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windblooms · 3 years

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childe scenario – foul legacy

childe x gender-neutral reader. angst and nsfw/smut. 2.4k words. canon divergence: reader is in place of the traveler plus other plot points. warnings: rough/unprotected sex, choking, biting, overstim.

when you arrived in liyue harbor, childe didn’t have to ask for your name because he already knew it – the mondstadtian fatui had told him as much. he only had to ask for your purpose in the city. “to find somewhere to belong,” you had replied.

as if either of you thought that you could make a home out of each other.

time had snapped by in an instant despite the weeks you two had spent together. he couldn’t ever fully drop that harbinger pretense that you knew was a facade, and neither of you could walk the streets of liyue as sincere companions. that time when you both stood atop mt. tianheng and looked out towards the guyun stone forest in the horizon was a sham; there was no sense of honesty, of trust. atop that hill, on a bright autumn morning, you were trembling.

he couldn’t bring himself to admit that it was because of him at the time.

but now, he can’t afford to be considerate of what you two had tried to become. he doesn’t want to think about it. it hurts even more when he looks into your eyes –

– and down at your neck, clutched in his fingers, and your hands that hopelessly rake at his wrist.

don’t give me that look, he wants to say, but his mouth doesn’t move. you knew it would come to this.

your breaths are ragged under his grasp. suspended in the air, you don’t have the energy to kick at him, exhausted from your earlier duel. your sword had been shattered in the brutal exchange, and its remains lay discarded underneath the rubble of the golden house.

he can feel your pulse underneath his claws. it’s erratic, pounding in time with your gasps. your experiences in teyvat had taught you much and honed you into a warrior – an honorary knight. but the pitiful state you’re in now betrays your fragility.

your nails do nothing against the skin of his foul legacy. you choke out his name, as if beseeching – “childe,” – begging for any sense of sympathy. but you shouldn’t rely on his sentimentality: the monster you’re pleading to has always had the insatiable craving to bring his opponents to their knees, and you cannot be the exception.

but, oh so badly, he wishes you were.

“you shouldn’t be thinking like that,” he chides, withered at your misplaced determination. his voice isn’t quite his own; memories of better days are bitter on his tongue. “you’re wasting what you have left.”

sentencing himself to further oblivion, he hurls you to the floor with the flick of his wrist, and your back arches as you hit the pavement. he sees the breath leave your lungs, and as you convulse on the ground, his daggers have already materialized in his claws.

you do what you can to get away from his approaching form, practically crawling to put any semblance of distance between yourself and your doom. but you’re weaponless, weak, and out of options; you can only last like this for so long.

your mouth opens, but he’s on you before you can get a sound out. childe pins your body underneath his, settling himself on your torso with his thighs on either side of your hips. a hydro dagger embeds itself on the tile besides your head, and as he leans over your spent body, all you see staring down at you is a pearl of ice.

“g–get off,” your plea is even weaker under the shadow of his figure. he feels your hands shoving – no, pressing – against his shoulders, but they fall as soon as he sinks more of his weight onto your stomach.

“you can’t win,” childe’s voice should be triumphant; he has you, his adversary, his prize, in absolute submission. but remorse bleeds from his words and into your ears. “stop acting like you even had a chance.”

your head shakes back and forth. the pressure of childe on top of you makes it difficult to think straight, your body screaming at the torture. but you know that you can’t afford to lose here, or even think about giving up. not when paimon, not when the knights, or keqing or ningguang or –

“ – but zhongli.” your wheeze comes out like a sob, but there aren’t any tears in your eyes. the harbinger above you regards your broken state in silence, his cape of stars distorting the walls of the golden house. the chill of his armor burns as it digs into your exposed skin, but it’s grief that consumes you whole.

behind his mask, childe’s eyebrows furrow. what does zhongli have anything to do with this? he’s not even in the city right now, much less relevant to the life-and-death scenario you’re in. is it really him that you’re weeping for, and not your own safety?

childe moves his spare hand to the side of your face, testing. your body shudders violently underneath his, anticipating what might come, with eyes wide and mouth in the middle of another gasp. a claw taps at the rise of your cheek, and skims down your flesh until it hovers down to the plump of your lips.

“it’s his name,” the harbinger exhales, voice now devoid of sentiment. and all at once, you freeze. “that you call to now?”

another beat of silence – bemusement is clear in your eyes. he continues, and with each word, he lowers himself closer to your face. you remember how to move, and as desperately as you can, put your hands on his mask in another attempt to delay the closing distance, all while trying to deny his twisted assertion.

his mask vibrates as his voice flows. you feel it thrum under the bruised skin of your palms. “there are more important things to think about right now. like the dead god you couldn’t protect.”

childe doesn’t stop until his face is mere centimeters from yours. between your fingers, you can see yourself in the clouded orb of his mask.

“or, you know, yourself,” he finishes, aggrieved. “you’ve never been the selfish type. but i didn’t think that you’d be one to think of someone else in a situation like this.”

“no,” you start, still attempting vainly to push him back. “no, listen to m– ”

“you held back before,” childe resumes his monologue, referencing your duel. you never aimed for his neck, his chest, or a fatal blow – always at his arms or legs. “worried about hurting me when nearly crushed you with a whale.”

“you know why.” your cry falls on deaf ears. for some reason the misery in your words doesn’t stir him. “because i didn't want to. just yesterday we ate together at wanmin, and the day before that, nantianmen – ”

“not as friends,” he interrupts, and you become quiet at the harshness in his voice. “as a formality. you knew it would come to this. neither of us could afford to believe otherwise.”

for the second time, your hands fall back to your sides. you can’t speak. you don’t want to. not when you agree with what he’s saying. but you know – you know he wants it to be different.

does he?

you avert your eyes from his face. his body no longer weighs on your own, but he still traps you underneath. your next words are a mere whisper.

“can you blame me for wanting to?”

childe doesn’t respond. you hear his hydro dagger evaporate. your hair moves as a clawed hand settles on the back of your head, cushioning it from the floor.

“yes.” he exhales, but the bottom half of his mask disintegrates and his lips descend onto yours.

you feel like crying as his body grinds against you, thrusting your form further into the tile. as he sucks on your bottom lip, tugging at it with his teeth, your hands find purchase in his hair, feebly grabbing onto strands as you try to keep up with his brutal pace. lips, tongue, lips, tongue – you can’t keep track of how long you’re wedged underneath him like this, or how many times you’ve come close to moaning his name as he’s pulled on your hair, trying to provoke as much of a reaction out of you as he can.

if you’re fragile, then childe’s already broken. his kisses tell you just as much: he tries to feel as much of you as he possibly can, pressing his mouth to your cheeks, the veins on your neck and the flesh above your heart. but i can’t help indulging in you, his ministrations say in contradiction to his spiteful words from before. i can’t stop.

childe’s skin is rough against yours – hardened from his delusion – but he feels like the rush of a high tide at noon. you clutch onto his shoulders, whimpering as the kisses just don’t stop, noises spilling from your mouth as he lifts you from the ground, hands on the backs of your thighs. he carries you away from the wreckage, still biting into the convergence of your neck and shoulder, dragging the flesh under his teeth, and tugs until there are tears in your eyes. you cry out again, with only pleas for him, and that’s when he realizes that there’s something beautiful about how ruined you look.

he’s grateful that he has a mask: underneath it, he’s just as anguished as you are.

“m-more.” you gasp next to his ear, practically clawing at his shoulders. across the length of your collarbones, bite marks from his teeth are embellished onto your skin. “archons, childe . . . ”

he doesn’t waste any more time, pushing your back against a column while supporting your body with his hands underneath your thighs. he squeezes them harshly as he situates his crotch between your legs – and when he starts to rut into your body, nearly growling, he makes sure to cover your mouth with his own so he can feel you even further lose yourself to him.

“is this what you want?” he jeers against your lips, yet for some reason, it’s as if he isn’t talking to you. a gasp is wrung from your mouth as he thrusts up into the juncture of your legs; this feels like bliss. “tell me this is what you want, and i’ll give it to you, y/n. just tell me.”

another shove. the heat between your legs is unbearable, and all too quickly, you’re complying, “y-yes, you, ple – ”

he tears off your undergarments and rams himself into you before you can finish.

the force of his entry is enough to jolt your spine into the column behind you, and once more, you’re winded by his brutality; there was no preparation, and for his first thrusts, it’s painful, yet the relief you feel with him inside you is undeniable. you find yourself not only clinging onto his shoulders for leverage, but even tightening around his length as you adjust to his size and pace, eyes squeezed shut and teeth biting into your lower lip.

“fuck,” childe groans, and buries his face into the litter of hickeys he marked you with before. he rocks you back and forth on his hips. “you feel too good. fuck, fuck, fuck.”

you think you’re bleeding where he clutches your thighs, but you can’t think clearly enough to be sure. all you know is more, more, please, more, let me drown in you more.

you both know this isn’t right, but neither of you can stop. neither of you want to stop.

your gasps fill the ambiance of the golden house. childe makes sure to pull out of you completely, leaving you pitifully empty and clenched around nothing, before pounding back in.

“you’re so filthy,” he finally speaks after what feels like an eternity. the shock of his voice does nothing to quell the building climax in your stomach, and instead, spurs on your want even further. “getting off to me just after being tossed around. aren’t you just cute.”

his teeth sink into your neck once more, and you muffle a scream. the flat of his tongue lathers his bites from before, coating them in saliva. you don’t know what to do, what to say, and can only admit to his words in the drug of hedonism.

your body lurches as he hastens his pace. he doesn’t relent for a second, and your insides feel like absolute mush. “tell me to go harder and i will,” childe goads, the squelching of liquid between your legs becoming more prominent as he continues. “moan louder. cry harder. tell me who’s breaking you right now.”

“you.” it’s another one of your uneven breaths, another to be added to the plethora of defeated exhales. “you, childe. y-you’re . . . ”

you can’t bring yourself to finish. the awareness of your vulnerably creeps into your conscious, and for a moment, your eyes roll down to where the two of you are connected.

before they snap back up, just to see the orb on his mask stare you down.

“tell me,” childe repeats, and you go absolutely still. “who’s breaking you right now.”

and once more, he pulls out, length dripping in your juices, before hilting himself until there’s no more space between your bodies.

“you!” this time, you do scream. he’s too much, his size stretching you as he re-enters. “ – you’re the one wh-who’s breaking me.”

in, out, in out. “yes, good. say it again.”

“you, childe. you’re breaking me . . . “

and when your voice cracks, he feels like he’s shattered too.

you come before he does. suddenly, abruptly, crumpling against his larger form as if you’ve been completely spent. he still moves inside you, not at his point of release yet, and at the excessive stimulation your body jerks. your eyes have glazed over, but the faint grip you have on his arms tells him that you’re still with him.

he mutters your name, as if in reassurance, before slotting his lips over yours once more, tasting your tears as they fall from your eyes.

“good kitten,” his praise ghosts over your lips. as he cums, childe presses himself as far into you as he can. you sigh into his mouth as he does so, shoulders falling, and eyes closing.

he’s not sure whether to embrace you like a lover or cry like a monster.

#genshin impact #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #childe headcanons #childe scenario #tartaglia headcanons #tartaglia scenarios #foul legacy childe #third form childe #smut #yeah haha this is the pWITHp version #too scared to do pWITHOUTp

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wicked-mind · 3 years

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The Forgotten One

Summary: Steve and James inherited the Red Star mob from Obadiah Stane who considered them his sons. Little did Obadiah know that his niece, Y/N, had the two wrapped around her finger. But Obadiah took care of that problem without even realizing it.

Word Count: 4.6k

Warnings: Violence, mentions of abuse, swearing, minor character death, some drinking. (If I missed anything let me know)

All Writings Masterlist

Note: Just a little story I had in my head that probably won't get a second part (: Plus I love mob!bucky and mob!Steve.

Any likes, comments, and/or reblogs are deeply appreciated!

*Gif not mine

Her eyes flickered between the two men in front of her. They are both equally beautiful, almost god like. Steve was tall and blonde, muscles ripped across his body. He looked menacing but the way those baby blue eyes stared into her’s showed nothing but love and gentleness. Then there was James, otherwise affectionally known as ‘Bucky.’ He was slightly shorter than Steve but just as muscular. He had a more rough look to him and unlike the gentleness that showed in Steve’s eyes, James’s blue eyes glowed with wild desire and hunger for her. Y/N drove both Steve and James crazy. She always had. The way she looked at them, the way she teased them had always been unbearable. Her favorite thing to do was try to tease them when they were around Obadiah since her uncle didn’t know of the secret relationship she had with the two. She would walk by sucking on a popsicle in the summer, letting her eyes meet theirs for longer than they should before disappearing. She would tan out by the pool as they watched her rub sunscreen along her skin in a teasing fashion. In the winter when it was cold, she would shed her jacket and fake shiver, lightly whining to them that she needed to be warmed up. Y/N was in a bit of a pickle when it came to the two. She had known them both for three years since coming to live with her Uncle Obadiah who was an awful man towards her. They taught her to defend herself, unleash that ruthlessness and darkness in her. She was eighteen now, same as them and there she sat in front of them. They both loved her deeply and she loved them both as well. It was no secret she toyed with both of them, having them both sneaking into her room at night through the window and flirting incessantly with them both. But now it seemed like she had to make a choice between the two which Y/N despised. She wanted them both. She needed them both. Her nails tapped on the arm of the chair as her eyes continued to flicker between the two.

“It’s okay to love us both, you know.” Steve finally spoke, breaking the silence.

Y/N raised an eyebrow at him, “Is that right?” She asks, her eyes moving to look at Bucky, “Is that how you feel?”

Bucky grinned over to her, “I’m not one to share…” He purred out to her in that deep seductive voice he always used around her, “But Steve is right, it’s alright to love us both. As long as you let only us love you.”

Their love was short lived though. Not soon after the conversation was had between the three, Y/N disappeared with Obadiah claiming she had gone abroad for college.

Obadiah Stane was one of the head mob leaders in New York over the Red Star mob. He didn’t have much competition besides the Red Skulls and the Walker family mob. He had taken care of mending differences with the Walker mob ten years ago, some sort of agreement that nobody but him knew of. When Obadiah passed away, James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes and Steven Grant Rogers took over the business. They had been in Obadiah’s mob since they were both fifteen, starting as drug mules and making their way up to being the right hands of Obadiah like they were his own sons. Although, under the new rule of Steve and James, things were getting shaky. James despised the Walker family mob due to the fact that John Walker, the new head of the Walker family mob, had taken his left arm ten years ago when he was almost nineteen in an attempt to kill him. James hated when Obadiah mended bridges with the Walker family and vowed to Steve that as soon as they were the head of the Red Star mob, he would take care and eliminate the Walker family off the map.

James and Steve stood over John Walker who sat in a chair with a scowl on his face in the living room of his own home. They had came here for a business meeting that was really a planned strategy to take care of Walker and his minions. James and Steve had taken off their black jackets, their white dress shirts stained with blood spatters from the beating they had taken turns giving Walker.

