at him, throwing themselves out of the way as he crashed into shoulders and knocked bags off horses. The background check and health inspection lasted longer than he had expected, all of the poking and prodding seeming more purposeful than necessary.  

     One particular horse came close to knocking Harry off his feet, and his belongings scattered over the dock floor. Harry cursed under his breath and quickly gathered his bags back into his arms, looking up every so often to check if the ship had departed without him. 

     “I got this for you, man.”

     Harry searched the floor for his important briefcase and but instead saw it held out for him to take. Harry thanked the man for his help, and before he could say anything else, the man spoke up cheerfully. 

     “Come on, we got a ship to catch!”

     Harry beamed at his new acquaintance and sped down the docks beside him. With two of them side by side, almost everyone jumped out of their way as if it was instinct. They continued to laugh at each other with each short tumble the other took, enjoying the quick pace at which they were traveling. 

      They both stumbled onto the attached railing that was being pulled away from the main entrance of the ship. The officers asked for their tickets almost immediately and Harry rolled his eyes. 

     “We’re passengers, here.”

      Both Harry and his running mate handed over their tickets for quick inspection. 

      “Have you been through all inspections?”

      The man behind him held up his bags in complete annoyance, “Why do you think we’re late?”

      The officers just nodded, letting both of them through the door. Together they hopped onto the ship and dashed down every corridor, following the signs for third-class passengers. 

   “I swear I didn’t think we’d make it!” Harry shouted, still muttering tiny apologies to those he shoved as he passed. 

     “Luck seems to be following me around lately,” the man laughed, following Harry down the flight of stairs. 

     “What room are you staying in?”

     “B60.”

     “You’re joking.”

     The two stopped to compare tickets, scoffing in astonishment. 

     “Hello, roommate!” the man smiled. “Name’s Drake.”

     Harry put one of his bags down on the floor and pushed his briefcase under his left armpit to extend his right arm out for a handshake. “Harry.”

     “You stopping in Ireland or New York?”

     “Going all the way to New York City,” Harry beamed, and he picked up his bag again and started for their shared room. 

     “Awesome, same. I’m actually from Montana but since New York will be the only stop in the states, I figured I would just hitchhike my way home.”

     “I thought I heard an American accent,” Harry chuckled. He rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the room number they were assigned. He opened the door and peeked his head through to make sure everything was decent for the door to be held wide open. Once the coast was clear, Harry opened the door widely and threw his heavy luggage onto the bottom bunk in the far corner. 

     “Oh, awesome. I get top bunk,” Drake cheered, also hauling his bags onto the bed. Harry ducked into his bunk as Drake jumped up onto his, the two settling in quite easily compared to the unorganized chaos outside their room. 

     The small room was designed to offer the least comfort possible, but it was still better than most of the rundown apartments in the middle of London. The walls were white, with the ship's pipes extending across the ceiling and down the side of the adjoining walls. Two brown blankets were folded on top of each bunk, and a pillow with minimal fluff was tightly tucked underneath the bedspread. The room offered one sink and three bars of wrapped soap, toilet paper, and an unlit lantern that would be useful for late night trips to the washrooms. Even with such limited offerings, it was way more than Harry expected. 

     “How many other people are joining us in our room?” Harry asked while grabbing the two blankets from the end of his bed for a quick nap. 

     “Two other men, I believe. Pretty sure that’s what the two empty beds across the room are for.”

     “Oh. Oops.”

     Harry laughed at himself and snuggled deeper into his blankets, letting out a deep and relaxed sigh. 

     Drake leaned over the side of his bed to look down at Harry, a confused grin on his face. “You’re seriously going to take a nap and not explore the ship?”

      Harry winked one eye open and turned his head slightly upward. “After this nap.”

     Drake pondered for a moment, but he silently agreed, and became victim himself to the comfort of cotton blankets and a hard mattress. 

      The Captain spoke so eloquently, so loud and coherent, that his welcome was felt by everyone in the crowded first-class lounge area. He was met with praises and generous words as he greeted the crowd and his crew, tipping his head slightly as if to nod and remain mostly nonverbal. 

     Cal, of course, wanted to put his name into the Captain’s hat, so he pulled you along absentmindedly until you were in front of the Captain himself. As Cal droned on, you noticed how the Captain was practically trained for this, the tipping of his head and low grunts of amused agreement speaking for themselves. He was an elder man, around his mid-sixties it seemed, with pearl white hair neatly combed over toward the left side of his head, and a thick beard that matched his serious look. 

     As Cal began mentioning the architecture of the ship and asking the Captain’s crew just how fast the ship was able to go, the Captain turned toward you and held his hand out. He gave you a warm smile, introduced himself and proceeded to place a delicate peck on your gloved hand. You smiled back but had to contain the chuckle scratching its way up your throat as you caught a glimpse of Cal’s look of bewilderment. 

     “You must be the beautiful child of the famed American-Indian Lieutenant. The King of all Aztec riches and oil,” the Captain praised. 

     You nodded, “His one and only child, yes.”

     The Captain’s smile grew impossibly bigger. 

     You continued, “My father’s legacy branches farther than the oil industry. I am proud to say he was funding countless important causes.”

      The Captain beamed, “I have heard! Civil rights, the fight for free land, uh… what am I missing?”

      “Equal rights for women.”

     The Captain chuckled, “He was quite determined, I may say. Ridiculous, but determined.”

     Before you could say anything else, Cal sweeped in to take the same hand the Captain had kissed earlier. 

     “Yes, my fiance’s bloodline sure loved to mix the order of things. When we settle in America we’re mainly going to focus on the railroad and mining industry.”

      You gave a scarce grimace. 

     “Railroading! Invest where the money is, Sir! Art, automobiles, electricity, and dare I say civil rights!” the Captain laughed, patting Cal on the shoulder and leaving to greet the other passengers. 

     Cal stood still for a second and although you wanted to comment, you knew better. Instead, Cal seemed to knowingly pinch your hand a little too hard to the point you winced. But he cleared his throat, let you go,  and simply walked the other way. 

     Their short nap made them miss the ship’s departure, but the second they awoke, Drake and Harry dashed through third-class lounging to the bow of the ship. The nice cool breeze pinched Harry’s cheeks as he ran, the faint feeling of ocean droplets flying through the air.

      They reached the very tip of the front, cautiously looking over to somehow calculate the exact speed at which they were going. Dolphins raced each other beside the ship, acknowledging they had an entertained audience on board. 

     “You don’t think the ship’s gonna hit them, right?”

     Harry let out a loud and uncontrolled laugh, “Well, now I do!”

    Drake climbed onto the railing, carefully balancing himself with one hand gripping the thick iron strings. He stretched out his free arm, staring off over the horizon and enjoying the feeling of a rushed breeze slapping his chest. 

     “I swear I can see the Statue of Liberty already!” Drake yelled. 

     Harry grinned and climbed onto the railing as well, mimicking Drake’s position as to not accidentally fall overboard. 

     “Oh, this is madness!” Harry screamed, his hair flying all over the place. But he seriously could not contain the giant smile that widened with each new jump of a dolphin, Drake’s howls of joy, and with the ever changing color of the bright blue horizon. 

     It seemed to all be coming together - the colors, the voices, the American dream. Harry could feel the excitement in the pit of his stomach, and he swore it could not grow any larger for risk of actually exploding. But similar to his pondering back home in his chilly room, that luck that Harry had following him around was definitely to blame for such an adventure. 

     Harry raised a clenched fist in the air and joined Drake in all the howling. 

     “I’m the king of the world!”

          Dinner went as expected. You were quiet and polite, only speaking when spoken to, and the same tunes of violin screeched beside your ears. It made you miss more gentle rhythms, more upbeat sounds, and a much more excited band. European music was beautiful, but it seemed rich individuals only enjoyed the same three songs. 

     You drew a warm bath in your private bathroom after saying goodnight to both your mother and Cal. You weren’t expecting any further intrusions, and you swore that if any knock sounded from outside while you were in the bath, you would kill them. You had reached the end of your tolerance for today. And no matter how much you tried to prevent it with cold water on your face, vanilla candles, and your own private batch of special herbs, the first stages of a long migraine sneaked their way through. 

     You lay in the warm water thankfully undisturbed, big toe playing with the tub handle and a glass of champagne in your hand. It was all quiet now, the only sounds being your breaths and the tiny bubbles in your bath popping almost silently. Without another thought, you placed your champagne down on the side table and sucked in a deep breath, plunging your head underneath the water. Your thick hair swam in every direction, tickling your shoulders. You kept your eyes tightly shut and counted. 

     Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. 

     Once your lungs felt too constricted, you came back up and rubbed at your eyes. You cleared your nostrils and rubbed at your lips, the outside reality still unchanged. No noise, no new presence - just calmness. 

      And the water was becoming cold. 

-- 

Please tell me what you think and if I should continue! Please also let me know if you would like to be tagged in any updates. Reblogs would certainly help this story reach even more people. Thank you. - xxMoni

[dulce-pjm]

“f” for effort

word count: 3.6k

genre: fluff 

summary: this feud has gone on far too long. the study room is yours and you no longer care what namjoon has to say about it. 

You’re running for your life. 

At least, that’s really what it looks like. If you weren’t so goddamn fast, bystanders might have stopped to ask if you were safe or needed help. You’re huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf’s elderly grandma as you tear across campus with only one destination in mind. Beads of sweat drip down your forehead and stains are threatening to form in the pits of your shirt but frankly, you couldn’t give a shit. You’ve got a place to be, and fast. 

Said place is your heaven. Your paradise. Your land of milk and honey. Or as a moron would call it, the corner library study room. 

It’s roomy, it’s quiet, almost no one knew it was there. When you had loads of coursework to catch up on (which was often and just so happened to be the case on this Friday night), you sought refuge in your precious study room. During the day, the lighting was beautiful. The windows were massive, letting all of the sun’s rays beam into the cozy room and make you feel warm, bright, awake. At night, when you became especially frustrated, you could always slide your rolling chair over to said big windows and gaze at the stars or stare off into the night. 

No one appreciated that room correctly, not like you did it. 

Which is why you had to stop that little fucker, Namjoon, from stealing it from right under your nose. 

The two of you were only freshmen, but your ongoing feud over the glorious study room was intense enough to have lasted generations. You both were willing to pull out all the stops if that’s what it took to keep the other from making it to the room. You used the cheapest of tricks, flat out sabotaging the other if you felt it necessary. 

You recall one particular time you planted a fake spider (one of his biggest fears, you’d learned) in his backpack before the end of your shared Calc II class, making him let loose a shrill shriek, much to the annoyance of the professor. And while Namjoon was getting lectured on disrupting class and not acting his age, you were waltzing off to the study room, internally flipping him off as you did. The memory makes you chuckle as you heave and sprint. 

It wasn’t that Namjoon had done anything particularly wrong to you. You figured in another context, you might have found him much more bearable, maybe even nice. But something about him just rubbed you the wrong way. 

For one, he was an applied mathematics major. Who the fuck majors in just math? People who want to flex how much smarter they are than you, that’s who. And what did the applied part even mean? You suspected someone just as unbearable as Namjoon had added the word in so that he (because of course it was a man) and all his other mathematician friends could be pretentious, annoying fucks together. 

Secondly, despite being one of the top students in your class, he was a member of a fraternity. How he had time to both outperform everyone else in the STEM program and party it out with the frat brothers every night was beyond you. You’d heard from your senior friend (who also notified you that Namjoon was after your precious study room) that was also part of the brotherhood that Namjoon was on some kind of fraternity-specific scholarship and that was the only reason he joined. That you understood, tuition was no joke. Didn’t make him any less annoying, though. 

And third? Third... Well, you couldn’t think of a third point right now but you’re certain there is one, you know it. You probably couldn’t remember because you were running out of oxygen and dying under the beating sun. 

You’re almost crying tears of joy when you enter the library, head whipping around to search for a particular tall blonde. Luckily, he’s nowhere in sight. 

Your feet scream as they carry you to your safe haven but you can’t even be bothered until-

“Going somewhere?” He strides next to you, his effortless speed-walking easily overtaking your sloppy attempt at a run. Your books are threatening to slip from your arms and you’re fairly certain you lost the sunglasses on top of your head long ago when you came barreling down the bio building stairs. 

“Fuck you, Kim,” you spit harshly. “I came in here first so I get the room.” Your crudeness only makes him laugh maniacally. You curse the little dimples that crease into his cheeks, taking them as an insult to your misery.

“As far as I can see-” He takes advantage of your height difference and takes a massive step in front of you. “-I’m going to get there before you.” As if to tease you further, he spins to face you as he easily surpasses you, approaching the study room and its sign-up sheet with increasing speed. 

If you want to win this round- and you really, really do, not only to get your work done but to rub it in his smug face- you’ll need to play dirty. 

Moments later, Namjoon is picking up the pen, smirking at you as he moves to haphazardly scribble his name into the time slot. But you’re already formulating a plan. Your textbooks were pretty damn heavy, you bet it’d definitely throw him off if you managed to drop them on his toes. Actually, it definitely would, since the idiot was wearing sandals in late October. As you’re taking aim, however, Namjoon’s face falls. 

“The fuck is a board game club?” You freeze, mere steps away from dropping your books on his foot. 

“What?” When he doesn’t explain, you nudge him aside and peer at the sign-up sheet. Lo and behold, there it is. 

From eight p.m. to midnight, the room is booked. By a... board game club. And it’s seven forty-five now, which means you’re shit out of luck. 

“Well, looks like neither of us-”

“This is bullshit.” Namjoon chuckles at your disgusted expression. 

“It’s just a study room, Y/N. I’m sure there’s another free one.”

“Well, I don’t want just any study room, Kim. I want my study room.” He scoffs at your arrogance and (quite unfortunately) follows you as you spin on your heel and take off in the other direction. 

“Well, what are you gonna do about it? Tell off the game club?”

“I’m going to lodge a complaint and get my study room back.” 

“Mhmm.” He trails you incessantly as you march up to the nearest help desk and drop your books in front of the poor employee about to suffer from your wrath. 

“Can I help you?” the sheepish girl asks. She couldn’t be much older than you. You almost felt bad for what you were about to do. 

“Yes, can you please explain why a-” You raise your fingers for air quotes. “-‘board game club’ has booked a private study room, taking priority over student study time?” The girl is taken aback at your abruptness, clearly not used to being confronted in such a manner. But you weren’t here to waste time by avoiding hurt feelings. 

“I-” She hesitates, looking to the blonde beside you for help, of which he gives none. “I’m not sure what to tell you. The study rooms are first come, first serve.”

“For students,” you emphasize, pressing your palms into the desk and leaning forward. “Not unofficial club gatherings.” Something changes in the girl’s face and she turns away from you and faces her computer, typing something across the keyboard. In just a moment, her entire demeanor has flipped. It seems she’s not interested in entertaining your attitude anymore. 

“Well, looks like the ‘Board Game Club’ is an official, university-sponsored club. Which means they’re just as much entitled to study room time as you are. Actually, more-so, since you didn’t book your room in advance.” She spins her office chair backs towards you. “Sorry.” She shrugs, flashing you an all-too-fake smile. 

“Ugh, fine.” You pile your books back into your arms and roll your eyes, leaving the library altogether. 

And your trail follows you.

“What, you’re just gonna leave? There were other study rooms open!” You scoff, annoyed at his ignorance. 

“Well the other study rooms that are open at this time either smell like ass or have no air conditioning. So that’s a no-go.” Namjoon laughs quietly, agreeing with your sentiment. He’s been stuck in his fair share of poor study rooms before and knows it can ruin the experience. 

“So.... what are you going to do now?” 

You find yourself wondering why he’s still here, talking to you when he should be organizing his own study plan for the night. Further yet, you wonder why you’re entertaining his stupid questions at all. 

“I dunno. Camp out at the campus Starbucks?”

“What? But they close at ten!” You shoot an exasperated look in his direction. 

“And what’s it to you?” You pick up the pace in an effort to shake off your stalker, but much to your annoyance he jumps in front of you, thrusting out his hands before you can take a step further. You nearly collide with his chest. 

“Would you just wait a sec?” Your eyes glide up to meet his as you tap your foot, barely acknowledging you’re listening. “Why don’t you just come back to my place with me?” Your eyes narrow. 

“I’m not sure what you’re insinuating, but-” His eyes widen and he begins frantically shaking his head. You almost smirk. It’s fun watching him squirm. 

“No! That’s not what I meant!” He sighs, wringing his hands. “Most of the fraternity is at this other party so the house will be empty tonight. And quiet. I know that’s why you like the study rooms and it’s the least I can do for you.”

