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tropes-and-tales · 2 years

Text

Turf War

Characters: Mike Duarte and F!Reader

WC: 4610

Other Pieces: This is currently a stand alone.

CW: Slight violence (punches); mistaken identities; angst; smut (impaired sex, drunk; a sad, failed attempt; oral, m!receiving; PiV, unprotected). 18+ only.

A series of coincidence, miscommunication, misunderstanding.

Manhattan SVU is investigating a serial rapist. Scant details on the perp: dark hair, facial hair. Race undetermined. Middling height. Middling build.

The way in is on the victims, all of a type: same coloring, same build, same hair. A lucky thing for Olivia Benson then, that she has a detective who fits all of those things. You’re the rapist’s dream girl, so setting up a sting operation on the fly is easy. Rollins cracks the pattern, figures out his rotation through the boroughs, finds a likely place he’ll strike next. Benson sends you off to get into your costume for the night: amateur sex worker, scantily clad, nervous-looking.

In an entirely different borough (and bureau), Captain Mike Duarte is planning his own shoestring string operation: as the head of the Bronx gang unit, he’s investigating a new gang, an up-and-coming bunch that don’t hold ties to nationality or creed or color. This gang is purely built on violence for violence’s sake, and their MO is to use honeys posing as sex workers to pull in vics from other boroughs, then drag them to the Bronx to rob and beat the shit out of.

One of his detectives figures out where the gang is planting their women. Mike sets himself up as bait.

The coincidence then: that Manhattan SVU’s sting and the Bronx Gang Unit sting happen on the same night in the same place.

-----

The miscommunication:

You standing on the corner near a seedy bar. You’re in a miniscule skirt, a tiny halter top. Your face is buried under thick makeup, heavy mascara, a deep red stain on your lips. You look terrified, like it’s your first night working the corner.

Mike sitting in his car near the same seedy bar. He sees you, thinks, “holy shit, that’s one of the girls.”

You turn your head, see him staring at you, think, “dark hair, facial hair…that’s our guy.”

You walk over to him, tentative. If you act too bold, he’ll take off: your guy only likes the innocent-seeming ones, not the pros.

Mike watches you, just as tentative. If he acts too bold, you won’t suggest a different, quieter spot where your guys are waiting to jump him.

“Are you looking for company?” you ask him.

“I wasn’t,” he replies. “But if you’re offering…”

“I guess I am,” you answer, shy.

“Then I guess I am too,” he says.

You climb in his car, and you direct him to an alley nearby. You know that Rollins, Fin, Benson are watching all of this.

Mike obliges. He knows his detectives have his back.

In the car, once he parks: he turns towards you, sees how nervous you look, and he wonders if he’s made a mistake.

In the car, once he parks: you watch him turn towards you, and you see a flash of unease cross his features. Is this the wrong guy?

When you lean forward to reach into your purse, he cranes his neck and sees it: the butt end of a gun, so he reaches across you, quick as a viper, grabs for it, and you react, finally. You jerk your purse away, fumble for the gun too but it falls to the floor of the car and in your scrambling, it gets kicked under your seat.

The miscommunication then: that neither Special Victims nor the Gang Unit shared their plans. That he thinks you’re bait for a gang initiation while you think he’s a rapist. That he sees your service piece and thinks you’re about to hold him at gunpoint until your gang buddies can come. That when he lunges at you out of nowhere, you think he’s the serial rapist you’ve been looking for.

-----

The misunderstanding:

The two of you fighting. You each think you’re fighting for your lives—you have no way of knowing the other is a cop—so it’s brutal.

Mike would never hit a woman, usually, but he thinks you’re about to pull a piece on him, take him to the Bronx to be beaten to death. And you’re strong in your own right, fierce as a wildcat, twisting out of his hold as he tries to subdue you enough to cuff you, then get you out of the car.

He pops you right in the face, a quick jab that stuns you for a half-second before you respond in kind: you punch him in the face, a fucking hook he never thought a woman your size would be capable of delivering, and when he’s stunned for his half-second, you follow up with another hit—this time a jab to his solar plexus, enough to push the air out of him.

“You’re done,” you snarl, and he feels the cuffs on his wrists, the quick, efficient way you snap them on, the chain wound through the steering wheel, holding him in place.

But it’s not any vicious gangbangers who come for him: it’s a riot of cops. Manhattan SVU, Bronx Gang. And a very, very unhappy Brooklyn captain, who is beyond pissed that two separate bureaus came onto his home turf and fucked everything up.

The misunderstanding then, the entire fucked-up situation revealed: Captain Mike Duarte, nursing a sore gut and a bloody nose in one corner. In the other corner, Detective Right-Hook, you, holding an ice pack to your face and glaring across the alley at him.

*****

Mike recognizes the bruise before he recognizes you. He sees the woman at the corner table in his neighborhood bar. She’s nursing a drink, and the bloom of purple and blue, the slightly-swollen eye…it pulls his gaze, and when he looks closer, he sees that it’s you.

Detective Right-Hook, from Manhattan SVU. The honey with the red lips and the halter top who punched him so hard that it hurt to breathe.

What are you doing here?

He orders his drink and makes his way over to you, and he sees the moment you recognize him: if you had hackles, he’d see them go up. He sees the wariness in your eyes, the way they narrow as he grins, says hello, sits down across from you.

“Captain,” you say.

“Detective,” he replies.

“Run any disastrous stings lately?” you ask, and your lips (lovely, even devoid of red stain) curve into a mean little smile.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“Ah, but it’s different for me, Captain.” You annunciate his rank clearly, each syllable crisp and distinct. “I’m a lowly peon detective. I don’t make the decisions. Benson tells me to throw on a miniskirt and look cute, I do it.”

“You did look cute, right up until you punched me in the face.”

You take a sip of your drink. “You punched me first.” You raise your hand, flourish it under your black eye. “Been getting a lot of looks on the subway with this baby.”

Mike settles into his seat and sips his own drink. “I’m surprised to find you in my bar. You live here?”

A nod. “Just a few streets over. My old bar got bought by some investor group, turned it into a mixology bar.”

“So now you’re here.”

You smile, and this time there’s no meanness to it. “I don’t want to start a turf war with you, Captain. I think the bar’s big enough for the both of us.”

He smiles back at you, waves down a passing waitress to order you each another round. “Fair enough,” he says. “But here, I’m just Mike. None of that Captain bullshit.”

“Yes, sir,” you reply, and he judges by your playful tone, the curve of your lips around the rim of your glass, that you’re a teasing little shit, an instigator, and he finds that he likes it.

-----

He sees you probably once a week. Some weeks, he doesn’t see you at all, and he finds himself grumpier those days. But then other times, he sees you a few nights in a row, say, and it makes him inordinately happy. Unexpectedly so.

You are a teasing little shit, he finds. You banter with him, you make off-color jokes. Sometimes you pay for his drinks, so he wonders if your flirting has some intention behind it.

He deals it right back to you, flirts back. Why not? You’re cute as hell and tough as shit. His face, his chest remembers the force behind your fists. He likes a feisty woman.

He remembers the way you looked in your UC gear, all that skin exposed. Even now, when he sees you at the bar and shares a few drinks with you—you’re much more covered up, in the same dark jeans, the same button down shirt and blazer, but you’re cute like this too.

One night, his joking gets a little rougher than usual and you scoff at him. Roll your eyes.

“Knock it off, Mike,” you tell him. “Or else I’ll have to cuff you again.”

A feisty, teasing little shit, cuffing him? Putting him at your mercy? The implications are intriguing.

“Keep talking like that and we’re gonna need a safe word,” he retorts with a smirk.

You shake your head, smile back at him. “You, maybe. I don’t need one.”

-----

Then there’s a night when he comes in and you’re already there…and already well on your way to being completely blitzed.

In the entire time Mike has known you, you never drink like this. You have one, maybe two drinks. Not even enough to make you tipsy, just enough to relax and warm you.

Tonight? Tonight you’re lining up the shots and throwing them back with an artful flick of your wrist, and when he greets you, your face is grim. Haunted. He recognizes its source: you’ve had a rough day. Caught a bad case, one that hits close to some part of you. The kind of case that disturbs, that drives sleepless nights.

He’s had plenty of those.

“Tough day?” he asks, and he sits down beside you. Watches as you order a whiskey, and instead of your usual careful sipping, you swallow it down in two, three mouthfuls. Which is answer enough, he guesses.

Tonight, he cuts the joking with you, and he drinks with you, and when he reaches the point where he’s almost too far gone, he cuts himself off and cuts you off too.

“She’s done,” Mike tells the bartender, and he settles both tabs, helps you with your coat, leads you outside.

He knows you live over a few blocks away, but he also only lives a few blocks away, and you’re silent as you walk beside him. Steady enough on your feet, but wavering a little here and there.

“Want me to walk you home?” he offers, and his breath comes out in plumes of vapor in the crisp air.

“You gonna come up and join me for a nightcap?”

It’s what he’s wanted, and his own blood runs hot with the shots he paced with you. Still, there’s a quiet voice in the back of his head…

“You’re pretty drunk. Seems risky, going home with a Special Victims detective when she’s wasted.”

You scoff. “Not wasted at all. You cut me off before I got black-out, which was my goal after the last few fucking days I had.”

“So you’re going home to finish the job?”

“Mm-hmm.” You nod, then turn to face him, and even with that haunted, serious look on your face, Mike thinks you’re gorgeous. You reach out, trace your finger down the seam of his shirt where the buttons lie. “Unless you have a better way of getting me out of my head, Captain.”

It’s the Captain that seals it. The glimpse of the teasing little shit you are, underneath whatever hurt you’re working through at the moment.

-----

It’s everything he’s dreamt of with you, almost. Almost.

There’s a desperation in the way you kiss him that’s more than eagerness and more than your usual feisty boldness. He can taste the liquor on you, but he drank a lot too, and it’s easy to lose himself in the way you kiss him. The feel of your mouth on his, the softness of your lips, the impatient way you run your tongue along the seam of his mouth, and when he opens up to you, the impatient way you claim his mouth and taste him.

There’s a desperation in how fast you strip, shedding clothing as you lead him through your apartment and into your bedroom. Desperate how you strip him as well, your booze-clumsy fingers fumbling at his belt, at the button and zipper on his pants, and that’s when he nearly stops you. He nearly tells you to slow down, to take it easy, but then your hand is on him. You slip your hand under the waistband of his boxers and find the half-hard length of him, and it takes all of a moment of you grasping him while you kiss him to coax him to his full length.

And it’s desperate, the way you push his pants and boxers down, how you push him backwards until he’s sitting on the edge of your bed, and then you sink to your knees in front of him—far more graceful than he would have thought, with all that you drank—

And then…then that feisty fucking mouth is on him, hot and wet, your tongue laving the sensitive underside before you take more of him, and he can only choke out a single fuck before you swallow against him—

And a moment later, you pull away from him, and he thinks you’re just catching your breath but then he hears it—uneven breathing, a quiet snuffling, and the ice-cold reality hits him, sobers him up more than any blow job could: you’re crying.

“Hey. Shit, hey.” He sits up, leans forward. Tries to look at you in the mostly-dark room, but he can’t make out much. Just the general shape of you, naked except for your panties. Kneeling in front of him. Head bent, shoulders shaking as you try to hide your tears.

“Sorry,” you mutter. He sees you shake your head, and you start to reach for him again, but he catches you hand, gently lowers it.

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry.” You repeat it over and over, a broken record until you’re openly crying, and then the words come out garbled between sobs, and Mike realizes this isn’t just a moment of sloppy sex following a sloppy night of drinking. This is a breakdown.

“Jesus Christ.” He slides off of the edge of your bed, tugs his boxers back up, then sits on your floor in front of you. “C’mere. Jesus. It’s okay.”

“No, I’m sorry. Sorry, I couldn’t—just need a minute, then I’ll—”

“No, come on. It’s fine.” He manages to manhandle you, pulls you against him. He sits, legs splayed wide, and tugs you until you��re between his legs, and he holds you, tucks you in tight against him. It’s only then that he realizes—underneath the shuddering cries, you’re trembling. Honest to god shaking.

“What happened out there today?” he asks, and you shake your head against him. He tightens his arms, sighs. “You can talk to me. It’s okay.”

You don’t, and he doesn’t push it. He might be abrupt, brash, grating on other captains across the city, but he didn’t make it to a captaincy for nothing. He’s seen plenty of cops, detectives…hell, even captains…he’s seen all sorts of breakdown like this. Doesn’t matter the type. From the most hard-boiled detective to the one with the softest heart…everyone catches a case that pushes them into a dark spiral.

It takes a long while for you to calm down and stop crying. It takes so long his ass goes numb on your hardwood floor, but he doesn’t complain. Something has clearly broken in you, and he knows that broken cops can quickly develop serious problems.

When the trembling stops and your tears stop, he pushes your face away from him until he can see you. In the weak light from the street, he can only just make out your features: your tear-streaked face, your swollen eyes.

Your swollen eyes that refuse to meet his gaze.

“Look at me,” he orders softly. He repeats it, and then you do, and he sees pure shame. Shame, probably, for ruining a hookup that the two of you have been steadily building towards across the span of months.

Shame, probably, for losing your shit. For crying.

“You don’t need to talk to me,” he continues. “But you gotta talk to someone. Understand? You can’t bottle that shit up, and you can’t bury it in alcohol.”

You gaze back at him. You don’t reply.

“Say, ‘yes, Captain,’” he tells you with a smile. “Say, ‘I’ll absolutely find someone to talk to, Captain.’”

You blink in surprise. “I’m sorry—”

“No. No, no, no.” He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “It’s ‘yes, Captain.’ Say it.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And?”

“And…I’ll talk to someone.”

“Good girl.” He leans forward, kisses you lightly. “How about I get you a water?”

-----

Mike isn’t comfortable leaving you. For one thing, you still seem shaky, emotional. For another, you keep fucking apologizing to him, and he hates that you even think you have to.

He sits you on the edge of your bed and makes his way to your kitchen, gets you that glass of water. He brings it to you, and as you drink, he gathers up his discarded clothes. He puts his undershirt on, but when he goes to lay his button-down over a nearby chair, you snag it from him and—shyly, not at all the feisty woman he’s known—pull it on.

It's unfortunate. Seeing women in his clothing is his oldest, tamest kink, and the sight of you in his button-down and a pair of panties makes his lust roar back to life in a single beat.

He pushes it down. He plays the part of a gentleman.

“I can take the couch,” he offers, but you shake your head, so he joins you in your bed, holds you a second time as you cry again—more softly this time—and then cry yourself to sleep.

-----

Mike wakes up too early. He wakes up slowly, comfortably, which is strange. He almost never sleeps well in a strange bed.

Beside him, in his shirt and little else, snoring softly: Detective Right-Hook.

It’s too early. There’s not a hint of dawn out of your window, so he moves closer to you, pulls your warm, soft body to his. You mumble something in your sleep but don’t wake, and Mike smiles as you turn towards him, tuck yourself under his chin. Your bed is warm and it’s still dark outside, likely cold as well, so it’s easy to fall back asleep.

-----

When he wakes for real, he wakes from vague dreams about someone. A woman—you, he guesses. He wakes up hard and aching. He wakes up already in motion, pressing against you in his sleep, pressing the bulge of his erection into the lush curve of your ass, and the motion must wake you because you wake with the goddamn cutest little moan that makes none of this easier.

As you wake, you press back against him, and all of the ease and flow he always imagined is suddenly here: he rasps his face against the back of your neck, which pulls another moan from you, and you whisper his name. Sleep-rough, it comes out low, Mike, and it curls around his gut like a line of smoke, fills him up, makes him feel drugged.

His arm is over your waist, his hand resting on the bed. You reach down and take his hand in yours, draw it under the hem of his own shirt and then up. You guide him to your breasts, and he cups one then another. Huffs out a heavy breath at the feeling of you in his palm, molded to the shape of him, your nipples hard and peaked as he ghosts his fingertips over them, then pinches at them.

All the while, you press your ass back against him. Even through your panties, his boxers, he swears he can feel the heat of your arousal.

“I’d kiss you,” he murmurs against the side of you neck. “Make it more romantic and shit. But I didn’t brush my teeth and would hate to ruin a good thing.”

You laugh, breathless. “Such a gentleman.”

“I can be gentle. Too early to use cuffs.”

You turn your head enough to meet his gaze, and there—there you are. Finally. The feisty little shit who enjoys tormenting him at the bar.

“You gonna keep talking about it or are you gonna do it?” A beat, then you add, sweetly, “Captain.”

He nips at the side of your neck, lightly. “How do you want me, Detective? Like this?”

“Please. Sir.”

He removes his hand from under your (his) shirt, and he reaches down, pushes his boxers down enough. His cock springs free, and he feels the hitching breath you take to feel it against you.

“I’m clean,” he mutters, his voice rough with need. “But I have a condom in my wallet. I just gotta—”

“’m clean too,” you whisper back. “Have an implant. Just…don’t stop, Mike, please.”

He reaches down, doesn’t even bother to try and get your panties off of you. He runs his fingers against the fabric between your legs, bites back a groan at how soaked they are. He hooks a finger under the lace edging, hooks your panties to the side, and then he pushes forward until the tip of him presses against your folds—slick, swollen. Ready for him.

“You sure?” he asks, and he hopes to fuck you say you are because he’s so fucking hard, aching to be inside you, and you breathe out that you are sure, please, Mike—

He parts your folds, notches the head of his cock against your entrance. He wants to romance it, just a little, but you use your bit of leverage to push back against him and he slips inside, the widest part of him just inside you, and he pauses, takes a breath before he pushes more of himself into you.

You’re so goddamned good. Wet and hot, tight as a fucking vise, and he goes slow, works you up to it. Warms you up to him. Thrusts into you inch by inch, feels the way your pussy gives way to him, takes on the shape of him. When he bottoms out, he stills and takes a steadying breath. Brushes a soft kiss to the back of your neck, then winds his arm back around you and under your shirt, cups your breast as he starts to rock against you.

“This okay?” he asks, and you whisper yes, it’s perfect, not to stop. You reach an arm up and back, and he feels your hand on his head. Your fingers tangle in his hair, tug against him lightly.

Its slow and leisurely—perfect just as the sun starts to rise and washes your room in a weak, rosy light. He hardly pulls out; he just rocks against you, grinds into you. Bites back his own groans when he feels how he nudges against the end of you, so deep that you hiss out curses each time he does.

Something about the angle, the pace…the feel of his stubble rasping against your neck, or the feel of his hand cupping your breast and his thumb brushing against your nipple….he feels you as you get close to coming. Hears the way your breathing gets ragged, feels how you press back against his gentle thrusting.

“Close,” you whisper. “Mike, please….fuck, right there…so close—”

“Right there?” He buries himself in you, pushes just a fraction more against your perfect ass, gains an extra bit of depth, and you groan out his name again…then he feels it. The way your bear down on him, the smooth muscles of your cunt rippling against him, pulling him deeper, gripping him so hard that he can barely move. Feels the hot wash of your arousal as it coats him and grants him that extra ease inside you.

He doesn’t come. Not yet. He’s able to close his eyes. He breathes through his nose, ignores the sweet little whimpers you make just after you come, and he keep rocking against you. He savors the aftershocks of your orgasm, and he coaxes you towards another.

“Come for me again.”

“I don’t think—”

“It’s an order. Gonna come for me again.”

You move your hand from his head, curl it against your waist. “I can’t,” you whine.

“You can. Touch yourself. Touch that gorgeous little clit for me and come on my cock, baby.”

You whine again, but you listen to orders so well. You reach down and touch yourself, and he can feel it: your fingers as you rub your clit, your fingers as you reach down and touch where he’s split you open. He feels your fingertips, touching his cock, slick with your cum, feels where he disappears inside you.

“I…I’m close. Mike, I’m—”

“I got you.” He kisses the back of your neck. “I got you, baby.”

And he does: he wrings another orgasm out of you, feels the way you grip him, and this time, he doesn’t bother to hold back. He deals you a few final, deep thrusts, and then he gives in to the pleasure crackling and sparking deep in his belly. He buries himself as deep as he can, and then he comes with a pained groan, filling you with his cum, painting your insides with his spend.

-----

You each clean up, and you change into different clothes. When you try to return his shirt, he shakes his head. Grins.

“Looks better on you anyway.”

You smile back at him. “You gonna do the walk of shame in just an undershirt and a jacket?”

“No shame here. And I don’t live that far from here. We’re literally only a few blocks away from each other.”

Your smile falters, and you look down at the folded shirt in your hands. “I’m really sorry about last night, Mike. I know you came over here with different ideas than what happened.”

He steps up to you, looks down at you. “Told you last night to cut out that sorry bullshit. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I know. I just—”

“What’d you promise me last night? Do you remember?” He cuts you off gently, but firmly.

You hesitate, then answer. “That I’d talk to someone.”

“Damned straight. You can always talk to me, but it can be anyone.”

You try to wave it off. Minimize it. Like he’s seen a hundred times before, a hundred cops who played off the darkness of their lives.

“Honestly, it’s fine. I just drank too much—”

“You promised,” he cuts in. “You promised me. You the type of person to break a promise?”

“…no.”

“Didn’t think so.” He puts his hands on your shoulders, smooths them over your upper arms. “So take care of it. Promise?”

“…yes.”

“Good girl.” He catches the sight of your pleased smile—you might have an unexplored praise kink, and he files that fact away for later interrogation—and he kisses the top of your head.

“See you at the bar?” he asks.

“You know where to find me, Captain.”

#mike duarte #mike duarte x reader #mike duarte imagine #law and order svu #tropes-and-tales

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howl-fantasies · 2 years

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I'm feeling' angsty today... So y'know what?

Imagine watching from the other side of the screen...

[name] laying in a pool of her own blood all alone on some random alleyway with the song Skyfall playing in the background as flashbacks of her childhood are revealed to the viewers. No one knows what's happening, and she just closes her eyes and smiled, as memories of her and her "friends" are presented to the screen.