“Now, Walker. You took my arm nearly ten years ago.” James smiled darkly down to Walker, “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?” He said, pulling out a black pistol that had a silencer on it and held it to John’s forehead. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, a commotion from another floor above him made him stop.

Steve glared over at Clint and Sam, two of their main enforcers, “I thought you cleared the house, took care of everybody.” He hissed out to them coldly.

“We did!” Sam interjected firmly, “Everybody’s been taken care of. We checked every room.”

James lowered the gun from John’s head and looked to Sam, “Well, did you manage to check the attic?” He asked.

Clint looked to Sam and they both shook their head no, “Nobody’s ever in the attic, boss. We didn’t check, we’re sorry.” Clint said.

Steve ran his hand over his face, “I’ll check it out.” He told them and James, “If you need something done correctly, do it yourself.” He muttered before turning and leaving the room. He walked up the second floor, running his dark blue eyes along the ceiling until he found the pull down for the stairs that led to the attic. He reached up and gripped the string, pulling down the creaking stairs to the attic. He stepped up slowly, pulling the gun from the holster on his hip and holding it out as he got to the top of the stairs. He slowly holstered it as he looked around confused. The attic looked like it had been made into a bedroom. There were empty plates of food on the floor by where Steve had come up the stairs. There was a small bed in the corner with a dresser and mirror but no windows. Steve frowned as he looked around, it looked like it was made from a girl and if Walker was keeping a girl up here prisoner, that would just make him and James more angry with more of a reason to kill him. He walked around the room slowly, checking around every corner where someone could be hiding, holstering his gun as he didn’t feel like he was going to be met with a threat. He walked to the edge of the bed and looked down at the floor. There seemed to be scratch marks coming out from the bottom of clawed into the wooden floor like someone had been dragged out from under it multiple times. Steve cautiously lowers himself to the floor until his chest was on the wood and he could get a clear glimpse of under the bed and his eyes went wide a little bit at the sight.

In the very back squished against the wall was a woman staring back at him with wide, emotionless eyes. She had crammed herself into the very corner under the bed, laying on her chest and watching him very closely at every move he made. She looked skinny like she had never been fed well, her lip was split open and she had a black eye that looked freshly given to her. Her face was swollen, leaving her features unrecognizable to anybody who may know her. Steve couldn’t figure out why, but she looked familiar, “Hey, I’m Steve. I can help you out if you want to come out of there.” He said with a small smile, reaching his hand out but quickly taking it back when the woman flinched at him reaching for her, “Okay, stay here I’ll be right back.” He told her before standing up and walking back down the stairs from the attic and back to where James was still with Walker. Steve went straight to Walker and lifted him up out of the chair by his collar, his eyes darkening into a glare, “Who is she?!”

“Nobody. She’s nobody.” Walker spat out at Steve, falling back into the chair when Steve released him.

“Who is who?” James asked Steve curiously, raising an eyebrow.

Steve shifted his gaze over to James, “There’s a woman upstairs in the attic. Looks like she’s been kept there for a long time, all beaten.” He motioned for James to step out of the room for a more private conversation, “You should go see her, Buck. She looks familiar but I can’t figure out how.”

James nodded sternly at his best friend’s slight concern in his voice, “You said the attic?” He asks to which Steve nodded, “Keep an eye on Walker. I’ll go check her out.” He said before making his way up the stairs to the second floor then up the stairs of the attic. He looked around, same as Steve and took in the surroundings. He spotted the scratch marks on the floor from under the bed quicker than Steve had and walks over slowly. He puts his chest flush to the floorboards and peered under the bed, meeting the same wide emotionless eyes that Steve had seen. James observed her for a moment, studying her. Her hair was in messy braids, a freshly split lip, and a black eye that had just tarted to turn from red to purple. She was skinnier than she should be, malnourished. She looked about his age and didn’t seem super familiar… Except for those eyes. The way those eyes looked at him, though emotionless, was familiar. His’s fingers tapped against the wooden floors as he watched her. When he moved, her eyes flickered to watch his movements before returning to stare him down, “What’s your name?” He asks gently, but sternly.

The woman stared at him, her head tilting slightly at the question. She kept her mouth shut, not making any attempt to speak to him.

James sighed softly at her silence, putting his forehead to the floor before lifting it to look back at her, “Look, Walker isn’t going to do anything to you ever again. Let me help you, alright? I’ll get you out of here.”

The girl stayed silent at his words for a few minutes, her eyes scanning every movement his face made. She was calculating her options. Her eyes lingered from his face, down his neck, observing every part of him she could see. Once her eyes find the holstered gun at his side, her eyes slowly snaked back up to his face. The girl looked over to the exit from under the bed that James wasn’t blocking, slowly crawling towards it as her eyes returned to watch him. She pulled herself out from under the bed and stood up to face the now standing dark haired man.

James watched her crawl out from under the bed, slowly standing as to not spook her in any sort of way. His eyes raked over her now fully exposed finger. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and her feet were dirty so it seemed like she hadn’t in a long time. She was wearing all black sweatpants with a grey tank top. His eyes went back to her face as he puts his hands in his pockets, keeping a distance, “Gonna give me a name yet?” He asks but wasn’t surprised at the no response that came from her, “Come on, I’ll get you out of here.” He said, pulling a hand out of his pocket to gesture towards the open hatch that lead out of the attic. When she didn’t move, he started walking over and down the stairs out of the attic. James turned when he was at the bottom to look up at her as she followed him down the stairs. When she made it down, he lead her down the stairs back to the main floor with him still in the lead, looking over to Steve who was in the room adjacent to the stairs before looking back to the woman who was making her way down the stairs. At the last few steps, the woman stumbled and James reached up his arms to catch her.

Once the woman landed in his arms at the bottom of the stairs from the stumble she had planned, her eyes flickered over to Walker over his shoulder for a moment. She had planned this from the moment she saw the gun holstered on his hip. She swiftly moved out of his grasp, taking the gun out of his holster as she pushed him away and faced Walker. Nobody had time to move or even process what was happening before the woman fired one bullet from the pistol straight into Walker’s forehead.

Everybody jumped at the sound, ducking away a little at the suddenness of it. “Holy shit!” James yelled, grabbing the gun away from the girl quickly, clicking the safety on and putting it back in his holster. He took a deep breath, looking at Walker’s motionless corpse propped in the chair, “Karma really is a bitch. Nice shot, doll.” He said, almost impressed. For someone who looked like they’d been locked in an attic for a decade, she definitely know how to handle a gun.

The ride back to Steve and Bucky’s mansion was pretty much silent. The woman stared out the window, watching as the black SUV pulled up to an all to familiar mansion. She was shown to a large bedroom where she could stay while she healed up and until Steve and James figured out who she was and why the way she looked at them looked so familiar. The bedroom was painted a light cream color with a king sized bed covered in red blankets. The large windows were covered with gold curtains and a dresser with a TV on it sat opposite of the bed. A small couch sat against the window and there was a door that led to a full sized bathroom with not only a shower, but a large bathtub. A redheaded woman had come in to clean her wounds and also brought extra pairs of clothing as well as any toiletries she made need. Three meals were brought to her room daily since she didn’t dare step outside the safety of her own room. James and Steve had tried to spark conversations with her but they were always met with the same emotionless stare towards them, her eyes flickering between the two as if she was studying them, waiting for them to make a move. She didn’t sleep in the bed once over the span of a week staying there, instead she always pulled a pillow from the bed and curled up underneath the bed as she had for the last ten years living in the attic of the Walker residence.

The woman sat by the window on the couch as James and Steve entered the room after a soft knock on the door, both moving to stand in front of her. She watched them intently, her eyes flickering between the two as she watched every movement they made until they came to a stop in front of her. James’s hands were tucked in the pockets of his black dress pants he always wore while Steve only had one hand placed in his pocket, the other resting at his side. They waited for a moment to see if she would speak, but nothing passed her lips. The swelling on her face had gone down a little, causing some of her features to peak through though her skin was still covered in healing bruises and small cuts.

“It’d be very helpful and appreciated if you tell us who you are.” James said over to her, his lips still in a firm line. The way she was watching them, it was like she was calculating their every movement. But damn, her eyes… Something about them hinted that she was messing with them.

Steve stared into her eyes, trying to figure out why she seemed so familiar to them. It was like he was hypnotized into her eyes and when she looked at him, his own eyes narrowed slightly, “You know us.” He stated.

The woman raised an eyebrow slightly at them, the corner of her lip twitching ever so slightly upwards before returning to an emotionless line once again. She did know them. Ten years ago, she told them she loved both of them before they were taken away from her.

With a failed interaction, James and Steve left the room defeated once again. They made their way to Steve’s office who started pacing with his brow furrowed slightly as if he was trying to think, “She knows us. We know her.” He murmured out.

“Yeah, it’s like she’s teasing and testing us with her stares.” James scoffed, walking over and pouring some whiskey into a glass before bringing it to his lips, “It’d be really helpful if she would just tell us her name or a least utter a word. Her face is still too swollen to really tell who she is or was.”

Steve looked over to his bookshelf for a moment before making his way over to it and pulling out an old dusty book that sat on his shelf untouched for years. He flipped through the pages until a photograph hidden in the middle of the book paused him. It was from almost eleven years ago. It was a polaroid of James and himself laying on either side of Y/N on her bed, her eyes gleaming and a small smirk on her lips. Steve studied it for a moment before walking over to his desk and slamming the book down on the the table open with the photo showing, “Ten years, Buck. Ten goddamn years.” He growled out, his features darkening as he figured out the puzzle of their mystery woman.

James walked over to the desk and peered down at the familiar photo before looking to Steve and raising an eyebrow, “You think it’s Y/N?” He asks.

“Think about it, Buck.” Steve told him, “Ten years ago Obadiah squashed the beef between the families and wouldn’t tell anybody how. Exactly around the same time he claimed Y/N went to study abroad and we never heard of her again. She didn’t even come to her uncle’s funeral!” His voice was raising in anger as he explained, “He never liked her, he got stuck with her. Obadiah gave over his own niece to the Walker family ten years ago as a peace treaty. She loved us. She chose both of us. She would’t have just left without at least saying goodbye, she wasn’t that heartless.”

James had finished his whiskey and slammed his glass down on the table before picking up the photo and studying the woman in the photo intently. Those eyes in the photo had an eery similarity to the woman they had rescued from the Walker house. Then he remembered how she had raised her eyebrow at him and the corner of her mouth had twitched for a moment into a half smile and he felt his heart sink and his anger rise at the same time, “We were the ones that taught her to shoot a gun… Fuck, we should’ve known.” He said, lifting his flesh hand to run through his dark hair, “We just believed Obadiah like a bunch of fucking idiots. And she’s been tortured by the Walker family for ten years.”

Steve sighs, placing one hand on his hip and the other ran through his short blonde hair again, “No wonder she won’t speak to us.” He said, a tinge of hurt in his voice that was still deep with anger, “We’ll give her some space for now…”

The two men did give her some space for about another week which allowed the rest of the swelling and the wounds on her face to heal for the most part. The bruises had a slight yellow color to them still but other than that she looked almost normal again. Y/N had aged in the ten years, of course and even though she didn’t speak a word to anybody or show her emotions, she still felt everything for James and Steve even if she didn’t show it. Y/N was laying on the couch, a book in her hands as she read through the pages in silence. She had managed to sneak out of her room one night and found a bottle of whiskey that she brought back to her room which sat on the floor next to her with the cap off. Once in a while she would reach down while she read and took a small sip. Her reading was interrupted with a knock at her door and Y/N could tell be the way it sounded that it was her boys. They entered and she kept her eyes on the pages in front of her, unmoving as they both walked closer.

Steve stopped a little in front of her, noticing the open whiskey bottle on the floor. Y/N always liked whiskey and would have them steal bottles for her at times when they were younger. James was more forward than Steve was, he walked up and lifted her legs up from the couch and sat himself down before letting Y/N’s legs fall onto his lap, but still she didn’t tear her eyes away from the book, “We know who you are, doll.” James told her, pulling out the photo of them and leaning over to hold it in front of her book.

Y/N looked at the photo, closing her book and dropping it on the floor. She reached down and sat up a little, bringing the whiskey bottle to her lips and taking a small sip. Her eyes flicker between the two men, James who still had her legs on his lap and Steve who stood there looking at her with those gentle blue eyes, “Took you long enough, I was beginning to think you two had some sort of dementia.” She said out to them.

At the sound of her voice, Steve released a deep breath. Her voice just cemented the fact that it was Y/N, even though they both already knew that from the moment they stepped in the room and saw her healed face. He quickly walked over and kneeled down beside the couch, reaching out and taking her face in his hands, “We thought you left us… Obadiah said you went to study abroad.”

Y/N rolls her eyes slightly at him, “Me? Leave the two of you after you agreed to let me have all of both of you? That would make me some sort of idiot which I’m not.” She told him, her lips curving into a small smile. She could feel James’s hands rubbing on her legs softly but she pushed herself out of their touch and stood, stretching her arms above her head as she walked a little away from them. She turned to glance them over. Ten years had been well to them. They both put on more muscle than they had before and they were still as hot and desirable as she remembered them being, “Walker told me a while ago that my evil uncle had passed away and that you two were the new heads of the Red Star mob. I knew it was a matter of time until you found me.” Her eyes flickered to James, her eyes tracing down the gold and black metal left arm, “Especially since Walker did that to you. I knew you’d be set on revenge.”

Steve moved to sit next to James, watching Y/N intently, “Why didn’t you just tell us who you were when we found you?”

Y/N tilts her head at them, “Where would be the fun in that? You know I like to see you two all frustrated and pouty.” She asked with a small smirk, “Besides, I wanted to watch you two. It’s been ten years, had to see if you two were still mine or if you found someone else.”

James stood quickly at her words, walking towards her until he was inches from touching her with his body. The words stung him a little bit. Sure, there had been other women that himself and Steve had enjoyed but the love they both felt for Y/N never matched with any of those one night stands, “There’s been nobody else that has even came close to matching how we feel about you.” He said down to her, his voice tinged with a bit of anger, “You’ve always had us wrapped around your little finger.”

Y/N smiled up at him, noting the small bit of anger in his voice towards her. James had always been a little rougher with her and his anger switch was much easier to flip. She bit her bottom lip as she lifts a hand to brush along his cheek gently, watching him instantly melt into her touch, “That’s just how I like you two- wrapped around my finger like the good boys you are.” She told him before stepping away and moving to the dresser. She was wearing simple leggings with a tight black tank top. She pulled out one of the tight black dresses Natasha had provided her, turning to face Steve and James as she pulled all the fabric from her body until she was left in her bra and matching underwear. Y/N watched their eyes rake over her almost naked form, how their eyes flashed with lust and desire for her. She smiled teasingly at them before slipping the dress over her figure. It clung to her body, showing all her perfect curves and the bottom of the dress ended just at her thighs. turning her back towards them, “Now which one of you want to zip me up?”