You’re still suspicious. What’s in it for him? He certainly wasn’t just being nice to be nice. There was something else involved. 

“If you knew the house would be empty tonight then why did you try to take the study room?” Namjoon shrugs, grinning mischievously.

“You’re just too fun to tease.”

That remark has you scoffing and brushing past him, not even dignifying him with a response. 

“Wait! Just slow down, would you?” A heavy hand settles on your shoulder and Namjoon is beside you again. You’re about to scream with frustration. 

“What, Namjoon? What could you possibly tell me that will convince me to come study with you?”

He grins sheepishly. 

“I’ll buy you pizza?”

Okay, yeah, you’re a tad ashamed you let your morals slide in exchange for greasy pizza that will wreck your stomach in the morning. But you’re hungry, okay? And the dining hall was already closed and your wallet was empty and it just happened.

And now you were plopped on Namjoon’s bed typing away furiously at your laptop. He’d made a few efforts at light conversation, but he quickly gave up trying to push that boulder when you barely grunted in response to his questions. 

His room was surprisingly nice and organized. The bedsheets were barely wrinkled and the room smelled pleasant despite it being apart of a literal frat house. Though his desk was a mess, littered with math theory books and philosophy papers and historical fiction novels. The books appeared well-loved and cared for, not like they were simply written as required on a syllabus.

He appeared pretty organized, too. The oak-colored round glasses he’d donned after arriving made him look older, more scholarly. And definitely more pretentious. 

You were glad the two of you weren’t doing this at your dorm. Your room was an actual nightmare. Your life might be organized and planned down to the minute, but your bedroom was an entirely different story. 

“So...” Namjoon chews on the end of his pen as he reworks old calculus problems. “Psychology major?” 

Really, trying at the small talk again? Good luck with that. 

You’re about to completely ignore him when it occurs to you that if you don’t talk about your major he will most certainly talk about his. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve heard him rant and preach about math and its many uses in modern society. So before you end up stuck in that situation, you entertain his question. If it could even be called that. 

“Mhmm.” You bite the bottom of your lip as you contemplate the next line of your essay. You don’t notice Namjoon staring. “I plan to graduate a year early and go straight to med school. Probably open a family practice one day.” Namjoon leans back into his bed frame, nodding in something close to awe. 

“Wow, you really got it that planned out?” 

“Yup,” you reply, popping the ‘p.’ “Since I was fifteen. I only majored in psychology because I think it’s interesting and I’ll look well-rounded when I start applying to med school. I’ll definitely just be a family doctor.”

“Well, you are a great people person...” You finally crack the next line of your paper and type it away, completely missing the joke and subtle jab. 

Ding dong. 

“That the pizza?” It’s the first thing you’ve said to him unprompted since you got here. 

“Think so. I’ll be back.” He heaves himself up from the bed and trots out of the room, right as your phone buzzes. You only spare the screen a passing glance, but upon seeing the notification is a text from your roommate, you immediately open it.

9:18 pm. Yeji: where are you? ive looked for you everywhere >:( 9:22 pm. Yeji: Y/N? pls respond or ill be worried 9:23 pm. Y/N: I thought you were using the room for yourself tonight. Why are you at the library? 9:23 pm. Yeji: suho cancelled :( i came to find you at the library but you aren’t here ? 9:24 pm. Y/N: The study rooms were all taken. Me and Namjoon are studying at his place. 9:24 pm. Yeji: wait, really?!?! 9:24 pm. Yeji: oh my god, FINALLY 9:25 pm. Y/N: ??? 9:27 pm. Y/N: Yeji?? 9:28 pm. Yeji: im just relieved you two are finally owning up to the obvious sexual tension in this stupid feud and banging it out ;)

You choke. Is that what people thought about you? The idea made you want to gag. 

9:29 pm. Y/N: What ?? 9:29 pm. Y/N: NO 9:29 pm. Y/N: That is most definitely NOT what is happening.  9:29 pm. Y/N: That’s disgusting.  9:30 pm. Yeji: aww booooooo 9:30 pm. Yeji: and to think, i was getting my hopes up for you 9:30 pm. Yeji: but seriously tho 9:31 pm. Yeji: whatever dance you two are playing isn’t gonna last long 9:31 pm. Yeji: its obvious you two like each other

With that, you shut the phone off completely and set it face down, suddenly feeling very, very hot. 

Yeji was an idiot. She didn’t know what she was talking about. 

Right?

This argument, this feud, this competition, it was fueled by anger and annoyance and, as much as you hate to say it, pettiness. You couldn’t stand Kim. And he didn’t particularly like you either. There was nothing else going on here. 

Your arguments weren’t flirting. They were arguments. Simple as that. 

But then again, you were sitting in his room. Studying together. Letting him buy you dinner. 

Well, fuck. 

“Pizza delivery!” You scream in fright as he enters the room, making him nearly drop the box full of your precious dinner. 

“Oh my god, fuck, are you okay?” You quickly fan at your cheeks to combat the furnace burning underneath them. 

“Yep! I’m fine! Just don’t scare me like that, for god’s sake.” 

When you meet his eyes, Namjoon looks genuinely apologetic. 

Your heart flutters. This little shit. 

“Well, uh, here’s your pizza.” He slides the box next to your laptop and settles on the opposite side of the bed, returning to his work. 

“You’re not gonna eat?”

“Nah, I ate earlier. And your stomach is growling. I can hear it from over here.” Your eyes bulge. 

Had he cared like this all along? Had you just been too blind to notice it? You were freaking out, your heart rate climaxing and your hands quickly becoming lightly coated in sweat. 

The weight of the past few months hits you like a freight train. 

It’s much too overwhelming. 

You’re suddenly aware of your close proximity. The smell of the room, of him, is overpowering and suffocating. The air is thick and you think you might choke. When did that dimpled grin become so attractive? Just before it immediately pissed you off but now...

You eye his blonde locks, imagining what it’d be like to run your fingers through them before you can stop yourself. The glasses you’d found pretentious somehow make him cute, maybe even endearing. Did you always feel like this?

“Are you sure you’re okay, Y/N? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or like you might throw up. Please don’t puke on my floor, I’m begging.”

“Fine!” you squeak, whipping your face back to the laptop screen, unwilling to let your eyes move even an inch in his direction. 

Even still, it’s like you can feel his body heat from across the bed, calling you in, taunting you for being the biggest moron you knew. 

You gotta get out of here. 

You finish your essay in record time, just as the clock strikes eleven. You’ve already instructed Yeji to pick you up at eleven-fifteen, and she’s always early. Now all you had to do was ignore the way your heart was beating in your throat and slip away to forget this ever happened. 

After a few days used to succumb to logic, you’d realize this was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. An unnecessary emotional reaction. 

“Well-” You stand, gathering your books in your arms. “I’m off. Thanks for buying me dinner and letting me intrude.” He looks up from his work to you, eyes bleary and exhausted. You hate the way you enjoy how he gives you his full attention and concern. 

“It’s really no problem. Do you want me to walk you home?”

Goddamn, Namjoon. Stop being such a gentleman, would you?

“No. It’s fine. My roommate is picking me up.”

“Oh, okay,” he replies, appearing slightly disappointed. No, he wasn’t disappointed. You’re just crazy and emotionally unstable at the moment. 

You bid him an awkward wave and slowly back out of the room when he calls out for you. 

“Y/N!” You freeze in the hallway as he approaches, noticing how his hair has fallen out of its styled position and hangs loosely rumpled in his face. 

“Yes?” He probably was gonna ask for you to pay for the pizza since he didn’t eat it. Yeah, that seems like a Namjoon thing to do. 

He pauses and grins awkwardly, making your eyes fly to those dimples. He wrings his hands. 

“I- uh-” He breathes out sharply through his nose. “I had a nice time.” You nod, allowing no change in your blank expression. 

“I appreciated the quiet. Thanks.” He sighs, looking as tired as you feel. 

“Look, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been trying to tell you I’m interested in you for a few months now.” Your heart stops and you’re unable to offer a response. “I may have got a bit carried away teasing but, well…’

“What do I need to do to secure another study date with you?”

You’re shocked. Flattered, even. But more than anything, you feel your pride inflating in your chest. You quickly forget that just moments before, you were the one drooling over him and instead bask in the fact that he’s been pining for you this whole time. You feel emboldened.

You give him a half-hearted shrug. Namjoon’s face falls.