She gripped tightly on her vest, as she let her tears fall. 'Victor.. please, take are of new Gotham, for she... Is my legacy'..

Oh dear, I was a total mess thinking about your request! I love the angst and the opportunity your idea gives to have a little glimpse of Y/N's past and moments with her frenemies.

Warning: blood, mention of violence, profanities, english mistakes: I’m working on it, sorry it’s not my first language.

Word count: 2.3k

SKYFALL

The rain was pouring on Gotham city. Like any other day when you think about it. And when the rain wasn't crashing on the dirty pavement, it was snow, which was in charge to freeze the citizens to their bones.

She never minded the rain, she thought, while feeling it lick her skin and the blood which was also pouring out of the open wound in her chest, staining the hard road she was feeling against her back. Nevermind, the water will wash it away after all.

It wasn't the first time she was shot. No. The first time, she was 12. She had an errand to make, for Carmine Falcone. Even if she didn't meet the man in person, one of his goons told her she had to deliver a package. A medium one, in which she never knew what was patiently waiting to be given to his men.

Don't ask question if you're not sure to want to know the answer or if you're not strong enough to keep it a secret. Rule number 2. First being: always think of you and your best interests.

So she delivered it. Without too much trouble, she was already a cautious little thing back then. She learnt it, thanks to her father. Not a violent man or an alcoholic, mind you, but a man way too naive and gullible for his own good. Thinking borrowing some money from wanna be mafiosi wouldn't be an issue, even with highly indecent interest rates.

And he spent it, helping her also too naive mother to buy a dingy gallery where she would be able to expose her art pieces in hope some rich artist or investor will find her. You know? Exactly like in the stupid tv film you would find on a shitty afternoon, when you've caught the flu or something.

Impossible scenarios they were. The two adults made their first mistake: they talked about it. A lot. In the Narrows. See where it leads? Yes, a disaster. Wanna be mafiosi tricked the couple, vandalizing the gallery then showing their faces the next day in front of their door and demanding their money back.

Another disaster. A proper beating for her father, a good one for her mother, and for her? Well let's say she was lucky enough not to be home at this moment. All this beating for another disaster on its way: her father having now to work for the mafiosi for free, in hope to be able to pay them back.

In the next life maybe? Same for her mother, and her. Child labor? Who would it shock in this hell hole ruled by the underworld?

That's how she started working here and there for the Mafia. Simple tasks, like delivering this fucking package, but dangerous ones when a few foes of the clan she was currently working for barged in like cow-boys with machine guns, putting bullets in every body and furniture in the way.

She was just about to escape when a bullet pierced the back of her shoulder. The white hot pain, the warmth of her own blood, the dizziness following, she was never going to forget it.

She laugh at her past self. She had thought she would never stand near a gun again. How wrong she was. Look at her now, wheezing like a fucking seal in the middle of nowhere because of it. Shit it hurts like the first time.

Always have and always will, if she was lucky enough to be shot another time. Goodness, she was delirious, thinking about the next bullet to add to her ridiculous pierced body. Victor would have laugh. Goddammit, Victor... He will fucking lose it if she doesn't move her lazy ass from the ground.

Even with her best try, she was just able to move her right hand and arm. "Not good", she muttered. Yup he'll definitely lose it.

Her gaze was now on the dark sky, rumbling peacefully. Maybe he, Ed, or even Oswald or Jim would be able to find her before she painted the entire alley with her blood. Maybe take her to Carter, the biggest jerk but the better underground surgeon she knows.

She met the idiot when she was 15. A tall, blond slender teen with the greenest eyes she had ever seen. He always was a meanie to her, fixing her injuries while yelling in her ears how an imbecile she was and how she didn't deserve his talent.

He was like Ed, well, Riddl-ED, in a way. Always bossy and confident and looking at you like you were a nuisance. The only nuisance he would be able to find in this shitty hole who would let him butcher it willingly, she would remind him frequently, making him frown deeply. After all who, in their right state of mind, would want a bratty teen to stitch or cut them to take out a bullet? Exactly, nobody but her.

She owed him her ugliest scars, poor dude had to practice a bit before being able to do it properly. She also owed him her life. And a lot of money since he decided she didn't have to pay him anymore. "Because we have history dumbass" he would say.

Ah! More because he was never able to stitch her without being a blushing mess. Got threatened by Victor at least a thousand times for that. But hey, he was a "friend" and an useful one at that. If his help depended of a few titties / butt showing, she was ok with it.

Victor had to make peace with it. He still points his gun at his forehead though, or shoot a few things or graze Carter's skin from time to time, but his crush on his wife was useful. The blond idiot would die for her, they both knew it. She never told Zsasz, but the other man was her first. This secret, as well as many others will follow her into the grave.

She chuckled. Damn, Victor would be livid if he ever heard about it. Maybe she should have told him, just to see with a sadistic pleasure his face twist in pure fury. He thought he killed all her previous lovers. How wrong he was, and how the truth was hanging just in front of him every time they had to go to Carter's clinic. Ah-ha.

Ugh! She was now tasting her own blood in her mouth. Fuck. The picture of her mouth full of blood made her think of Ed after Sofia’s torture session. Her dear Ed. The dork met her a bit after, grinning like a fool with his bloody mouth.

"Man, red is also your color I have to say. The combination with the green suit is just stunning. Can give you a proper mouth beating anytime, it would be my pleasure" She mocked. His face was priceless.

Now she was shuddering. Cold. It was always cold in this city. Slowly, she moved her head to have a better view of the damages. Ugh. Her vest was ruined. Oswald will be mad. This one was a present he randomly gave her last year, arguing that since she never told anyone when was her birthday, he decided it would be on Halloween.

Fitting for a witch, he also added. She laughed. He was near the right date, to be honest. She was born in November. First November to be precise. Day of the dead. Well he would learn it during her funerals. Maybe even make her outfit. She hoped so. At least she would be walking to Hell's gates in the proper clothes to show everyone who was the boss down there.

Religious, her? No way. She made fun of Carmine once, when he tried to put some good Christian values in her head. "Carmine, there is no need for I will never reach heaven". He was a bit mad at her for this statement, and gave her a proper scolding, just before she got a proper yelling, when she had to add: "Good lord. Heaven. What for? I wouldn't know anyone here". He was absolutely livid.

Did he make it? To heaven? If someone she knew truly deserved to be here, no doubt he was the one. Maybe he was able to see his mother again. Liza? she hoped not.

Her vision started to fade slowly. Will she saw him a bit before being thrown into the pit of hell? Would he be the one to guide her to the afterlife if it really exists? It would be nice.

He wasn't her father but he told her once, during one of those calm nights before a big storm: "None of my children have understood Gotham like I have or you have, Y/N. You would be a very good queen for the city, if you wanted too." He contemplated his words a bit and added with a fond smile. "But we both know you're too smart to become the woman everyone wants to kill. You prefer playing your mind games and never clearly chose where you stand on the board."

It worked so far. Today was probably the last time she played the game. And she was losing. She always liked to quote Olenna Tyrell when she said the game of thrones was one you played or you died. Gotham was the same. Minus dragons. For now. You were never too sure with the city and its new monsters lately...

Look at Barbara, for instance. The bitch came back from the dead like Voldemort with the help of her antiquity of a boyfriend. See? You're never too sure in Gotham. Oh please, if she dies, make sure she wouldn't come back like Butch. It would be atrocious.

Again, she had to chuckle. Humour and sarcasm were always her favorite coping mechanism. Even now. Better than crying, isn't it? Crying for the years she may have lived, probably with Victor. Crying for the puns she will never make to Ed or Oswald.

Those three, do they even realize how important they were in her life? She would have preferred not. But here they were. They knew her better than her parents, both dead many years ago. The three criminals appreciated her as much as they hated her, but always respected her skills, her intelligence and never underestimated her. Never. For that, she wanted to thank them.

Y/N took another wheezing breath. She would have loved to thank Gordon too. How interesting he made the city, how he contributed to change the game for the better and worse. How a good man he was, even with his flaws, and also probably because of them. Because he slowly accepted to acknowledge his dark side. Saves his life, if he didn't, he would have ended like Barnes.

She wanted to make fun of Harvey a last time. Damn, more than 15years making fun of the old cop... Creates links you know? He was like the uncle you want to call to make a prank or the one who, you know, would let you drink like hell even if you're underage and keep it a secret from your parents. Yeah. That kind of guy. She'll miss him.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She slowly tried to reach it. Not quick enough to catch it before it stopped though. Shit. With a shaking hand, she finally managed to pulled it out and turn it to look at the screen. Why did she even bother?

She knew who was calling. And, since for the first time she didn't answer nor sent a text explaining why she wasn't able to, she knew he would immediately call back. And. Oh it started. Track her phone. When it buzzed again, she managed to press the green button.

"Dearest", she wheezed. "Hi."

The deafening silence on the other side of the line made her sigh. He was processing her terrible weak voice.

"Vic. I'm dying." She spoke again. She was never one to wrap thing in sugar and glitters. Both of them knew it and it was one of the reasons he was so fond of her, he told her once.

She heard him take a sudden breath,making her heart clench painfully. She knew what was coming.

"No. You're not."

Denial. Strong denial.

She gritted her teeth and tried to stay awake. Only a few minutes. Just enough to tell him what she had to. As if the gesture would help her to slow the inevitable, she clenched her vest.

"Victor..." She coughs a few times to spit out the blood in her throat and help her to be able to speak again. "... please. Take care of new Gotham..." another painful breathe and cough, "for she... is my legacy".

She was fading. She felt like the time she jumped to make a silly move she had seen in one of her games. But this time nothing will caught her at the end of her fall.

"Don't you dare", she heard him muttering. "Don't you FUCKING DARE Y/N!" and now the yelling. She was destroying him. She knew it. But for the first time, his pain didn't bring any smile on her face. On the contrary, she felt heavy tears roll down her cheeks and swore she was able to hear them crash on the pavement.

"I'm coming, Y/N. And when I'll be there, I'll make you regret making me feel like a fool." He muttered again. Anger and threats his way of coping. Letting him think he was controlling everything, even her death.

Despite her situation she smiled but never stop crying. "You'll have to be... quicker than the devil himself." Her own voice sounded so distant. Maybe he said something but she would never know. It was too late. He will be too late. She took another breath, a strong shaking one. Only to be able to whisper:

"I love you."

She felt her hand letting go of the phone, she heard her arm smashing the ground loudly but felt no pain. She didn’t feel anything anymore. She could only listen. Listen to the distant voice yelling her name from the speaker of her phone. Then, nothing.

Everything went black. She lost the game.

A/N - To be continued?

I hope it was angsty enough for you my dear 🥰💐 have a beautiful day, take care.

#gotham #gotham imagine #gotham x reader #gotham fox #victor zsasz #victor zsasz imagine #victor zsasz x reader #gotham fandom #gotham villains #gotham oc #gotham villain x reader #gotham victor zsasz #Gotham Victor zsasz x reader

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blvckqwz · 1 year

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Shadows (1/?) T.O x OC

TWs: Blood, Violence, Suicidal Thoughts

Leah Hernandez never knew peace.

She’d like to say that she did once, before shit went downhill, but the truth was that her world ended the day she was born. The apocalypse just worsened it, made her act out her worst thoughts, thoughts that hurt herself and other people.

it all started in August, the news of dead people coming back and attacking civilians was quick to spread. But Leah was too focussed on studying and trying to pay her rent to pay attention to what she figured to be fake news.

Until one night one of the infected broke her back door and tried to eat her. That was when she decided that Amarillo, her city, wasn’t a safe option anymore. She didn’t trust the government and their orders, so she was quick to disappear in the woods. Luckily she lived near the border to New Mexico, so she was able to arrive in California before the outbreak became an apocalypse.

Then life took a turn for the worse and took her across the USA border, to Mexico, where she was now. Mexico seemed like a smart idea, at least smarter than staying where she was before, but she quickly realized that she had just signed her death.

A sharp pain in her leg made it quiver before she fell on the ground, snapping away from her thoughts. She lifted the hard fabric of her pants, nearly passing out at the sight of a deep cut going from one side of her leg to the other. The wound was now turning yellow, clearly infected, and made Leah hiss in pain as she tried to cover it with a piece of her shirt. She felt sick to her stomach as she bit her tongue and rolled the piece of clothing around her wound. She had to keep it dry, at least until she found some antibiotics or just a bottle of clean water. But that could take weeks as she was in the middle of nowhere, with very little water and a machete she wasn’t even strong enough to hold anymore as the starvation and the lack of sleep weighed on her shoulders.

She pushed herself up with the little strength she held and started walking again, her skin dry from the burning sun and the mix of sweat, blood and dirt caked on it. She didn’t know whose blood was splattered on her clothes, her skin and her face. It could have been hers or from the people she had lost on her way. Maybe it belonged to the walkers she slayed as she kept walking or maybe it was from the people who tried to get in her way. Or it could be what remained of the walker guts she had to smear on herself to mask herself, a trick she had learnt from an old friend.

All she knew was that it made her sick, the thought of having someone’s dried blood on her. It was wrong, it made her want to peel off her own skin and throw it away. But that was the walkers’ work, she thought with a sigh as she watched a dozen of them walk towards her, their groans making her feel nauseous once again. She tightly gripped to her blade, but it was too heavy and her arms could barely lift it.

I’m already dead, what's the point?

She thought as she lifted her machete just enough to pierce into the first walker’s skull, his blood splashing on her skin.

I should just die already.

Another walker collided with her blade, falling on the ground.

I can’t keep doing this for long.

The horrible splash sound kept repeating over and over as well as her horrible thoughts while a pile of dead walkers started to form around her barely standing figure.

“Drop your weapons.” A low voice commanded as Leah felt a rifle pointed at the back of her head. She was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t hear the jeep that was now parked near her.

“Drop your weapons, ma’m.” The voice repeated, his voice growing inpatient.

Leah stumbled around to meet the ice blue orbits staring at her, the man still pointing his gut at her.

So she did the only obvious thing: she started running.

Adrenaline kicked in for the first time in weeks as she ran past the man, praying that he wouldn’t shoot her as she wasn’t really a threat to him. She was clearly wrong because a second after she started running a rain of bullets came towards her. She started to dodge them, but as the adrenaline eventually started to wash over and the surroundings didn’t offer much repair she had to stop, the shoots stopping a few moments later.

She turned around to face the men that were now advancing towards her, the same man from before leading them.

“Drop your weapons.” He repeated, his rifle pointed at her again.

For a brief second another sick thought flashed in her mind.

Should I slit my own throat before they can catch me alive?

She eventually pushed her idea aside before letting her machete fall on the ground, her eyes still fixed on the man.

Then she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, like something hit her, and everything went dark.

Maybe she should have listened to her intuition and ended her life right then and there.

A/N: First short chapter, hope you like it. I never know how to start a fanfiction so I don't think it turned out to be as good as I had planed but yeah, I'll get better as the chapters go on.

#fanfic #twd x reader #troy otto x oc #troy otto x reader #troy otto #fear the walking dead #ftwd fanfic #ftwd #leah tucci

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thatforgottenbasilisk · 9 months

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Crash and (Don't) Burn

Part 2 of The Phantom of Shinomori Prefecture Series

Words: 3732 (AO3)

Summary:

Fuyumi is reluctantly dragged out to a bar with a few of her coworkers one Friday night, and she expects it to be a noisy-and-somehow-boring evening. She expects it to be kind of a drag. She expects to be home before midnight.

She doesn't expect the sound of tires screeching outside, nor the clearly metal impact. She doesn't expect to hear the thump of someone hitting a hard surface after being sent flying.

She doesn't expect to glance outside in alarm at the sounds to see a car running over Natsuo's motorcycle.

For Whumptober 2023 Day 1, Prompt #3: "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Notes:

this is russian

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

She's crouched in front of him, one hand at the back of his neck and holding his head up, the other positioned in front of his face, with two fingers prominently held up in front of his eyes. His pupils jump around like excitable insects, flying around and bouncing from one spot to the next with no rhyme or reason to be had.

"I don't- I don't- "

Fuyumi sighs, and puts her hand down. She'd figured it was pointless, anyway. She took enough classes in psychology to know around where the vision part of the brain is, and it's right where her other hand is becoming more and more soaked with her brother's blood.

"Natsuo. I need you to calm down, try and match my breathing, okay? In and out, that's it, in and out..." He shakily tries to comply, slowing down his rapid breathing a little at a time. His eyes don't seem to be focusing on anything now that he's calming down, either, and it feels like that might not be fixed as easily as either of them hope it will. That's not to immediately say that all of this is permanent, of course, but this is definitely scaring her a bit. Not that she'll show it.

Fuyumi glances over at Natsuo's discarded helmet near the small pieces of metal and scrap that litter the sidewalk next to them, then at the skid marks in the street, and finally the wreckage of Natsuo's precious motorcycle, lying on its side in the middle of the road. She looks further down the street at where the joyriders- because that's undoubtedly what they are- speed off in their freshly scraped-up car.

She keeps putting pressure on the head wound while she fumbles with her purse with her one free hand, trying to blindly fish her phone out of it without taking her eyes off of Natsuo. When she finally grabs her phone, she nearly drops it on the ground, and she curses herself for the half-empty margarita she left in the bar a few minutes ago. It wasn't much, and she's nowhere near even being tipsy, but every bit of coordination counts right now and she's scared.

Fuck, she's scared.

"I was- I was just parked there for a minute, I was just gonna go- go g-get my takeout- "

"I know, Natsuo, I know, it's not- it's not your fault, you didn't do anything- "

"If I had just kept my helmet on for another minute, I'd be fine- "

"No, you wouldn't have, you'd have still been hit by a car, helmet or no. You're lucky, we're lucky I was here, my coworkers dragged me out tonight, I- we're so lucky. I have to- I have to call the ambulance, okay? Just, um- just keep breathing like you are, don't- don't start hyperventilating again, okay? You can do that for me, right?"

Natsuo tries to nod, she can feel the muscles in the back of his neck jerking before he aborts the attempt- it probably hurts like a bitch. "Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I'm just- I'm gonna close my eyes for a bit, maybe that'll help, not like I need 'em open now anyway... "

Fuyumi almost argues, then decides not to bother. She doubts that he'll fall asleep or anything right now, and closing his eyes would probably be good for the head injury anyway.

She looks at her phone just long enough to dial the emergency number, and then goes back to watching Natsuo. The operator asks her what the emergency is, and she tells them- she tells them where the both of them are, both of their names, and that they need an ambulance as soon as possible. She tells them that her brother was hit by a car and is still awake and talking only because most of the impact was taken by his motorcycle, clipped at a lucky angle. She doesn't say that if the car or the bike were an inch to either side of where they were, Natsuo would probably be dead. She thinks that all three of them know that without her having to voice it.

She tells the operator that Natsuo can still feel his legs, so she doesn't think there's any spinal damage. She doesn't know if he can move them, and she doesn't want him aggravating a potential injury in testing it out. She also tells the operator that he can't see a thing, though she stops talking to them long enough to ask, "Is it- is it super blurry or all dark?"

"All dark right now," Natsuo mumbles, with his eyes still closed.

Fuyumi bites back an exasperated sigh, and clarifies, "When your eyes were open, Natsu."

"It was, um. Don't know. It's real dark out here anyway, I could just be able to see if there was light- I'm not sure. I don't know."

She relays this to the operator as well as she can, and feels the need to clarify- "He's definitely concussed on top of this- "

"No 'm not," Natsuo interrupts, "If I was concussed then lights would hurt to look at. Can't be concussed if I can't see, right?" He cracks the smallest ghost of a smile at his attempted joke, and there's silence for a moment before Fuyumi bursts into abrupt, hysterical laughter. She laughs so hard that she overbalances and has to lean forward, pressing her forehead into Natsuo's chest, and it's not long before her laughter turns to desperate, terrified sobs. She chokes them down quick, though, because she can't scare Natsuo. Not now.

She can hear sirens in the distance, and curbs the impulse to hang up the phone. Instead, she just sets it on the ground, so the line remains open but she can go back to keeping Natsuo focused on the present moment.

"Hey. Hey, open your eyes, the ambulance is coming, they're going to need you to cooperate with them, okay? They're coming, I hear them, can you- can you hear the sirens?" It sounds like there's more than just the ambulance coming, judging by the noise, but maybe that's just her imagination.

Natsuo slowly opens his eyes, which seem no more focused than they were a few minutes ago. He stares listlessly ahead, and asks, quietly,

"Am I gonna die?"

Fuyumi inhales sharply, heart stuttering an even more panicked staccato, when he continues. "It- everything hurts, and I- I can't see, I smell a lot of iron and I can- I can feel the blood in my hair, Yumi. There's a lot of it, there's too much, I- I feel dizzy, I don't wanna pass out because I don't know if I'll ever wake up again- "

Natsuo cuts himself off as he nearly works himself into a panic attack, and Fuyumi puts her free hand over his heart as though to silently say, Calm down.

He takes a few unsteady breaths, and as the sirens grow ever louder, his voice is quiet enough that it's almost inaudible.

"I miss Touya, but not... not this much. I don't wanna see him yet. Is that- is that selfish?"

Fuyumi presses her hand slightly into Natsuo's chest for a moment, and responds, equally quietly, "No. It's not. You're not dying anytime soon, I promise. I promise." She doesn't correct him about Touya. Doesn't tell him about Dabi. Now isn't the time.

She sees red and blue lights reflecting off the windows of the storefronts nearby, most of them closed with the exception of a 24-hour takeout place and the bar that she vacated what feels like ages ago. Nobody's followed her out yet. Maybe they didn't see her.

Maybe they don't care.

She brushes the thought aside, and says to Natsuo, "The ambulance is almost here, I see the lights. You're going to be fine." He has to be fine. She doesn't know if she can handle it, if all her siblings were scarred, mutilated in some way. Shouto was too much. Touya was too much. Throwing in Natsuo would just be cruel.