Both Steve and James practically leaped at the chance, pushing each other away for the honor of touching Y/N and zipping up the dress. They had always been competitive when it came to Y/N’s love even though they both knew she loved them equally. Steve managed to be the one to slowly slip the zipper up from her lower back until he reached the top. He didn’t move from behind her though, instead moving one of his hands to her hip while the other stroked her hair to one side of her neck. Steve leaned forward and gently brushed his soft lips up her neck until they were touching the back of her ear, “You look beautiful, sweetheart.” He whispered to her, “But why get all dressed up?”

“Yeah, there’s no need to change, doll.” James said, moving to stand in front of Y/N with that crooked grin plastered across his face, “We’ll just have to rip that dress off later. We have ten years to make up for.”

Y/N was smirking at Steve’s touch. She always had them wrapped around her finger since she met them and enjoyed every touch they left on her body, “I’ve been holed up for ten years, my loves.” She reminded them, her eyes locked onto James’s light blue ones, “You two are going to take me out for some fun.” She slowly ran her tongue along her top lip, “Then, when we get back, you two can work on making up for those ten years.”

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If I missed anyone on the taglist or you would like to be added, please either comment, send an ask, or send me message letting me know! Thank you for the support (:

#bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #steve rogers #steve x you #steve x reader #steve x y/n #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #steve x reader x bucky #mob!bucky #mob!steve

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tippedbykreider · 3 years

Text

it’s all coming back to me | c. kreider (i)

Word Count: 8.2k Warnings: Slow burn, exes to friends to lovers, relationship breakdown, swearing, alcohol mention. Author’s Note: So many of you have been requesting for this to be brought back! The consensus was that you’d rather have it in smaller chunks so I’ll be posting each new part weekly and they’ll come in between 6 & 9k per chapter. Not only is it more manageable for you guys but it also gives me chance to keep writing new content for it 💖 There is a playlist for this fic which I posted separately, it gives a chronological feel for their relationship and their story. This has been a tonne of fun to write so far and I can’t wait to tell the rest of their story. Summary: Chris Kreider x Reader Insert. They say that all good things come to an end, that you can never have too much of a good thing, but when Chris decided to end your relationship you wondered how anything could ever be good again. A chance meeting 9 years later drags up all those feelings you both thought you were done with. Can you work through your hurt and pain to see what it is that Chris is trying to show you? Or are some things better left forgotten? Tagging: @danglesnipecelly - this girl deserves a writing credit on this thing because she’s pushed me to keep going with this and her input and advice has been invaluable. Thank you for all the support on this one, K 💖

*Italics indicates a flashback*

The notion of fresh starts is often something that is associated with the arrival of the New Year. People use the turning of the calendar to turn over a new leaf, to learn a new skill, to challenge themselves to be better than the year before and to let go of all that was and focus on all that will be. There’s something inherently magical about a new beginning, a fresh start; sometimes it’s the excitement of what might lie ahead and other times it’s the comfort in knowing that you can seize the opportunity be whoever you want to be and to reinvent yourself. It’s the line in the sand and the final full stop at the end of the chapter and it’s the anticipation of picking up the pen and writing those first few words on the new page.

For Chris Kreider this feeling wasn’t one that was brought about by the strike of the clock at midnight on New Year’s Eve because while the date on the calendar changed and while he still spent the next couple of weeks dating things with the wrong year just like everybody else, it still often felt like nothing really changed for him. Chris could only feel like the year was truly coming to an end when the first petals of spring exploded like fireworks in a symphony of technicolour blooms and he found himself giving the locker-room clearout interview. That was the end of the year, the full stop, the line and the warmer days and the balmy nights would give him the opportunity to decompress ready for the turning of the page come September when his focus would once again turn back to hockey.

Chris loved New York; that much was undeniably true. He loved the vibrancy of the city but he also loved the way that he could melt into the background or enjoy the feeling of quiet solace his apartment gave him. It was oftentimes a bolthole, an oasis of peace during an otherwise hectic few months between September and May but the end of the hockey season and the arrival of summer had him seeking the cry of gulls on the breath of a gentle breeze and that crisp, purifying sea air that always managed to fill his lungs differently. Rowayton wasn’t far, a little over an hour on a good day but with its coastal Connecticut charm, slower pace and pretty houses, especially the ones that overlooked the water, it was a world away from NYC and exactly what Chris needed to reset and recharge.

It was a Saturday morning in mid-July and for the first time in a long time, longer than Chris could recall, he allowed himself to sleep in. His bedroom window had been open all night and the welcome breeze snaked through the slats in the blinds and carried on it the faintest smell of salt and sunshine. Chris stretched his muscles in big pulls around the bed before he settled on his back and inhaled deeply, the fresh air clearing his mind and filling his body as the last remnants of sleep slipped away on the exhale of breath. Imbued with energy, he climbed out of bed and pulled the blinds all the way up, flooding the bedroom with beautiful incandescence born out of a cloudless sky. He didn’t make his bed though, not yet, because while he had left his room and was padding down the stairs, he had every intention of returning to the still warm sheets to read a chapter or two of the book on his nightstand with a fresh cup of coffee, a cinnamon and raisin bagel, that invigorating coastal air and the oceanscape outside as the soundtrack.

One chapter turned into two and two became three and before Chris knew it, the sun was high in the sky and lunchtime beckoned. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day in Rowayton and Chris thought it would be a crying shame to spend his time at home, even if the page-turner he’d held in his hands moments ago seemed incredibly appealing out on the back deck overlooking the water. It was then he decided to take advantage of that gorgeous sunshine, take in the scenery and stretch his legs by going for a walk into town to pick up a few essentials at Rowayton Market. For all it was a small, it contained everything he would need to keep him going for a few more days until he’d finally need to drive into Norwalk to do a more substantial grocery shop, something that he’d admittedly been putting off. The Market also had some of the best baked goods and fresh coffee in the village and if you asked Chris it would be pretty rude to not take advantage – it was right there, after all, and Chris never could say no to a still-warm Danish and Americano.

He walked slower than he usually would, a conscious effort on his part due to the fact that his legs seemed to want to go into an auto-pilot primed for life in New York City. He was in no rush though, he never was whenever he came here and even though it was a route he’d walked hundreds of times before, and one he would walk hundreds more, Chris still wanted to soak in all the pretty trees and shrubs that were nestled in amongst those classical New England style homes, all shingled exteriors and white, gridded windows in soft muted colours that mirrored the coastal landscape of the village. It was a world away from the brick and the concrete and the bright lights of the city and while Chris loved all of those things about New York and loved wandering through the streets of Tribeca and Soho, getting lost in bookstores and hole-in-the-wall cafes, he also loved the sand, shale and stars and those were things that he just couldn’t find in the city that never slept.

There were quite a few people out and about, Chris noted, most of them he recognised as being residents with their friendly smiles and waved greetings, but there were a handful of tourists too; there always was on weekends during the summer. Not that Chris minded, of course, because for all the village was a popular escape for those seeking a break from the metropolitan life of the nearby hub of cities, it never succumbed to the all-too-often inevitability of commercialisation and still managed to hold on to its peaceful charm, despite it not quite being the quaint fishing village it once was back in the days before the Civil War.

It was one of the reasons why Chris found himself retreating here in the summer and not making the trip back home to spend the off-season in Massachusetts. He would go back to Boxford for a couple of weeks, naturally, because family was something that had always been important to Chris and he would never miss an opportunity to spend time with his parents and sister, but if he had the choice between spending his entire summer being bitten to death by mosquitoes back home (his father always did say that they were the town bird, after all) or feeling the gentle kiss of the ocean breeze against his skin, there was no real contest. Rowayton would always win.

The main street through town was busier, which wasn’t exactly unexpected and if anything it only seemed to add to the charm of the village. Chris decided to head straight to the market to pick up his groceries, if only to facilitate the Danish eating in a more timely-fashion. He picked up a basket as he entered and proceeded to add only the essentials he’d need to get him through the next couple of days. He’d pay for his shopping before going to the coffee bar, because trying to pack his reusable grocery bag with a full takeout cup was a mistake he’d made once before and was sure to never repeat again.

With his groceries purchased and bags packed in such a way that the couple of bottles of wine he’d picked up wouldn’t clink together when he walked (it was three to be exact but after seeing the selection of cured meats, cheeses and olives available he thought it’d be a crime if they didn’t find their way into his basket to come home with him, and if there was cheese there had to be wine), Chris made his way to the coffee counter situated near the Market entrance.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d taken a trip away without the company of anyone else but the last couple of months at work had been incredibly stressful, with projects seemingly coming out of your ears and while you knew your mother had been worried by your suggestion of taking off somewhere alone for the weekend, she also knew better than to fight you on something you’d quite clearly already set your mind to. If you were being completely honest, your plans for the first full weekend you’d had off in months would have consisted of not setting foot outside of your apartment or engaging in any kind of unnecessary conversation had you decided to stay home in Hartford, at least this way you’d be getting some fresh air and the sun on your face.

It was just shy of a two hour drive down to Rowayton, which had the dual benefit of being close enough to home that it didn’t feel like a huge trek just to get there, but also being far enough away that you would be a complete stranger in this town and could take the time to decompress and recharge while blending into the background, and the place was pretty to boot. You’d found a little studio Airbnb not too far away in South Norwalk, figuring that you’d only be using it as somewhere to sleep as you’d planned on spending as much of your time as possible being right by that ocean with the wind in your hair and the warm sun on your skin.

That’s how you’d planned on spending your Saturday afternoon, sat on the sand of Bayley Beach with a good book and a cup of coffee. It was set to be a balmy day, with temperatures sitting in the mid-eighties and the last thing you wanted to be doing in the heat was any amount of excessive walking. So with that in mind, you’d spent your morning exploring the village and taking in the sights and sounds. The gentle protest of your stomach told you it was lunchtime before you’d even taken the opportunity to glance down at your watch and a quick Google search pointed you in the direction of somewhere to get that all important cup of coffee and a small bite to eat.

Rowayton Market didn’t look like much from the outside in the sense that it was a little on the petite side, but the reviews were great and the coffee was allegedly some of the best in the village and that was good enough for you. You were greeted with the smell of freshly baked goods and ground coffee, which was welcoming enough before you even saw the bright smile of the girl behind the counter. Your eyes drifted over the selection of pastries, each one more delicious looking than the last and you knew that you were going to have a hard time choosing just one. You knew you’d have to make a decision, though, suddenly aware of the small line that had seemingly materialised right out of thin air behind you and while you were sure that these people were more accustomed to a slower pace of life, the city girl in you, who was so used to living life in the fast lane, didn’t want to keep these good people waiting while you deliberated. You’d go with your usual and that would be that.

Chris’s attention was fixed out of the large glass windows at the front of the shop, watching as people milled in the street and went about their daily business. It was something he quite often did, whether he was here or back home in New York. There was something oddly soothing about watching the world go by, he thought, and occasionally he’d catch something that would quirk his lips up into a smile, like the sight before him now of a rather large gull in the process of committing larceny against what he could only assume was an unsuspecting tourist. Their sandwich was held high above their head while their free hand attempted to shoo the bird away with little success. He chuckled quietly to himself then, not least because the gulls seemed to get more brazen with each year that passed and he was sure that one of these days he’d see someone’s lunch get snatched right out of their hand by the feathered menaces.

Chris had no reason at all to believe as he stood in that line that everything was about to change. Why would he? The day had started like any other. He’d picked up his groceries in this store more times than he could count, he’d waited in a line just like this one for his coffee and Danish and yet, in that moment, something as innocuous as a woman’s voice would bring feelings that he thought he was done with, and memories he thought had strayed out of his mind for good, flooding back to the surface. But it wasn’t just any woman’s voice, no, it wasn’t as detached and neutral as that. It was your voice; a voice he hadn’t heard in nine years and it was something as simple as a coffee order, an order that he now knew to have remained the same since the day you’d first met at Boston College all those years ago, that blew the dam wide open and every word the two of you had ever spoken, from day one to the last thing you ever said to him, came rushing back.

The sound of Chris’s voice calling your name was something you never thought you’d hear out loud again. It was a voice you’d only heard in your dreams for many years after he walked out of your life, but even that had faded beyond memory to where you weren’t a hundred percent certain that you’d be able to remember what it sounded like anymore. And yet, in the middle of a tiny supermarket in Rowayton, you heard him clear as day with his tongue rolling around the syllables of your name with the same fondness, even after all this time and it was like you’d never forgotten the sound at all.

Autumn was beginning to make her presence felt in Boston. The palette on campus had shifted from a spectrum of vivid greens to shades of deep russet, amber, ochre and vermillion; but even above the changing leaves, the turning of the calendar brought a slight chill to the air that had you reaching for your jacket on a morning as you left your dorm.

Today was no different. The temperature had dropped again overnight as November creeped ever closer and it was chilly enough that you had to draw your coat tighter around you as you walked across campus towards class. Your brisk pace had bought you enough time to make a stop at the coffee stand just outside of Campion where your first class of the day was being held. There was a decent selection on offer, but it wasn’t enough to sway you from ordering your usual.

You rooted around your backpack for your wallet while the barista prepared your coffee and grabbed you your cinnamon roll, unaware of the new presence to your right, before handing over the money and taking the coffee and pastry bag from the young man’s hands.

“Coffee and cinnamon roll, eh? Now that’s the breakfast of champions.”

You turned your head towards the source of the voice, lips quirking into a small smile at the sight of the stranger beside you who looked to be not much older than you were, incredibly tall and broad for his apparent age but not for his height. He was grinning at you with a fullness that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and gave him a unique kind of softness.

“My mom would disagree,” you replied with a smirk. “If she found out I was having this for breakfast she’d be in her car so fast and dragging my ass back to Hartford.”

He laughed at that, loud and bright with his head tipped back slightly before running a hand through his dark brown hair that was shorter on the sides but had the faintest hint of a curl at the longer strands on top.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not telling her,” you grinned as you swung your backpack over one shoulder. “So looks like you’re sworn to secrecy.”

You studied him for a brief moment, with the way he was still grinning at you and his eyes that seemed to sparkle behind his dark lashes before your brain gently reminded you that you, in fact, had somewhere you needed to be. “Well, I hate to impose a vow of silence on you like some sort of mafia boss and then immediately split but I uh I gotta head to class.”

“No problem at all and hey, your secret is safe with me. In fact, I’ve forgotten already. What were we talking about?”

There it was again, that smile of his that made you want to stay rooted right where you were standing and look at it all day, but class beckoned and so you gave an awkward wave of your hand and a soft laugh before you turned and headed into the building behind you without another glance back. If you had you’d have seen the stranger from the coffee stand watch until you’d disappeared from view, with that smile still on his face.

This little routine of yours would continue over the course of the next few weeks. Every Tuesday morning, at around 8:45am, you’d find yourself stood at that coffee stand outside of Campion to get your coffee and cinnamon roll, and every Tuesday morning, at around 8:46am, the tall stranger would appear beside you with his kind eyes and his bright smile. You’d exchange a ‘hello’ and a friendly grin and you’d laugh more often than not too while you made pleasant small talk before you both said your goodbyes and went to your respective classes, though you would always leave first and he would watch you go until you’d disappeared into the building.