“If you want a second date with me, you’ll have to do better than trashy pizza and textbooks.” A smile spreads across the boy’s face as he lets out a laugh that he’s desperately trying to contain. 

You love seeing him flustered. You’re a bit more comfortable admitting that now. 

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. I’ll work on that.” 

You give him a curt nod as the two of you walk towards the front door. 

“Find me in the corner study room when you come up with something.” You give him a glance over your shoulder as you step out into the night. 

“Yes ma’am,” he shouts back, playfully saluting you. You’re already missing his annoying presence as he closes the door. 

When you collapse into the passenger seat of Yeji’s car, you aren’t listening to her chatter at all. Not that you normally would, but this time there’s not even a chance you don’t tune everything out. 

You know, you think you could make room for Namjoon in your life plan. He was a little shit, sure. But you’d be lying if you said you weren’t too. And something tells you that you won’t be getting rid of him so easily anymore. 

[deniigi]

I WOULD LOVE A DAVE FIC !!!

Excellent. Here’s for you and  @dudewhereismy-tardis

I am putting most of it under the cut because it is LONG

Dave (Daredevil copycat from Inimitable Verse) POV. Reminder that Dave is not his real name, but one given to him disdainfully by Wade in this verse.

Title: rises in the east

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

“Dad.”

What?

“Dad.”

What time was it?

“Your phone’s ringing,” Charlie said. “It’s the boss.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Give it here,” Dave rasped, throwing an arm over his eyes.

“Mom said you’re gonna hurt your back sleepin’ on the couch,” Charlie reported as she shoved his phone into his palm.

“My couch, my rules,” Dave said. He crammed the phone to his ear. “Ansel here,” he said.

Charlie wanted to stay home and if she was a year older, Dave would have let her. But alas. The last time he’d let her stay home, she’d texted her friend Jesse who had become unspeakably jealous and had appealed to her own parents for such freedoms, and now the whole block thought that Dave recklessly abandoned his daughter when he went to the goddamn grocery store.

All that for a can of Sprite, man.

This neighborhood was off the fuckin’ charts sometimes.

Case in point: Dani standing in front of him in the lobby with her hands on her hips, telling him that he needed to wear a tighter t-shirt or to start flexing because they were losing business.

“Dani, I’m an instructor,” he reminded her. “I’m hired to do classes.”

“It’s two hours,” Dani said. “Take the damn fliers.”

But he didn’t want to?

Dani blinked at him slowly from under her headband.

 --

 Charlie was having a great time and Dave was glad for that because he was not. He was being stared at by every person in the street as if they’d never seen a dude with muscles before.

It was the shirt.

He knew it was the shirt.

And possibly his nipples. Smashing the brochures high enough against his chest to cover them wasn’t going well and the highlighter teal underarmor Dani had forced upon him left very little to the imagination here.

There wasn’t anything else to do but let the poor things live their best lives.

“Dad, gimme more,” Charlie said.

She tugged at the brochures covering what was left of his dignity.

Blessed child, who hurt you?

“Where did the others go?” he asked her.

Charlie pointed across the road to a gaggle of ladies leaning out from their stoop, smiling.

Ah.

Yes.

Them.

“Let’s try for someone who looks more like a bro,” he told his offspring.

Charlie blinked up at him.

“Why?” she asked.

Oh, baby.

“Because they’re an easy mark,” he said. “Go up and say ‘my dad can take you’ and send ‘em my way, okay?”

Charlie’s face went from confused to ready to kill instantly.

This was her game face. This was her ‘I’m gonna wreck this goalee’s teeth’ face.

Dave shouldn’t have been proud of her, really; her teachers said that she was becoming argumentative and obstinate in the classroom. But there was just something there in the fact that his kid sure as shit wasn’t no sheep that made his chest feel big, wide, and full of hot air.

“I’m on it,” Charlie said.

He gave her three brochures and let her scramble off to the other side of the sidewalk and then turned to meet the eye of a family with a father with neat hair and the beginnings of triceps peeking out from under his sleeves.

“You lookin’ for a gym, sir?” he asked.

The guy looked his way and eyed him up.

He took a flier on his way past.

 --

 “Excuse me?”

“One second, man,” Dave said, doing the rock-shuffle to keep all the fliers on the table from blowing away.

“Excuse me.”

“Hey, I said just a sec,” Dave snapped.

He turned back and found himself staring into the dark eyes of a bald man with olive skin and deep wrinkles in his forehead.

And Dave knew him.

Holy shit.

Dave knew him.

Fuck.

God.

Jesus, Lord.

“I am so sorry,” he started.

“DAD.”

Ch—Charlie?

He looked down and sure enough, holding Rudolph ‘Diamond’ De Luca’s massive bearpaw was his very own daughter. De Luca made her wiry, suntanned limbs seem like unbaked pretzels.

He was so much bigger than he’d seemed on TV all those years ago.

“This your kid?” De Luca asked.

Jesus.

“She is. I’m so sorry,” Dave said, “Did she—she didn’t bite you or anything, did she?”

“Dad,” Charlie whined. “Don’t tell ‘im that.”

“I’ll pay for whatever damage—” Dave continued.

De Luca blinked at him impossibly slowly with long dark eye lashes. He turned his face slowly back down towards Charlie.

“You sure this is your old man?” he asked.

Wh—

Wait.

What the hell did that mean?

“That’s him,” Charlie moaned. “He’s just bein’ dumb. Dad. Stop bein’ dumb. This dude’s the real deal. He’ll fight you in a heartbeat.”

Dave grabbed his child before she could cause any more damage. She made a fuss, but let go of De Luca’s mitt. Dave shoved her behind him, just in case this situation got any more tense than it needed to be.

De Luca lifted an eyebrow at that and then brought his face back up to Dave’s.

“Who’s gym?” he asked.

What?

Oh.

“Spitfire,” Dave said. “We’re, uh, just about there, on the—”

“I know where you’re about,” De Luca said.

Dave didn’t know what to say. De Luca held his eye.

Oh, god.

This wasn’t going well.

“How old are you, son?” De Luca asked.

FFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffuck.

“38,” Dave said.

“And your baby girl?” De Luca asked, gesturing with his chin down at Charlie.

“I’m 12,” Charlie told him brightly.

“Hm,” De Luca said.

He shifted his weight back and wrapped a few fingers around his chin, surveying Dave’s whole body like he was the statue of David with a knee injury.

Dave became intimately aware of his nipples again.

“Not bad,” De Luca said.

Oh, thank god.

“Thank you, sir,” Dave said. “Is there, uh, somethin’ I could help you with?”

“You got an accent,” De Luca noted.

Uh?

“A good accent,” De Luca said. “Whereabouts did you grow up?”

Oh.

Well.

Dave could actually just point to it from here. The condo was still standing, despite all building codes and actual alien invasions. At this point, the only thing that was gonna take it down were the rampant, rapidly mutating, borderline feral gangs of chickens that roamed its halls.

Not that anyone spoke about them.

No, that was inviting trouble to your doorstep.

“The chicken coop?” De Luca said.

The one and only.

“Bless you, you poor fuck.”

Yeah, that tended to be the usual reaction.

De Luca laughed.

“You’re a funny guy, uh,” he squinted at Dave’s nametag, “Ansel?”

How could a word sound so wrong in someone’s mouth?

Where had Dave’s life gone wrong that his own name sounded so foreign and distant to his ears?

“Actually,” he said, swallowing, “My uh, my friends call me ‘Dave.’”

De Luca’s head snapped right up and slowly, a grin spread across his face.

“Oh, now, that’s a good name for ya,” he said. “You look like a Davy.”

Hng.

Diamond De Luca thought he looked like a ‘Davy.’

Diamond De Luca thought he looked like a ‘Davy.’

Welp.

Time to get that birth certificate changed.

“Listen, Davy,” De Luca said casually, “Your baby girl there was tellin’ me that your boss has you out here like dancin’ monkey; is that true?”

Fffffffffff.

Technically yes?

“It’s even his day off,” Charlie whispered.

Dave wrapped a hand over her face.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It happens. Folks’ve been sick lately. I don’t normally do this kinda thing.”

De Luca’s face said that that was real cute. Real, real cute, honey.

“Well,” he said, “Let’s just say it like this. Where you work don’t gotta be where you train.”

Oh.

Was he offering--?

“If you decide to drop by, tell the guy at the desk Rudy sent you,” De Luca said. “Your kid’s real sweet, Davy. She can come too, lord knows the damn place is a daycare at this point.”