The ambulance turns a corner, and the EMTs disembark with a stretcher. She stands on fawn's legs when they surround her brother, not wanting to crowd him or get in the way. She thinks she sees someone step on her half-forgotten phone, but she doesn't care.

Police cars trail behind the ambulance, and they park as Natsuo's loaded onto the stretcher. She doesn't recognize any of the officers that get out, but they seem to recognize her, because none of them hesitate to head straight in her direction. Maybe it's the fact that she's the only conscious civilian here, or maybe it's because her hands and arms are all spattered with drying blood.

Somebody walks up to her, a policeman who would be intimidating if it weren't for the fact that he's roughly the size and shape of Natsuo, who, while tall and muscular, doesn't hold a candle to their father. Endeavor is scarier than this man. Endeavor is scarier than anyone.

The officer doesn't say anything to her as he approaches, and maybe it's the shock of the whole thing, maybe it's because she's more distracted by the sight of the EMTs talking to her brother and strapping him to a stretcher, maybe it's both- but whatever the reason, she doesn't notice when, exactly, he handcuffs her.

She only realizes it when he tells her she's under arrest.

-----

"Miss, I suggest that you either sit down and cooperate, or we will have to restrain you further. We are authorized to use quirk suppressant handcuffs, and I do not believe that you want those instead of your current pair. Do I make myself clear?"

Fuyumi finally sits at the chair in the interrogation room, and stares up at the officer in the room with her. She hasn't met him before, and does not recognize him from anywhere before tonight.

"Am I going to get any updates about my brother, officer? I am very worried about him, considering the last time I talked to him was over two hours ago and he was convinced that he was going to die. You'll have to forgive me for being a little out of sorts."

Her breath comes out in little puffs of condensation, because the temperature around her has been steadily dropping without any conscious input on her part. She knows it's her quirk acting up, and so does the officer, most likely, considering the threat of quirk suppressant cuffs instead of anything else they could've threatened her with, such as calling her father.

The officer, for his part, sighs in a kind of exhaustion that she doesn't really believe. "You will learn about his health when we are done here. It will not take that long, so you can stop with the melodramatics and answer the questions that I ask you. Got it?"

It's a little bit funny, she thinks, if it had been Endeavor telling her to quit being "dramatic" she'd have been cowed immediately, but this man saying it just makes her want to hit him. She doesn't, that would be a terrible idea, but it still stokes the impulse in her. Instead, she nods silently, and does not acknowledge the frost that's forming on the surface of the table- only places her handcuffed wrists over the area in hopes that nobody notices before she can thaw it.

"Good. State your name for the record."

She hesitates a moment, glancing at the camera in the corner of the room. Has it been recording this whole time? She hopes that her father won't see it. He won't be happy if he sees that she was disrespectful to the police.

"Todoroki Fuyumi."

The officer nods, and says, "Miss Todoroki, you've been placed under arrest as a precautionary measure, considering that you have a precedent of driving dangerously at late hours of the night. We suspect- "

"You think I did this?" She whispers it, barely a breath, but packed full of a cold rage that even Endeavor would hesitate to provoke further.

The officer has no such self-preservation skills. "Until we get camera footage from the scene of the crime, we are not ruling it out as a possibility."

Anything else he says sounds like it's coming from underwater, drowned out by a sudden ringing in her ears. Do they really think that she would do this? Do they think she's an idiot, or worse, negligent with the safety of her own family? She would never endanger Natsuo like that. Never.

Unless, says a little voice in the back of her head, one that sounds suspiciously like Touya does now, they're using it as an excuse.

They could be. They might want to arrest her for other reasons, maybe they suspect her of something else. She remembers the interrogation not too long ago, about the Lamborghini, it wouldn't be hard for the police to put two and two together and connect that incident to who they've named the Phantom of Shinomori. It wouldn't be hard for them to connect her to their wanted man.

It wouldn't be hard for them to connect her to Touya, either, just one picture taken at the wrong moment, on the wrong night, and she's done for. They both are.

"I want my phone call," she blurts out, interrupting the officer in whatever he's saying now. She wasn't paying attention.

He stops talking and looks like he's about to start getting angry again, so she continues, "I'm under arrest. I get a phone call. I am exercising my right to a phone call." She says it firmly, without leaving room for argument, and waits for a response from the officer.

The man crosses his arms and stands in silence for a moment, before grunting, "Follow me." He seems like he's mad about it. Fine by her.

He leads her into a room with an old phone attached to the wall, the kind where she has to physically push buttons to dial a number instead of tapping at a screen. She figures that her call is probably going to be traced and recorded, no matter who she's calling. That's the question, isn't it? Who she's calling?

She doesn't like the interrogation, so she's glad that she went with her impulse to ask for her phone call, but now she doesn't know who. The way she sees it, there are only two real options, two numbers that she has memorized for emergencies like this one.

Her father's personal cell phone, the number that Natsuo, Shouto, herself and even Touya all have memorized, willingly or not, because it was one of the few things that Endeavor made sure to drill into all of them as children; or, one that was memorized much more recently, out of necessity- Touya's emergency burner phone.

The officer doesn't unlock her handcuffs. She didn't expect him to, but it's an inconvenience nonetheless. At least it gives her an excuse to hesitate, to think, before the man starts getting angry again. She's pretty sure that he doesn't know who her father is, considering the way that tonight has gone, and some snide little part of her thinks that it would be quite funny if the Number One Hero himself showed up to knock the attitude straight out of him.

She can't make her decision based on pettiness, though. She needs to put thought into this, decide if the arrest is legitimately just a precautionary measure that she's being paranoid about, or it really is a cover for questioning her about certain other offenses of hers- namely, association with a member of the League of Villains. Not that she's done anything, really, just drive and talk, but the way she's driven and the things she's talked about, well. They could come back to bite her in a way that Endeavor might not be able to save her from.

She doesn't recognize any of the officers that she's seen tonight. That lends credence to the idea that maybe it really is a precaution, maybe they just don't know her, maybe they haven't connected her to their Phantom at all. In that case, she can call her father and get this all taken care of relatively quickly, provided that he's not with Natsuo already. He might not be, considering that Natsuo had told her that he'd changed his emergency contact to be her instead of Endeavor, so he might not even know about the accident. She should call him, then, and tell him.

She'll call Touya later, then, talk to him one night when driving at speeds that Touya says would make Mom proud, tell him about this whole thing after it's all blown over. He won't take it well, considering that it was Natsu, and if they end up driving around looking for a car with scratches and damage that are consistent with what she saw tonight, then that's what they may do. She can't tell what the future holds. Calling him now would be a bad idea, anyway, too extreme for a possibility that's probably fueled more by her anxiety than anything else. If he came to pick her up, her life as she knows it would be over; no more acting like Shouto's guardian for UA, probably no way of seeing Natsuo or Mom again, not to mention her job would rinse its hands of her quicker than she could say "wait." Driving around like she does is enough of a risk, one that she's only willing to take because of the stress relief it provides, breaking out of jail would not be a good decision if she doesn't want to go scorched-earth with everything that she's made of herself so far.

Fuyumi takes one more glance around, and catches a glimpse out the slightly open door behind the officer who led her in here- passing by, looking like he's trying to sneak a glance inside, is Detective Tamakawa. He's easily recognizable due to his quirk, and the fact that his eyes widen when she accidentally makes eye contact with him.

He recognizes her. This isn't the same precinct that she saw him in last time, when she was interviewed by Detective Tsukauchi, which was the same precinct that Tamakawa had questioned her in about a month beforehand. This isn't Tamakawa's precinct, so he has no reason that she knows of to be here, especially considering the time- it's definitely after midnight by now, judging by how long she's been here and what time it was when she was at the scene of the crash with Natsuo.

She hasn't heard much noise, either. She doubts that anyone else has been booked here in the past few hours, nobody other than her.

This is either the world's greatest coincidence, or the reasoning they gave for the arrest really was just an excuse.

She's not betting her life on coincidences, so she's screwed either way. Fuyumi looks away from the officer in the doorway, and types in the number for Touya's burner phone.

It rings twice before he picks up. He doesn't bother with a greeting, just a simple "Any reason the police station is calling this number?"

Right. He wouldn't know that it's her, he wouldn't know anything about the situation, and she can't risk anybody catching onto who she's talking to until after she's made her escape. She makes an educated guess that nobody nearby speaks much Russian, and thanks her lucky stars that of Endeavor's "successful" children, only Shouto was kept isolated enough from Mom and everybody else that he couldn't pick up Mom's mother tongue.

She's tried to teach him some recently, and he seemed eager to learn, but Natsuo's going to have to pick up the slack from now on.

"Touya. I need transportation out as fast as possible. I think they know I'm in contact with you, and they probably suspect worse."

She hears a sharp intake of breath from the officer nearby when she starts speaking Russian, and his eyes dart to the big black box next to the phone- probably where the recordings are stored. They'll be able to listen to this back and translate it, so she can't be too specific, even in the relative safety of words that aren't Japanese or English.

Touya, her favorite twin brother, catches on immediately. "Give me thirty seconds. We need to get your location. Quirk suppressant cuffs?"

"No."

"Good. That makes this much easier." He hangs up, and Fuyumi numbly puts the phone back on the hook. This is it, then. The end of her life as she knows it, though really, that ended a few hours ago- the moment that car hit Natsuo's bike while he was still on it, everything was over already. She just didn't know it yet.

She sees that Tamakawa is standing still outside the doorframe, and she accidentally makes eye contact with him again. He must see something in her face that the other officer doesn't, because one moment, everything is still, and the next, he's lunging inside. He pushes past the officer by the door, and she backs up a step or two before she has to stop- something disgusting is crawling up her throat and out her mouth, some dark fluid- ah.

Touya works faster than she'd hoped.

Tamakawa reaches a hand out to grab her, maybe try to stop her from teleporting or else hitch a ride with her, but either way he's too late. His hand only grasps at empty air, and then everything's gone black.

It's only for a moment, then she sees her brother standing in front of her, a strange fleshy thing on the table next to him. Looking around, this appears to be some kind of lab, probably has something to do with those Noumus that Touya keeps talking about.

Touya, for his part, smiles in a way that pulls at his skin grafts, causing blood to bead his cheeks and slide towards his chin. He laughs, a little disbelievingly, and starts digging through his pockets.

"Let me find a lockpick and get those cuffs off you. Then you can tell me what happened."

Fuyumi doesn't say anything, just lets him enjoy his happiness while he has it. She doubts that he'll still be smiling when she finishes recounting her evening.

#mha #mha fic #my writing #the phantom of shinomori prefecture series #crash and (don't) burn #crash and (don't) burn fic

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writerartistdreamer · 1 year

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@whumptober @whumptober-archive

Title: Pesky Little Creature

Hello! I decided to write something a bit more light and funny today, after the fics about those two being in captivity or going through stuff. Just a light, fluffy, funny fic of these two adorable beings dealing with a rat in the Dark Castle, to get a few giggles out of you. I've been so busy with uni lately, but I am somehow staying afloat. You can also find this fic on AO3! Enjoy!

Posting day: 11

Prompt day 11: Animal Trap

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Characters: Belle, Rumplestiltskin, rat

Summary: While Belle and Rumplestiltskin are having a conversation in the comfort of the Great Hall, a new little visitor decides to make its appearance- a rat. Tiny bit of chaos ensues

"Rumplestiltskin, what in the hell is that sound?", Belle asked all of a sudden while they were conversing in the Great Hall. A squeaking sound could indeed be heard in the room, yet it didn't seem to be anything of great importance. Still, the sound was coming closer and closer to their table and he noticed his little maid's eyes widen like saucers. A yelp left her lips and she climbed to the top of the mahogany table, frantically pointing to a spot relatively close to it. Another yelp left her lips as the creature moved, her face going pale. When the man's eyes found what terrified her so, giggles errupted from him, finding the situation rather ridiculous.

"A rat, dearie? Is that what makes your bravery waver so?", Rumplestiltskin asked with a playful smirk, arms crossed in front of his chest as he gazed up at her. She remained standing on the table, all the while trying to keep her distance from said rat, biting her lip. The rat moved to stand by the sorcerer's feet for a moment and he instantly stepped back, disgusted sneer on his face. The maid let a laugh as she witnessed everything from the table, noticing the irony of the situation.

"Is that disgust I see, Rumplestiltskin? I thought this to be a silly fear to have" Belle pointed out the irony, smirking victoriously down at him. She would have come down to point it right out to him had she not been so very scared of the grey creature below.

"Yes, well...not the most hygienic beings out there. I can't say they are very pleasing to the eyes, or the rest of the senses, dearie" Rumplestiltskin replied, clearly defeated both by her and by the rat near his feet. As he waved his hand, a rat trap made itself known, ready to take it down and give them some peace. The man came to sit down on the table as he awaited to see if it would take the bait, a piece of cheese, and would be caught in the trap. He silently patted the place next to her and Belle came to sit right next to him, crossing her legs as she didn't want them touching the floor, for fear of the rat somehow reaching her feet and climbing atop them.

So they waited next to one another, watching intently to see it finally get captured. Rumplestiltskin wanted to poof him away, but Belle insisted there was no need to use magic for small tasks that can be accomplished normally, so the compromise was poofing a trap. He noticed her biting her nails anxiously and offered her a cup of tea, refilling it with the brew she had brought out earlier. She accepted it, thanking him, and took a few sips as she waited for the rat to get caught. The two heard the sound of the trap closing in and looked over at one another, before the sorcerer climbed off the table to check if the trap had done its job. Somehow, the cheese was gone, the trap was closed, yet the rat was nowhere to be found. "No luck, dearie"

Belle sighed and remained seated, drinking the cup of tea in one go before pouring herself yet another one. The man smirked and poofed a tiny cage with a slab of cheese awaiting in the middle, then sat back down next to her. "What is a tiny cage going to do? The rat wasn't tricked by your trap initially", she reprimanded with a sigh and let her head lean on his shoulder.

"Well, dearie, any type of movement will be triggering that door right close. The slab of cheese is in the middle, which means the rat will have to walk right in if he wants to get it", he replied victoriously. For a moment, when he felt her touch, he froze solid, his eyes widening, before slowly but surely relaxing and allowing one of his arms to wrap around her middle and hold her by his side comfortably. As they sat together, relaxing in each other's presence, they heard the door of the tiny cage close.

She instantly shot up, looking at him with a hopeful smile before he moved his arm away from her. Rumplestiltskin slowly but surely stepped away from the table and in the direction of the cage and noticed the tailed little creature trapped between the bars, door closed successfuly. He picked the tiny cage up with a victorious smile and showed it to Belle, who let our a sigh of relief. "Finally!", she exclaimed happily.

"Pesky little creature", he spoke impishly, before heading towards the gates of the castle. The gates opened and Rumplestiltskin walked farther away from the steps, then crouched down and opened the cage to let the rat get out and run away from their home to never bother them again. He came back inside, closing the gates behind him with a flick of the wrist, and sat back down next to his little maid, who once again leaned her head against his shoulder, a small comfort she had taken to lately. His arm once again wrapped around her middle and so they rested on the table, able to return to their conversation.

"So, that realm you were telling me about..." Belle reminded him with a small smile and allowed his voice to carry her back to their content little world of stories and conversation.

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averagemafuyukinnie · 2 years

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Hey bro did you hear that Asahina Mafuyu is a second-year student at Miyamasuzaka Girls Academy. She's the lyricist of the underground music circle 25-ji, Nightcord de. going by the alias "Yuki". Mafuyu has dark purple hair with eyes that start at purple and fade to light blue from top to bottom. Her hair is curly, long, and usually kept up in a ponytail that falls over her right shoulder, though not always. Mafuyu’s fringe is fairly long as well, with the middle section falling past her eyes. She has an ahoge that swoops to the right above her fringe, and her face is framed by short, curly strands on each side. Her ponytail is held in an orange hair tie. While Mafuyu’s eyes are usually wide and bright, they will occasionally lose all light and go dead when she is honest with her feelings. This happens most often when the 25-ji, Nightcord de. members meet her in the Empty SEKAI. Mafuyu’s unit outfit is a stylized school uniform, and differs from her Miyamasuzaka Girls’ Academy uniform. It is grey, with long sleeves that fade to black and tipped with grey frills. Her collar is black, outlined in grey, and her butterfly ribbon consists of two ribbons, one black and one blue, tied at the middle. Her choker is black, with a gold charm. Mafuyu’s skirt is long and grey, with two stripes of black near the bottom, and it is covered by two semi-transparent pieces of fabric. The skirt grows longer at the back of the outfit. Her black shoes are heeled, as shown in her 3D model. Her regular school uniform is a lighter shade of grey, with a red butterfly ribbon. Its collar is white with grey stripes. She wears a grey jumper, the shade of grey similar to that of her unit outfit, and her skirt is the same light grey as her shirt. She wears long black stockings. Mafuyu is admired for her smarts, athleticism, and the humble sincerity she shows that keeps any praise for these talents out of her own mouth. She is known to be kind, generous, and considerate, her words always polite and her voice soft and warm. She is difficult, arguably impossible, to anger, for any hesitation she shows that might betray disagreement or displeasure is immediately covered with a gentle "smile". She is someone whom others are not afraid to rely on, and someone whom others often put high hopes on, knowing that she has met expectations before and will continue to do so. To everyone else, Mafuyu is a "good girl." However, to herself and behind the mask, she lacks emotion, empathy and apathy; abandoned by her true self a long time ago, she is desperately searching to find herself once again. Mafuyu’s "true personality" - or, at the very least, the person she is when there is no one else watching - is considerably more cold and blunt. Her voice is dull and her face is flat, both holding no feeling for she has none to show. She speaks few words, and the words she does speak tend to be no more than what is needed. The polite consideration she is expected to have, that colors the sentences she crafts for others, is nowhere to be heard. While she is not pleasant or "good," she is honest - as honest as she has the capacity for. It’s only within her cold honesty are her true feelings, her true self, given the slightest chance to show themselves, and the other members of 25-ji, Nightcord de. recognize this in their willingness to offer a space where she can be "rehabilitated." After the incident in the Empty SEKAI, as well as the doll exhibit, Mafuyu is encouraged to say what she is truly feeling—or, at least, to try—as long as she is talking to the Nightcord members. To be whoever she feels she is in that very moment, to the best of her ability, and this allows Mafuyu the opportunity to see what it’s like to exist in a space without pressures of what she should and should not do. She no longer assumes the expectation of her warm, gentle voice from the outside world, and instead forgoes pleasant smalltalk for short, flat responses when she is spoken to, seldom speaking herself. She rarely states her opinions, as she doesn’t have many to give, rarely making any decisions

omh its the mafuy!!! thank u for telling me bro

#askss

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starlightxsvt · 3 years

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3 dates | c.sc

pairing ➳ badboy!Seungcheol x female!reader

genre ➳ badboy au, romance, some fluff, angst, bad attempt at humour, gets spicy at the end.

word count ➳ 12.4k+ (i have NO idea how this became so long so strap in for a ride)

warnings ➳ cursing, mentions of killing, mentions criminal activities, slight violence(non explicit), smoking, ma man Seungcheol ain't your typical badboy, self doubt, blackmailing, reader does all sorts of risky things cuz she's a SIMP, blood(nothing explicit), kissing, marking, some breast worshipping, grinding, reader is horny lol. (Please lemme know if I forgot anything.)

synopsis ➳ after one fateful encounter with him you cannot get him out of your head. so you opt to do some crazy things to catch his attention and even snag a few dates with him. only trouble is he isn't the type to stay after the whole disposition is over.

Swirling the third drink in your hand you heave yet another depressed sigh. You are so tired that you feel like you can just slump on the counter and pass out. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to stop for a drink, you alcohol riddled brain thinks.

The plans you had with Katelyn was cancelled last moment; she called to tell you that her thesis submission date was moved forward and so she couldn't hang out with you tonight. You're in the middle of an existential crisis quite literally, the too many part time jobs yet still lack of money and copious amounts of study getting to you. Staring hard at your drink you contemplate if it is worth giving up on college and your dream of becoming an arts major. It sure feels tempting right now, the long hours at the diner and not enough sleep at night proving to be the worst nuisance.

Sighing you put down your drink. It's still early, you should go home and try to catch up on the much needed sleep. You really had no intention of grabbing a drink tonight; you have morning classes tomorrow but you made a last moment decision to stop for a drink on your way back home. You didn't take your usual route to home today, and while trudging through the streets tiredly you came across this bar called Seventeen's. You've heard stories about this place, how it is the home to local gangs and how it's bad people's turf and what not. Your curiosity, probably too much of that made you get inside for a drink even though all the bones in your body ached. The inside is what you expected, nowhere near fancy but dingy, just decent enough. The people inside didn't look friendly and if the chains and tattoos on them gave any indication you'd say the rumours are true; this is the turf of gangs. The drinks taste decent, not the best but not the worst and from the overall look of this place you don't really have a reason to come back.

You're about to stand up from your stool when a large, clammy hand grabs your wrist out of nowhere, making you jump. "Hey sexy, sit down. Let me buy you a drink," the owner of the hand, a large, tattooed middle aged man slurs making your nose scrunch out of disgust. You're wearing nothing that can be called sexy; a plain cardigan and jeans and the way he looks you up and down makes you want to poke his eyes out.

You really shouldn't have come here. Clenching your jaw, you meet his eyes, "What makes you think I'm interested to have a drink with you?"

"Oh come on, why would you be here then, lookin' all nice? Just sit down," the man drawls, an ugly smile on his face. He still hasn't let go of your wrist and it's making you impatient. Looks like you're gonna have to kick his balls tonight. Maybe the self defense classes didn't completely go to waste.