It was mid-November, now, and the campus of Boston College was firmly in autumn’s frigid grasp. The temperatures continued to drop, seemingly overnight, which had you bundled up in your hat and scarf and the trees had shed their branches of leaves, crunching underfoot with the slight frost as you made your way towards Campion. Your hands were shoved deep into your coat pockets to ward off the gnawing chill and you were looking forward to being able to warm them around your coffee cup.

You approached the stand as normal, rooting through your backpack for your wallet ready to order.

“Hey!”

You looked up, your features fixed in a state of mild confusion while you looked for the source of the voice you recognised but couldn’t quite place. It was then you saw him though, all bright eyed and bushy tailed with a medium coffee and pastry bag held up in one of his large hands as if on display. He was grinning at you and cocked his head, beckoning you over with the wordless gesture.

“Hey, yourself,” you smiled as you approached. “What’s this then?” You tilted your head slightly at the items in his hand as he offered them to you.

“Breakfast of champions.”

Your eyebrow quirked as you took the coffee from him before taking a tentative sip, smiling while the warm liquid slid down your throat.

“You got my coffee order right.”

“It wasn’t hard,” he smirked. “You order the same thing every week and if you open that little paper bag I think you’ll find a cinnamon roll in there.”

Sure enough, as you opened the bag you were greeted with the sight of a perfectly formed cinnamon roll and you couldn’t help the grin that sparked at your lips and spread the full width of your face.

“I don’t order the same thing every week.”

“You do,” he replied with a laugh. “Every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks you’ve come to this coffee stand and ordered a medium Americano with half and half and a cinnamon roll and every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks I’ve been meaning to ask you your name.”

Your face flushed warm at that, not only at his words but at the sure little smile he was giving you and the way his eyes were sparkling. In fact, now that you were really looking at him properly, you were knocked back a bit by the perpetual kindness that seemed to rest in them and you couldn’t help but notice how they really were the perfect shade of hazel, like a forest with a deep bark heart surrounded by leaves that were every shade of green. You’d been quiet a little too long though and so you took a settling sip of coffee to give you enough time to find your voice again and tell him your name.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiled as he offered you his hand, which was large and warm as you shook it.

“And who should I thank for the coffee?” you asked.

His smile grew into a grin then, the kind that you’d noticed over the course of the last few weeks that made his eyes crinkle and happiness radiate from him, before simply replying:

“Chris.”

“Chris?”

It was as if time had stood still in that little Market in Rowayton, where your surroundings become a still-frame and there’s nothing but static in your ears. You’d often thought about what it would have been like to see him again. Those first couple of years after he’d left Boston College had you imagining all kinds of scenarios, much like the one you were in right now where you’d bump into each other in a supermarket or a pharmacy, anywhere really, but now that you were living it, seeing it, breathing it, there was nothing you could have conjured up in your imagination that would have prepared you for what it would really feel like to see him again. If you were to be completely honest, you were glad that your coffee and cinnamon roll were still on the top of the counter because you were certain that they would have fallen right out of your hands and onto the Market floor.

He abandoned his position in the line then, as if you speaking his name was a call to him, and maybe it was, on some level, but the truth and simplicity of it was that you were suspended in a state of pure disbelief and even in the short time it took for him to close the distance between you both, you were still yet to move and fix your features to something more neutral.

“Hey.”

It was a simple greeting that he gave you and logically you knew that there wasn’t really any tangible meaning behind that single word he spoke and yet there was something about the look in his eyes and the warmth in the smile he gave you.

“It’s been a while.”

“It has,” you replied, finally finding your voice. “You look, you look good.”

It wasn’t a lie either, he did look good. The tall college boy you remembered, who was just a little too slight for his height, had filled out; you could tell that just from the way the fabric of his t-shirt stretched across the broad plains of his chest and strained around his biceps, and he was no longer clean shaven, which was something that had always made him look quite baby-faced. Instead he was sporting a neatly trimmed goatee and while he had kept his hair short on the sides, just like you’d remembered it, it was longer on the top than it had been in college and the curls were sweeping in a way that reminded you of the waves just beyond the Market door. He looked older, yes, which is exactly what you would have expected in the nine years since you’d last seen him but his eyes were still exactly the same, sparkling and full of mischief , yet still soft, perhaps even softer than before on account of the faint lines around them drawn by time’s fair hand.

“So do you,” he grinned. “You cut your hair.”

“I did,” you looked down as your face flushed with warmth, unsure exactly what you were supposed to say to him.

It was something you’d thought about during those imagined scenarios where you’d magically bump into each other again and you’d thought about all of the things that you would say to him. You would tell him about how much you’d cried when he left you behind to live out his boyhood dream and how angry you were that he didn’t want you to be a part of that, how it felt like all the plans you’d ever talked about were nothing more than empty words and how hurt that had made you feel. You felt like you at least deserved that, especially given that it was never just a casual fling between you both. After all, you’d been practically inseparable for two years. You’d been inseparable ever since he’d said those three words that mean so much. But now that he was here in front of you, all those words that had swirled around in your head and in your chest like a hurricane for so long, dissipated into nothing and you found yourself clutching at straws to find something, anything, to say.

Chris could sense this though. Of course he could because he was Chris and he had always been so in tune with you and your emotions and the fact that he was still able to read you so well was both a comfort and a knife in your chest, and while he internally grimaced at the fact he was having to fall back on using small talk between you both, he felt like it was what you needed in the moment. He wouldn’t expect things to go back to how they were after all this time, he couldn’t, and so he started with something simple, something he knew you would be able give him an answer to.

“So, what brings you to sunny Rowayton?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you replied.

“Ah,” Chris grinned, trying to keep the mood light. “See I asked you first and also, I live here so therefore the ‘question answering’ responsibility falls back to you.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, at both his words and the silly little expression he was wearing and despite all the years that sat between you both like a void and all of your hurt that was held within it, it all seemed to briefly melt away and in that moment it was like you were back at that little coffee stand outside of Campion.

“I didn’t realise this was an interrogation. Wait is this one of those little weird cult towns? Should I be worried?”

Chris knew by the little smirk you were wearing that you meant no malice behind your words and so he responded by sucking in air through his teeth before speaking again with one of those smiles that went all the way up to his eyes.

“Watch it, Pickle.”

Your stomach fell right into your shoes in that moment, that name he used only for you slipped from his lips like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, like he’d never stopped calling you it and like it hadn’t been nine years since you’d last spoke a word to one another. Chris knew all this of course and he didn’t need to rely on intuition either because he could see every emotion written all over your face.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly on the exhale of a breath. “I um.. Force of habit, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” you muttered, not quite meeting his eyes. “Although not exactly ‘habit’, it’s been how long?”

Chris winced at that, the reality of how he left things between you both slapping him in the face and he was filled with the guilt that he’d spent almost a decade pushing out of his chest and shoving into the darkest corner of his memory where he would hope it would rest undisturbed. He knew that you were angry at him for leaving things the way he did, how could you not be? After all, he was the one who had broken your heart and left you in Boston, but it was never as simple as that, even back then there was so much he should have said but that was something he wouldn’t realise until much later when it was too late to repair the damage. The thinly veiled hurt in your eyes and the way your mouth was downturned was demonstrative of that fact.

“I know,” he all but whispered. “It just-“

“It’s fine, Chris. Can we just forget about it? Please?”

He nodded, watching with a quiet kind of sadness on his features as you turned to finally pick your coffee and cinnamon roll up off the counter before he cleared his throat softly to continue speaking.

“You never did say what brought you into town.”

You took a sip of coffee to give yourself long enough to settle the thundering in your chest before answering him, because for all your heart felt like it was about to burst from all the hurt you’d managed to hide away up until now, there was also a weird sense of nostalgia that came with seeing him and hearing his voice again, and even though he’d shattered your heart completely when he decided he no longer wanted you in his life, your mother had raised you right and you knew the proper thing to do was to indulge him in a little small talk, even if for nothing more than old time’s sake.

“Just here for the weekend,” you replied. “Work has been nuts lately and I needed some time away from home.”

Chris shuffled on his feet for a moment as you spoke while his eyes darted between you and the door that would lead to the outside world and the possibility of the two of you parting once more. It was an unexpected pull that he felt in his chest at that thought, you reappearing in his life out of the blue only to slip out of it just as suddenly by doing something as simple as walking out of that supermarket back out into the wide world. For nine years he’d thought about where you were, what you were doing, if you were okay, if you were happy and with each year that passed without seeing your face or hearing your voice, he’d resigned himself to the fact that you were lost to him, drifting out there in the seas of life never to see you again. He didn’t know why you’d suddenly come back to him now, whether by some stroke of luck or twist of fate, although Chris couldn’t have cared less which one it was. All he cared about was the fact that you were here at all and it was an opportunity that he was sure he wasn’t going to waste. He didn’t even know for certain that you would want to give him any of your time after what had happened when he left Boston, but he wanted to at least give you what he should have all those years ago and that was an explanation and an opportunity for you to tell him how his actions had made you feel.

“Hey, what are you up to this afternoon?”

“Not much,” you shrugged. “I was just going to sit on Bayley Beach and enjoy the nice weather.”

“Would you mind some company? No pressure, of course, I understand if you… I understand if you’d rather not want to spend any time with me.”

You exhaled then and Chris’s shoulders visibly sagged, bracing himself for your polite refusal, but your response was not one that he was expecting and truthfully, it wasn’t one that you had expected either.

“Honestly?” you started, getting swept up in the nostalgia of seeing him again before the rational part of your brain could catch up. “That would be nice.”

“Great,” he smiled in what you could see was pure relief. “Do you mind if I grab a coffee before we head out?”

“Sure,” you replied. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

You headed out the door and were sure to stand where Chris could see you, knowing him well enough to realise that he’d be worrying, at least on some level, that you’d slip off into the crowd. You’d never do that to him, of course, even after everything, because while he had broken your heart, he was also the first person you’d ever truly loved and when you’d put the pieces back together, you couldn’t help but keep a part of him wrapped up amongst the tape and string holding those pieces together while you healed. It was in doing that that you understood that he would always have a special place in your heart and honestly? You were kind of okay with that because while the ending hadn’t exactly been perfect, the two years you’d spent together were and you wouldn’t have changed that time for anything.

You weren’t sure what exactly had possessed you to let Chris talk you into venturing off campus and out in the early-February snow to get burgers at Eagle’s Deli but you were cursing those sparkling eyes and that roguish grin of his for wearing down your sensibilities as you righted yourself after what felt like the hundredth near-fall. It was slushy underfoot, the kind that’s a twisted ankle or sprained knee waiting to happen and while you’d dressed weather appropriately in your winter boots and heavy parka, you were still very newborn lamb-like in your movements which was amusing Chris to no end.

“Come on, slowpoke,” he called from up ahead as he grinned at you over his shoulder.

“Not all of us can be hockey prodigies and thrive in this kind of inclement weather,” you grumbled, shuffling slowly so as not to slip.

Chris laughed as he came back towards you with confident and purposeful steps, surprising you when he offered his arm for you to loop yours through.

“Now, I’m no expert in geography or meteorology but it snows in Hartford, no?”

He was grinning at you, the kind of grin that you had to fight with every fibre of your being not to reciprocate because you’d already committed to your grumpy act and you couldn’t have him thinking he’d cracked you already, even if he, in fact, had.

“Yes,” you stressed. “But I don’t make a habit of going out in it to get burgers like a crazy person.”

The cackle you received from him in reply was loud and a little wild and you couldn’t help but be completely captivated by the way his cheeks were ruddy from the cold and the snowflakes clinging to the curls on top of his head and long eyelashes. Tuesday morning coffees with him outside of Campion before class had turned into coffees in actual cafes during free periods and getting lunch together. It was even dragging your body out into the cold to the Alumni Stadium with your blanket and your thermos to watch Chris play with the BC Eagles because you couldn’t say no to that damn smile and those damn eyes and even now, as you looked at him taking in the scenery along the Chestnut Hill Reservoir pathway, you knew that they were going to be the death of you.

“It’s really pretty along here,” he spoke, more quietly than before; softer too. “You wouldn’t think we were in the middle of Boston.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice walk,” you agreed before shooting him a smirk and a look. “Would be nice in the spring sunshine too.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it, Little Miss Chilly.”

“I don’t know what you have against being warm, Kreider. Warm is good, warm is nice-“

You shrieked as your feet went out from under you, courtesy of a patch of black ice hidden under slushy snow and you squeezed your eyes shut in preparation for the impact of your ass hitting the cold, hard ground. But it never came.

“It’s okay,” Chris spoke reassuringly, one hand tight around your bicep while his other arm was curled around your waist, holding you upright. “I’ve got you.”

You opened your eyes then to be met with Chris’s looking right at you, all moss and bark and warm. He was smiling at you but it was different to the easy grin he usually wore around you, this was softer somehow and all rational thought was replaced by one of those monkeys playing the cymbals. For the briefest of seconds, and for reasons completely unknown to you, the monkey tried to take the wheel and the idea of kissing him right there, in the middle of the pathway that had made an attempt on your life, flashed into your head.

Maybe it was the snow and how perfect and picturesque the scene around you felt? Maybe it was the fact he’d just saved you from slipping? But the reality of it was that those eyes and that smile held some sort of power over you that you couldn’t yet fully understand. You shook your head quickly, if only to take back control of the situation before you did something more embarrassing than almost falling on your ass.

“Thanks,” you muttered as you regained your composure. “This damn pathway.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Chris grinned as he turned so his back was to you and stooped slightly. “Hop on.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“I never joke about piggy-backs,” he replied in a faux solemn tone with the face to match. “Come on, we’ll get you to the Deli in one piece one way or another.”

And that was how you ended up with your arms looped around Chris’s shoulders and his strong hands holding the backs of your legs as he carried you on his back to Eagle’s Deli.

Not twenty minutes later, the pair of you were shuffling into a booth as you shed your coats, gloves and scarves, Chris grinning at you while you blew on your fingers in an attempt to restore warmth into them.

“See, told you I’d get you here in one piece.”

You scoffed at him and shot a playful glance across the table separating you both.

“You’re not human, that is the only explanation for how you’re able to walk in that,” you nodded towards the window where the snow was still falling to illustrate your point before continuing, “and not fall flat on your face.”

“Or my ass,” he added with a grin.

“Hey, that never actually happened!”

Chris’s face split into an even bigger smile at your little protest and the pout that had formed on your lips and while the gentle teasing between you was simply a part of the dynamic of your friendship, Chris would have been lying if he didn’t admit that the reason he did it so often was because you always looked so adorable trying to rebut him.

“No, you’re right. It didn’t,” he mused with a smirk, not needing to remind you that it was him who had come to your rescue judging from the unimpressed look you were throwing his way.

“All I’m saying is that we could’ve just gone to Hillside for lunch.”

“But the burgers here are superior,” he countered, smiling at you. “And you got to enjoy a beautiful walk in the snow with me so who’s the real winner he- mmpf!”

Chris was cut off by your damp mitten hitting his face, brows knitting into a slight frown before laughing at the proud grin you wore at the accuracy of your throw.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he said with mock hurt.

“Maybe I’m not a very nice person.”