“Thank? You?” Dave stuttered.

“Don’t mention it,” De Luca said.

He left. Dave watched him waltz down the block and wave at the gals collected on the stoop at the end of it and felt a little lightheaded.

“Dad?”

Not right now, champ.

“Dad? Is he famous or somethin’?”

HHHHHHHHHHNG.

 --

 Back when Dave had been 14 and scraping the tips of his fingers into callouses on the old guitar he’d found tossed into a dumpster in the Upper West Side, he’d had to compete with the sound of the couple fighting in the apartment next door and with the radio the old man downstairs always had playing on his fire-escape window.

The old man downstairs was a real hard-ass. Always slammed a broom into the ceiling, scaring the shit out of Mom and Dad and sister and auntie. Dave had never seen him not smoking, nor had he ever seen him without suspenders.

The man was a retired plumber, apparently. And while Jim Beam was his main vice, his passion was boxing.

To the tune of chords picked out of an out-of-tune guitar, Dave had listened to tinny commentators oohing and awing over match after match, until finally, when sleep wouldn’t come one night, Dave had snuck out of the room he’d shared with Flora. He’d settled down on the living room couch, next to his old man splayed out in the recliner.

Dad had lifted his eyes slowly his way and told him that he should have been in bed.

Dave had told him that he couldn’t sleep because the couple next door was makin’ up from their daily afternoon argument and Dad had just sighed.

He’d let Dave stay up with him and the TV in the living room had fuzzed and rattled away, making sounds really familiar to Dave at that point.

Boxing was a sport that he had, up until that night, left to his father. But for the lack of anything else to talk about that wouldn’t make his dad look at him with disappointment in his eyes for all that damn music-playin’ and eyeliner, he’d asked who the guy on the screen was.

And that was how he’d learned about Diamond De Luca.

About Kenny Varga. Bert ‘The Albatross’ Kleinfeld.

But there was one guy who Dad had mentioned was his favorite rookie and, now it felt both kind of silly and surreal that the name had been spoken so casually in Dave’s home growing up.

Dad had been puttin’ money on Battlin’ Jack Murdock back when Dave had been a little kid.

He told Dave, disappointedly, after a few weeks of Dave getting up at 12:30 to come out and watch boxing with him that he’d really thought that Murdock was gonna be the next big thing.

Guy was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Dad had said, shaking his head. But wolves that got too wily got put down and Battlin’ Jack had been found in an alley, bled out in the arms of his reason for fighting.

Dad said it was a fuckin’ shame that Murdock had gone out with a slug in his head.

A fuckin’ shame, he said.

Dave didn’t remember him every saying that Murdock’s reason for fighting was a blind ten-year-old, but the thought was now merged with that memory.

That, in itself, was merged with the memory of Dave’s phone ringing one night was Addie’s name on the Caller ID. Her voice was shaking when she told Dave that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had just called her from an unknown number.

He had their baby.

He’d snatched her and Jesse out of the arms of two men looking for girls to be used in businesses Dave didn’t want to think about.

He’d saved them.

The devil had heard their screams when no one else had and he’d come flying out of the dark.

He’d held the girls in the light of a bodega and he’d coached Charlie through typing Addie’s number into his phone and then he’d taken it from there.

Addie was too scared to go meet the devil on her own. Mason hadn’t been around yet and so Dave had thrown on his shoes and had meet her on 46th.

The devil was on 48th, swinging his boots with both girls in his lap.

They were all singing. The devil had pretended like he didn’t know the words to Britney Spears’s ‘Toxic.’

Matt Murdock was under that mask.

Knowing that this whole time, he’d been the one dragging a stick against the fences and bricks of Hell’s Kitchen was almost impossible to digest.

And Dave had worked with him now.

He’d seen that smirk and that notorious jaw unwrapped from its red armor and that didn’t make reconciling the murdered boxer’s son with the man who’d saved his daughter any easier.

Charlie hadn’t remembered him.

She thought that Matt Murdock was a weird fuckin’ dude, and granted, he was a weird fuckin’ dude, but Dave had to say: he was grateful.

Matt Murdock not only brought home his baby, but he’d given Dave purpose in a life that had become consumed by the daily grind.

Matt Murdock had smiled in his direction, never quite into his eyes, and he’d passed along the baton with next to no fight.

Dave wasn’t him.

Dave would never be him.

Matt Murdock wasn’t just some poor murdered boxer’s blind son. He was the product of some serious poverty. Some serious violence. A whole fuckin’ cult induction, if he was to be believed. And Dave wasn’t so sure if he was always to be believed.

But he still appreciated Matt Murdock for what he’d done and what he’d made for this part of the city.

He’d made Daredevil.

And he shared that with Dave.

Dave’s own dad’s approval hadn’t felt like the honor that had come with Matt Murdock’s covered eyes and curled lip slowly relaxing as he’d lifted his face up from Dave’s knees.

He hadn’t been inspecting.

He’d been listening. Dipping his fingers into the blood in Dave’s heart and deciding if he was worth his salt.

Matt Murdock, son of Battlin’ Jack Murdock, was a product of Fogwell’s Gym in the Kitchen.

Diamond De Luca, retired heavyweight, was a product of Fogwell’s Gym.

The stars had aligned. And Dave had stood in their path.

And he wasn’t wasting the chance that they offered him.

--

Charlie was stoked to be allowed to come to the gym with him. She usually went to Jesse’s house, where Rubes would look after both girls for a few hours.

But De Luca had said that it was okay for her to come along, and so he figured, why not?

Fogwell’s was an institution in the Kitchen. All kids deserved to know their own history.

“I’m gonna fight Fogwell himself,” Charlie announced halfway down the block.

“You will not,” Dave told her. “Because I’m not tryin’ to get thrown out before we even get started here, alright?”

Charlie whined.

He ignored it.

 --

 This wasn’t the first time he’d been to the gym. Matt Murdock slipped in and out of it when he was in the city and he’d taken the whole team there once or twice. But it was different to be there in the presence of the daytime crew.

Dave felt very small in their presence.

The whole place was full of people pounding bags and swearing and shouting at kids who were tumbling all over the rows of benches set off to the side of the bags.

It was not what Dave had been expecting.

He told the guy at the front that ‘Rudy’ had recommended that he stop by and got a nod and a wave.

“He’s probably upstairs,” the receptionist said. “Go pick a bag, I’ll give him a buzz.”

 --

 Charlie refused to join the kids on the benches because apparently that was ‘only for babies, Dad.’ She wanted to hold the bag.

She was not, in one thousand years, holding the bag.

Dave wrapped her hands and let her go at it first to ‘soften it up’ for him.

De Luca caught him adjusting the demon-child’s thumbs before they ended up at the hospital again and laughed.

“Davy-boy, you made it,” he said.

Dave snapped up straight to attention.

“I did,” he said.

De Luca laughed again.

“Relax, kid,” he said. “Damn, you’re tight wound. Don’t worry, we won’t tell no one you’re sleepin’ with the enemy.”

Ahahahaha.

Please don’t.

These people were jacked. Dave was but a kickboxing instructor.

“Here, bub, lemme see what your pops has got,” De Luca said, shooing Charlie out of the way.

And this was the moment of truth.

 --

 De Luca seemed surprised when Dave finally laid off the bag. And Dave couldn’t read his expression for a million bucks.

“Uh?” he tried. “Not good?”

De Luca blinked himself back to earth.

“Oh, no,” he said. “It’s just uh, you fight a little like someone I know.”

Please don’t say a mobster.

Please don’t say a mobster.

“Kid used to live around here; name’s Matt Murdock,” De Luca said. “You know him?”

Did—

Did he know him?

QUICK. Answer the question.

You’re takin’ too long.

He’s gonna—

“S’alright if you don’t,” De Luca said. “I was just sayin’. Kid was like one of my own.”

He—

What?

“Yeah, boy fought like the devil like his daddy before ‘im,” De Luca said. “He’s the only one Fogwell lets call him ‘Grandpa.’ He’s about your age, actually. God, I’m old.”

AHAHAHAHAHA.

Please change the subject.

“You’re not that old,” Dave said. “I think I might have heard the name.”

Charlie looked up at him, baffled at the hedging.

He pleaded with her with his eyes not to say a damn word.