"Get your disgusting hands off me while I'm being nice, sleazeball," you hiss at him, trying to get his hand off. The man stands up growling, "What did you say you bitch?" You're preparing to break his nose when out of nowhere a punch lands on his face that sends him tumbling to the ground. The attacker gets on top of him and twists his arm and you can literally hear a bone snap.

Shit.

"I think she said she is not interested," the man hisses, landing yet another another hit on his face before kicking his groin and getting up. When he turns around and his eyes meet yours, your heart skips a few beats and you almost The man is drop dead gorgeous, someone you would not expect to see here but probably on the cover of a high end magazine. His blond hair is long, crossing the nape of his neck as well as some covering his forehead. What takes your breath away the most is his eyes, the most beautiful pair you've ever seen. They seem to have their own galaxies in them, so deep and mesmerising and decorated with lashes long enough to make you jealous. His dress up, black jacket and jeans, immediately tells you what he is; a gang member.

"You should get home, lady," He speaks in a no nonsense tone, his face cold as ice. But you're offended. "Excuse me? Who are you calling lady? You make it sound like I'm old." You puff your cheeks and cross your arms, trying to appear intimidating. "Besides I had the situation under control, you didn't need to butt in." The man keeps looking at you with that no nonsense look, his features displaying annoyance if you are right and he's clearly not intimidated. The dude on the floor grunts and makes an effort to get up, only to be kicked by your saviour once more. "Hey Mingyu, get him out of here. What was this piece of trash doing here anyway?" The man orders to someone before turning to look at you, "Do you live far?"

"Uh- no, a ten minutes walk from here maybe," you reply unsurely, surprised at his question. The blond haired man nods before grabbing your wrist, "I'll walk you home. Hurry up, lady." You have a feeling he's purposely calling you that and though you start following him out of the bar, you make grunts of protest.

"Oh yeah, why? Trying to find out my address? So you can come later and hurt me like that guy?" You would not be this brazen if it wasn't for the alcohol in your system, after all the man next you isn't a friendly one if the rumours are true. The man raises a brow at you, "Did you do something that requires me to beat you up?" You hiccup at his serious tone. Does he not get a joke? He lets go of your hand now that you're at a safe distance from the bar but still stays close enough to you as your steps are rather stumbling and messy. You aren't fully drunk but your body is tired and feels like will shut down any second.

You really need some sleep.

"You know I'm not that drunk. You don't have to walk me home." You complain. "I'm walking you home because this isn't a nice place you should be alone at night. What happened earlier could happen again." He says not looking at you. "Mhmm," you keep on trudging behind him, "Thank you so much for your kind gesture, sir." You mock him but he doesn't reply, staring straight ahead, completely ignoring you as he walks quietly. In silence you two walk the rest of the path, before finally stopping as your apartment comes into view. At this point it feels like your bones will break and you will plop down on the concrete any second, but you manage to keep standing. "Well, thanks for walking me home." You shift your weight from one foot to another. "And for helping me back there." He shrugs coolly, a bored expression on his face. He's turning to walk away when you call, "Hey- I didn't get your name."

"What do you need it for?" He side glances at you. You shrug, "I don't know. You helped me so I thought it'd be nice to know your name." "You don't need to. Go inside, lady." He says, his tone final and starts marching away. You wait a couple moments before yelling, "Asshole!" and quickly rushing inside your building, partly afraid he's gonna come back.

You won't be surprised if you get killed tonight.

"So you are telling me Choi Seungcheol walked you home?" Katelyn screams in your ear, jolting up from her seat, earning glares from other people at the library in the process. "That's his name?" You whisper-yell, grabbing her hand to pull her back down. "I'm guessing from the blond hair you said," Katelyn shrugs. "Uh huh." You mean back in your chair, "He was hot though."

"Is that seriously all you have to say?" Katelyn whines exasperatedly. "No, I mean, if it wasn't for the way he dresses or talks I would have thought he's a model or something." You murmur.

"Are you sure he didn't hurt you?" Katelyn questions. "Hell no!" You frown. "He saved me from that creepy old dude. I was surprised too. I wish I didn't drink so much, I could have gotten a better look at his face," you sigh. "Seriously?" Katelyn raises a brow at you.

"Girl, you should have seen him. His aura and the way he carried himself was...so hot." You grin to yourself. Katelyn watches you like you've grown two heads. "Are you trying to tell me you have a crush on that gangster?" You smile sheepishly, "Maybe, I mean it's harmless. He was broody yet charming and I'm a girl so.... Also, it's not like he likes me too and is gonna come running whenever I ask him to bang me." You mutter.

"Oh he's gonna break your bones and bang your skull against a wall. That's what he's gonna do."

"Come on! Maybe he isn't so bad. Maybe the rumours are just rumours. Maybe he just looks intimidating and dresses up like that and people thinks he's a gangster." "Really? His name is on every bad thing that happens around here. From illegal racing to murders. Do you know that people say he has killed too?" "Like I said, rumours," you shrug being your stubborn self. Katelyn holds her hands up in surrender, "You know what? It doesn't matter. I'm glad you're alive so let's just put this behind us, shall we?" You don't reply but wiggle your brows at her, a conspirational look on your face. "Oh no, don't look at me like that," Katelyn warns. "Let's go to that bar tonight. Please?" You give her your best puppy eyes. "What are you? Fucking crazy? You wanna get killed?" She whisper-yells, scowling at you. "No. I just wanna take another look at him. Without the alcohol in my system you know. Besides, the place isn't that bad." You reply.

"Well then get killed by yourself. I'm not coming with you."

"I'll help you with your papers for the rest of the semester."

"Shit."

"Well, looks like your wish won't be coming true," Katelyn muses chugging down her fourth glass as you keep playing with your first one. It's nearing an hour since you've come to the bar and there has been no sign of the man you desperately seek. The place is exactly like it was the other day, filled with people who you wouldn't want to mess with.

Yet here you are.

"Let's call it a night," Katelyn sighs. "We're just wasting our time." You know that too but you don't want to leave; not just yet. You are well aware that this is just pathetic but you've this crazy urge to see that man once again. You don't know why you feel this way; you never felt like this before. Why are thinking yourself to death about a complete stranger? Has some kind of spell been casted on you?

"Yeah, let's get going," you murmur half heartedly. You help your friend stand up as she's a little wobbly on her feet and together you make your way through the door. "Should we call a cab?" You ask Katelyn. She shakes her head no and you nod, you arms wrapped around hers to support her in case she looses her balance. You start stepping away from the bar and towards the road to her place until a noise from behind makes you stop in your tracks.

"Did you hear that?" You ask, whipping your head behind. There's no one around and the street is mostly dark other than the light flashing from the name of the bar. You hear the sound once again and this time you can locate where it's coming from. There's an abandoned playground at the back of the bar and you've a feeling that's the source.

Katelyn hisses as she sees you step towards there. "What are you doing!"

"Didn't you hear that?"

"Yes I did. That's why I say we leave!" You ignore her and cautiously keep on stepping forward, mentally cursing yourself for wearing heels. Katelyn follows behind you murmuring all kinds of warnings. "You know curiosity killed the cat, right?" She whispers.

You roll your eyes, "Well I'm not a cat. Just- be quiet. It can be nothing." You both move past the bar gingerly and towards the playground at the back. There are old gallons of oil and abandoned materials just around the corner and you two quickly hide among them. It takes you a while to get adjusted to the low light after you poke your head up from the hiding spot.

You're eyes fix on him immediately. His blond hair makes him easily recognisable amid the darkness. There is a few more people around him, all kicking something in the ground. Not something, but someone. The man lying on the ground groans in pain and you realize this is what you both heard. "Shit," You hear Katelyn curse from beside you. "We need to get going." Instead of replying, you keep your eyes trained on the scene unfolding, holding your breath. You're tranced. Seungcheol lands continuous punched on the guy laying below him and after a moment his writhing frame seems to stop moving as it falls limp.

Fuck.

"You know in movies this is the part where people get caught." Katelyn whispers, her voice hoarse and her hand clutching yours in a tugging motion. "Uh-huh. But I can't seem to move. I wonder if he's... really dead." You whisper back. "Are you fucking crazy!" She hisses. "You wanna witness murder?"

Before you can reply you hear a sound that echoes through the empty field and it takes a second for you two to realise that it came from any one of you two. You don't have the time to figure out who made it as you both are crawling away from the playground without looking back, head crouched low to avoid being seen. You don't know if they heard that or if they're coming behind you, you both just keep scrambling, moving until you're past the corner. As soon as possible you both get on your feet and run like the grim reaper is chasing you, stopping only when you are far enough from the bar.

"I am never listening to you again!" Katelyn yells.

It's been a good few days since your near death experience and you somehow find yourself in front of that bar once again. You and Katelyn have not brought up that incident after that night. You made yourself believe that it was over and came to a conclusion that it is better to forget that man and leave all of it behind, no matter how much your heart disagreed. But it's easier said than done; you may not mention him out loud but in the back of your mind you think of him. He's like a ghost, haunting you all the time, plagueing your thoughts when you go to bed at night. It felt like he was ever existent and there was an itch in your heart that drove you insane.

Maybe that's why your subconscious brought you here, in front of Seventeen's, once again. You were on your way back home from library and you thought you took your usual route, until you realized you were standing in front of that place. But what is even terrifying is that the man haunting your mind stands in front of the entrance of the bar and you blink a few times to make sure you are not hallucinating. He's leaned against the entrance door, cigarette between his lips and from his pocket he fetches a lighter to light the poison in his mouth.

Damn, lighting up a cigarette never looked this sexy.

He hasn't seen you yet and you contemplate running the other way. That's the sensible thing to do but you, not being a sensible person, start walking towards him. Your footsteps make him look up and notice you and like the last time, there is no expression on his face. It's the same bored yet handsome face except now in daylight you can take a better look at him and this time, you notice a little mole on the left of his face, by his nose. Realising he's gonna stay silent you decide to speak, "Hi... It's me... Do you remember me?" Wow. That's such an intelligent thing to ask.

With the monotoned yet serious expression on his face, he goes, "Why won't I? I don't have Alzheimer's."

So he can joke.

You laugh, an awkward, probably exaggerated laugh. "What are you doing here? Did you not learn your lesson last time?" He cuts to the chase, his voice brassy and deep, almost threatening. You want to roll your eyes. "Who are you to say? I can be wherever I want whenever I want, thank you very much." "Well then, have fun getting in trouble like last time." He's nonchalant as he blows a smoke right past you and stands up straight, turning away. "Wait!" You almost grab his hand, desperate to stop him.

What is wrong with you? Your subconscious slaps her forehead. What are you holding him back for? To say 'hello sir, I think you're hot, can you please put your dick inside me'? Seungcheol turns his head back, his eyebrow cocked up.

Why do you find everything about him so attractive?

"Um...I know your name, Seungcheol." You speak, trying to sound intimidating, like knowing his name gives you some power over him. There's something definitely wrong with you which is why you don't want him to leave just yet and which is why you're stalling time. But it seems to have done the job as he pulls the cigarette out of his mouth and turns towards you, an annoyed look on his face. "How do you know that?" The timbre of his tone is deep and it rakes shivers down your spine. "Well, you've built quite a reputation for yourself so it isn't hard to get your name." You shrug coolly. "Well, if you know so much about my reputation, you should know what I'm capable of." His lone is low, almost threating as he starts to take slow steps towards you making you step back out of reflex.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe you will also end up like the curious cat.

"Oh yes, I know. People have got a lot to say about you," you try to sound unfazed, not meeting his eyes that you feel are burning holes on your face. "What are you doing here, lady?" he asks slowly, pausing between each word and glaring at you as he continues to step forward. You can feel his patience thinning.

"I swear to God if you call me that-"

"What are you doing here?" This time his tone is scary, too scary. It makes you lose the ability to speak for a second as his dark gaze bores into you. He has backed you up against the wall behind you and you swallow. Right, what are you doing here? It probably has something to do with a very hot individual and his insanely attractive aura. Scratch that you are a hundred percent sure it has something to do with the blond haired, enticing man in front of you. He's driving you mad and you need to get your fill of him.

"Go out with me," you state and you are sure you've never spoken words more stupid than that. Internally, you cringe and pray that the ground below you would open and take you straight to the fiery pits.

This is the first time you see some sort of expression come across his face; surprise. He looks utterly shocked and somewhat confused. His mouth opens just a little and he squints at you, "What?"

There's no going back now.

"Go out with me. Let's go on three dates." you say once more, looking him in the eye. He seems to appear even more surprised, a dumbstruck look sitting on his face. He observes you quietly for a while and you can feel the gears in his head shifting. You wonder what he's gonna say next. Or maybe he won't say anything but bang your head on the wall and leave you to die alone. "I'm sorry I'm not following," he looks genuinely perplexed. "I want to go on three dates with you. They say after three dates you can figure out whether you like that person or not and I think I like you so..."

I think I like you.

The biggest understatement of the year.

Seungcheol tilts his head, an amused expression on his face as he studies you, those sharp eyes of his settling on yours, "What is your deal, sweetheart?" He crosses his arms, a brow raised. Sweetheart? That's new. And definitely better than lady. You can't deny how hearing him call you that makes your insides melt. "Nothing. I just want to date you," you shrug, trying to keep your wits together. His proximity is driving you wild; you can sniff a faint smell of cologne and cigarette, him being inches away from you. This time he laughs loudly, a mocking laugh you'd say. "Who sent you?"

Oh my god.

You roll your eyes. "Nobody sent me! Do I look like I'm a gang member or something?" "Then I don't see a reason why you'd want to date me," He states, throwing a challenging look at you.

"What if I said I have a thing for bad boys?"

He snorts. "You don't look the type to date bad boys," he mocks. "Who are you to say that?" You cross your arms. "I want to date you because I think you're hot, okay?" You can not believe you just said that. Looks like you don't have control over your mouth anymore. Warmth spreads throughout your face like a forest fire.

Seungcheol narrows his eyes on you, his tongue poking his cheek as he stands in front of you as if trying to read your mind. After a beat he sighs before looking at you, his eyes becoming darker than usual and his gaze unforgiving. "Hey. Does it look like I'm playing house here? Do you have any idea about the shit I do? The dirty work I do? I don't care if you have a fucking fetish or whatever but this is the last time I'm warning you. I don't want to see you around again. If I see you here once more, you're in fucking trouble," he spits and starts stomping away. His tone is serious and you know very well he is not joking, which is why you use your last resort. You're embarrassed at yourself for being so desperate but at the same time you feel shameless. It has almost turned into a game at this point, you want to make him surrender. That's right, you want him to give in. "You shouldn't be like that with me. I saw you, a few days ago. That night, when you and your friends were beating up that guy...in the playground," you casually stroll to come stand right behind him.

You can't believe you are blackmailing a gangster. Your death must be near.

Seungcheol whips his head back, his eyes glaring at you and you can almost see fire in them. Finally, you got his attention.

"My friend also saw it, we both did. You killed him, didn't you? Me and my friend witnessed a murder. What do you say? Should we go to the station?" You can see his jaw clench and you can't hold back a victorious smirk. Moments pass by as your words hang in the air and the tension between you gets thicker. Yet once more he surprises you, breaking the silence with a chuckle, "Well I killed one person, what makes you think I can't take care of another?"

You swallow.

"Well, my friend already knows so if I go missing you can be sure that the cops will come to you first." You throw back at him.

When did you get so wreckless?

Seungcheol stares at you for a few more seconds before shrugging and moving his hand dismissively, "Well then go tell the cops. I don't give a shit." He starts walking back to the bar leaving you starstruck. He stops and turns towards you before opening the door, "Also, I meant it. I hope I don't see you around. Otherwise I may just have to hurt that pretty face."

You don't show up after that.

Mostly because you are embarasssed.

It's been a good while after your last encounter with Seungcheol and you didn't go to the police, obviously. Because you don't have evidence and from what you've heard Seungcheol is pretty influential around here and you don't need to go to an extent to get on his bad side. You're definitely gonna end up dead if you do so, which you don't want just yet.

Classes have just finished and you and Katelyn step out of the classroom together, walking through the hallways and into the main campus. She rambles on about some bad sushi she ate yesterday while your mind remains preoccupied. Maybe you need to get laid. Maybe that'll make you forget about Seungcheol. You just need good dick that's probably why you were so desperate for him.

That's just a stupid lie.

You don't realise Katelyn is calling you until she shakes you by the shoulder and you snap back into reality. You notice her face is as pale as a ghost and following her line of sight your eyes stop on him.

Him. Seungcheol.

What?

You double take, blinking furiously to confirm your vision. He's standing there, in the parking area of your uni, leaned against a convertible Ferrari, a cigarette between his lips. He looks relaxed, like he does this regularly. Students whisper in each others ear while gawking at him curiously. "What did you do!" Katelyn yells. "Nothing!" You hiss back.

"Then why is he here!"

"I don't know!"

Your eyes meet with Seungcheol's and a smirk spreads across his face making you shiver. He stands up straight and tilts his head, an indication for you to come closer to him. "Fuck, he's here for me," you mumble. "Of course he's here for you, dumbass," Katelyn snaps. "Well, if I don't return, you know who killed me." You sigh starting to walk towards him. "Wait- you're going with him?" She asks incredulously.

"Don't worry. I'll keep my phone on. I don't think he's gonna murder me, I mean there are so many witnesses." You inhale deeply, leaving behind a lost looking Katelyn.

Seungcheol says nothing as you stand right in front of him raising an inquisitive brow but he only holds open the door for you to get in. Deciding to follow him you enter the car quietly and a wave of gasps go through the crowd.

There's gonna be talk about this tomorrow.

Seungcheol, still smirking victoriously for some reason rounds the car and gets inside and within seconds you're hitting the road. There's a thick silence for a while, which feels like ages to you. You're overwhelmed, bewildered to say anything; your poor brain still processing what is happening. You're nervous, jittery as you fiddle with you bag and look out on your side, for some reason scared to look at him.

What if he really kills you? He wouldn't, right?

"You're awfully quiet," Seungcheol says matter of factly as he spares you a glance while driving.

"I'm... processing."

"What are you, a robot?"

"Why are you doing this?" You question instead.

"Doing what?"

"Okay, you know very well what I mean. Why are you picking me up from uni all of a sudden? How do you even know I'm a student there?" "I have resources and...you didn't protest at all. You came along nicely," Seungcheol raised a brow at you, a cocky smile on his lips. You don't answer but continue to stare at him, trying to pin him down with your gaze. He finally sighs and pulls the car to a stop by the side of the road, the sudden brake making you slightly jerk in your seat. "I've decided to give you those 3 dates. That's why," He is calm, unreadable and you wonder if this is a prank. Then again, he has no reason to prank you, does he? "Really?" Your voice comes out breathy. "Yes. I thought I'd give you a taste of how it feels to be with someone like me. I can scare people without physically hurting them you know," He says in a menacing tone.

"So what? You're taking me to an underground fight or something?" You question. "Nah, we're keeping it simple today." He smirks as he starts the car again and turns on the radio, an indication that he doesn't want to converse anymore.

Shamelessly you take a good look at Seungcheol; he's dressed in another jacket today paired with a black tee underneath. Today, you notice he has upped his accessory game, his fingers full of rings and chains dangling from his neck. But what catches your attention is a tattoo, something like a dragon and words written in a language you don't understand, peeking from underneath his sleeve. You almost ask about it but decide it'll probably be too much and he wouldn't answer you anyway.

As you do so, in the back of your mind you think you should have dressed better, something cuter, more appropriate for a date rather than a plain blouse and jeans. But then again who knew Choi Seungcheol was gonna show up out of the blue. You're gnawing at your lower lip, lost in your thoughts when the car is pulled to a halt and you realize your ride is over. You're parked in front of a diner called Lacy's and from the vibe that the place is giving, you can tell that this is place where people like him hang out. You raise a questioning brow at Seungcheol who says, "I know it doesn't look fancy but trust me I has some of the best food I've ever eaten." Taking his words for now you quickly type out a text to Katelyn letting her know you're in one piece and get out of the car.

Once you're seated you look around the place which is relatively empty except some men playing pool at the far end. You watch Seungcheol who has gone to the reception booth to place your orders; his posture relaxed as he leans against the counter and talks to the girl standing there. They seem to know each other because their chat takes longer than it should and the girl has a shy, almost flirty smile on her face.

He probably fucks her.

You shake the thought off your head as the gangster comes back and sits in front of you. There's silence for a second as you wonder if you should just ask the questions that run free around your mind. "Are the rumours true?" You blurt out. He's raises a brow.

"About you. You know..."

"Do you want them to be true?" He asks back. "I don't...know," you reply. "Well, I think it depends on each person. If you want it to be true it is true, if you don't it isn't," he shrugs, leaning back in his chair. "Why don't you just give me a straight answer?" you snap. He smirks as if he's having fun but doesn't reply, watching you with his arms crossed. You roll your your eyes, blowing out an exasperated breath. "You know, I haven't seen one like you. Willingly hanging out with dangerous people, going to dangerous places. You say you saw me kill someone yet you're here. You're almost desperate to get in trouble," he observes. "I'm not desperate to get in trouble. I just...I'm just- attracted to you alright?" This is so embarrassing. You need to shut your mouth. "You've been on my mind ever since that night. I wanna see exactly how deep I'm into you." You bite your lip.

That's enough. You will boost his ego through the roof like this.

Seungcheol studies you for a bit before grinning cockily, "Well, if you didn't know, I am trouble baby. Just you being with me might end you up in a mess." Before you can reply, your food is served, that same girl from the booth setting down your plates and looking at Seungcheol for a bit too long with that same stupid smile which he returns. You don't know why but you feel jealous, jealous of whatever these two share, whatever she has with him.

You've lost your mind at this point. You're on a high that is Seungcheol. He has made you forget your morals, made you completely lose your mind. Or maybe you've been too good all your life and seeing him brought out that crazy, thrill seeking part of yourself.