“I don’t believe that for one second,” he replied, but there was no teasing in his tone this time, only the kind of sincerity that had your face flushing warm and had you reaching for the menu to hide behind under the pretence of looking at the choices available.

He couldn’t help but smile at the awkwardness with which you were trying and failing to hide from him but soon joined you in picking up a menu and perusing it, despite already knowing what he was going to order.

It was a few moments before the waitress came over and while neither of you spoke the silence between you both wasn’t exactly awkward even though Chris knew there was something about his last words that had had some kind of effect on you. He was right, of course, because despite the fact that you’d had hold of this menu for a good couple of minutes already, you hadn’t actually looked at a single thing on it even though you’d made such a show of doing just that and now that Chris had ordered, a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake, the waitress was looking at you expectantly. Unable to form any kind of rational thought under that kind of pressure, you found yourself simply saying “same” and soon enough it was just you and Chris at the table once more.

Chris was looking at you like he had something he wanted to say and the unreadable expression on his face had you feeling somewhat uneasy for reasons you hadn’t quite ascertained but probably understood on some level if you let yourself think about it for more than a second. He could feel the nervous energy radiating from you though and so rather than pursue his current train of thought, he picked a topic of conversation that was much safer and knew you’d be comfortable with: school.

You talked about your classes and upcoming assignments while he listened intently and you returned the favour while he spoke earnestly about hockey and his own academic workload. It was so easy to settle into a natural rhythm with Chris whenever you talked, as if you’d been having conversations like these for years when in fact it had only been a few months of knowing him and a few weeks of meeting up like this. None of that seemed to really matter though, not when the conversation was good and the chemistry felt right and especially not when it was clear that you were both on the same page when it came to your friendship. There was something else there though, something that was beyond being purely platonic, that much was becoming crystal clear and yet despite the ease in which it was to talk to him about literally anything else, there was something that had you stumbling over the thought of bringing it up.

You were saved from falling down that particular rabbit hole by the reappearance of the waitress, two burgers that were big enough to have your eyes popping out of your head in her hands. Chris chuckled from behind his milkshake at the look of disbelief on your face as your burger was set down in front of you before he reached for the bottle of ketchup between you both. You took the top of your burger bun off, nose immediately wrinkling at the sight of four pickle slices resting on top of the lettuce and tomato.

“Ugh, I forgot to ask for no pickles.”

Chris looked up from where he was squirting ketchup onto his bun, his eyes meeting yours briefly as his face split into a grin.

“You’re not one of those people, are you?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled as you began to pick the offensive green menaces off your food and set them at the edge of your plate. “I like what I like.”

Chris reached across and began to transfer the pickles from your plate to his burger, smiling widely at you as he did so.

“Well, I might have found a solution to this particular pickle you find yourself in,” he chuckled at the exaggerated groan and roll of your eyes at the expense of his joke. “You see, I love pickles.”

“You love anything,” you countered. “You’re like a human dumpster.”

“Hurtful,” he replied as he clutched at his chest. “But also true so I’ll allow it.”

You picked up a fry from your plate and threw it at him, immediately filled with equal parts surprise and a strange sense of awe as he reflexively moved and caught it in his mouth.

“You really are a dumpster,” you grinned as you shook your head at the proud little smile he was giving you.

“I am, so how about you don’t ask for no pickles on your burgers and you just give ‘em to me instead?”

It was easy to agree to his proposal, not least because his logic actually made a lot of sense when you thought about it, but mostly because of the way his eyes were sparkling and the way his smile made you feel warm all over, like the falling snow and freezing air outside didn’t exist, like your fingers and toes hadn’t been numbed by the biting cold during your walk here, like there had only ever been sunshine. It was also why you’d agreed to let him carry you back through the snow to your dorm, his large hands hooked around the backs of your thighs and your arms draped over his shoulders much like during the walk to the diner. You’d protested initially, of course, not wanting to burden Chris or put you both at risk of an injury due to the slippery conditions, but he wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise and remained unperturbed by the weather, gently reminding you that he had in fact got you to the diner in one piece in the first instance at your objections.

Truthfully, despite the mild embarrassment you felt at your complete ineptitude when it came to walking on ice, you couldn’t help but be more than a little impressed at Chris’s sheer strength. You wondered then, about how hard he must work in the gym to develop such a strong core because while you knew from first-hand experience how slippery it was underfoot, he didn’t falter once throughout the entire walk home and with the way he was talking amiably about his favourite places in the city he called home, and how his hands were holding your legs so surely and securely, you felt safe as houses with your chest pressed into his back – even with your thick coats and layers of winter clothing between you.

He walked with you on his back right up to the entrance of your dorm, setting you down carefully on the pathway that looked to have been newly shovelled before he turned to face you, his cheeks once again ruddy from the cold and your walk home.

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’ twice in one day,” he grinned, sucking air in through his teeth and shaking his head slightly. “But didn’t I say that I’d get you home safely?”

“So what if you were right twice?” you rebutted with a playful nudge. “It’s not like it’s ever gonna happen again.”

“Watch it, Pickle. I’ll have you know that I’m right about a lot of things.”

“Pickle?” you barked out a laugh, watching as Chris walked slowly backwards down the path away from you with that smile still on his face. “What kind of a name is that? I don’t even like pickles.”

“I know,” he called out into the growing distance between you both. “But I do, remember?”

You shook your head at him, chuckling to yourself with a smile on your lips that mirrored his as you watched him.

“See ya Tuesday then, Trash Can!” you hollered.

His raucous cackle cut through the silent flurry as he continued to walk slowly backwards, his grin clear as day even through the falling snowflakes.

“Trash Can! Fucking, Trash Can! Man, you got some serious chirps, Pickle. Can you throw hands too? I mean, I know you suck at keeping your balance on the ice but we could use an enforcer! I could push you around?”

“Anytime, anywhere!” you laughed, watching him with a grin until he had waved his goodbye and turned away before he retreated into the heavy snow.

Part ii

#it's all coming back to me fic #my writing #chris kreider #chris kreider fic #chris kreider x reader #nhl fic #nhl writing #nhl fanfic #nhl fanfiction #hockey fic #hockey fanfic #hockey fanfiction #hockey writing

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five-rivers · 3 years

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All These Scattered Gems

For Dannymay 2021 Day 4: Stars

“They can’t be real stars,” insisted Maddie, her voice tinny and static in Danny’s ear.

He paused, grimacing, and adjusted the frequency again. Something must have gotten knocked loose inside the Fenton Phones in the last fight he got into. “I didn’t say that was what they were,” he said, “I was just telling you what they look like. And they look like stars.”

Danny did tend to consider himself a bit of an expert when it came to whether or not something looked like a star. Astronomy was a special interest of his, after all.

(Despite the best efforts of both his parents and the doctors of the Far Frozen, efforts to decide whether or not he had a true, ghostly Obsession had been inconclusive. Danny was okay with that if he was being honest. Which he usually wasn’t.)

“Hm,” said Maddie. “That isn’t coming across very well in the video.”

“Mads, our video is half static that far from the portal.”

Maddie sighed. “Make sure you take pictures, sweetie.”

“I remember,” said Danny, who had forgotten. “The sky looks darker over there, too. It almost looks like real night. I wonder if someone did it on purpose?”

When Danny had first come clean to his parents about being half-ghost, he hadn’t really had any expectations that it would change his probable future. Which he had predicted to consist of a series of depressing, minimum wage jobs that he would keep losing due to ghost hunting.

His parents had something to say about that however, and although Danny had never really wanted to inherit Fentonworks or ghost hunting as a profession (ironic, he knew) he did like the exploration and science parts. Quite a bit, actually. And since he’d never be able to become an astronaut… Well. This was pretty good, too.

Especially since he was getting paid.

(All the extra equipment he had to bring with him to make forays into the Zone ‘experimentally useful’ was a bit of a drag, though. Literally, sometimes. The stuff was heavy.)

“Okay,” said Danny. “I’m going to get closer.”

The lights ahead of him really were starlike… but they were, as expected, much closer. The nearest of them stopped being pinpricks and started looking like tiny disks after just a few minutes of determined flight.

“Danny? Sweetie? You might want to slow down a little. Those speeds are rough on our sensors.”

Danny sighed, but complied.

Ghost cores were weird. Really weird. At least part of the weirdness was that, most of the time, they didn’t exist in either the Ghost Zone or ‘normal’ reality, but instead were tucked away in private self-generated pocket dimensions.

Ghost bodies were formed around the entrances to those pocket dimensions and would shift to accommodate the core that generated them, but usually didn’t actually house the core. It was a safety thing, and the reason ghosts could have their entire body destroyed only to pop up a few days later, perfectly fine.

Danny’s parents had been studying the phenomenon off and on, trying to compare it to ghostly lairs, which were also pocket dimensions. Or universes. The distinction was unclear. They’d been having trouble collecting data, however, as most ghosts would not blithely give such intimate information to ghost hunters, no matter how reformed they claimed to be.

After all, ghost cores were the equivalent of a ghost’s brain. One might even say their soul.

Danny was getting off track.

All this to say that Danny really should not have been able to physically feel his core.

He braked, ‘skidding’ to a stop.

“Danny?” said Maddie, sounding concerned. “Are you alright? Our instruments picked up a power spike…”

“I’m fine,” said Danny, pressing his fingers to his chest. Whatever he had felt was gone. “Just… a weird feeling.” He looked back up at the ‘stars.’ Some of them looked like little coins, now.

“How weird?”

“Like, I could have imagined it,” said Danny. “Timing is a bit strange, though, with that power surge. This might be a ‘Fisher Kingdom’ area.”

Some places in the Ghost Zone had such a strong feeling about how things should be that anyone or anything entering them was altered to fit. Some were generated by an actual ghost, but usually those ghosts just had very specific ideas about death and ghosts that didn’t quite mesh with the Zone at large. A few gave the impression that they had been carefully constructed and then more or less abandoned. Others didn’t seem to have any intelligence behind their existence, were random, almost natural.

Generally, the effects of Fisher Kingdoms were strictly physical, the average ghost’s core being safe in its aforementioned pocket, but even with that limitation, Fisher Kingdoms could be… difficult. Dangerous.

But they were also interesting. And Danny didn’t mind. He had the Ultimate Cheat Code when it came to dealing with Fisher Kingdoms. He could just turn human and float away. No problem. (In theory, anyway. In practice… Sometimes it was more complicated than that.)

“Alright,” said Maddie. “If you feel safe doing so, keep up your approach, but slowly. We want to monitor your vitals.”

Danny kept going, if at a greatly reduced pace.

His core pulsed again, and he stopped, hissing. This time, the sensation didn’t go away.

“Danny?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “I just…” He took a deep breath, feeling icy pressure on his lungs. “Oh, that’s weird.”

“What happened? Are you safe?”

“I think so. I think… I think this turned off my, uh, pocket dimension thing. You know, what my core goes in.” He blinked at his feet and the tips of his fingers, which were wisping away. The glow around his chest was bright and was becoming brighter. Something started beeping in his ear.

“Danny,” said Maddie, sounding alarmed. “That’s the stability alarm. Your numbers are dropping rapidly.”

Danny looked up, back at the not-stars. “I think I know what they are, now,” he said.

“What? Danny, you have to get out of there. Whatever is happening is seriously disrupting your ability to maintain your form.”

Danny brought his hand to touch the surface of his chest, which rippled as if made of water. The surface of his suit had started showing cracks. Even so, Danny was frozen in place by a thought:

Would it be so bad, to become a star?

His rings shuddered into life around him, forcibly and painfully returning him to human form. His heart stuttered at the ball of utter cold pressed against it. Every breath he took burned.

He cursed under his breath and followed his mother’s instructions, floating away from the field of false stars as quickly as he could. Despite how his core seemed to want to pull him back.

Eventually, the pull lessened.

“I guess,” said Danny, with extreme regret, “we should put that on the list of places I shouldn’t go.”

“Already there, kiddo,” said Jack.

“Come straight back,” said Maddie. “We need to give you a check, make sure there are no lasting effects.”

“Alright,” said Danny. “I’m on my way.”

Being a star… A shining beacon in the night…

It wouldn’t have been all that great, anyway, he was sure.

(He could settle for just chasing after them.)

#danny phantom #dannymay 2021 #dannymay #dannymay 2021 day 4: stars

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

Text

Episode Review: ‘Wizard City’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 4)

Airdate: September 2, 2021

Story by: Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, & Charley Feldman

Storyboarded by: Maya Petersen, Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, & Aleks Sennwald, & Haewon Lee

Directed by: Miki Brewster & Jeff Liu (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

An episode focusing on Peppermint Butler’s dark side is something that the fandom has craved ever since the little guy demanded Finn and Jake’s flesh in season two’s “Death in Bloom.” While installments like season five’s “The Suitor” and season six’s “Nemesis” did much to scratch that itch, the story of the Dark One remained mostly unknown…

And after “Wizard City,” it still remains largely unknown. But that’s OK, because instead of focusing on the character’s history, this special focuses on Peps’ quest to relearn magic at a magic school. Put most simply, this special is largely a fun excuse for the show to riff on Harry Potter and The Owl House-style “magic school hijinks,” and it mostly all works.

The special follows Peps quest to go to WizArts (a definite play on CalArts, the school that Pen Ward and Adam Muto, among many others, went to) so that he can relearn magic and once again become one of the greatest dark wizards of his time. Initially, Peps tries to make friends with cool kid Spader and his posse, but once they learn that Peps is not as talented at magic as they had initially thought, they kick him to the curb. It is at this point that Cadebra, Abracadaniel’s adorkable niece who is fascinated with stage magic, enters the picture. Cadebra tries everything in her power to befriend Peps, but Peps pushes back, since she’s not “cool.” It does not matter, though, because both Peps and Cadebra are sorted into the same “house”—the “Skink House—and are forced to work together.

While Peps and his cohort begin learning more and more complex magic, a secret cult of school professors, led by the otherwise caring Dr. Caledonius, are scheming to resurrect Coconteppi, a powerful dark wizard whose putrid heart has been discovered underneath the school excreting a very powerful ichor. The school cult kidnaps Spader and gives him some of the ichor to drink; they hope that because of his talent, he will be able to house the spirit of Coconteppi. This does not go as planned, and Spader is graphically killed (albeit off screen). (In a more humorous moment, Bufo, the scam wizard from season one’s “Wizard,” also ingests some of the ichor, believing himself powerful enough to handle it, but it kills him.)

Eventually Peps and Cadebra learn what is going on. Dr. Caledonius welcomes Peps, believing that he is strong enough to handle the ichor. When Cadebra’s life is put in danger, Peps reluctantly gives the putrid fluid a swig, which infuses him with the power of Coconteppi. Coconteppi-Peps then kills all the cult members before Cadebra manages to remove the ichor from Peps body. For uncovering a heinous plot, Peps is promoted to the highest house, “Salamander,” but he decides to remain a Skink and learn magic “the hard way” with Cadebra as his friend.