“Yeah, he’s somethin’, left here for San Francisco. Didn’t even say good-bye, the little shit,” De Luca sniffed. “Came back last year all ‘I’m gettin’ married’ and I swear to god, he’s picked up some kid. Just between you and me, pal, the old guard here have been talkin’, and we think that someone missed out on the sex ed talk, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

Oh.

Poor Sam.

He wasn’t even there to scream from the mountaintops that Red was a last resort for him at best.

“I’m just sayin’,” De Luca said with a shrug that spoke far more of supreme irritation than nonchalance, “He coulda just told us. I’m just sayin’.”

Any more ‘just sayin’s’ and Diamond De Luca was gonna go find a wall to bury them in.

“Did you, uh, have any feedback?” Dave blurted out as the guy started mumbling.

“Hm?”

“Feedback,” Dave repeated, waving a gloved hand at the bag.

“Oh. Yeah, loads, kid. You got all the muscles and not a damn lick of memory, here, lemme show you.”

Crisis averted.

Thank god.

 --

 D2: hey uh, DD?

SM: DAVE

S2: DAVEEEE

S3: DAVE

SM: what’s up man?

D2: nothing I was just trying to get ahold of DD?

BT: He’s trying to get Kirsten to give up her dreams of an indoor office pond rn. Can I help?

SM: I want an indoor office pond

S3: omg same

D2: uh yeah actually could you just tell him I met a guy named De Luca the other day and he might want to give him a call?

BT: de Luca?

D2: yeah

BT: okay sure thing

D2: thanks

BT: I’ll go see if I can get a word in edgewise.

SM: good fucking luck

S2: I hate fish

S3: leave this place and never return

S2: I HATE FISH

DD: WHAT

SM: oh shit that was quick

D2: oh. I was just saying that I met Diamond De Luca the other day?

SM: ?? Who’s that?

DD: oh no

S2: ??????????????

DP (´｡✪ω✪｡´): who the fuck is that?

DD: are you still with him?

D2: no?

D2: he caught me out fliering and invited me to Fogwell’s

D2: and when I got there he mentioned my stance was like yours and he uh

D2: got a little distracted

DD: what kind of distracted?

D2: He thinks Sam’s your bastard kid

BT: GODDAMNIT

DD: FOR FUCKS SAKE

BT: First Mrs. Jones, now this guy?? TEACH.

DD: These people have zero faith in me I swear to god.

DD: like come ON man. I did sex ed in the same class as Angie he knows I’m too catholic for that shit

DP (´｡✪ω✪｡´): I looked this man up and he looks like an Italian nate with less hair

SM: wh

DP (´｡✪ω✪｡´): okay you’re right he looks nothing like nate

SM: that

SM: that’s not even slightly helpful, wade, thanks not at all. Hey who’s angie?

DD: long story. Rudy’s daughter

S2: RED YOU FUCKED A BOXERS DAUGHTER?? That’s a million dollar baby man

DD: I

DD: what?

DD: no? Why would I fuck angie she’s like my sister?

S2: oh nvm

SM: 😬😬😬

S3: I am confused ❤

D2: you should probably call him, friend

DD: on it. thanks for the notice

DD: hey what’s your fuckin name again?

S2: f

S3: f

SM: f

D2: It’s Ansel

DD: Adams?

D2: not the photographer. Ansel West.

SM: WEST

S2: OMG

S3: guys don’t

SM: I BET YOURE A SUNSET DAVE

S2: YOU EVER FEEL CALLED TO THE PRAIRIE DAVE???

SM: YOU’RE A&W, DAVE!!

S2: ROOT BEER ROOT BEER

D2: ah yes. Middle school. I remember this feeling.

--

Dave laid his phone on his chest and stared back up at the ceiling.

It was never dull, this new life he’d settled into.

He said a prayer for Murdock and rolled onto his side.

It was still his goddamn couch.

 --

[conchshell]

Hey could you give more examples for Pugin’s innovations? But like for dummies who cant visualise anything and have no idea what architecture was like before and after his time ? If it’s not too much trouble, ofc.

I could easily talk the hind legs off a donkey, so it’s no trouble at all! Of course with Pugin (and many Victorian architects inspired by his work), he advocated for a revival of medieval craftsmanship, but with a Victorian twist. People tend to frown down upon Victorian architecture because there were people who demolished perfectly good older properties (people known as “scrapers” in the C19th), and many people today lump architecture of this period into that category, but this simply isn’t the case! Also, I just want to say that I love Georgian architecture as well, so this is in no way bashing that style!

On the left is a standard Georgian house, while on the right is a standard Victorian house. Pugin grew up in a Georgian townhouse, and one thing he was fixated on was ‘honesty in construction’, many Georgian houses have a cheap brick inner which is faced in a nicer material, to make the building look more expensive than it is. Pugin hated this and felt that concealment of the true nature of the building was dishonest. He celebrated the use of red brick, a relatively cheap material, but said that instead of concealing the brick, one should embellish the material and celebrate it. He hated falseness of any kind, so he fought for the abandonment of fake columns and windows. Basically, if something was added to a building to make it pretty, he hated it. Rather, he said that the core materials should be expertly crafted to celebrate the beauty of them, rather than hiding them.

On the left is a neoclassical stained glass window, while on the right is a Pugin designed stained glass window. As well as architecture, he fought hard to bring back the use of stained glass windows. This is a massive topic so if you want to know more, I highly recommend having a google around. But during the reformation (the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church) medieval stained glass was seen as naive and garish. Instead, plain glass windows were favoured, or styles that were restrained and muted in colours - more appropriate to the upper class. Pugin advocated to bring back the brightly coloured medieval styles, a fight which he won, as soon stained glass decoration started popping up in a variety of Victorian buildings.

He was also an advocate for handmade items. He believed that if possible, people should go to their local craftsmen and support small businesses, rather than supporting mass-produced goods made in mills and factories. In 1851 he showcased this at the Great Exhibition where he, and a small group of local artisans, made a 'Medieval court' (shown above) to showcase handmade objects.

But his biggest achievement was probably his own house built for his family, called The Grange (shown above). It's hard to think of this unassuming building this way today, but The Grange was wildly different to architecture at the time. The way Pugin's ethos differed greatly from architecture at the time was the way he laid out the rooms. Prior, architecture was built from the outside in; firstly the exterior appearance of the building was determined and then the rooms were slotted in place inside. Instead, Pugin believed that buildings should start from the people and how they would use the room. Then, the shape of the rooms would be determined, then the walls, and then lastly the exterior appearance. He also believed that instead of servants being placed on the top floor of the house, their rooms should be placed on the same floor as the family living there. And lastly, that instead of window placements being determined by achieving a symmetrical design from the outside, they should just be placed wherever made the most of the view.

In all, he advocated for a building style that would reflect the people that lived in them. He believed that individuality should be celebrated, rather than working to obtain an ideal appearance. The modern-day home is a descent of The Grange, a house where comfort and living is emphasised - where the sitting room and the kitchen are the core rooms of the home. Overall, a home tailored to your personal preferences, rather than one where you conform to popular tastes.

But most importantly, his ethos was more than architecture. He saw the Victorian era are money-hungry and obsessed with power and control, and he felt that a revival of the medieval period would bring out a sense of compassion in people. In his book 'Contrasts' he did a series of drawings showing the society of today, alongside a commentary of how society had failed to protect those he needed the help the most. Above is a drawing of the 'panopticon', a type of prison proposed by Jeremy Bentham. Pugin was shocked by this and believed that instead, prisons should be places of reform, especially for those who were placed inside for petty crimes. He hated that children were forced to work in the mills, and believed that by building more schools the underprivileged would be able to attend. He hated that the elderly were sent to the workhouse, and instead designed almshouses for them to live out the rest of their lives. And perhaps his views were somewhat fantastical, but his enthusiasm inspired a whole new generation of architects and thinkers, who then went on to fight for society.

Ultimately, what was unusual with Pugin and the Gothic Revival movement, was that it wasn't an architectural style fueled by aesthetics, but rather by societal issues. He believed that the wounds of society could be healed by looking back on the past and determining where we went wrong, rather than pushing forward in a thirst for power.

[fumingspice]

guardians

original work! im bored to death and i have nothing much to do so i guess maybe i could post this and see if people like it or not. mallorie whyte is sarah paulson 🤜👱🏻‍♀️

01 | oakwood academy

october 24th 2022

eli, ma. andromadex

-Madison

THE FINAL WORDS that Madison's stepmother Inez had jokingly yelled out the car window at her before she sped off to work were fairly sticking with her all throughout the day. She had driven at neck-breaking speed as she often had a habit of doing, and then braked so hard that she probably would have given any other passenger in the car a pretty bad whiplash, which Madison was convinced that Inez is immune to it by now, and then rolled down her window and told her; "y’know, if you want to actually make some friends you should really quit acting so bitchy."