Silently you dig into your food and as Seungcheol said, the food is really good. This is one of the best meatloaf you've ever had and you can't help but moan. Seungcheol watches you with an amused smile before popping a fry in his mouth.

"What's your major?" Seungcheol asks out of the blue.

"Uh- sociology."

"Mmhmm."

You're about to ask him what he studied in college but you assume he probably never went to one so you seal your lips. You wonder what his background is and who his parents are but you don't want to get too personal on the first day. So you ask something else, "How old are you?" He laughs out loud before he deadpans, "Thirty five." "What!" You almost choke.

There's no way he's-

"Why? What did you expect?"

"I... I don't know! A few years older than me? You're kidding right? You don't look thirty five." He has to be bluffing. "And how old would you be?" "You shouldn't ask a woman her age," you try to make a point. "Don't you have any manners?" He smirks,"I don't, sweetheart. To answer your question, I'm twenty eight."

Uh huh.

"Well, I'm twenty one," you mutter under your breath. You don't know if he hears it because he doesn't give any reaction, busy twirling a fry in sauce. The rest of your meal is full of silence as you wonder if your date will end like this; dry and boring. He's awfully silent and seems to be lost in thoughts as he doesn't engage in a conversation. You're about to take your last bite when the silence is broken by him.

"What did you see that night?" He leans over, his elbows resting on the table as he suddenly regards you with a sombre look, his earlier cockiness vanished. His eyes have once again gone dark and his demeanor says he's not being superficial right now. You're caught off guard as you cough loudly, reaching for your glass to take a sip of water. "What?"

"You heard me. What did you see that night? Exactly how much did you see?" He repeats. You're confused. You thought he didn't care about it. He said it didn't matter. So why is he bringing it up now? You've worked hard to push that night in the deepest part of your brain, pretending it didn't happen.

And then suddenly it clicks.

"You!" You point an accusatory finger at him as you catch on to his plan. "You've agreed to go out with me so that you can find out what I saw that night!" Seungcheol groans, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Ugh, just fucking tell me!" He snaps, annoyed that you've found out his little scheme. You scoff, "I thought you said you didn't care? Besides it's not like I'm going to tell the police." He rolls his eyes and leans back into the couch. "Just tell me and let me go."

You're baffled. His actions didn't make any sense and you actually thought he had no other intentions behind dating you but holy shit this sneaky bastard. "You sly little asshole!" You hiss at him. "Call me that once more and you'll regret it." He threatens. You roll your eyes sagging back into your seat, "Whatever." Then an idea hits you. "You know what, I'll tell you exactly how much I saw that night." You have Seungcheol's full attention now as he stares intensely at you, waiting for your next words. "On our third date. When this whole deal is over, I'll tell you. But in return you'll have to keep your promise and take me out on two more dates."

"Oh fucking hell," he groans rubbing his face in frustration. His state makes you smirk and you feel accomplished.

Choi Seungcheol is stressed because of you.

What a day to be alive.

You murmur, "Besides this isn't even a proper date. This was more like an interrogation. But I'll go easy on you and won't make you redo this date." You give him a sweet smile and he sees red. You can literally see fury blaze in his eyes. "Whatever!" He yells and abruptly stands up. "I don't have time for this. Your stupid play date is over. I'm dropping you home."

Before you can reply, he's marching towards the door. You've to admit this wasn't the best date but at least you've trapped Choi Seungcheol.

It has been a good week after your so called date at the diner and you haven't heard from him. You expected him to call or text you since he was gracious enough to ask for your number but he didn't. You now realize it was a mistake to not get his number; you had asked him for his when he took yours but being the prick he is he denied to hand over his number to you. You should have forced him to, you sigh. As you sit in the library the ping of your mobile distracts you from your racing thoughts as you realize you have a message. Picking the device up you tap on the notification. Even though it was from an unknown number, you have no trouble figuring out who it is from. A smile graces your lips as you read the words over again.

I'll pick you up from your house tomorrow evening at six.

That's all it says and that is good enough to send a thrum of excitement throughout your body.

You have not held back in dressing up today and you realize it's been a long time since you've dolled up yourself. A long before the clock strikes 6 you are ready; dressed in a cute pastel top and a matching skirt. You've also went ahead and applied makeup, not too much but just enough to maybe catch his eye. Maybe.

You wonder what he has planned for today.

A text from Seungcheol saying he's here has you flying out of your apartment as fast as your feet can carry your desperate self to see him. He stands in front of your apartment with his convertible, dressed in a white jacket that matched his pants. You take a deep breath before walking towards him, trying to calm all your nerves down.

"You know I expected to hear from you earlier. I've been waiting all week," you voice makes his head turn around to meet your eyes as you are skipping towards him with a teasing smile in your face. "I've been busy," he shrugs coolly, his eyes going over your whole body, from your legs to your face. He doesn't hide that he's taking a good look at you, in fact does it unashamedly.

You wonder if he likes what he sees.

Someone dressed up today," he comments. "Too bad we aren't going to a place where you can show off your pretty clothes." You frown, "Where are we going?" Seungcheol holds open the door, a mischievous smile on his face. "I've decided to grant your wish." With a confused face you get inside the car, the gears in your head running. What does he mean?

"I'm taking you to an underground fighting ring," he says with smirk as he reaches for something behind his seat. He pulls out a large hoodie and tosses it towards you, "Put this on. Otherwise you are going to attract a lot of attention and you don't want that." You gulp, taking the hoodie and putting it on you. You're slightly embarrassed. You were so excited to try this outfit but it's not like you knew he was taking you to a fight club. Hell you would have dressed like a guy if you knew. You shrug on the hoodie and it falls almost to your knees but it's huge and comfy and most importantly it smells like him. There's a hint of cologne, nothing too strong; a subtle, expensive scent that makes you want to take a deeper sniff. You wonder if you can keep this with you.

Stop it, pervert.

Seungcheol's voice pulls you out of your haze, "You can take it off later. Just wear it until we're out of there," he says and brings the engine to life.

Then you actually think about it. Underground fighting ring? Holy shit. You were only kidding when you mentioned it. Admittedly, you're shocked, somewhat horrified. Everyone knows it isn't the best place to be at especially for someone like you who never had such an experience. Seungcheol must have seen your expression because the smile on his face gets bigger, "Why? You not up for it?" His voice is teasing.

He's challenging you.

Oh well.

"Of course I'm up for it," you square your shoulders, keeping your voice cool. "Bring it on."

Seungcheol leads you into a bar and then through a door at the back that leads down to a lot of stairs, reaching a place similar to an underground parking lot. Quietly you follow Seungcheol, staying as close to him as possible, your bodies occasionally touching. He leads you to a pair of double doors and from the other side you can hear men shouting and chanting.

This is it, I guess.

Seungcheol throws one more smile at you before pushing open the doors as you scramble to follow him closely. The sight that greets you something you only see in movies. There's a boxing ring where two people are throwing punches at each other and surrounding them from all sides is a wild, loud and excited crowd. They continue to cheer loudly as the two men in the ring continue to box and you hear their grunts and groans.

Holy shit.

Swallowing your eyes meet Seungcheol's who is regarding you with curiosity. "What do you think?" He has to speak loudly for you to hear over the screaming throng. "Uh... It's loud," you say dumbly as you try to think of a reply. But it's too loud for you to even think properly as you take in your unfamiliar surroundings. You see a tall man approaching towards you and out of reflex you shuffle closer to Seungcheol until you realize it's his friend. The guy from the first night. He and Seungcheol grin at each other, patting their backs as they talk close to each others ears. You gawk at them curiously and realize they must be talking about you because his friend takes curious glances at you occasionally. His friend is tall, really tall and well built but unlike his body his face is sweet and puppy like, almost cute. When he grins his canines pop up just like a puppy and you wonder if all his friends are good looking.

After he's done chatting with his friend Seungcheol pulls you close and says, "This is my friend. Mingyu. Always stay near him, you hear me? Don't stray away unless you wanna get hurt." His eyes are stern as he pins you down with his stare but you have other thoughts running in your head.

"What do you mean? Where are you going?" You yell over the noise.

He just smirks at you and starts taking his jacket off. "About time you see how we do it around here." His tone is cocky as he hands his jacket to you, "Hold this for me. And stay close to him."

Giving a look at Mingyu Seungcheol starts walking away towards a door that you're guessing is the changing room.

He's gonna fight.

"Wait- but-" Mingyu stops you with a hand on your shoulder and offers you a kind smile. "It's fine. Just stay with me." He then ushers you towards the crowd, spotting a place where you can get a good look at the ring. "Do you guys do this often?" You look up at Mingyu. He smiles sheepishly, "Not me. I tried a few times and I always end up beaten to a pulp. But hyung does this often, he's really good."

"Uh huh, I'm sure he is," you smile dryly. "This is your first time watching a fight, no?" "Definitely." He grins, "Watch carefully then. It's really fun."

You have your doubts on how watching people beat each other up can be fun but you don't comment anything, instead chew on your lip anxiously. Seungcheol really didn't have to go this far? What if he gets hurt badly? Is he trying to impress you?

Don't flatter yourself, your subconscious rolls her eyes.

As the loud cheering that had died down ensues again, your train of thoughts are halted as you see Seungcheol in shorts and his hands covered in boxing gloves, step into the ring. You can't help but ogle at his naked torso, his finely defined and chiseled muscles. He has the perfect body, not too bulky, not too lean just the right amount that gives you a hard time taking your eyes off him. He seems to have noticed your gaze because the second your eyes meet, he throws a haughty, knowing smirk at you. Embarrassed you avert your gaze elsewhere.

His opponent is a muscular man who's growling and banging his chest with his fists, a gesture of intimidation, you suppose. You are definitely intimidated and you wonder if Seungcheol can actually win against him.

The fight starts with a whistle and in mere seconds they are on to each other, throwing punches left and right. Your eyes have a hard time keeping up with them and their fast reflexes and your hands fly to your mouth as a punch lands on Seungcheol's face, followed by repeated blows as Seungcheol falls back. There's a moment of silence as he wipes his bottom lip and you realize there's a cut.

He tilts his neck, popping the bones and glaring at the other man before launching himself on top of his opponent. The next moments are a blurry mess, Seungcheol beating the guy repeatedly until he ends up on the floor but he doesn't stop there. Seungcheol ends it with a sharp jab to his spine and you have no doubt the other man has broken bones with the ways he howls in pain. The match comes to an end like that as the people cheer wildly while Seungcheol steps down from the stage. Mingyu grins at you happily as if what you witnessed was just a regular occurrence, something you should be cheerful about. Shaking your head at the situation, you let out a deflated sigh.

Their life is really so different than yours.

Seungcheol seems to be in a very good mood after the fight as he buys you both some sandwiches and drinks from a deli after you both step out of the bar. You both sit down at a park nearby to eat and watch the night sky. "You know, I thought you were gonna lose," you speak after taking a few bites of the sandwich. Seungcheol scoffs, "You underestimate me, sweetheart. I've been doing this for a long time."

"Do you enjoy it?" You ask quietly, focused on peeling the wrapper from your food. You feel Seungcheol's stare on you. "Yes. Why? Are you scared already?"

"No. I was just... curious. Your definition and my definition of fun is totally different." You murmur. "Of course. What did you think? I go to the mall and shop and watch movies with my friends when I'm bored?" His tone is sarcastic. You bite your lip. "No I didn't. It's just...I feels different now that I have experienced it first hand." Seungcheol offers nothing more, taking a sip of his coke and leaning back into the bench. A silence stretches between the both of except the rustling of the wrapper of your food. "How long have you been doing this?" You blurt out. He frowns at you and you don't expect him to answer but he surprises you.

"For a long time."

He doesn't offer anymore and you don't have the heart to prod him for an actual answer. "And how long do you plan on doing this?"

"What?"

"I mean... don't you have any other plans. Like...do you wanna keep doing what you are doing for the rest of your life? Don't you wanna like... settle down maybe?" Your voice is soft as if you are talking to a child. Seungcheol looks annoyed. He doesn't speak for a while as he stares at the ground, a frown etched to his face. You're about to take back your question when he replies, "I really don't think you understand. I've been trying to tell you that my life is completely disparate to yours. So I don't think like you. I don't have plans like you but neither am I expected to follow a certain pattern like you. I can do whatever the fuck I want, ___. So don't look at me like you pity me. I'm the last person here that should be pitied. " His tone is sharp and it makes you feel bad, like a sensation of needles pricking your heart. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry," You whisper, feeling timid as you look down at your lap. He mutters, "Don't go poking your nose in other people's business. Specially people like me."

He's right. You shouldn't have asked that. You are not close enough to ask things like that. After that there is a silence, this time, an awkward one. There's palpable tension in the air and you feel jittery. Should you just ask him to take you home?

It's still early and truth be told, you don't want to leave him just yet. You only have one more date to go and judging by his reaction, he is in no way interested in a relationship. You heave out a long sigh. You knew very well what you were getting into, yet you couldn't stop yourself. Seungcheol is like a poison, the sweetest one, the one that has you addicted and unable to let go, no matter how much it hurts.

This is a fucking mess.

"Let's get going. I have plans," Seungcheol announces, standing up. You want to protest but you feel like you have ruined the mood, so you follow him mutely to his car.

The drive to your house is awfully quiet, to the point you want to scream out of frustration. Seungcheol seems to be lost in his head as he makes no move to talk. It's like you are alone, but you're not and it's worse, the air full of tension. Soon you have reached your house and he stops the car but keeps the engine rolling, indicating his rush. He keeps still and stares ahead while gripping the steering wheel as you step out of the car in silence. "Thanks for dropping me home," you say lamely, your voice meek. You turn around to walk away but his voice stops you in your tracks.

"I promised you three dates and I will keep my word. I expect you to keep yours, ___. I hope you will tell me what I want to hear when we meet next time." His tone is sharp with an edge of threat and you barely get to nod before he drives away.

It's not until you're inside your apartment that you realize you still have his hoodie on. Quickly fishing out your phone you type out a text.

I'm sorry, I forgot to return your hoodie.

After a while, his reply comes.

Keep it.

You watch Katelyn as she fills her lunch tray with food before walking over and taking a seat opposite to you. She looks extra radiant today, which probably has something to do with the way she's dressed; a bright colourful outfit which undoubtedly she put a lot of time into considering. She has a date, with a guy she has been talking to for the last few weeks. It reminds you of your pitiful situation and you sigh, trying to shrug off those thoughts.

It has been a good couple weeks since you last saw Seungcheol and you have not exchanged a word after that night. In the back of your mind you wonder if he is even alive. You want to message him, you really want to because you are going crazy but after how your last date ended, you can't bring yourself to. You are scared, exactly of what, you can't put your finger into.

The entire situation you have put yourself into is fucking scary. They say you become sure of your feelings after three dates but it did not take that much for you. You already are very certain about your feelings for him and how deep they run exactly and you also know that in the end you will be left scarred. He would never be yours. He has probably forgotten about you or decided that it is not worth another date to figure out what you saw that night.

You let a desperate, pitiable sigh.

"I know you are hiding things from me but I understand that you are not ready to talk yet. But I want you to know I am here for you okay?" Katelyn's voice makes you blink your way out of your thoughts. She squeezes your hand tightly and gives you a reassuring smile and you're left feeling guilty.

"I ...I will tell you. Soon. Just give me a bit more time," you whisper. She nods in understanding. A grateful smile touches your lips as her words make you emotional. Then there's a ping from your phone letting you know there's a message. Without giving it much thought you open the device and your eyes go wide.

I'll take you out for dinner tomorrow night. Wear something formal.

You wait outside your apartment for Seungcheol. Your day has passed by in a flurry of excitement and nerves as you carefully picked your outfit and did your hair and makeup. A soft baby pink dress that stopped just above you knees adorns you as your hair rests just above your neck in a loose bun.

You are fiddling with your fingers as you think about how this night is gonna end and wether you will ever see him again when a car screech that grabs your attention.

Seungcheol's convertible has taken a stop in front of you and you see the man getting out the vehicle and take big steps towards you.

You're mesmerized.

Perhaps there is not enough word in this world to describe his looks or perhaps you've simple lost the ability to speak; either way, you just stand and stare, drinking the godly man that stands in front of you. He looks delectable, completely flawless and agonizingly gorgeous in his sharp black suit and pants, with a silk black shirt underneath, the top couple buttons undone that reveals a beautiful porcelain skin. His hairstyle completes the look, parted to one side in a sleek way and showing his forehead and oh god is it sexy. You realize you have a forehead kink, if there is anything as such.

If you weren't in love with him before you are now.

He looks ravishing, and you wonder why it isn't illegal to look this good. It should be because you have completely lost control over yourself. Nothing exists in your world except for him and you feel paralyzed, unable to do anything but drink him in. You wonder if you are even worthy to stand beside him.

"____?" Seungcheol calls you, snapping his fingers in front of your eyes. He must have been calling you while you were eye fucking him. "Oh! Um, hi." You're flustered. "You- you look really, really nice." It isn't enough but it's what you can get past your lips. A knowing smirk kisses his lips before he teases, "Well, you look really, really nice too." Motioning you to his car he says, "Shall we? We'll be late for our reservation."

"Yeah, of course," you say, hurrying over to his car, embarasssed at your foolery. Seungcheol must have noticed you ogling him like that. But you don't really care when he looks like that. It is his fault for looking so devilishly handsome and idly you wonder if he did that on purpose. If he's deliberately teasing with, trying to make you the most miserable before letting you go with a slap of reality to your face. Pushing away those plagueing thoughts, you sit up straight and clear your throat as Seungcheol comes to sit beside you and brings the engine to life.

A decently long and quiet (except for the music from the radio) but not quite uncomfortable car ride later, Seungcheol stops in front of a really fancy and expensive looking restaurant just by the sea. You did not except him to take you to a high end restaurant, otherwise you would have put some more effort in your looks.

Feeling slightly out of place you quietly follow Seungcheol into the beautiful European styled building after he hands his keys to a valet. The interior is dripping with polished furnitures and extravagant chandeliers and marble floors as guests dressed elegantly have their dinner. As you look around the place in awe Seungcheol talks to the receptionist who then guides you towards a staircase that leads to a pair of large double doors decorated with gold which then, opens to a large balcony. In the middle of it sits a table with two chairs and an unceremonious gasp escapes your mouth as you realize this is where you will be having dinner.

The man from earlier takes his leave as Seungcheol helps you sit down before taking a seat for himself while you take in everything, overwhelmed with all your surroundings. Why did he put so much effort for a lousy and fake date?

"What do you think?" He asks with a smirk as he rests one of his elbows on the table.

"I'm overwhelmed," you reply quietly, honestly. He chuckles, "Well this place has really good food and a fantastic view so I thought it wouldn't bad for our last date."

Last date.

"It's really beautiful. I don't know why you did this but thank you, really," you murmur, eyes on the satin table cloth with intricate golden lining. Everything about this place is so pretty.

"Well, I decided it would be beneficial for me to extract words from you if you are wooed," his words have a teasing tone to it and his demeanor is completely different from last time, giving you a whiplash but you are not sure if he's fully joking. Before you can say that you are definitely wooed, a waiter appears to take your order and you leave the duty of ordering to Seungcheol since he seems to frequent this place. Prior to his leave, the waiter pours you Seungcheol's champagne of choice and then, you two are alone once more.

Reaching for the flute, you quickly gulp down the champagne to soothe your dry throat and to calm all your nerves.

Over dinner you talk about your uni and your parents back home and the farm they own. While Seungcheol mostly keeps quiet he doesn't ignore you but listens carefully, occasionally passing glances your way or commenting. He does not offer anything about him, which you expected and you don't ask any questions about him either. Instead you try your best to keep his interest in your words despite the lack of it from his side.

After a hearty meal of poached lobsters and wagyu beefs and creamy soups comes dessert; a chocolate orange mousse with spiced fruits and yogurt sorbet. You start eating your dessert in silence, the occasional crashing of waves filling the complete lack of sounds.

This location is truly magnificent and breathtaking, almost having a feel like you're in a fancy resort in a luxurious tropical island. It is undoubtedly the most beautiful place you have ever been, let alone have dinner at and you wonder if you would ever have the chance to visit some place like this had you not met Seungcheol. The man in question, continues eating quietly, seemingly lost in his thoughts. He looks lovely as always, if not more and you try to burn this image in your mind for you to look back at later. You want to ask him so many question, you want to tell him so many things but you're scared. Sacred if you do so this moment will break, scared it will annoy him and end your final date all too early. So you bite your tongue and finish your food as he does and after your plates are cleared away, you are served another expensive champagne as an end to your luxurious dinner.

Even though Seungcheol doesn't say anything, you assume it is time to spill the beans, to say what he has been wanting to hear from the beginning. You have teased him enough and it is time you give him what he deserves. Taking a deep breath, you open your mouth. "Me and Katelyn heard noises from the playground that night so we decided to check. It was pretty dark and we were tipsy but I recognized you and you were... beating someone up. We stayed there and watched until one of us accidentally made some noise. We were scared that you heard us so we ran. That's all that happened."

You have Seungcheol's full attention now as he listens cautiously, his sharp eyes trained on you. Gulping, you clench your hands together underneath the table, waiting for his reaction. There seems to be an eternity of silence as Seungcheol simply stares at you as if he's debating whether your words are true or not. It's torturous, awfully agonizing and when you can't bear it anymore you're about to speak but he beats you to it.

"I didn't kill him." His voice is quiet. You let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. Somewhere in the back of your mind you believed it, you believed he wouldn't be cruel enough to kill someone just like that and as soon as he speaks those words you believe him, without a doubt, without a second of delay.

"I believe you." You whisper, holding his gaze. "That asshole deserved what he got. He shouldn't even be alive but I let him go. He's in a hospital now, if you are wondering." You nod quietly. It's scary how much you believe him, how much you trust him even though he is pretty much a stranger.