As I mentioned near the start of this review, “Wizard City” spends most of its time riffing on the “magic boarding school” trope, with much of the episode feeling like a light-hearted parody of Harry Potter: The characters, after all, are “sorted” into “houses,” they learn various types of magic from skilled “professors,” and they bunk in different parts of a large castle-like campus. Of course, Harry Potter didn’t invent the idea of a boarding school, but when setting your story in a school for magic, it is very hard not to lean at least somewhat into the Hogwarts relation. And this really is a double-edged sword, for while Harry Potter references can be fun here and there, they can also make the overall story feel like a fanfic parody. This special does a good job focusing more so on the characters rather than the setting, but I won’t lie, at times it did feel as if they show was really trying to make you realize it was making a Harry Potter joke.

Of all the characters introduced in the special, the breakout star is easily Cadebra, voiced by Chloe Coleman. Radiating a sort of Mabel Pines energy, Cadebra is the beam of optimism who shines brightly in an otherwise macabre special. There is something about her plucky personality and sense of wacky individualism that charms the viewer. I appreciate how the show compared and contrasted her with her uncle, the one and only Abracadaniel: like her uncle, Cadebra is a good person who wants to help others, but unlike Abracadaniel, she has a sense of courage and fortitude that results in her taking on a Coconteppi-possessed Peps at the episode’s climax. (Say what you will, Abracadaniel stans, but our favorite custodian would never have done that!) Thanks to her bravery and dedication to Peps, Cadebra is easily the heart of the special.

The episode throws an interesting little curveball into the mix by having the ‘ghost’ of Past Peppermint Butler constantly haunt Peps in the here-and-now. Past Peppermint, it seems, was so determined to become a great wizard, he cursed himself, so that if anything were to go awry, his Past self could materialize and set him straight. It’s confusing, but I do think that mixing the “overbearing parent” trope with a curse is a clever idea; it gives the whole special some dramatic heft. The whole setup is made even funnier by the special’s conclusion: After Future Peppermint Butler is ‘defeated’ and the day is saved, Peps reveals to Cadebra that he still wants to be a great and powerful dark wizard… but he wants to earn that power through hard work and determination. (Peppermint Butler might commune with demons, but he would never sell his soul to one for power; Glob helps those who help themselves, ya know?)

One of the special’s strongest points is its background art. Adventure Time always had some beautiful set pieces, and this special goes above and beyond to give WizArts an ancient sense of grandeur and mystery. Ghostshrimp, a freelance artist who was the show’s lead background designer during seasons 1-4, return for this special as a “visual developer”—basically, he mocked up a bunch of rough designs for the locales, and then the episode’s background artists worked up the final pieces in his style. On his podcast, Ghostshrimp mentioned how hectic he found Adventure Time to be, because he was used to taking his time on pieces. As such, the decision to bring him on for just development was smart, as it allowed him to still come up with iconic background designs while also playing fast and loose with everything. Hopefully the show will continue this approach with the Fionna and Cake miniseries that is coming up. After all, Ghosthsrimp’s style is the look of Adventure Time.

Another strong point for the episode is its voice acting. For one thing, you have your regulars like Tom Kenny and Dana Snyder, and Duncan Trussell, who all give a solid performance. But to voice many of the special’s new characters, the show brought on a bevy of fun actors: Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, for instance, is now voicing Bufo, and he does a solid job hamming up his role as the old fogey. And then there’s Toks Olagundoye, whose British accent gives Dr. Caledonius a sense of knowledge and expertise. To my delight and surprise, SungWon Cho, an internet personality and voice actor perhaps better known as ProZD, was tapped to voice Brain Wizard, and he does an excellent job. And finally, Anthony Stewart Head, a very talented actor who I know best as Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voices Con Wizard, and is even given a fun little ditty to sing. I can safely say that the voice acting in this special is likely the best of the bunch, and it’s obvious that the actors were all having a great time playing their parts.

What drags the whole thing down, in my opinion is the excessive murder. (I joked on Twitter that during the climax of “Wizard City,” it felt like I was watching an Adventure Time-ified version of Invincible!) Infused with the power of Coconteppi, Peps goes on a brutal killing spree, boiling Potable Wizard into steam, zapping Dimension Wizard into another plane of existence, smashing Berdzerd, and—perhaps most graphically—excerebrates (had to look that word up!) Brain Wiz. On Twitter, @sometipsygnostalgic argued that while, yes, the scene is startling, it does wonders to transmute “a poor Summer Camp Island knockoff [into] Adventure Time chaos.” The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a fair point; after all, this is hardly the first dark thing that has happened in Adventure Time. But the part that I cannot really stomach is the fact that Spader was murdered for no real reason, and the special ends without anyone really expressing their horror at the situation. Sure, Spader was a schoolyard bully, but he was also a child. And killing a child—either for the drama or the lulz—feels decidedly out of place in an Adventure Time episode. It’s hard to express, but it just felt unnecessarily nihilistic and mean-spirited.

All things considered, I think this was a fun episode, but it was somewhat underwhelming for a ‘finale.’ Much of this is because it had to air after the perfection that was the back-to-back “Obsidian”/”Together Again” wombo combo. But I can’t help but feel like this special just felt a little... off. A little too meanspirited, and it leaned a bit too much on standard tropes. Still, it was a fun spin, and I know that I’ll rewatch it.

Mushroom War Evidence: As Peps rides the bus to school, he passes a bunch of abandoned houses, some of which are buried in the ground. There is an unexploded bomb above the fossilized elephant in the school. Cadebra has a dream that takes place in the ruins of a city.

Final Grade: B+

#adventure time #atimers #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #wizard city #peps #peppermint butler #abracadaniel #Cadebra #Ghostshrimp #Adam Muto #Hanna K #ProZD

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altariaas · 3 years

Text

your face all made up (living on a screen)

Adrien knows, to some degree, that it’s the important things that are the most important to say out loud, but it would help to know that someone’s actually listening. It would also help if things would stop breaking every time he acknowledged his emotions, too.

i’ve taken a total of three steps into this fandom but sure, let’s skip to season 4 and fall face-first into the Angst™, as it goes. I just think Adrien should get a little raw powers of destruction sneaking out of control in his daily life. as a treat. Post-Rocketear so lots of spoilers etc.

Adrien walks home from the fight against Nino’s akuma with a raging headache, a developing case of massive anxiety, and a purpling bruise the size of a basketball on his shin.

The last one isn’t actually from the akuma. Those injuries got neatly miraculoused away, along with Nino’s heartbroken betrayal. No, the bruise is from Adrien’s incredibly stupid attempt to funnel his tornado of emotions into something concrete by kicking the front gate, only to completely miss and slam his shin into the solid steel rungs instead, sending him stumbling back in a pained fit of trying to think up creative curse words that won’t result in his father murdering him if he overhears.

Metaphorically, of course. Father’s not a murderer, except when it comes to the slow death of Adrien’s social life.

Though he really…can’t entirely blame that on Father, either.

And there comes the developing case of anxiety. Adrien swallows, a feeble attempt to banish the souring feeling in his stomach and the aching tightness in his chest. He wraps his arms around himself, staring up at the mansion and fighting the increasing urge to run. The inside of his cheek stings as he chews at it, already abused from how hard he’d bitten there earlier when Nino had started making…observations. Accusations. Wildly misdirected statements that definitely aren’t any insight to how Nino truly feels about what might be the truest version of Adrien’s slowly splintering self, if he’s going to be dramatic about it.

Overly passionate, Father’s voice echoes hollowly somewhere in the back of his head. Prone to fits of drama, just like his mother.

Spinning abruptly on his heel, Adrien beats a steady path away from the mansion gates and toward…somewhere. Somewhere that won’t make that developing case of anxiety worse, and where no one can witness his fits of drama.

The urge to send the front camera a rude gesture in farewell is violently stifled as Adrien keeps his arms wrapped tightly around himself, like the action will keep everything in neat and perfect and safe from view. He feels more than hears Plagg rustle curiously in his front pocket, but Adrien ignores the action, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

Then the sharp reminder of how it felt when Ladybug ignored him in favor of Rena Rouge comes back and bites him solidly in the guilty part of his feelings, so Adrien pats his front pocket reassuringly.

“Just taking the long way home,” he murmurs.

Plagg’s eyes are calculating, almost greener than usual as they stare at him, and Adrien feels uncomfortably perceived. Not in the cold, bug-under-a-microscope way he feels sometimes when Father looks at him, but a hot kind of uncomfortable, the way he feels when someone looks right past the Adrien Agreste mask and sees—

What? What do they see? An awkward boy stumbling back against a wall because he never learned what his real self was supposed to look like? Hollow flirting and annoying with a capital a?

Fits of drama, Adrien reminds himself. He shouldn’t take it so close to heart. Not when Nino looked so devastated, so heartbroken. Not when Ladybug’s been giving him uncomfortably clear signs that Nino might’ve been right.

“If you say so, kid,” Plagg finally replies. “But I better get that camembert sooner than later.”

A half-smile tugs at Adrien’s mouth. “Sure, Plagg.”

At least Plagg still wants him around, masks and all. It’s a small comfort, but Adrien clings to it, his arms tightening around himself. Sure, things didn’t go…wonderfully, today, but it’s not all so bad. He got slammed into a van a couple of times, and maybe a couple of busted ribs, but that’s nothing, comparatively. And sure, Father’s finding more flaws in him to coldly evaluate than usual, and Nathalie’s growing paler and sicker by the day, and Ladybug’s either freezing him out bit by bit or starting to forget about him entirely and he isn’t sure which is worse, and his schedule is slipping further and further from manageable by the day and Nino dislikes a side of him so much it sent him straight into an akuma and—

“—kid, stop!”

Adrien’s thoughts cut off abruptly as his foot catches, his sense of balance going horizontal as he stumbles, and proceeds to nearly slam the rest of him face-first into the concrete. Plagg’s sharp warning echoes in his ears as he rights himself with a panicked yelp, hopping once while frantically hoping no one was around to see — whatever that was.

“Kid,” Plagg starts, but he doesn’t finish. He’s left the front pocket, his eyes bright green as he stares at him.

Adrien blinks, shaking the slight sense of vertigo off. “Sorry, sorry, I—”

Huh. What did he do? Rubbing the back of his head, Adrien glances at the street he stumbled over. He frowns.

The culprit is a jagged, snaking tear in the concrete, half a meter deep and the length of Adrien’s arm. He stares at the spiderwebbing cracks that branch out of it, fine grains of crushed concrete already scattering in the slight wind.

Weird, he thinks. He doesn’t remember fighting Nino this far down the street. Lucky Charm should’ve fixed that, even if he did.

“Adrien,” Plagg says, and there’s an uncharacteristically cautious edge in his voice. “What was that?”

Adrien cups a hand around Plagg, running a finger over his head in apology as he draws him out of view again. “Lost in thought, I guess,” he says, ducking his head. “Sorry.”

Plagg doesn’t reply, still staring at him with a look Adrien can’t quite identify. He feels oddly disoriented, like he actually did fall and hit his head, and now it’s spinning in retaliation. Across the street in front of him, the stoplight flickers — red, then orange, then red again. It flickers out entirely, before snapping back to a bright, acidic green. Adrien rubs his eyes.

“Let’s…let’s go home,” Plagg finally says, tucking himself back in Adrien’s shirt pocket. He doesn’t entirely meet Adrien’s eyes as he does, but he curls up against his chest, solid and warm, and it’s almost enough to banish the ache that lies beneath.

“Okay,” he says, softly. “Home, then.”

————

There’s a memory Adrien has, from when he was younger. It’s one he holds tightly to his chest, tattered and frayed as it is.

He was much smaller than he is now — barely six years-old, maybe, and small enough to hide behind the large statues his mother would put funny hats on to make his father laugh. She’d done just that earlier, standing tiptoed on the staircase as she’d slipped a terrible orange bowler hat on the pretty lady Nathalie said was from Greece. Adrien had giggled behind his fingers and his father had laughed, an unfamiliar sound that’s faded in memory now, but a bright and real one nonetheless.

It had been a good day, until mother had come down with a cold during dinner and Adrien had jolted out of sleep from a nightmare about giant, ugly orange hats that snatched up his mother with their ribbon-like fingers and took her away from him forever.

He’d sprinted through the house like the horrible hat monsters from his dream were on his heels, slipping in his socks up to the cracked door of his father’s study.

He hadn’t needed to knock, then, or even schedule a meeting. He’d slid through the doorway and barreled into his father, only to be caught by strong arms and swept into his father’s lap, warm and safe from any monsters that dared to follow him here.

“I’m worried about your mother, too,” his father had said. “But it’s just a cold, you see? Nothing to go slipping and falling down the stairs about.”

He’d received nothing but a sniffle in response.

“Alright.” Fingers had pinched around his nose as his father sighed. “How about we read a story then, until you’re not so frightened? Just you and me.”

The book they’d started that night was about a prince and a planet and a rose, and Adrien still remembers the sound his father’s voice made as it resonated where Adrien’s cheek pressed against his chest, his arms holding tight and warm around him, like nothing bad could slip in from outside and hurt him.

It’s a favorite memory of his, one Adrien finds springing back to mind whenever Father gives him a smile, half-formed and distanced as they are.

Lately, though, it’s a memory that stings to think about. It makes it harder to look Father in the eye, for some reason.

————

“And like, I really can’t say this enough, but I’m so sorry.”

“I told you, Nino, it’s fi—”

“No seriously, dude, I’m really sorry, I—”

“Nino.”

His friend finally jerks out from his puddle of miserable apologies, and Adrien gives him a weary smile. “It’s fine. You didn’t hurt me.”

“I dragged you into the boiler room then got akumatized,” Nino says, distressed. “That’s worse than like, the plot of eight different horror movies.”

“Your head was shaped like a giant blue tear, it wasn’t that scary,” Adrien assures him.

“I am ninety percent sure I remember shoving you to the floor,” Nino moans, not reassured in the least.

Part of Adrien’s mind, the part that sounds a little too much like a spurned cat whom hell hath no fury, or however the saying goes, wants to pipe up with the fact that getting shoved to the floor was five-star treatment compared to what Nino (akuma, Nino’s akuma, that’s important) had proceeded to do to him afterwards.

The bus-slamming thing had hurt.

Not as much as hurting Nino would’ve, though.

So instead, Adrien gives Nino the kindest smile he can, lays a gentle hand on his arm, and says, “As if the akuma gave you the biceps to pull that off.”

“Hey,” Nino knocks their shoulders together, his guilt ridden expression easing just a bit as he gives him a half-hearted grin. “I’m ripped, bro.”

It takes Adrien a moment to reply, too busy fighting the overwhelmingly — traitor — urge to follow the warmth of contact with Nino like a starving animal. He doesn’t need to fight for too long — his brain throws everyone thinks you’re a joke at him just in time for Adrien to hunch his shoulders in and give Nino an awkward little grin of his own.

Maybe his brain’s a traitor too, though, because he doesn’t remember Nino even saying that about Chat Noir.

He thinks.

Hopes.

Actually, his brain can go sit in a corner if it’s going to keep throwing stuff like this at him. Shaking anything and everything knowledge-wise that belongs to Chat Noir from his mind, Adrien turns his attention back to the scribbled game of hangman they’ve been playing on the corner of Nino’s history notes. Group projects are supposed to be fun, anyways, especially with Nino.