Mind you, this was after she had gone on at her for days on end about being herself.

Madison was not opposed to making friends at this school. She wanted to. It's just so difficult when the fantastic, gold-crested reputation of your parents follows you around everywhere you go, and it's even worse when everyone else in your school completely matches that reputation.

To her, there's nothing worse than extra-cred class. She could promise you that. Especially when there are only fifteen more minutes left of the school day until the school bell rang sweet salvation and the students were released from the clutches school for another day. The classroom was decorated in crisp oranges, reds, yellows and browns; and the smothering scent of the ten-plus pumpkin spice candles could probably be smelt from miles away.

Madison's teacher, Ms. DuBois, was from Salem, and she loved nothing more than talking about witches in Salem. DuBois continued to rattle on about the executions that took place during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692- and since they were in Eli and not Salem, Madison could not fathom a single plausible reason as to why her extra-cred class had decided to adopt the Salem Witch Trials.

Oakwood Academy, Madison's new school, had managed to work its way to having one of the top academic records in America by providing an extra area of study for every year that a student attended. It was just one of the classes that would act as a "relaxer" for the workload that the Academy dumped on their students. They allocated five sets of twenty-five students to five different classes. For example; her older brother was allocated into a class that studied some of history's most famous serial criminals. The girl had been hit with a low-key pang of jealousy when she looked at his workbook, but she would never admit that.

Serial killer documentaries from Buzzfeed Unsolved was for her what World War II was to her brother Tiano.

Halfway through the class, Madison decided that Ms DuBois' babbles were nothing more than folklore and legends. There is no possible way that witches could exist, and even if they did; they would have become so sparsely spread out throughout the centuries that bloodlines would have become diluted into non-existence.

Madison had finally just about given up listening, getting ready to switch to her earphones when DuBois began talking about Gwendoline Proctor and Marie-Anne Dufosett. Judging by the amount of borderline useless word scrambles and pop quizzes that she had been bombarded with since August in which their names had popped up in, this would no doubt be just as bleak as the rest of the topic.

"Marie-Anne Dufosett was burned at the stake along with her mother and some other accused women-"

Well, that's just peachy.

"-However, does anybody know who accused Mademoiselle Dufosett of Witchcraft and Conspiring with the Devil?"

A few hands shot up. Oh, great, Madison thought, another room full of Hocus Pocus lovers.

DuBois picked on a boy at the back of the room wearing a black turtleneck underneath his blazer. "Perrone Goguillon," he answered.

Well, at least I know that instead of how to pay taxes.

Ms DuBois clapped her hands together and was about to praise him when Madison poked her head up and blurted out, "who in fresh hell is Peregrine Goujon?" The class burst into a peal of abrupt laughter and her face flashed a red that was possibly close to her burgundy uniform.

DuBois waited patiently for the laughter to die down, giving Madison a well-intended smile. She'd been trying to pry Madison out of her shell for weeks. "Miss Delvaux, I'm so happy that we've finally been graced with your conscious presence," she said. "Perrone Goguillon was one of the last witches to burnt at the stake in France."

What has that got to do with Salem?

There was a pause.

Turtleneck Boy piped up yet again. "Wasn't Perrone Marie-Anne's mother?"

Ms DuBois nodded, what followed probably should have been a moment for shock factor was cut short by Madison's unimpressive comment of; "Sounds like someone gained some serious mommy-issues."

Apart from a few smirks and sniggers, the room stayed in a star awkward silence. It was that moment when Madison had realised that making fun of witches in this classroom was possibly as close as you could get to treason.

The bell finally rang out before Madison could embarrass herself any further. She pulled on her coat and started speed-walking to get out of the school. She found listening to Toxic by Britney Speers always made her faster.

The crisp Massachusetts air stung at her cheeks hard, nipping at them until they were a hard red. The leaves crunched with a prominent sound and the wind blew quite fiercely. She hated fall- she missed the sweet Florida summer and sunshine that she had become so accustomed to. She missed splashing about in their swimming pool with her friends, sitting on her boyfriend's shoulders and having matches of pool basketball. They could get very competitive and Madison was certainly no stranger to having her head pushed underwater for the sake of one of her friends scoring a goal.

Her family had just moved to Massachusetts for her stepmother's work, as they often had moved around for that reason numerous times in the past. Inez worked with companies that were hanging on the edge of bankruptcy. A quick call to her office and she would work on the case as soon as possible. Most cases she could work on from home or online, but every few years a huge opportunity or promotion would come up that would require a move. It was always worth it. Inez was a wizard with a logbook and her incredible finances knowledge; she would advise the company and work with as many people as possible to save the company and boost its profits massively. 

The job also came with a pretty hefty paycheck. Inez had been in Madison's life for as long as the girl could recall memory.

Now that the latest- and hopefully final- addition to the Delvaux family had come, Madison's father spent most of his time at home taking care of baby Thomas. In contrast to Inez, Madison's father came from a long line of "old" money; decades ago, his family was incredibly wealthy Franco-Belgian gold merchants, owning around 40% of the most flourishing gold mines in Belgium and France of which together bestowed them with a huge amount of the finest Belgian gold. Although the number of which lowered to about 750 tons of gold, the family net worth was still well into the billions.

Madison's father broke away from the complete gold-mine owning tradition and earned a job as a professor of physics in certain prestigious colleges across the country, although, there were still plenty of goldmines still to his name.

However, despite their needless fortune, most of the family, along with Inez, managed to stay incorrupt, helping to build many schools, hospitals and jobs in developing countries and donating thousands of millions of dollars to charities, side-lining with the Delvaux-Proveux Foundation to help create a better society with whatever difference they could cause.

Her parents did their best to remain humble- which sometimes proved itself difficult when the next five generations of their family could probably eat from solid gold plates if they chose to.

Needless to say, they spent only what they needed to, didn't exploit their riches, lived in the slightly more luxurious suburban homes. Madison was sent to Oakwood Academy; possibly the most unnecessarily expensive school in the north-east of America along with her adopted older brother Tiano and her adopted little sister Safina; the second youngest, Aleja went to an elementary not far from their home, and baby Thomas just did his best not to poop his pants straight after his diaper had been changed. Madison was convinced he did his best to poop at the worst possible time.

The house they had recently moved into was a beautiful country mansion, overlooking a lake and meadows, the balcony that showed a complete view of the landscape was perhaps Madison's favourite part of the house- apart from her bed of course.

She walked briskly up the pathway leading to the front door, doing her best to not show that she was absolutely freezing to death despite the massive coat. No sooner had she got in the door that she turned the heater on full blast and ran upstairs, diving into her bed.

Inconveniently, she was now too warm.

Madison rolled her eyes and then rolled out of bed with a slight thud, ran downstairs, lowered the heating, then ran back upstairs again- now at a slightly more satisfactory temperature. Her phone began to buzz; an incoming facetime from her friends back in Florida.

Madison jumped up promptly, fixing her hair and trying to make it look like she wasn't considering an attempt at home-made abseiling down the wall beneath her window. She accepted the call and lo and behold the screams and squeals of five of her best friends burst from the phone from on the other side of the country. Meghan, the girl in front and centre, called out Madison's name with an ear-piercing screech.

"Woah, Woah. Calm down, Meghan I'm not hoping to go deaf anytime soon," she muttered, pretending to be annoyed, making a particular fuss of changing the settings on her hearing aid. Meghan playfully rolled her eyes and began talking over the other girls. 

"Oh, shut up, Maddie. How's Massachusetts? Find any cute warlocks that we need to come out and see?" She asked. 

"Meghan, this place is amazing and beautiful- there's so many other things here than witches and warlocks and Harvard's array of nerds," she said, pretending she didn't want to hop on her tricycle and go home. 

To be truthful, it was obvious that Meghan could see straight through the blatant lie. 

"Well, if you say so, babes. Give us a tour of your house! We need to see chez Madison after stalking it for an hour on Google Maps."

Madison gave a hearty chuckle. "Well, if you insist."