There's a moment of silence as you bask in his presence before he speaks, "____, men like me, we aren't the nicest people. But we are needed, the cops need us around. People like me do the dirty works for people like you so y'all don't face troubles. We do things in an unconventional way but that's just who we are. We aren't as bad as the rumours say but we definitely aren't someone you should be with." You open your mouth to protest but his sharp gaze makes you stop. "If you have not understood it yet, let me say it out loud. I am trouble. People like me is always bad news. Whatever we did until now, I hope you forget. That's the best, ____ trust me. I think we both got what we wanted so let's call it a night." Just like that, he stands up, not waiting for your reply.

You gawk at him, baffled as he pays the bill and starts walking away. Tears burn the back of your eyes and you bite your lip to hold them back. The ending that you had expected has taken place but you are having a hard time accepting it. Your subconscious reminds you that you deliberately got yourself into this even though you saw this coming. So there is no one to blame for it but you. Grabbing your purse, you stomp your way out of the restaurant and towards Seungcheol's car.

Seungcheol barely acknowledges you as you both get in the car and he presses the key to the ignition. You are fuming in your seat, his words and the way he dismissed you cutting you deep. His words come to you, I think we both got what we wanted. You want to laugh. How can he possibly think that? Is he really so stupid or is he deliberately ignoring your interest in him? You want to smack his perfect face, curse and scream at him but all you can do is sit still with your arms crossed as steam comes out of your head. Is he really not curious about your feelings? Does he possess none for you? Does these few days with you mean nothing to him? You have so many unanswered questions. Leaning back into your seat, you close your eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.

It feels like in the blink of an eye the drive to your place is over as Seungcheol halts his car in front of your apartment. He does not utter a single word, doesn't even spare a glance at you while patiently waiting for you to get out of the car.

Asshole.

You inhale deeply, trying your best to gather yourself together as you take off your seatbelt and turn towards him.

"Seungcheol?" Few seconds pass before he looks at you. Words are stuck in your throat. When your eyes meet his, you become mute, overwhelmed with emotions as your words die in your tongue. He keeps staring at you, not opening his mouth but waiting for you to speak. "Is this goodbye?" Your voice breaks.

"I believe we don't have any reason to see each other. We both got what we wanted," He says without batting an eye. You're left bemused, one step away from landing a slap on his face. How dare he say that?

"Do you really believe that?" Your words come out as an accusation. "I wanted to go out with you because I thought I have feelings for you! And I do! And my feelings have only increased since I first saw you. I want to see you again, Seungcheol. You may have gotten what you wanted but I didn't." Your fades into a whisper as tears burn the back of your eyes.

Seungcheol stays quiet, staring ahead, his brows knitted as if he's annoyed. "I promised you three dates, ____. And I gave you that. It's over. Your feelings? You'll get over them. It's better to be in pain for a while that be with someone like me."

"You can't say that! I get to decide for myself!"

"____," he sighs, rubbing his temples. "I'm a bad man. You should leave while you still have a good image of me. You'll get hurt because of me and I've caused enough pain to enough people. Just...go. Just forget me." You stare at him as frustrated tears roll down your cheeks. He doesn't meet your gaze but turns his head the other way. You are angry, infuriated and heart broken all at a time. Clenching your fists you inhale a shaky breath before reaching for him.

Before you can chicken out, you tilt his face towards you and quickly press your lips against his. Seungcheol seems to be shocked as a small gasp leaves his mouth but you don't let him push you away. Instead one of your hands come to rest on his thigh as he other cups his face to keep his mouth against yours. You kiss him with all you have left, pouring in every bit of passion and love for him as your tongues intertwine. By the time you are both breathless, Seungcheol gently pushes you back and peers into your eyes. "That's all I can give you, ____." He says, his voice the softest you have heard. You are broken into a million pieces and as much as your heart wants to cling to him, you suddenly feel tired, deflated like a popped balloon. Your emotions have drained you out and left nothing and right now, breathing almost seems too painful for you. Taciturnly, you grab your purse and step out the convertible. You hear another door shut behind you but you don't look back as your heavy steps carry you to the entrance of your building. When you are about to enter your apartment, you accumulate all your strength and courage to spare one final glance at him.

Turning around you see Seungcheol standing by his car, hands in his pockets, simply watching you. Even though your eyes are locked on each other, you don't see any emotion in them. He looks like the same expressionless, mysterious man you saw the first day. The man you fell in love with. Taking in his gorgeous features one last time, you bite your lip and turn away, forcing yourself to walk inside your apartment building.

Your chapter with Seungcheol ends here.

Epilogue

A/N : Okay so idk why this fucking app is being like this but it says I reached the maximum of 250 blocks but I thought tum1r didn't have a word limit?? Anyway so I've decided to break it up and put the rest of the fic in another post. Please click epilogue to read that.

Taglist: @koo-18 @shiningstar-byulxx @pcisonedhaos @happyvitamin @yoongischeeksluv @haluim17 @nayam14 @horanghae-gumanhae @cottonsthings @hotcheetosnorter99 @peekabooseoksoon @acapellaanna @amixoferrthang

#seventeen scoups #scoups imagines #scoups fluff #scoups smut #seventeen #seventeen fic #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fanfic #seventeen au #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #svt imagines #svt fluff #svt scenarios #seungcheol scenarios #seventeen seungcheol #kpop drabbles #kpop smut

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shedoessoshedoes · 2 years

Text

Flowers on a Dark Day

a/n: I had a dream that I did this to someone and it sparked an idea so here have some Elain clinging on to her husband for comfort :)) It's short and fluffy (my favorite things) thank u @justheretoreadsposts for reading for me!!

wc: 1,898

Too much of Azriel’s life had been spent giving Rhys reports.

Reports just like he was giving right now, in the middle of a bloody war-camp, the sun slowly giving way to night. He’d just gotten back from another mission, this one gathering intel on the location of Koschei’s lake and where they believed his last ties to life to be hidden. To make matters worse, while he’d been gone, Beron’s forces had launched a surprise attack on some of the Illyrian legions keeping watch, and only Cassian’s military genius, combined with the Valkyrie’s help had prevented a slaughter. The wounded had poured in in droves. Elain was helping in the medical tents, her newfound healing powers bringing those worst off back from the brink of death.

Elain. Az missed her, though it could only have been a few hours since he’d seen her last. His wife. Azriel still couldn’t believe it. Of course, the marriage was still relatively new, only a few weeks old. They’d been married quickly after they’d confessed their feelings for eachother, in a small ceremony with just their family in attendance and enough flowers to make the air smell sweet. His rose gold wedding ring still felt unfamiliar on his finger, symbolizing a love he’d never thought he’d find.

But he stood, filling his brother in, telling him everything; describing the details of the meadows surrounding the lake, the estimated depths of the water itself. He’d brought back flowers from the meadow near the lake, telling himself they were to show Rhys, so they could try and glean something from the foliage that grew there, some piece of evidence of the magic that bound Koschei to the land itself.

They were really just for Elain. He couldn’t very well buy her flowers here, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a war. But he’d wanted to give her something, so he’d picked her some.

And there she was. Hair half tied back, arms at her sides, walking with Nesta, their heads bent towards each other as they walked through the camp. His mouth raised in a half smile before he turned back to Rhys. He’d say hello to her later. If he didn’t finish giving this report before he saw her, he’d never give it at all.

The next thing he knew he was on his back, in the dirt, his wife’s arms banded around him like a vice. His flowers were crushed. “El? Are you okay?”

She seemed to be shaking. Azriel’s arms found their way around her, too, holding her to him, cradling her head. She buried her face in his neck, and he turned his nose to her hair, breathing in the smell of jasmine that seemed to follow her everywhere. What a sight they must make: death and his lovely fawn, the unshakable spymaster brought to the ground by the girl who loved flowers.

“El?” All the words Azriel needed. She’d read the rest of it in his tone, in the way he held her tighter, in the way he tried to pull back and find her eyes. Are you okay? What’s wrong? I won’t say no to a reception like this, but it isn’t a normal one.

“I didn’t know where you were,” Elain breathes into his neck. Azriel goes still, and immediately understands. Understands the fear that she felt, with her husband gone, and injured soldiers pouring in from all sides.

“A mission.” he says quietly, words meant only for her. “ With shadows to protect me, and enough safety to pick you flowers. They might be trampled now, but they’re here, somewhere.”

A wet laugh escapes her at his attempt at humor, and words spill out of her, as fast as her sobs will allow. “And I knew that. I knew you were going, I said goodbye to you this morning, but I didn’t know where exactly you were, and people were dying, and–and there were so many wounded and I didn’t know where you were, and it wasn’t like I could just leave the dying, so I was just sitting there panicking and trying to help, but I didn’t know where you were–”

“I know. I know. I know.” His fingers tangle in her hair, bring her head back gently, so that he can look at her while he speaks. Her brown eyes meet his hazel ones. They’re still on the ground. “I know, El. I’m so sorry that you felt that, but I’m so proud of you, because if it was you gone and soldiers starting coming back dead and injured, I would be no help. I would be yelling at everyone, tearing myself to pieces wondering where you were. But you, love, you helped. Rhys says that without you a hundred more soldiers would have died. So we’re going to focus on being here, right now, together, okay? Because we’re going to have more times that I’m gone or you’re gone and we’re going to be scared–we’re going to be fucking terrified–for each other, and we’re going to get through it anyway. Okay?”

“I love you too much not to be scared anytime I can’t see you,” she whispers. A confession. “I don’t think that’s normal. I don’t think that’s how any human feels when their spouse leaves.”

“Well,” Az starts, male satisfaction lacing every word. “It’s a good thing that you’re married to a fae then.”

“Don’t start,” Elain warns, a smile starting to make it’s way back onto her face. She buries her head back into his neck. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he kisses the side of her head. “I love you,” he whispers. As is still working on believing that it’s okay to say things like that when it’s not just the two of them. He can feel Rhys and Nesta looking down at them. “C’mon.”

Slowly, they get up, and Elain does not let him go. He laces their fingers together, her wedding ring pressing against his hand, and she holds onto his arm as Azriel looks at Rhys again, questioning if Rhys needs anything else before Az leaves.

Rhys laughs, a polar opposite from his stony expression just minutes before, waving a hand. “Get your newlywed shit out of here before the army loses all respect for us. You gave me more than enough information already.”

Az glares. “I’m sure the sounds coming out of your and Feyre’s tent every night have nothing to do with their supposed waning respect?” Rhys just rolls his eyes at the mention of his mate’s nightly activities and walks off, presumably to find Feyre herself.

Nesta simply looks happy for them, happy for her best friend and her sister, happy that they both found what they needed in this life. She pulls first Elain and then Azriel into a hug. This is new for her, too. New to show the people she loves she loves them so openly. Az has Cassian to thank for that, he supposes, and Emerie and Gwyn as well. They’d done well in helping to show Nesta the way back to the light, even though Nesta had done all the work herself.

He pulls back, reaching out to Elain, who grabs his arm again. He picks his flowers up from off the ground. They aren’t as squished as he thought, so he offers them to her. Elain offers him a small smile and takes them, even as her hand remains in his and her arm wrapped around his. Her hand traces small circles over his scars, and he shivers at the casual intimacy of the gesture.

Their arms remain locked as they go to find dinner. The army surrounding them gives them a few doubt takes, but most of them remember their first months with their wives or mates, and leave the couple be in their display of intimacy. Az makes a plate for them both and then leads them back to their tent, closing the flaps behind them.

Elain pulls him to the bed instead of to the table. He sets the plate on the floor near them before she pushes him so he’s sitting on the edge, and then straddles his lap, pressing her forehead to his. “Are–are you okay with that? With me holding onto you like that with people around? I know this is all still relatively new and usually I would hate being that affectionate in public so please don’t think I’m going to do that much all the time, but I couldn’t really stop the hug earlier, and then I just needed the reassurance that you were here.”

He considers, reaching down to the plate and picking up a piece of bread, feeding her a piece before taking a bite himself. “You’re different. I would agree that we don’t need to be anywhere close to Rhys-and-Feyre levels of public displays of affection, but I also don’t want you to never touch me, either. I’m not always good at physical contact–you know that.” And she did, knew his insecurities around his hands like no one else, and understood his need for physical space at times. But she also knew that sometimes he craved it, needed a hug or a kiss or to hold her hand and fiddle with her ring to remind himself she was really there. “But I like being able to hold your hand when we’re with our family. I like being able to kiss you goodbye before I leave a room. I like the moments we have that are just for us, even if there are other people around, even if I’m still uncomfortable with the world seeing that affection sometimes.”

He reaches for another piece of bread. “How do you feel about it?”

Elain’s hands come up to cradle his face. His fingers come up to trace her wedding ring, a delicate band of gold that looks like vines. “I like the world knowing that you’re mine and I’m yours. I like seeing my ring on your hand, and seeing yours on mine. I like that I’m the only one allowed to calm you down when you get worked up in a meeting, I like that I can hold your hand even when the world seems to be falling apart around us. But it’s also just…I would only feel comfortable doing any of it with you. I never touched Greysen in public–” Az snarls slightly at the sound of her ex-fiancé’s name and she swats at his arm. “Shut up, you possessive bat,”

“You love it,” he grins back, and she sighs, because she does.

“I never touched Greysen in public, and I never had any desire to touch Lucien beyond being polite. With you, I can, and I want to. Not always. Not usually like I did today. But sometimes. When I need reassurance that you’re here. That you’ll always come back.”

Azriel nods slightly. “So there, wife. We hold hands, I put a hand at the small of your back to steady you, and when we’re worried about each other, grander scales of affection are encouraged.”

She smiles up at him. “Because I’m your wife,” she said, with no small amount of pride. “So I get to hold onto you if I want to.”

He chuckles and kisses her quickly. “And I’m your husband,” he responded. “So that means that I come back.”

Yay!! thank you so much for reading! Likes, reblogs, and comments and constrictive criticism is always welcome. My asks are open: let me know what you want me to write!!

#elriel #acotar #elriel fic #elain #shadow bat and flower girl #azriel #pro elriel #acotar 5 #nor writes #acotar fic

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marvelslut16 · 4 years

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The one with two Pietro’s

Pairing: Pietro x reader, Wandavision!Pietro (Peter Maximoff) x reader FORCED

Synopsis: you find yourself in Westview living with Wanda, Vision, the boys, and your boyfriend Pietro. But happens when you start to remember your Pietro and figure out what Wanda’s doing to you and everyone else?

Word count: 1.4k+

Warnings: Swearing I think. Angst. Fluff if you squint. Mind control. Forced relationship. Briefly mentions the idea of a forced magical pregnancy. Bullet wounds. Death. Grief I suppose. Mentions pmsing. The over use of italics. Kinda feel like I make Wanda a psychotic asshole. SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION!

A/N: This was so much fun to write! Probably the darkest thing I’ve ever written, if you can really call it dark. Writing for Wandavision was a fun little challenge. Takes place in the 90′s so my title is a reference to friends, and so is a tv show character I use in the one shot. Pretend Evan Peters’ hair isn’t that blonde cause I will always see him with the silver he has in xmen and wrote him as such.

"Vision, that's not my Pietro," you mutter in horror to your friend as the two of you stand in the kitchen.

You’re not quite sure what makes you say it, but you’re glad you do when you glance at the new Pietro in the living room, he's been playing video games with Tommy and Billy for close to an hour now. He's sweet and funny, but he's just not your Pietro.

"I'm afraid not, (Y/N)," Vision's voice is sullen, but he's glad you're not in on Wanda's mind games. Unless you are, and this is just another way for Wanda to mess with him. He’s not quite sure what’s happening, but he knows from what you’ve reminisced in passing to him about Pietro on nights when Wanda isn’t in the room, that that’s not the Pietro you know and love.

"Oh my god," you murmur, hand coming to your mouth as little bits and pieces of memories race through your head. The genuine pain, horror, and sadness that cross your face make it obvious to Vision you're being manipulated like everyone else, even if you are Wanda's oldest friend. "My Pietro, he had an accent."

Your knees buckle when you hear his native accent saying his catchphrase in your head, 'you didn't see that coming.' Vision rushes to your side to help you stand more firmly.

"His face was longer, hair a white blonde not silver, his body more toned, and he had gorgeous blue eyes- bluest eyes I've ever seen," you grip onto Vision's arms as you imagine moments with your Pietro.

You grew up in the cell beside his and Wanda's, immediately forming a sisterly connection with her at a young age while Pietro hated you. He would tease you, pull on your pigtails, and steal some of your food on the off chance you three were eating outside of your cells. Over the years the teasing turned to flirting, and your dislike for him turned into a huge crush.

One night-a night you can normally remember with full clarity- after Hydra fell and before Ultron, the two of you were out on a walk, much to Pietro's chagrin. You were telling him about this new book that you were reading and how the characters annoyed you so because they were obviously in love but wouldn't admit it. Pietro zoomed in front of you, causing you to smack into his chest and almost fall to the ground, you would have if not for Pietro's arms wrapping around your waist and bringing you close to his toned chest.

The wind was blowing his hair into his eyes ever so slightly, so without thinking you reached up to move it out of his face and away from his eye. The small act of tenderness that you had displayed caused Pietro to give into his desires, he leaned in and his wind chapped lips descended onto yours. You melted into the kiss, clinging tightly to his biceps to ground you. One of his hands slipped down from your waist to squeeze your ass, the other wrapped more tightly around your waist and kept you anchored to him.

"I love you, Printesa, I have since we were kids," he admits when you pull apart for air, leaning his forehead on yours.

"I love you too, Quicksilver," you use the superhero nickname he gave himself when you were twelve. He grins before attaching his lips to yours once more, it was an unforgettable kiss that filled you with warmth and hope for your future.

"(Y/N), are you okay?" Vision's voice brings you back to reality, or whatever this is.

"No," your voice cracks as you remember the last kiss Pietro planted on your lips, right before he protected Clint. The memory that still haunts your dreams, seeing him with all those bullet holes and knowing there was nothing you could do to save him. "What kind of person forgets the love of their life? I'm a terrible person Vis!"

"No you aren't (Y/N)," the sincerity in Vision's voice makes you really believe him. "Wanda's doing this, she didn't want you to remember."

You gasp as another memory floods your mind. You had agreed to go on a road trip with Wanda after being resurrected from Bruce's snap and defeating Thanos. You both wanted a break, or so you thought.

Wanda had stopped right when you had passed the entrance into Westview, she claimed to be checking her directions when you asked why she had stopped in the middle of nowhere. And no matter how weird it was that she chose to stop at the border to the town and not at a gas station, you believed your best friend and sister in law because she had no reason to lie to you.

A moment later her eyes and hands were glowing red as she touched your temple. She pushed all your memories behind a wall in your brain, then filled your head with memories of a happy life with her and Vision in Westview.

She did it again when 'Pietro' showed up on your guy’s doorstep, this time filling your head with memories of him. Memories of a different first kiss, but an eerily similar first date to the one you and your Pietro had. It makes sense to you now, you and Pietro had never told Wanda the real story of your first kiss, instead telling her you had it weeks later on your first date. You had tried to keep your relationship a secret for a little because you didn't want to make it awkward for Wanda if it didn't work out.

Another thing she didn't add was your engagement and subsequent marriage to her brother. In this reality you and 'Pietro' are just dating. You have to assume that it's because it happened weeks before the battle against Ultron and she doesn't want to remember anything that close to her brother's death.

The thing about the new Pietro is that he seems to rub Wanda the wrong way, something your Pietro never did. He makes comments that you know yours would never, and Wanda always tenses up near him. This Pietro likes to show you off more than yours did, which is saying a lot because your’s used to cling to your side, praise you, and show you off in town when girls would flirt with him. Every time this Pietro kisses you it doesn’t feel right, it’s nowhere near the earth shattering kisses that you had somehow managed to remember from the deep parts of your brain.

"My ring," you shudder in horror when you realize the diamond ring that your Pietro stole from the jeweler in Sokovia is no longer sitting delicately on your left ring finger like it was before entering Westview. You hastily search your body for your most prized possession, sighing in relief when you find it hanging from a simple silver chain around your neck.

"(Y/N)," Vision says gently, resting a hand on your shoulder, it’s one of the few times he doesn’t know what to say.

"He's dead," you cry, knees buckling under your weight again. This time you catch yourself on the kitchen table, before sinking in the seat to your right.

"Who's dead?" Wanda appears in the doorway out of nowhere. She has an innocent, concerned expression on her face, but the tilt of her head tells you she'll come take your memories away again if you slip up in the slightest.

"Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days Of Our Lives, the soap opera I was watching this afternoon when you and the boys were out. He fell down the elevator shaft, and I'm apparently taking it harder than I thought I would. I must be pmsing or something."

"Or maybe you're pregnant," there's a red glint in her eyes that scares you to no end.

"Oh," you swallow the lump in your throat, and hold back the bile rising up your throat from anxiety. "I don't think so, I'm not ready to be a mother yet."

"It would be so fun though," 'Pietro' zooms behind your seat, leaning down to place a kiss on your cheek. "Little mini me's and you's running around the house with Billy and Tommy."

"I think two super human children are enough for the house right now," you let out an uncomfortable giggle. You and Vision side eye each other, both very aware that you'll probably be as pregnant as Wanda was a few days ago within the week.

#pietro x reader #pietro x you #pietro x y/n #pietro imagine #pietro one shot #pietro maximoff x reader #peter maximoff #marvel #marvel one shot #marvel imagine #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision imagine #quicksilver #quicksilver x reader #marvel fanfiction #pietro maximoff imagine #pietro maximoff one shot #pietro maximoff fanfiction

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nataliedanovelist · 3 years

Text

GF - Timestuck AU: The Power of Mabel ch.2

While fighting over a time machine so one twin can win a pig or the other can win the heart of a girl, Mabel is left stranded in a snowy forest with no time machine and no brother. Oops.

The BEAUTIFUL art pieces were done by @clownwry and @elishevart ! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 😭❤️💋

ch.1 - ch.3

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford was way more nervous than he was letting on.