“Uh, c,” he guesses.

Nino adds a single c to the blank letter spaces. Adrien squints at the paper, his mouth downturning at the suspiciously familiar arrangement he has so far.

_adia_t, ca_ef_ee, d_ea_y

“Nino,” he says, carefully.

Nino smirks. “Mm-hm.”

“If this has anything to do with perfume ads—”

“Uh-huh?”

“Then I hate you.”

Nino cackles, scribbling in the rest of the rest of the accursed phrase as Max loudly hushes him. Adrien rolls his eyes and huffs, but he’s unable to stop the small smile of amusement. It quickly fades as his words to Nino echo with an uncomfortable emphasis in his head.

You’re being stupid, he tells himself. Adrien pushes away the nagging feeling. Nino knows he’s not serious. He knows Adrien doesn’t actually hate him. Just like Adrien knows Nino didn’t mean it, when he said all that stuff about Chat Noir.

His fingers tighten around his pencil. He’s not supposed to be thinking about that. Nino apologized, to Chat Noir himself, and just because Adrien can’t get the sting out, it doesn’t mean that Nino meant anything genuine by it.

Overly dramatic, Adrien reminds himself. Way too emotional.

The ache in his chest makes itself known again with a pang, and Adrien bites the inside of his cheek, glancing at Nino from the corners of his eyes.

Maybe he should tell Nino he cares about him, just to be sure. The words form in his mind, only to catch abruptly in his throat, thick and cloying. He thinks of how thoughtlessly he’s been able to tell Father he loves him. Thinks of how easy it’s always been to tell Ladybug how much she means to him.

He thinks of how neither of them seem to like meeting him in the eyes, lately.

He swallows the words, opting to smile brightly at Nino instead. It’s probably for the best. Nino’s always been better at picking up on people’s feelings, anyways, and he doesn’t need the kind of nagging assurance Adrien does. And it’s not like Adrien’s had much luck telling people he loves them, lately. Actually, if you look at his track record, he probably hasn’t…had any luck at all.

Adrien shakes his head, shoving the coldness creeping into his chest as far to the corner of his mind as he can, and sketches out enough blank spaces on the paper to spell fake mustaches are the new sexy.

If he can still make Nino laugh, it’s fine. He wouldn’t be laughing if he thought Adrien was annoying and obnoxious.

So see? It’s fine.

————

Adrien thinks about elastics, sometimes. The stretchy, rubber kind that Mme Thurston uses to pull back the longer locks of his hair while she’s doing his makeup, tying it up in a neat little explosion on top of his head that makes him look like a blond weed. She makes it look easy, twisting the little bands around and around, until they’re tight enough to hold his hair in place.

(Adrien’s hair is always easy, of course. Chat Noir’s hair, on the other hand, would probably give Mme Thurston nightmares. Mainly because Adrien has a fun little habit of shaking his head side to side until it’s an unrecognizable blond disaster, but that’s not particularly relevant.)

(Ladybug doesn’t even need to use elastics, opting for the soft strands of ribbon that hold her pigtails in perfect place.)

Adrien doesn’t normally use elastic bands either, but he likes the way they feel when he’s nervous, stretching and rubbery, then snapping perfectly back into place, like he’d never twisted them all out of proportion at all. The way he can hook his fingers in both ends and pull and pull and pull, but they never quite snap.

Felix has a fun trick with those, when they do photoshoots together.

(When they used to.)

He’ll press a little elastic against Adrien’s arm and pull the end back, just far enough, then let it snap back into place, stinging little red marks when it slaps against skin.

“Stop it,” Adrien scowls at him, but the expression wavers. Playful isn’t a word he uses along with Felix very often, but photoshoots are always more entertaining with him, at least. Or they were, until his mother disappears, and family photoshoots grind to an utter and complete halt forever—

—just for now, his father says, until something changes, until that something happens, until that metaphorical other foot that’s always hanging over Adrien’s head finally stomps its way back to earth and demolishes him in the process—

Felix replies by stretching another elastic between his fingers, shooting it toward him this time like a little slingshot. Adrien snags it out of the air, slotting it between his own fingers to fire back. It misses by a miserable meter and a half, because at the time this conversation takes place, he and Ladybug haven’t stayed up all night practicing their aim by trying to hit the left ear of Le Stryge on Notre-Dame.

Felix snorts, snatching the elastic from the floor, and makes a show of placing the band back against Adrien’s wrist. He pulls it back with a meaningful look, like an exasperated teacher. “It’s the bounce back that hurts,” he tells him. “Not the stretching part. When it snaps back to place—” He demonstrates by releasing the band, and Adrien flinches at the tiny sting. “—that’s the part that hurts.”

Four years later, having up close and personally experienced what a shattered ribcage stabbing into your lungs feels like, Adrien wants to correct Felix on tiny little elastic bands and what actually hurts, but the point, he guesses, is that he still remembers what it felt like.

He still thinks about those elastics sometimes, and how far they can be pulled until they snap back into place. How the little rubber band can make it so far, get so close to breaking, only to snap right back to where it started.

(Chat Noir doesn’t use elastics, either.)

————

For all that Adrien will stand by stuffing the worst of his emotions into a box and never thinking about them ever as a perfectly reasonable way to go about handling things —and whatever Plagg says doesn’t count, he’s a kwami who compares emotions to cheese — Adrien really does believe in communication as key.

Living it out is just. Another thing entirely.

But Adrien’s lived his life with a cold mansion’s worth of words left unsaid, so on principle, he really does believe that if something’s important, you should say it. Maybe nobody will really listen to you, or take you seriously, but at least you’ll have said it, and maybe at some point they’ll remember you said it, and it’ll mean something to them.

But maybe that’s what stopping him this time — he just can’t decide if it’s the idea of not being listened to that scares him, or the idea of actually being heard that’s worse.

It’s not like he wants to tell Ladybug he’s upset. It’s not like he even wants to be upset.

It doesn’t change the fact that he is, kind of, a little bit, (a lot) — but again, on principle, Adrien just — he doesn’t like being upset. It’s all uncomfortable and hot and it sits on his chest like a rock, weighing heavier and heavier until he learns to get over it.

It’s only worse when he tries to say something about it, because that never works. Maybe it’s a really sucky side effect of being homeschooled for most of his life, but every time Adrien opens his mouth to tell someone he’s upset with them and here’s why, it always backfires spectacularly. There’s a weird moment where something happens and the other person says their part, and suddenly Adrien’s complaints sound so stupid he wants to crawl in a hole and hide. There’s a dizzying one-eighty and Adrien’s suddenly the one in the wrong, and the other person’s upset at him, and now he’s got to apologize before he makes it worse than he already has.

And granted, most of those other people are just Father (or Father’s tinny voice through the phone), but he’s already enough to beat the lesson in.

Metaphorically, of course. Always — always metaphorically. Adrien’s never doubted otherwise.

“Maybe I’m just that bad at arguing,” he mutters, swiping darkly at his phone screen.

“I dunno,” Nino says, his voice consoling. “I mean, you were pretty good at it when you argued me into watching that one anime the other night.”

Adrien rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t upset with you about that.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Nino winks at him. “Unless your voice going all high-pitched about why Sailor Moon is the peak of animation is your default setting.”

“I wasn’t upset with you, though,” Adrien shakes his head, cutting him off. “I’m never upset with you.”

And he isn’t, really. Not even when Nino tells him, in an admittedly roundabout way, that he’s annoying and irritating and has loose and shady moral commitment to love and all its forms (or something like that).

He means, it stings, but only in the way Felix’s little rubber band snaps do. Not enough to justify picking an argument with Nino. Not to justify upsetting him, and possibly losing the one friend who’s stuck by him through the worst and actually shares stuff with him these days.

Adrien bites down on the inside of his cheek. If he’s not careful with the way his train of thought’s been steering itself lately, he’s going to accidentally show Ladybug how upset he is, and that’s—

Well, the fallout of that will hurt a lot worse than a little elastic band snap.

A lot worse than it already does, so. Back in your corner, resentful thoughts.

“Uh-huh.” There’s a quiet edge of suspicion in Nino’s voice, and Adrien stiffens, suddenly feeling horribly seen. The look Nino’s pinned on him doesn’t help at all, searching and curious and—

Concerned? Upset? Angry?

Adrien doesn’t know. He thinks it’s concern, but he’s also been thinking Ladybug’s been amused with him when she’s apparently just been annoyed, so who knows, really—

Shut up, Adrien tells his subconscious furiously. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

“It’s okay, if you are,” Nino says hesitantly, perhaps having picked up on whatever storm of emotions are slipping through Adrien’s schooled expression. “Upset, I mean. At your old man or me. It’s better to talk to people upfront, y’know? Otherwise…”

Nino’s expression twists in guilt, and Adrien’s lungs feel a little like they’re shriveling up and dying. Or maybe that’s just his chest on the whole, collapsing in on itself and taking Adrien’s ability to breath right with it.

He isn’t upset. He’s not. He doesn’t need to talk to anyone upfront about it, because there’s nothing to talk about in the first place. He’s not going to be overly dramatic about this too, he’s not. He’s just— it’s just—

Is it personal? Was it something he did, that made Ladybug trust everyone else but him? Did he slip up at some point and he just — he can’t remember? She’d told him, she’d promised they were fine after New York, but maybe she’d changed her mind without telling him and decided he needed to figure out on his own where he messed up if he was ever going to be worthy of her trust agai—

“I’ll be — I’ve gotta — restroom,” Adrien stammers, shooting up from his seat and all but sprinting for the doors.

“Wait, Adrien—!”

Nino’s panicked call is lost as Adrien flies down the hall, slipping down the stairs to the bathrooms on the first floor where he’s less likely to be found. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to cry, or anything so humiliating, but there’s an awful crushing sensation in his chest that makes him think he might do something he’ll regret. Or say something, any of the raging thoughts that bang off the insides of his skull with hurt. Something he won’t be able to take back.

Adrien wavers, planting both hands on the edge of the sink and staring at the white porcelain. His breathing sounds odd in the echo of the bathroom, wavering and off-beat. His vision swims traitorously, so he glares up at the mirror instead, only to falter as he catches sight of his reflection.

He looks…not great. Pale skin and bloodshot eyes in the way that’s likely to make Nathalie call a doctor on him. Which would be just fantastically ironic, considering she’s the one who needs a doctor, even if she’s never going to admit it and keep lying to him. Just like Ladybug, all careful smiles and words chosen with forced, casual caution, staring at him with eyes that are a million other places except actually seeing him.

Stop, he tells himself furiously, squeezing his eyes shut. Stop. Ladybug is not Father. Ladybug is Ladybug, his best friend and partner and he trusts her, he trusts her to have her reasons for not telling him. He has to trust her. He does trust her, he—

A sharp cracking sound tears Adrien from his thoughts, and he snaps his head up to find seven of his own disjointed faces staring back at him. He blinks, and suddenly the faces are clinking to the floor, broken fragments of the mirror scattering around his shoes.

His first thought, apart from a bizarre sense of not being entirely in his body, is a well-timed curse word.

Instead, what he gets out is, “Seven years bad luck,” muttered, almost absently, beneath his breath.

Typical. He wonders if moonlighting as a black cat-themed superhero that leans heavily into exaggerated acrobatics counts as crossing one. Like he needs more bad luck, right now.

What he actually needs, is…

Is…

He needs an escape.

From everything, it feels like, but for now, Adrien will settle for an escape from the school bathroom with all the mirrors that just broke.

…somehow.

————

For all that he throws fits of drama about it, the thing is, Adrien has escaped.

He’s made it out of the house, to school. He’s learned physics and grammar and math that Nathalie taught him six months ago, and he’s learned how to play hangman and cut class and tell your friend’s fortune with folded paper. He’s made friends, real friends, and he’s learned how to muffle loud giggles on the phone at night and what kinds of snack food Nino likes and doesn’t like. He’s learned how to pick up on a whole slew of emotions other than disappointment and apathy and mildly reserved approval, and he’s learned how to tell when other people are hurting.

(He’s learned how to tell how he’s hurting, but he’s unlearned that one faster.)

He’s learned the words it takes to voice that Father isn’t always right, learned how to curl his fingers tight enough into his palms that they don’t shake so much anymore, and he’s learned how to stretch like a rubber band against people’s anger, bending without breaking.

(He’s also learned about the perks of night vision and bone density and six different ways to trip someone up with the leather belt you’ve got tied around your waist like a tail, but he can’t credit school for those.)

And he thinks — he thinks he’s come so far, he’s learned so much, he’s so much stronger now—

Then his father’s eyes soften just enough to resemble the eyes of the man who held him close and told him how much he loved him, loves him, who stayed up all night reading Adrien’s favorite book to him and whose lap was the safest, warmest place in the world, and Adrien—

Hates himself. Hates himself as he snaps right back into place, right back into the Adrien who crumbles at Father’s slightest snap of tone. Hates himself so much it stings.

Because it’s so much easier to do that, than it is to hate his father.

————

Adrien doesn’t particularly want to go to the photoshoot after school, especially not now that mirrors are literally breaking at the sight of his face, but — and here’s the fits of drama again — like everything else Father’s deigned to want, he doesn’t have much of a choice.

Technically, though, Adrien fantasizes as he fixes his eyes upward so the makeup artist can do her best to hide the darkening circles beneath them (“—really, dear, do you sleep at all these days—”), he could give himself a choice. He could make it fun, too, striking the perfect pose before transforming into Chat Noir right smack in front of the entire studio crew, and then Father would have something truly inspired to review that evening. A perfect snapshot of Adrien cataclysm-ing his merry way out of the studio and out into the gloriously free outside, that’s what.

Except then Adrien would have way too many choices to make, and even less all at once. The identity thing, being one. How to avoid Ladybug murdering him and dancing atop his grave, for another. Not that he thinks Ladybug is capable of murdering anyone, of course—

(—no, that’s solely reserved for him and his powers alone—)

—but he can imagine she’d be angry, were he to stage a reveal that way.

Were he to stage a reveal at all, Adrien thinks sourly, blinking until the stiff feeling of the makeup beneath his eyes fades. His makeup artist’s had to use the thick kind today, the extra-strength stuff that’s going to take forever to wash off. He stifles the urge to swipe at it, trying to relax into the feeling instead. Makeup is familiar, consistent. Sure, it’s technically another lie, but it’s one Adrien’s at least aware of. Makeup, he can see through. He can put it on and take it off himself, exercising some tiny semblance of control over what’s being hidden from the world.

Everything else, though…

“Carefree, my boy, carefree,” Vincent implores, his eyebrows furrowing as Adrien snaps himself back to the present. “You look as if you’re being drowned in mud, not soaring above the clouds.”

Adrien’s cheeks puff up as he blows his breath out, short and frustrated. At least Vincent is every bit as prone to fits of drama as he is, he reminds himself. It’s better to be stuck with someone passionate than someone as open as a brick wall, even if it is just Vincent antagonizing him with a camera again.

“Sorry,” he offers, giving him a weak grin. “I’ll get it this time, promise.”