Madison began her own rendition of a virtual tour around her house, showing everything from the luxury bathrooms to the heated pool in the basement. The ooooooo's and ahhhhhhhhh's were constant. The house was beautiful- that was undeniable. However, the crowning glory of the house was a massive stain-glass window depicting a woman by the lake.

"The realtors said that the builder of the house had it built in 1876 to memorialize the women persecuted and killed during the witch trials," Madison said, admiring the beautiful display of colours on the floor from the sun shining through the window. 

"That's cheery." 

That's typical Meghan.

"Now, more important than your sexy house; are you or are you not coming to prom?" Meghan asked, expectantly.

Madison shrugged, "I'm not sure, we only just got here, and I don't think my parents would want me flying across the country all by myself."

Meghan let out a slightly satisfied sigh. "So, does that mean Dylan is now free for me to take as my date?"

Madison gritted her teeth hard. Only forever has Meghan been trying to steal Dylan away from her. "Sure, as long as it's just as friends," she answered, fully emphasizing the word "friends".

Meghan laughed emptily. "Well, how else would I be taking him? Trust me, Maddie baby, if I wanted Dylan so bad, I would've gotten him months ago." There was a coy smile and awkward glances shared by the others.

Madison bit her tongue.

"Yeah?" She called out into the empty house. "Coming now, Nez!" She looked back at the screen, told them, "talk later, gals, Nez wants me to help her in the basement," and hung up without waiting for a response, already knowing that Meghan would be commenting on how strange she was acting.

Madison and Meghan had been stuck to each other's waist since pre-school, grew up in close neighborhoods, and had practically been raised together. One time, Madison's family took Meghan to Disney Land, then straight to Universal Studios after. To say they were spoiled rotten in childhood because of the Delvaux family wealth was an understatement. It was only now approaching adult years was Meghan taking full advantage of her best friend's wealth- hinting off about getting her into Yale or Harvard, Madison smiled and nodded when she brought these things up, knowing full well Meghan didn't hold enough brain cells to even use a dishwasher.

The jangle of keys and the opening of the door sounded from downstairs. "The party's home! Maddie honey, you here?" Inez called, audibly struggling with grocery bags. "Coming!" she called back, skipping down the stairs two steps at a time. Inez relieved herself of one of the six bags she had carried from the car. 

"When are you going to learn to walk down the stairs without the risk of breaking your damn neck?" she asked, walking to the kitchen and setting half of the bags on the counter, and doing the same with Maddie's bags. Madison laughed and shook her head, "when we confirm that the birds don't work for the bourgeoisie." 

Inez rolled her eyes and pulled Madison into a hug. "Well, in that case, I may as well buy a neck brace and put the hospital on speed dial."

Madison gave a real laugh this time and pulled away, throwing a damp washcloth at Inez's face. "Megan facetimed me earlier with Linda, Karlie, Houston, Seoul and London.

Inez pulled a face, "yeah, and how did that turn out?" Madison sighed, "she asked me if she could take Dylan to prom."

Her stepmom stopped unpacking and lurched into deep thought. "Why are all your friends named after cities?" Madison was about to continue when she stopped to think about the question. 

"Back to the topic, Nez."

Inez’s eyes widened in shock. "She did not, did she?" Madison nodded carefully, bracing herself for Inez launching into a huge monologue, as she often did when something morally wrong happened. "After everything that we've done for that girl- everything that you've done for that girl, this is how she repays you?" Inez barely stopped to breathe. "She has known about our plans to move here since last Summer! The sneaky little bug kept this behind your back and knew it would be safe to tell you that she was going to steal Dylan from you as soon as you were a safe distance away-"

Madison promptly stopped her, knowing this could and would go on all night. "I'm not as bothered as I should be, Nez. Dylan and I were drifting even before the move. I think this is just my final sign that we just aren't meant to be- God, I always knew nothing serious would become of Dylan and me," she admitted, sipping on a diet coke that Inez had just slid down the countertop. Her stepmother pursed her lips, her incredible dark brown eyes glazing over as they always did when she fell deep into thought, as Madison often admired them doing so when she was trying to find a solution to a particularly difficult business situation, then, within seconds, bounced back out of it once again.

Inez presented an envelope to Madison, addressed to her. "Well, this might bring your spirits up at least," she placed in front of Madison. "I just know it is what it is."

Madison's jaw dropped as she read the letter.

Months ago, while they still lived in Florida, Madison's tutor convinced her to take part in a writing competition. The competition was hosted by one of New York's most prestigious publication companies, namely by their founder; Mallorie Whyte, possibly one of the most sought after and revered journalists in the Western Hemisphere. Madison completely worshipped the woman. Whyte being a first generation French American was the main factor in inspiring Madison to learn the language; not for the benefit of her Senegalese brother.

But he did not need to know that.

Inez spoke again, mainly just to make sure that Madison hadn't become paralyzed from shock. "Is she telling you to buy a damn dictionary or was your spelling fine?” Inez teased. There was no response, but Madison was finished reading, and Inez became heart-scared that she would lick the page.

Madison was dumbfounded for a few more seconds. "I got first place in the contest. She wants me to come to New York and meet her! Bloody hell, she thinks I could help her out with new ideas?" Maddie took another break before screaming the house down. "The Mallorie Whyte wants me because she thinks I could help her-"

She completely froze up in shock, her frightened stepmother running behind her in case she fell backwards. "Three weeks?!" Madison screeched, loud enough to wake up the dead. Inez almost jumped from her skin, laughing when she recovered.

"Three weeks, Maddie! We have plenty of time," she attempted to reason, even though trying to calm Madison down when she was as excited as this was next to impossible.

Madison looked highly offended. "Three weeks? Do you see the state of this house? It needs to be perfect!"

The house was next to gleaming spotless.

Inez rolled her eyes and tugged Madison's belt loop as she was about to run into the hall. In her lifetime, she had met many people that she could consider crazy, but no one came as close to her stepdaughter when she was fangirling over Mallorie Whyte. "Yes, honey that's all well and good," Inez said, attempting to calm down the lunatic in front of her, "but in the meantime, I want you to tidy your bedroom, do your homework and do some studying."

Madison nodded obediently, grabbed her Cola, and ran upstairs, careful not to spill anything on the grey carpet. The fragrance of her apple blossom burning in an incense bowl wafted around the room, and her speaker was set to play music from her playlist when it detected motion in the room. The past few moments of excitement had wiped what had happened before the letter out of her mind.

Dylan.

Meghan had practically taken Dylan away from her- not that she cared, not now anyway. Mallorie freakin' Whyte had sent her a handwritten letter for Christ's sake, she wasn't going to be moping over a boy that her supposed best friend has had her eyes on for months. She had known since before announcing the move that the boy was falling under Meghan's spell, she had seen it; the messages, the winks and the giggles, the almost-too-close kiss under the stairway. She was never ignorant to the fact that there was something between Dylan and Meghan going on behind her back- they were both horrible liars and barely tried to cover it up- she just did her best to pretend nothing had happened.

It's not as if she wasn't the jealous type- she used to be- Dylan had been around most of her friendship group while she was crushing on him. She had just grown an indifference to seeing him flirt with other girls. She had grown used to it.

The notification of her computer sounded, distracting herself from her slightly depressing thoughts. It was an email notification, from Mallorie Whyte herself. Madison almost fainted at the sight of it. Not only had she just received a written letter, but she had also taken time to contact online. Madison caught her breath at the possibility of having a conversation with this woman three weeks before they met, she opened the email, scanning every word;

Madison,

I apologize for reaching out to you in such an informal manner, but I just couldn't wait to get into correspondence with you sooner! Your entry into our contest here at Whyte’s Journalism and Publications utterly rocked my soul at the core, your work blooms amazingly at your young age.

The reason I picked your entry was that after many hours of reading and re-reading hundreds of thousands of entries, I realized that yours spoke to me in a way that no other one did. The beauty of your language and knowledge of how our world and society works touched me in a way no other did- heart-breaking, yet somehow warming, in the same way, to know that there are still people in this world who still have a love for life.

I noted in your information folder that Halloween was your least favourite holiday- a complete juxtaposition of my own opinion. Samhain is the best time of year- and I am excited to spend this glorious time of year with you and your family starting next weekend, as I've just finished sorting arrangements with Ms. Inez.

Best regards and wishes, and excitement to meet you,

Mallorie Whyte.

Inez smiled to herself from downstairs, setting her drink down and running up the stairs having heard the rather obvious sound of Madison's delighted squeal and subsequent crash on the floor.