She had long, pretty brown hair, braces over her teeth, sneakers, a skirt, and a sweater that allowed the cold air to pass through it. Her cheeks were slightly chubby with youth and nosy, as well as her nose, due to the freezing weather. Her eyes matched her hair perfectly, and though they were clouded with fear and confusion, Ford swore he could see sparkling behind the clouds, sparkling that made itself well-known when she asked if she could make him a sweater or when she saw his hands.

Ford would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy Mabel’s company, but she was practically a stranger, and keeping a random girl in his house that was located in the middle of the woods was fishy and Ford couldn’t help but feel like it was illegal. But he couldn’t leave her out in the snow and send her on her way to find her home and family, so he decided to keep her warm or healthy, simply because it was the right thing to do.

But then she said she had no parents to call. Only a brother, who was lost, too. Ford can remember the old rule: If you’re lost, stay where you are until you are found. So he then decided that she could stay here until her brother found her, which should be by morning at the latest.

Still, he felt uneasy, so once Mabel was settled in front of the TV, Ford excused himself and went into the kitchen to make a phone call. There was only one man who would have better judgement in this situation than him.

The phone rang a few times. Ford checked his watch to make sure it was a reasonable time to call. It wasn’t Sunday, was it? But then the ringing stopped. “Howdy! This here Fiddleford McGucket.”

“Hey there, buddy.” Ford smiled to himself at hearing that cheerful voice. “How have you been?”

“Stanford Pines! Good t’hear from ya!” Fiddleford cheered. “M’just fine, just fine! How are ya?! Ya haven’t gotten eaten by monsters yet, have ya?” He laughed, making his old friend chuckle along.

“No no, I’m alright.” Ford almost brought up the reason he called, but then he remembered something very important to Fiddleford. “How are Emma-May and Tater?”

“OH! They’re doin’ great! We’re all very happy n’ doin’ well! Ya won’t believe how big Tate’s gotten since ya last saw him! He’s already crawlin’!”

“Wow, that's great to hear.” Ford sat in a chair at the kitchen table. “Has he said his first words yet?”

“No, not quite. Actually, he’s extremely quiet. Not a lot of baby-babble.” Fiddleford chuckled. “The doctor says that’s perfectly normal. Tate’s so smart, he’s reachin’ for specific colors n’ such, n’ ya can tell he’s thinkin’ a lot n’ knows what’s goin’ on, he just got nothin’ t’say.”

“I was very shy when I was young.” Ford commented casually. He didn't feel like mentioning why. “If Tate is anything like either of his parents he’s very intelligent.”

“Oh, he’s so much like both of us it’s scary. Ya know Emma-May, so clever n’ quiet n’ such. Tate’s got all that. But he already looks so much like me! But he’s got his mama’s hair! N’ Santy Claus brought ‘im this fun little fishin’ game where ya fish for plastic fish with a pole with a magnet on it, n’ he loves it! I can’t wait to take ‘im fishin’ when he’s big enough! Ya really outta give yourself a break n’ come down for a visit, he’d move to see his Uncle Ford again.”

Ford’s face felt hot. “Perhaps. Spring is when a lot of anomalies are active and breeding, so i would prefer not to miss that, but maybe I could visit for a weekend before that…”

“Well, no pressure, I won’t assume anythang until ya tell me to, just know there’s always a bed for ya here.”

“Thank you, Fiddleford. The same for you and your family. The clean air will do everyone some good.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Fiddleford sighed happily and perked up. “So! Whatcha callin’ for? Not that I’m not happy just t’chat, but ya never call.”

Ford laughed and shrugged to himself. “I suppose I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“No need t’be sorry, Stanford, just wanna know what’s up.”

“Well, I was hoping to get your advice on something.”

“Shoot.”

“Um… well…” Ford rubbed the back of his neck, unsure how to tell him this. “I heard some unusual sounds outside today…”

“What kind of unusual sounds?”

“Cracks, like lightning. And some faint yelling.” Ford answered. “I thought it might be a tree branch or a new anomaly to catalogue, but when I opened the door a young girl was standing there in the snow with no coat.”

“Heavens! Is she alright?!”

“She’s okay, no frostbite. She was cold, but after sitting by the fire, drinking some hot chocolate, and changing into some dry clothes, she’s okay now.”

“Well, good.”

“So of course I brought her in. I tried to call her parents, she probably got lost playing…”

“Sure.”

“... but she says she doesn’t have any parents.”

“Oh.” Fiddleford sighed. “Oh. Now, wait, are ya sure she didn’t just say that so ya wouldn’t call?”

Ford chuckled and said, “I first thought that too, but she looked too sad to be lying.”

“Okay, I see. Does she got somebody ya can call?”

“She says she has a brother, but he was out there, too. So he is probably out there looking for her and therefore nowhere near a phone.”

“Fair enough, okay. So, I reckon y’all are waitin’ for him t’come ‘round.”

“Yup.”

“Well sounds to me like you’ve handled this all pretty well.” Fiddleford said confidently.

“You think so?” Ford asked. “I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something wrong. Like I’m missing something. Am I doing something wrong?”

“Nonsense, buddy, you’re doin’ great.” Fiddleford assured. “Look here, ya can’t just leave a young gurl out in the snow t’try t’find her way home...”

“I agree.”

“... so ya really got one option n’ that’s t’keep an eye on her n’ let her in as a guest. N’ ya tried t’call, but nothin’. The best thang ya can do right now is be there for this lil’lady n’ just be kind t’her. N’ if nobody comes for her by mornin’, why don’t ya go into town n’ see if anybody knows her, then they can help y’all out.”

Ford nodded, then remembered that his best friend couldn’t see it, so he said, “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Thank you, Fiddleford.”

“You’re welcome. N’ hey, are ya okay?” He asked seriously.

“Yes, yes I’m okay. I just want to make sure I do this right.”

“O’course. I understand. Ya want me t’come down there n’ give a hand?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’m sure Mabel will find her brother in the morning.”

“Mabel, huh? Well, if y’all don’t, please call me. N’ even if ya do find her brother, call me. Keep me updated.”

“I will. Thank you, Fiddleford.”

“Anytime, Stanford.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When Mr. Ford gave Mabel the remote for the old TV and went into the kitchen, she decided to use her awesome detective skills to figure out what year it was. If it was before Grunkle Stan lived here and opened the Mystery Shack, she must be pretty far back in time. But she had no way of knowing if it was 1999 or 2005 or the 50s.

The TV was old, but so was Grunkle Stan’s in her time. So Mr. Ford could have had this TV for a long time and didn’t want to replace it.

Okay, so when was the TV made? Mabel didn’t know. Dipper would have known.

Okay, Grunkle Stan mentioned watching TV when he was a kid once or twice. So at least Mabel was when Stan was a kid, okay.

Mabel turned the TV on and it was in color. Okay, so she wasn’t too far back in time. But the TV was playing a commercial for clear skin. The picture was gritty and all the people in it had puffy hair and long socks and oh my god was that woman wearing legwarmers?! Mabel grinned at seeing her favorite fashion on TV, but then her face dropped. When was she?

She tapped her chin and tried to think of how to know the date without being suspicious. She could ask Mr. Ford, but that might be suspicious. Mabel decided to start flicking through channels to try to guess what year she was in based on what was airing. A lot of shows were about cowboys, space, or game shows. Huh. Okay.

All the TV shows were definitely older. Nothing her dad would watch from when he was a kid, so if Mabel had to guess by everyone’s crazy air, the cheesy TV shows, and the music occasionally playing, she was in the 70s.

Huh. Okay. But she needed an exact year. So Mabel turned off the TV, saw an old radio on a desk, and turned it on to listen.

“... cuz it’s cold doesn’t mean you can't boogie, folks! So grab someone you wanna get warm with, turn up the music, and get your bodies warm in the coolest way possible! Here’s Night Fever, by the Bee Gees!”

Mabel grinned at the disco music. Her personal favorite song from these guys was More Than a Woman, but Night Fever would do. For a moment Mabel forgot her mission, jumped off the couch and left the blanket behind, and in the over-sized gray t-shirt Mr. Ford gave her while her clothes were drying, she danced along to the music, singing the chorus since those were the only words she knew.

“When you reach out for me. Yeah, and the feelin' is right,

Then I get night fever, night fever. We know how to do it! Gimme that night fever, night fever. We know how to show it!”

Mabel laughed at herself as she spun around in her socks and tried to do the point-and-hype dance she didn’t know the name to, but everyone did it when a disco song played.

Little did she know that Ford had returned to check on her, and was smiling at her as she shook her hips and waved her hair around and had fun. He leaned against the doorway and planned to let her dance in peace, but when she did a spin and saw him, she grinned and took his hand. “C’mon, Mr. Ford, come dance with me!”

Ford chuckled and shook his head. “No, no! I can’t dance!”

“You got two legs that aren’t broken?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can dance! C’mon!” Mabel encouraged, let him go when they were both in the middle of the room, and she started to dance again. “Don’t make me dance alone!” She even pulled an evil move and gave him puppy eyes. Rude.

Ford smiled slyly at her and hesitantly copied her boogie moves. It was true that Ford never liked to dance, but there was no one around but Mabel, and though he had only known her for an hour or more, he was sure she would never make fun of him.

And he was right.

“Wow! Look at you, Mr. I-Can’t-Dance! Yeah!” Mabel hopped on the couch, standing, and took Ford’s hand. “Here, I’ll spin you!”

Ford laughed and allowed it, doing a single spin, but then scooping her in his arms to dip her and then let her down, making her laugh as they continued to dance.

“Alright alright, you crazy cats, that was Night Fever by the Bee Gees! It's a snowy day here in the heart of Oregon, with snow flurries coming in harder all night, but it should clear up by morning and be a fun day to go out and play! The date is January 26th, 1978 in case you gotta write a check or mail a thank you note to a friend or family member. I’m still writing letters for Christmas! We’ll be right back with some of your favorites after a word or two from our sponsors, so don’t go anywhere!”

Mabel stared at the radio. “Wow, 1978.” She breathed. Her parents were only kids right now, maybe only six or seven-years-old. Wow.

Ford chuckled. “I know, I’m still in the bad habit of writing ‘77.”

Mabel realized her mistake, but was grateful her host misunderstood her. “Me too.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for dinner. How about some ramen noodles?”

“Yes, please! Can we play a game after we eat?”

“Sure. I don’t have many board games, but I do have a deck of cards.”

“Do you know any card tricks?!”

“A few.” Ford admitted, wiggling his fingers. “There are some advantages to having more fingers than average.”

Mabel grinned up at him and followed him to the kitchen for dinner.

#GF #fanfiction #gravity falls #gravity falls au #timestuck au #ford and mabel bonding #Fiddleford McGucket #dancing #night fever #snow day

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ignitedbynatsu · 3 years

Text

He Makes You Feel Insecure ~ Rogue

A/N: let it be known that I finally managed to update at the deadline I set myself 🥳 I'm so sorry I was gone this past week but college was getting hella busy so I had to focus on that this past week but I'm backkk. Thanks to everyone who stuck around, I missed you all and can't wait to get to the requests ❤️

Genre: angst to fluff

Warnings: swearing, insecurities (he makes you feel too childish)

Other versions:

Gray ~ Laxus ~ Cobra/Erik ~ Bickslow ~ Gajeel ~ Natsu ~ Jellal ~ Freed ~ Sting

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

A loud crash could be heard followed by your and Sting's laughter filling the guild. You quickly fled the scene and hid behind Rogue while stifling your laughter.

You had played the oldest prank in the book on Minerva. A water bucket on a half-open door. You'll never understand how the brilliant mage fell for that one, but she did, resulting in you hiding from her wrath.

"(Y/N)! Sting!" Minerva screeched as the water dripped down her hair.

"We're sorry Minerva-san, we just couldn't pass the opportunity" you apologize on your and Sting's behalf, but it was nowhere near sincere As you both were still doing everything in your power to not burst out in laughter. It wasn't even that funny, but to you and Sting it was hilarious.

"I swear I'm dating a child" the annoyance that was latched on to the words made you immediately stop laughing. Surely he didn't mean for it to come out that harsh, right?

"I'm sorry, what was that" a soft smile still playing on your lips, but that was quickly wiped off when you met his cold gaze.

"I said that you're fucking childish, (Y/N). It was bad enough having Sting act this way, but with you encouraging him and even joining him? I feel like I'm in a fucking daycare. Grow up, will you" Sting laughter also died down as he saw his friend take his frustrations out on you. "Hey, man, that's not cool-"

"No, Sting, it's fine. I- uh- I'll see you all tomorrow" even Minerva shook her head in disappointment as she observed your slumped shoulders as you left the guild. She didn't miss the tears starting to form either.

The rest of the day everyone felt that they were walking on eggshells around Rogue, not daring to get on his bad side. They felt bad for you. Sure you could be a little annoying with all the pranks you pulled, but they all knew it was just good fun. You never meant any harm and just wanted to make the guild feel a little more like home.

That homeyness that you seemed to bring everywhere you went, was gone the next day. Your usual colourful outfits were replaced by dull grey and black clothes. They even were certain that they hadn't seen you crack a smile once that day.

"Hey, (Y/N)! I got this amazing idea for a prank and-" you interrupted Sting before he could elaborate his grand idea "thank you, Sting, but I'll have to decline."

You had never refused a prank before, nor had he ever heard you talk that formal "that's it"

You raised an eyebrow at him as he stormed off to God knows where.

You hated turning him down. After all, you had been itching all day to break this facade, but it was for the best. It'll pay off in the long run you kept telling yourself. After all, you couldn't imagine a world where you'd have to live without Rogue. So if that meant you'd have to change your personality a little bit, you wouldn't even hesitate to make that sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Sting had left to go find Rogue. He knew that his best friend was the only one who could put an end to this "is this what you wanted?"

"I have no clue what you are talking about" Rogue replied as he turned around to meet the fuming blonde.

"You seriously don't see how miserable you made (Y/N)?" He scoffed as Rogue looked around to spot you. It took him some time as he did not expect you to wear something so... Colourless. "You haven't even spoken to her today, have you?"

"I decided that I was way out of line yesterday and that I should give her some time" he explained. Did you really think you needed to change just to please him?

"How kind of you" Rogue was surprised by the sweet words coming out of Sting's mouth, but when he turned back to the said boy he was met by a harsh glare "now go fix it"

"What if I make it worse" the guilty was slowly eating him alive as he dared to steal another glance at you.

"You can't possibly make it worse than it already is" Sting dismissed his insecurities

"Fro thinks so too!" Rogue's head snapped towards the Exceed "Frosch?"

"It's three against one here" Lector also piped up as the three stared at him expectingly.

The raven-haired sighed, knowing he should do something to fix his mistakes, so he took a deep breath, gathered all his courage and headed towards his girlfriend. He never thought he'd feel this scared again to talk to you.

"(Y/N)... Can we talk?" He wanted to sound confident but when you looked at him and not even spared him a small smile, he felt like he wanted to sink back into the shadows.

"Of course, what is it you'd like to talk with me about?" Rogue cringed how smooth your tone was. No unnecessary intonation, no shouting, no expression. Everything was dull and blank.

"Why are you acting like this" your eyes went wide for a second. Were you still not living up to his expectations? Was it too little? Too much? You had no clue.

"I'm afraid I don't understand what you are talking about" you replied swiftly, covering up any traces of emotions you had just shown. "Did you not want me to stop acting like a child?"

"Yes, but-" "and is what I'm doing not exactly that what you asked me to do?" "Yeah... But-" Rogue was getting frustrated, but he knew he had no right to snap at you again.

"Then I don't see the relevance of this conversation. I'll be heading home now. I'll see you tomorrow" with that you placed a kiss on his cheeks and headed back out of the guild.

Rogue's attempts at covering up his frustration were in vain as you could read him like an open book. Afraid to get yelled at again you hastily decided to head back home. Ready to scream or punch something just to get your own frustrations out.

After the failed attempts of him making it up to you, you managed to put up your facade for a week, until one day you just didn't show up. You didn't notify Sting or Rogue in advance, which you normally do, you were just too tired to deal with anyone.

"Has (Y/N) told you she wasn't coming today?" Rogue's anxiety was through the roof. He nearly burned a whole town to the ground when he lost Frosch. Imagine what he'd do if he didn't know where you, his significant other was. "No"

"I'm going to her house" with that Rogue left in an attempt to find you. Luckily for him, you were indeed just at your house.

Your stomach dropped at the sound of someone knocking at your door. You were tired, no, exhausted even. You hated that you had to pretend that you were someone that you're not, but it was all for a good cause you kept telling yourself, and yet you couldn't muster the energy to keep up that facade.

"(Y/N)? Please tell me your home" your heart broke at the sound of his voice. The worry and desperateness were caused because of you. Once again you were not good enough.

You opened the door ever so slightly, just enough, so he could make out that it was in fact you. "Thank God you're here"

"I'm sorry for not giving a heads-up. I promise I'll be back tomorrow" you promised him as you were about to shut the door again, but he stopped you by placing his own hand against the door.

"(Y/N), please, we need to talk" you contemplated for a minute, weighing the pros and the cons "please"

You slowly opened the door further as a signal for him to come in.

The sight in front of him shattered his heart. Your eyes were red and puffy. Your figure was completely slouched and your arms were wrapped around your middle, hugging yourself, in an attempt to shield yourself away from.

"I'm sorry I probably look like a cry baby right now-" he stopped you before you could finish your excuse "hey, no, none of that"

"I want to tell you something and I need you to listen without you interrupting me, okay?" You nodded your head at his request and waited patiently as he continued. "First and foremost I'd like to apologize for my behaviour last week. I shouldn't have worked out my frustration on you and I shouldn't have attacked you like that."

You nodded your head at his apology "second, I want you to know that you should never change your personality. Especially not for me. I love you, (Y/N). And when I say that, I mean every piece of you. Your good and your bad traits. If fell in love with you for who you are, and not the person you've been portraying as the last week."

"Please go back to your old self. I'd rather have a childish person as my girlfriend than a fraud that's clearly exhausted by putting on a facade. I really am sorry for making you feel like you had to change for me" by now you were full-on crying. Maybe it was because of Rogue's kind words, maybe it was because of the exhaustion, maybe a bit of both. All you cared about now was being in his arms and feeling loved.

"It's okay" you whispered as placed your head on his chest as he planted a kiss on your head.

"It really isn't. That's why I'd like to make it up to you" you broke the hug to look up at him as a mischievous glint was sparkling in his eyes "how about we prank Sting?"

"I'd love to, but for now let's just watch a film and cuddle" you smiled at his idea as you had never pranked Sting before since you always prank others together.

"Anything for you, princess" that's how you spend the rest of your evening in each other's arms, with him reassuring you every once in a while that he loves you and that you should never change.

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ladylynse · 3 years

Text

Dimensional Displacement [FFN | AO3]: Danny has a love-hate relationship with the Fenton Booo-merang. This time, it didn’t do him any favours. This time, it knocked him through a portal—and from what he can glean from the Water Tribe siblings he meets, odds are, there’s a reason for that.

-|-

For @geronimo-alonzi as a thank you for donating to my ko-fi. (Yes, they won my fic giveaway, but I finished this one first.) Loosely based on this three sentence fic.

-|-

Danny had been clobbered in the head by the Fenton Booo-merang more often than he’d like to admit, let alone count, but this was the first time it had knocked him through a portal.

That wouldn’t have been a particularly bad thing if the portal hadn’t immediately closed behind him.

One minute, he’d been minding his own business in the Ghost Zone, coming back from a visit with Frostbite that Jazz must have forgotten about if she’d sent the Booo-merang after him. (Sam was stuck with her parents at some fancy dinner party thing somewhere and Tucker was working on designing a computer game for his comp sci assignment, a class neither Sam nor Danny was in, so it had to have been Jazz.)

The next minute, Danny was…. He didn’t even know where he was. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He’d caught the Booo-merang before either he or it had hit the ground, but once he’d righted himself to look around, there was no familiar skyline or something equally useful to him. There were only trees and rocks and dirt roads as far as the eye could see, even from a considerable distance up in the air.

Well.

That wasn’t quite fair. He could see a silver river cutting through the trees in a path roughly parallel to the road, but in terms of helpful things, he was coming up empty.

He didn’t even know which direction he’d need to fly to get to a city. It was too light out to see any distant glow of city lights against the scattered clouds, and all he could smell when he breathed in was fresh air and pine needles and something else—moss? The general mix that was pretty much mulch on the forest floor?—that was decidedly natural, not the signs of human activity he’d been hoping for. Sure, following the road or even the river would get him somewhere sooner or later, but what was he supposed to do, pick a random direction or go eenie meenie minie moe?

Danny did another loop above the trees, looking for some sign of anything, and came up with nothing.

“Come on!” Danny yelled at the patch of blue sky where the portal had closed. He spun in a circle, the Booo-merang clutched tightly in his fist, but it didn’t pull in any direction, and he didn’t catch so much as a glimmer of the familiar green of the Ghost Zone. “Just open up again already!” It was as effective as he’d expected it to be, which was not at all, but screaming out his frustrations made him feel a bit better. “Now! Please?”

Unsurprisingly, the portal didn’t listen.

Out of appealing options, Danny threw the Booo-merang. Logically, he knew it wasn’t the Infi-Map. Logically, he knew that the universe did not often do what was convenient for him, even if he sometimes got incredibly lucky in a fight. Logically, he knew that the chances of the Booo-merang deciding to reprogram itself to find portals just because it had done it this one time (likely coincidentally) were slim to none.

Illogically, he didn’t expect the stupid thing to circle around and hit him in the back of the head again.

Danny cursed and landed to retrieve the fallen Booo-mang from the roadway, muttering under his breath about how much he’d like to just dismantle the thing and hide the pieces. He wouldn’t, of course. It worked too well to risk Sam, Tucker, and Jazz losing the ability to find him if they really needed to. It had been dicey enough the few times his parents had decided to try to ‘fix’ it, only for disaster (Vlad) to strike in the meantime.

That didn’t mean Danny couldn’t fantasize about bashing it against a rock, though. There were plenty of those around.

“That’s a weird looking boomerang,” someone said from behind him, and Danny nearly jumped into the air right there.

He didn’t, mostly because he was getting used to Sam and Tucker trying to surprise him, but it was a near thing.

He wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. His ghost sense was reliable, Dash made more noise walking around than even Jack Fenton, and, well, most of the people who hunted him couldn’t be subtle if they tried, especially since a good chunk of them liked hearing their own voice. He’d only ever really had to worry about Jazz, and self-preservation in the face of tickle attacks had given him the ability to be extra sensitive to her presence whenever she was in a certain mood.

The two who’d caught him by surprise now must have come from the trees on the other side of the road, and he hoped that meant they hadn’t seen him do anything particularly ghostly. Granted, neither of them was screaming, so he should be safe. They didn’t look terrified, either. Wary, maybe, but not scared.

Danny guessed that they were both somewhere around his age. Siblings, by the looks of them, but probably not twins even if they’d both decided to leave the house wearing oddly styled blue clothes today, at least compared to the usual jeans and T-shirt combo Danny was used to seeing. Unless he wasn’t anywhere near the States anymore? Or unless he’d been flung through to a different time. But the boy had spoken English, and it hadn’t sounded funny to Danny’s ears, no lilt of a foreign accent or strange phrasing that he associated with Shakespeare or something.

The girl was his height, the boy a bit taller, and they were both staring at him.

They probably thought he was the one who was dressed strangely.

The boy pointed. “Your boomerang,” he repeated. “It looks weird.”

The girl elbowed him in the gut—none too gently, judging by his immediate wheeze—and hissed, “Sokka!”

Yeah, those two were definitely siblings. And even if the girl wasn’t older, she definitely had the annoying (and annoyed) sister tone down pat. Danny had heard (and been on the receiving end of) the same from similar exchanges with Jazz more than once.

“Sokka’s going to apologize, right, Sokka?”

The boy frowned and then threw up his hands. “Right. I apologize for saying your boomerang looks weird. It looks interesting.”

The girl stepped on his foot, and he yelped. “What was that for?”

“You know what that was for!”

“It’s fine,” Danny said. He still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Maybe the portal had dumped him out in the middle of some historical re-enactment thing. Granted, there should really be more people around if that were the case—or at least hidden cameras. He was better at spotting them now. Vlad and his creepy spy tendencies aside, Danny had gotten good at noticing (and avoiding) cameras so he didn’t let his secret get caught on tape. (There were a surprising number of places in Amity Park not under video surveillance, or at least not under real video surveillance even if they had fake cameras out; he could practically transform in the middle of the street sometimes.)

Still, nothing about this felt staged. It didn’t even feel like one of his enemy’s tricks, some giant setup that was meant to trap him or whatever. That’s not to say Danny was wholly convinced this meeting, whatever it was, was merely chance—he didn’t particularly trust Clockwork not to arrange things as he saw fit without warning anyone—but it didn’t feel overly contrived, either. There was just….

Something felt off, and he couldn’t explain what it was.

“It’s fine,” Danny repeated, since the two were looking at him dubiously, but the familiar phrase felt strange on his tongue, almost like—

Wait.

“Okay, this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are we?”

The boy, Sokka, blinked. “Did you hit your head or something? We’re in the Earth Kingdom. Or, wait, do you mean where in the Earth Kingdom? Look, if you need new supplies, there’s not much in the last few villages, but we’re about a day from—”

The girl elbowed him again, and he fell silent. Danny could see the growing suspicion on her face for what it was, could see suspicion settling on the boy’s face as well, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d asked the wrong question or because he’d asked something at all. He’d been paying attention this time, watching Sokka’s lips, and Danny didn’t have to be a good lip reader to know that he hadn’t been saying the words Danny had heard.

Well.

More accurately, he hadn’t been saying them in English.

And Danny, in answering, had somehow not been speaking English.

That was not, as far as Danny was aware, something Clockwork could do to him.

He didn’t know a ghost who had power over language, though, unless the Ghostwriter had something else up his sleeve and this mess was it. Nocturne would be able to pull anything in a dream, but Danny couldn’t see why he’d bother including something that would be an obvious tell like this, so it shouldn’t be him even if he had decided to come back. More likely, it was someone he hadn’t fought before, someone who had targeted him, seen an opportunity when the Booo-merang had hit him and seized upon it to throw him…here.

Wherever here was.

The Earth Kingdom, apparently.

“Um.” The girl still looked like she expected him to start fighting, and her stance…. Danny didn’t recognize it, but he did know that she looked ready to move at any moment. Her brother had taken her cue and, while Danny hadn’t been paying attention, pulled out a boomerang of his own. That couldn’t be good. “Look. I know how this sounds.” How he sounded, more like. If he had some accent he couldn’t hear because he wasn’t speaking their language properly, whatever it was, this had to be a setup after all.

Someone had sent him here to be dealt with. By this world, this dimension or construct or whatever it was, if not necessarily by these two people.

Granted, Danny wasn’t sure why someone would go to the trouble of letting him understand and be understood in the first place if that were the case, since he could get in just as much trouble without speaking the native language.

Surely he wasn’t actually supposed to help someone here, right? This wasn’t even his world. Or the Ghost Zone. Whatever was going on here was most definitely not his business.

Except now he was in the middle of it, so if there was something going on, it would be beneficial to find out what it was sooner rather than later.

This wasn’t some Jumanji kind of thing where he’d been tossed into a game and had to do whatever it was to get out again, was it? It didn’t feel like the time he’d gone into Doomed, but that had been intentional, and this….

Okay, no, he didn’t have enough information to speculate, which meant he needed to get some information out of these two in order to get somewhere. “I just…. I was kidnapped and dumped here for some reason, and I’m trying to find my way home.” That was close enough to the truth that it shouldn’t raise any red flags. Hopefully. “My name is Danny.” Introducing himself as Phantom, even in ghost mode, wasn’t something he wanted to do when he had no idea how these people felt about ghosts. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d ever see him as Fenton. He just needed to stick to the ground and pretend to be a normal human being, which he could most definitely do—at least when the sun was bright enough that his slight glow was basically nonexistent. He doubted it would be terribly noticeable even under the cover of trees.

“Danny,” the girl repeated, not relaxing her stance. “That’s an unusual name.”

Sokka just cocked his head at Danny. “Why would anyone kidnap you?”

It was spoken like it was an innocent, thoughtless question, something that could be brushed away with a laugh, but Danny could read an underlying tension in each of their faces. Sokka was waiting on his answer, and so was his sister. Danny’s response might very well determine what happened next.

Consequently, Danny didn’t miss the fact that Sokka didn’t offer up any potential explanations that he could jump on.

Another lie wasn’t going to do him any favours, not when he knew so little. “I don’t know.” He could guess, but he didn’t know. From the looks of it, though, these two wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Chances were good they wouldn’t be particularly satisfied with his suspicions, either, which was that someone wanted him out of the way for whatever they were planning—or maybe that someone had decided they wanted to have a little fun with him at his expense, if world domination wasn’t on the table. “My parents are inventors. Maybe that’s why?”

“That doesn’t explain why whoever took you would leave you here,” Sokka pointed out, and Danny wished these two weren’t so smart. “If you were taken because you were valuable, you wouldn’t have been left behind unguarded.”

“So maybe they kidnapped the wrong person and realized that I wasn’t who they wanted?”

Sokka exchanged glances with his sister before murmuring, “We can ask Toph. I mean, it’s possible they found us, but if he is really a Fire Nation plant picked solely for his eye colour, they’d have at least dyed his hair and given him some normal clothes.”

Danny decided not to ask who the heck picked people for something based on eye colour and not skill or merit or experience or something normal like that. Aside from derailing the conversation from anything potentially useful, Danny was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t realized he’d been overheard, and it wouldn’t be in Danny’s best interests to let them know how good his hearing was.

Still, he took the opportunity to tuck away the Booo-merang before they could ask any questions about it that he wasn’t up to answering. Maybe it would make him seem like less of a threat if they didn’t think he was ready to use it as a weapon—not that he knew how to use a boomerang as a weapon, but he was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t pulled his out to see which of them could throw it farther or throw it properly—and maybe then they’d trust him enough to answer his questions. Hopefully. He was perfectly willing to meet this Toph if it meant figuring out where he was and how to get home, especially since it would be easy enough for him to cut and run later.

The movement was enough to draw the attention of the siblings, though, and both pairs of eyebrows rose. Had they not expected him to make what he hoped would be taken as a gesture of trust or were they wondering how the heck he’d gotten it into his pocket? Maybe they thought he was trying to hide it, which wouldn’t help matters at all. Then again, if they thought that he thought it had been a subtle move, then maybe—

No.

He had to stop doing this. He didn’t know enough about these two to try to guess their thoughts, let alone what actions they might take against him.

Danny shifted on his feet, glad they hadn’t jumped to attacking and that they weren’t even asking questions about the Booo-merang, since practically anything about it would be difficult to answer. At least they hadn’t seen him flying. Even for people familiar with ghosts, unknown ones tended to be cause for concern until their threat level was assessed, and Danny didn’t want to invite trouble and immediately find out what this world had that messed with ghosts. Sure, he wanted to know what could hurt him here, but finding out while it wasn’t actively being used against him was infinitely preferable.

“Where did you say you were from?” the girl asked after a beat, even though they all knew he’d never said anything about that.

“Nowhere you would know,” he hedged, which was true enough.

“We travel a lot,” the girl said, and her brother snorted.

“What Katara means is, try us. If we can help you get back to your family, what do you have to lose?” Sokka offered Danny a grin, and his stance had visibly relaxed, even if he hadn’t put his boomerang away. It might be just for show, especially since he still had a weapon out, but at least the girl hadn’t drawn any knives or something like that. “Look, from one guy to another, you don’t need to make up some crazy story if you’re a runaway or something like that. We’re basically runaways.”

“We’re running towards something, not away from it.”

“We were almost runaways.” To Danny, Sokka added, “Gran caught us, but she let us go.”

Katara rolled her eyes, and Danny looked between the two of them as Sokka continued talking. It was obvious that they’d changed tack for some reason, no doubt trying to get him to trust them, but the blatant switch made him uneasy. Did they not realize how obvious that was or was this just their usual dynamic?

“I’m from Amity,” Danny eventually interrupted. He knew from the way that they were looking at him that neither of them had forgotten he had yet to answer the question. He’d already told them they wouldn’t know the place, so technically he could’ve said Amity Park, but for all he knew, these two had been sent to get information out of him, and the less he told a potential enemy, the better.

Come to think of it, maybe he shouldn’t have told them his real name, and maybe he should’ve just made up a village name rather than dropping heavy hints about his hometown.

“Which is near—?”

Danny ignored Sokka’s prompt. He didn’t even have a good enough idea of the geography of this place to make that up, especially when there was a chance they knew the area, runaways or no. “Do you know where I could get some water? I haven’t found any since I woke up.” That wasn’t true, but they wouldn’t know that unless they were getting some more intel about him from someone unseen.

The siblings looked at each other again, and then Katara faced him and said, “We’re headed to the river. Come with us. You can get your water, and we can share our catch if we get anything.”

“Wait, I didn’t agree to share my meat!” Sokka exclaimed. Katara’s only answer was a dirty look, but it was enough to have Sokka subsiding into grumbles.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Danny said, which also strictly wasn’t true, but he knew he didn’t need to eat much.

“You might be hungry by the time we’re finished,” Katara said over Sokka’s griping.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out how weird it would be if he made up some excuse not to go with them. What were the chances that this was a trap when he’d brought up the river—or at least water—before they had? It wasn’t that he thought they’d be able to take him out if it came to that, even if Jazz had more experience fighting normally than he did, since he typically relied a lot on his powers when he could.

These two might be better fighters than him—there were almost certainly better hunters, given how silently they could walk—but he’d always have something like intangibility in his back pocket if it came to it, and they wouldn’t. Still, when it came down to it, he wasn’t used to fighting humans. What if he didn’t pull his punches enough and seriously hurt one of them?

“You can tell us about Amity,” Katara added. “We’ve never been there.”

Danny really hoped that was true and that there wasn’t a place in this world called Amity that they knew well. Still, when they started walking, spreading out so he was always in sight and they never had their backs to him, even when they hit the trees on the other side of the road, he kept pace with them. “It’s pretty much like you’d expect.” Except for the ghosts. At least his ghost sense hadn’t gone off here. Yet. “This is probably the farthest I’ve ever travelled from home.” He couldn’t get much farther away than a completely different dimension that (probably) wasn’t as connected to his world as it was to the Ghost Zone, anyway—unless he counted when he’d time travelled, but he wasn’t about to bring that up.

Katara opened her mouth to ask another question, maybe to press him for details, so Danny cut her off. “What about you two?”

They looked at each other again. How many times were they going to do that? Hadn’t they already decided how far to trust him? Danny knew it wasn’t very far, but they’d clearly decided he wasn’t going to straight up attack them at this precise moment, so even if they didn’t tell him the whole truth—

Sokka gestured at their clothes. “We’re Water Tribe.”

He said it like it was obvious, like Danny should’ve known already, but of course it explained absolutely nothing.

“Southern Water Tribe,” Katara added unhelpfully, despite Sokka’s frown. “We wanted to see the world, and now we are.”

As cover stories went, it was better than Danny’s. Barely. “Right,” he said, wondering again why he’d been dumped in the path of these two. “It’s a nice world to see.”

Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say, because they were both looking at him like they’d expected him to say anything but that. “What?”

“There’s a war on, you’re supposedly kidnapped and dropped off somewhere in occupied territory without any of the proper paperwork, and the best you can come up with is it’s a nice world to see?” Sokka turned his incredulous look from Danny to Katara. “He cannot be Fire Nation. This kid is more sheltered than Toph was supposed to be.”

Danny, who had stumbled at the word war, kept walking and hoped they hadn’t noticed. If they had, maybe they’d think he’d tripped over a tree root or fallen branch or hole or something. They weren’t following a trail, so that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, right?

“It’s all right,” Katara said as she reached out to touch his arm, and, okay, from that gentle tone, which was a complete change from anything earlier, it must mean she had noticed, knew he hadn’t tripped over anything in the terrain, and—from how she was looking at him now—thought it wasn’t surprise that had tripped Danny up, either. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to be a little naïve until you have a chance to leave home for the first time, but unless you’re got a camp around here, you’re not prepared at all.”

Sokka finally put his boomerang away and smirked at Danny. “We at least left home with supplies.”

“Did you have to run without any warning?” Katara asked, giving her brother a pointed look.

“Oh, uh, kinda.” Danny winced, knowing that had to sound like a lie. “I…I didn’t really plan on leaving when I did. This just…happened.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow, but Katara said, “You don’t have to worry. We’re the last people who would turn you in to the Fire Nation.”

Right. So the Fire Nation were the bad guys, at least according to the Water Tribe and, if he was putting things together correctly, the Earth Kingdom, where they were. Meaning the Fire Nation had invaded the Earth Kingdom if this was occupied territory. Danny thought about asking why these two had come into occupied territory themselves and then decided he didn’t want to risk getting into a discussion that would show off how little he knew. If they had decided he was a runaway who knew practically nothing about the world, well, that worked in his favour.

“Thanks.” Danny wasn’t sure what else to say. “Why are you helping me, though? Won’t that put you in danger?” That had to be a fair question in this situation.

“We can’t help everyone,” Katara said quietly, “but we can help some people, even if it’s just a tiny bit. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

Danny really didn’t know what to say to that, because she certainly wouldn’t understand if he said he knew the feeling, so he smiled weakly in thanks and let the conversation drop.

They were still watching him, but they were more subtle about it now, and it didn’t look like they were watching him more closely than they were watching everything else.

Being downgraded from a threat was a win, though. Danny hoped he didn’t do anything to mess it up.

“There’s no shame in being a refugee,” Sokka said after a moment. “Being from a richer family might’ve bought you an isolated childhood, but it wouldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“We won’t try to hold you for ransom if you tell us where you’re really from,” added Katara.

Danny glanced at her. “I said I was from Amity.”

“I could say I have a platypus bear as a pet,” Sokka interjected. “That doesn’t make it true.”

“We know what it’s like, thinking you understand the way things are and then realizing how little you know,” Katara said quietly. “It can be overwhelming.”

“And it would explain why you’re in your nightclothes,” Sokka said. He’d come in range of Katara’s fist, but he danced out of the way as she swung in his direction. He hadn’t even needed to look at her to know it was coming. “You didn’t know enough to keep your valuables hidden and got robbed your first night on your own, didn’t you?”

“I—” Danny knew it was an excuse for his ignorance being handed to him on a silver platter, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up with a lie like that when he knew so little. “These aren’t my pajamas,” he said instead. Let them believe what they wanted to believe; that would make his life easier. Even if it blew up in his face somehow, he could truthfully say he’d never said they were right.

They might be suspicious that he hadn’t outright denied it, but then again, he’d already told them something a lot closer to the truth.

“Uh huh.” Sokka glanced at Katara again, and she gave a slight shake her head that Danny didn’t understand.

“Let’s get you some food and water first,” Katara said. “Then we can see about finding you other supplies.”

Danny decided not to point out that they’d already told him it was slim pickings for supplies around here. Not that he had the money to pay for anything, but Sokka had already guessed that. Besides, they thought he was running around in his pjs.

Judging by the sour look on Sokka’s face, he’d evidently translated his sister’s words to mean that she wanted to give him some of their supplies, something Sokka clearly wasn’t sure he approved of.

Katara must have had similar thoughts on Sokka’s expression, since she murmured, “It’s this or bring him with us, and you know what’s safer.”

Katara might not have minded that Danny could overhear her last words, but Sokka closed the distance between them, pulling his sister farther away from Danny before hissing, “It’s not the only option, and you know it. We can’t afford to give away any of our supplies, and just because Toph can make sure he’s not coming in with the intention of stabbing us in the back, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t blab to anyone once he figures out who we’re travelling with. You know as well as I do that that wouldn’t take very long.”

“He’s just kid.”

“Technically, like Aang keeps reminding us, we’re just kids. Who very much cannot afford to so much as drop him off in the next village. Show him the river and teach him how to catch and cook his meals? Fine. Picking him up as a stray when he’s not bringing anything to the table? Not fine.”

“He’s lost.”

“So? He’s not hurt. He’s already in a better position than some refugees. He’ll survive until he can walk to the nearest settlement. Then he can try to get help from people who can actually give it.”

Katara bit her lip and slowed to a stop. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

Danny very much wanted to know the answer to that—what had Katara figured out?—but he tried not to react so they didn’t know he’d been listening in. He deliberately turned away and stared around the trees instead, a mix of deciduous and evergreen. He couldn’t pick out any specific types of trees—nothing distinctive like oak leaves that he could see—and, as far as he could tell, the woods were utterly devoid of critters. He had no idea if that was because this world wasn’t real or if it was simply because all the animals in the region had had warning of their coming and hidden accordingly.

Danny knew his disinterest wouldn’t be very convincing, but if he was lucky, they’d think he’d given up on trying to eavesdrop.

“There’s something…off about him. Not necessarily something wrong, but something different. I can’t…. When he asked about water, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hiding any on him or nearby in case it was a trap, and— He didn’t feel the same as you or me. I can’t explain it. Toph might have a better idea than I do. Or…or Aang.” The last word was a barely audible whisper.

“You think this might be a spirit thing?” Sokka’s response was closer to a suppressed shriek than anything else, and Danny winced.

“I think he might be spirit touched,” Katara answered, and Sokka’s sharp inhalation was painfully audible. “I wasn’t good enough back then to notice anything about Yue, but—”

“Fine.” Sokka’s voice had gone flat. “I don’t want to shun someone and accidentally anger the spirits. I’ll teach him to fish. You go back and interrupt advanced earthbending practice and pick a meeting place, but make sure everyone’s packed in case this doesn’t go the way you think it’ll go.”

“I know to be careful.”

“We all know to be careful. Some of us just need more reminding than others.”

Katara didn’t say anything else, but she must have nodded or done something similar because Danny heard Sokka stalk back over to him. “Katara’s going back to talk to the rest of our group about what we might be able to spare,” he said as Danny turned back to face him, “and I’ll show you how to fish in the meantime. If you don’t catch anything, I’ll give you one of mine.”

Danny wasn’t about to admit that he’d overheard their entire conversation, so he smiled and said, “That sounds great, thanks.” It didn’t stop the uneasiness from settling in his gut, though. Sure, now he knew these people believed in ghosts, and Sokka’s response made it clear he didn’t want to get on their bad side, but Danny had no idea what being spirit touched meant. He didn’t know if that was seen as a good thing or a bad thing.

More to the point, if it was a bad thing, he didn’t know if these people had something suitable with which to attack spirit touched people, since if they did, chances were good that it would work on him.

He was not lucky enough to get a free pass here.

Still, the odds were good that he’d be able to escape if they did attack since he’d know to be on watch for something, and he wasn’t about to turn down an offer of food. He had no idea when a portal would open and he’d be able to go home. Until then, the best he could do was survive.

He’d survived this much, and his life had hardly been a walk in the park since the accident, let alone before. He wasn’t about to let some ghost fling him into an unknown world and succeed in taking him down. He needed to get out of this to kick their butt and prove to them that they couldn’t get rid of him that easily.

Assuming this wasn’t all a series of genuine coincidences and not the result of the careful manipulation of events.

Danny didn’t want to think about that, though.

He had a much better chance of getting home if there was someone he could beat, and he was going to get home.

Somehow.

(see more fics)

#danny phantom #atla #avatar the last airbender #danny fenton #sokka #katara #crossover #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #atla fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #crossover snippet #geronimo-alonzi

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