Vincent doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he rambles about lighting and angles instead of scolding Adrien, which he can’t help but be grateful for. It allows Adrien a moment to let the smile drop, staring at the ground instead of the brightening lights around him.

He toes sullenly at the smooth linoleum of the floor, the solid black of Father’s logo glaring back at him from the side of his sneaker. Maybe he should just get more sleep. Maybe all the ugly tangled emotions in his chest are just residual buildup from being overtired, that’s all. Ladybug mentioned the stress getting to her a little while back, her own eyes bloodshot and exhausted. Adrien’s brilliant solution had been to take her to the movies, which had gone just as brilliantly as every other time he’s tried something like that, which is not very well at all. He’d been worried about her, though, even before she’d thrown him from a roof on accident. Ladybug carries so much on her shoulders, and strong as they are, Adrien knows what it’s like to be strung so tightly that even the slightest extra weight feels like it’ll snap you. He sees the same weight in his own eyes, now, even blinded by the studio lights.

His stomach twists. Ladybug’s eyes aren’t half as bloodshot lately. There’s an easiness to her that wasn’t there before, a lightening of tension, and yes, Adrien’s happy she’s feeling better, he’s nothing but glad that she isn’t so exhausted and worn, but…

But she’d trusted him before, even when she was strung her tightest. And now that there’s relief in her eyes, now that he’s taking a backseat and Ladybug adds more allies to their roster by the day, allies that she knows but he doesn't, allies that Alya and Nino probably know too, just like everything else, now that—

Was he the problem? Was it his fault, that Ladybug’s eyes turned shadowed and her movements wavered? He’s tried, he’s tried to be a rock for her, to be something constant and consistent as Adrien himself wants, but the horrible feeling that he’s not enough is now warring with the awful feeling that he’s the problem in the first place, because — why else? Why else would she shut him out like this? Why else would she decide he’s untrustworthy, after all this time, why—

The lights against his vision suddenly flare painfully bright, so bright Adrien’s forced to stagger back.

Vincent jolts away with a cry, waving his hand frantically as the camera sparks and sputters. Echoed cries of surprise ring throughout the studio as the overhead lights flicker wildly, turning the studio into a frightening mockery of a particularly bad nightclub.

Adrien stumbles again, alarm coursing through his veins like a cold burst of water, and he darts for the intern nearby, who’s fallen over in her scramble to back away from the strobing lights. She’s just taken his hand when the lights go dark, plunging the studio into blackness. Before anyone can react beyond a frightened shriek, the lights snap back on, bright and steady as if nothing’s happened.

Adrien slowly pulls the intern to her feet, staring at the blazing lights as his vision swims, blinking against the sudden onslaught of dark spots in his eyes.

“Is it an akuma?” the intern asks, her eyes wild with fear. “Should we — should we evacuate?”

Adrenaline shoots through Adrien’s veins, his head whipping back and forth as he searches for a spark of purple, for the familiar edge of butterfly’s wings. But there’s nothing out of place, save the sputtering camera Vincent’s fretting over. There’s no sign of garish transformation, no following explosions, no loudly proclaimed demands for miraculous. In fact, if Adrien hadn’t seen it himself, it would appear as if nothing’s ever happened at all.

“It could’ve been the power lines,” someone suggests. “This place is pretty old, you know.”

“With Agreste’s standards?” someone else mutters. “I doubt it.”

“The camera is broken. Unsalvageable,” Vincent announces over the outbreak of murmurs. To his credit, he barely sounds shaken. “It must have been a power failure, or a blown fuse, I suppose. Nothing we can help.”

Vincent’s word is all the rest of the crew needs, and before Adrien can clamber up to inspect the lights himself, he’s being ushered from the studio, another intern furiously muttering about how she refuses to be fired for losing a model to “subpar building inspections” or something along those lines.

Adrien, who is already anticipating Father’s reaction himself, can’t blame her for bailing the moment he’s in the Gorilla’s hands.

————

Adrien is six years and three months old when his father finally finishes reading Le Petite Prince to him, and he comes the closest he ever has to throwing a fit at the ending.

He doesn’t actually throw a fit, of course, because then his father might not read to him ever again. That they finished this book together is already more precious as anything Adrien’s ever owned, and he won’t ruin that with his dramatics.

“Not all stories have the happy endings you want, Adrien,” his father tells him. Adrien feels his arms tighten around his shoulders, where he sits snugly in his father’s lap. “Sometimes you must make the most of what you have.”

Even at a young age, Adrien knows that he has quite a lot. The knowledge only grows as he does, just how much he has from his last name alone. His room alone could rival some people’s homes, Adrien has no right to want for anything.

And yet.

Sometimes, Adrien thinks back to the deep timbre of his father’s voice as he reads about yellow snakes and desert flowers and feels a stinging sense of loss so sharply it takes his breath away.

Other times, though, Adrien thinks about his father choosing to read a story about a boy who could only return home by letting a snake poison him, and wonders what that says about their relationship.

It’s not even Father’s icy tone that hurts anymore, really, Adrien thinks, as he picks at his dinner. Not that he’s likely to hear that tone tonight. Father’s locked himself firmly in his office again, and even Nathalie is nowhere to be seen. It’s quiet enough that Adrien’s gotten away with heating up the cheapest dinner they have in the house, and scouring enough cheese for Plagg that he won’t be complaining for a month.

Well, a day, maybe. Plagg’s a special kind of greedy.

But it’s painstakingly clear that Adrien will be dining alone, tonight. There hasn’t even been a single message fro Nathalie, informing him of all the lessons he’s been falling short in lately. Adrien twists his fork in his hand, setting it down with a weary sigh as dark spots flicker before his eyes again.

At least there won’t be anyone to lecture him, he tells himself, tapping absently on the table. The smooth wood looks immaculate beneath his fingers, the edge of his pinky still a bruised purple from the other evening, when Adrien misjudged the distance from the rooftop to his own window.

Father won’t be able to lecture him about that, either, so it’s a good thing, really. It’s a good thing, that no one will be saying anything to him about the studio mishap earlier, or the darker than usual circles beneath his eyes, or he way he’s been showing up late more often than not to everything. Not about his slipping grades, or the way he keeps forgetting to hide his glare when photoshoots run longer than they’re supposed to.

It’s a good thing, Adrien tells himself, as his fingers clench around the table’s edge. It’s a good thing that he’s alone tonight. Being alone and unseen is much better than the alternative. It’s a good thing, that he can stew in whatever ugly emotions keep threatening to rise to the surface all by himself, where he won’t risk hurting anyone else with them. He can’t mess anything up if no one’s there to see it, so really, it’s a good thing, it’s—

It hits him, all-encompassing and overwhelming all at once.

Unwanted, thick and horrible and choking, the sensation of being traded out and traded off and stepped over, left behind and left out and laughed at in vicious whispers, closed doors and closed expressions and locking him out, like bars sliding down from the ceiling and cutting him off, trapped in place like an animal in the zoo, entertaining for a heartbeat than easily moved past for something better, unwanted and untrusted and alone, alone, alone again—

Adrien buckles and something howls in his ears, his hands burning as his fingers crunch through wood and his vision whites out.

For a heartbeat, Adrien isn’t Adrien — he’s the swelling of flames as fire catches light, he’s the pull of the undertow as it rips across the shore, he’s the blazing burst of lightning against metal, he’s on the edge of a cliff and stepping off—

And then he’s Adrien again, small and shaking and breathing in large, heaving gasps, trying desperately not to throw up all over the table.

“—drien, kid, Adrien, please!”

Adrien tears his hands from the table as if it’s shocked him. Black flecks drift from his fingers as they tremble, and Plagg splits into three as he flits in front of him, six pairs of green eyes staring at him in blazing concern.

“Plagg?” He barely recognizes his own voice, and his throat feels like sandpaper.

“Breathe,” Plagg orders as his image solidifies back to one, more serious than Adrien can remember him sounding. “You gotta breathe, Adrien.”

He does, in stuttering, shaky gasps, because Adrien will do anything Plagg asks him to. He’ll light himself on fire if he wanted, because Plagg is all he’s got.

Plagg is here, and that means more to Adrien than anything else could.

“Breathing,” he finally croaks out. “I’m — breathing, see? S’all good.”

It is most certainly not all good, because Adrien still feels like he got thrown off a building and into a blender, but Plagg almost looks frightened, looking from Adrien to the table to Adrien again, and—

Adrien freezes. The table. The stupidly, enormous, ridiculously expensive, lonely table his family’s supposed to use. The table he definitely, most certainly felt crunch under his hands.

Adrien follows Plagg’s gaze downwards, and suddenly feels like he’s going to throw up again.

“Oh,” he whispers.

Ice coats the inside of his chest, cold and creeping. The sidewalk. The mirrors, the studio camera, and now this.

“Adrien.” Plagg sounds so very serious.

He could explain most of it away. It’d be — it would be easy.

But this?

Adrien stares at the half-decayed table, ashes still flaking from the sides in a way that’s horribly distinctive of his cataclysm. A spiderwebbed path of smoldering destruction, all tracing back to where his fingers had been white-knuckled at the table’s edge.

Something snaps in the chandelier above him, cracking once and fizzling off into sparks.

It feels like something’s snapped in Adrien’s head. Maybe he’s lost it. Maybe he’s finally gone off the edge, and that — that can be his excuse, when Father asks him what, exactly, he did to the table. He can tell Father they’ve both lost it, they’ve both gone mad, and wouldn’t mom think this was all so funny—

A sound like a sob rips itself from his chest, before Adrien can strangle it into submission. He can’t lose it now. He can’t break down, he has to — he has to come up with a way to explain this, he has to find an escape, or Father’s going to be so angry, and so cold, and…and…

Adrien goes still. Like ice, numb and calming, he realizes he doesn’t have to worry about excuses. He doesn’t have to worry about any of that at all. No one’s coming. Not to check on him. The silence of the house is overpowering, the tiny patter of the vaporized table bits as they land on the floor almost thunderous.

“Adrien,” Plagg repeats, softer this time. “I need you to look at me.”

Slowly, he lifts his head, meeting Plagg’s bright green eyes with his own. Something in Plagg’s expression goes tight, a myriad of emotions flickering in his eyes before he schools them back into careful calm.

“Oh, kid.” Plagg’s voice is gentle. It still sounds like a lament.

Adrien tears his gaze away, swallowing. His fingers, still shaking, curl into unsteady fists. They feel odd, almost scalded. Adrien ignores it.

He can hide the table, he tells himself. He can fix the chandelier. No one will notice. He can hide this.

He’s Adrien Agreste.

He can deal with a couple of cracks in his facade.

#ml spoilers #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #nino's here as well #he's just not clogging up the fic with his internalizing like adrien is #ml season 4 spoilers #rocketear spoilers #i just have a lot of thoughts about the powers of destruction #and what that could mean potentially #if you weren't cowards mr astruc

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leossmoonn · 3 years

Text

Unexpected Love [Kai Parker] || Part Two

masterlist | part one

pairing - kai parker x fem, human!reader

type - fluff, angst

note - read the first part, this cannot be read as a standalone! if you have read the first part then welcome back, thank you for reading the second part. so this part will be more focused on kai and the readers relationship and definitely all fiction lol (aka no actual scenes from the show) :) and part 3 is at the end!

summary - you and kai fall in love over a period of time after spending time with each other in the prison world

warnings / includes - language, alcohol, crying, fighting, mention/thinking of suicide, family trauma, lot of flirting in this one, suggestive, f/f = favorite flavour (of ice cream) lol

————

*gif isn't mine* (ugh hes so fine im dying)

I sat up straight and gasped, my eyes flying right open. I looked around frantically, sharp pain shooting right through my chest.

“Ow,” I whined, pressing my hand gently to my side.

“Oh, yeah. The first time you die here, it’ll hurt. I bet it’s not any different from what that ring does for you, though,” Kai’s voice ringed next to me.

My head snapped to him, memories of what he did to me flooding back.

“Get away from me!” I shouted, getting up out of the bed I was in.

“I did you a favour, Y/n. You should thank me!” He exclaimed.

“What favour! You robbed me of my only chance of getting home. Now we have no magic and the ascendent is broken!”

“Stop shouting. Ugh, you’re giving me a headache,” he whined.

I gave him a death glare. “You’re the one with the headache. You’re the one- I just… I’m going for a walk.”

I stomped out of the room, running down the stairs. I heard Kai’s footsteps from behind me. I walked as fast as I could without feeling any pain. Kai seemed to be full on sprinting, though, because he grabbed my wrist.

“Let me go!” I exclaimed. “Please, Y/n. I’m sorry,” Kai pleaded.

I jerked my body away from him. “Shove it, Malachai. If you want me to forgive you, then you better leave me alone right now.”

He looked at me with wide, fearful eyes. I didn’t wait for him to say anything. I turned on my heel and made my way out of the house and back to the woods. I stomped the whole way there, my hands balled in tight fists. My fingernails dug into my skin as tears stained my cheeks. I just could not believe Kai. I knew he was a sociopath and a dick, but I didn’t think he would try to rob me of my chance at happiness. It was stupid how I thought he would even think about someone else and not himself. Sometimes he made it seem like he did care, though. It also seemed as my attraction to him from the first time we met was still there. I needed to get rid of it. I needed to find a way to get out here. Without Kai.

I stopped walking as I realised I was deep in the woods. The cool breeze flew around me, calming me down. I closed my eyes and breathed out the air that I had been holding in. I opened my eyes to stare at the sky. It was a cloudless afternoon with bright sunshine. It was always like this. For the past few months this was all I had seen. I was more than sick of it. I wanted rain. Snow. Hail. Anything else but the sunshine for once.

I released my hands from their fists, reaching my right hand up to my side where Bonnie’s jacket still was. I let out a strangled, but happy sound. I unwrapped it from my body, seeing that it had a huge red blood spot that was mine. I ignored it and held it up to my face, hugging it closely to my chest.

“I’m getting out of here. I’m going home,” I promised to myself.

I stayed in the woods until the sun started to set. I spent my time walking around some more, making up a plan. I knew how the ascendent looked before it was broken, and I was sure that Bonnie’s grimoire, that was thankfully still here, had a diagram of some sort, too. I could just build it back up. I took a shop class in high school and used to build cars with my dad, so I was quite the mechanic. Getting it to work without magic was the hard part, though. I needed a Bennett witch to access the spell. I knew Kai still had some of Bonnie’s magic in him, but I couldn’t risk telling him the plan and having it work, only for him to leave me here again. Plus, it’s not like having him use Bonnie’s magic would actually work. He wasn't actually a Bennett. He just happened to have her magic in him.

I opened the door and stepped into the Salvatore house, looking around for Kai. I smiled, relieved that I couldn’t spot him anywhere. I shut the door behind me, kicking off my shoes and going to the liquor cabinet, popping off the top of a bottle of whiskey. I didn’t bother with a cup, I just downed it straight. The liquor burned my throat as I strutted to the kitchen, going over to the CD player and putting on Toni Braxton’s ‘Another Sad Love Song’.

I danced around and got out the ingredients for a strawberry cake. As Toni’s song came to an end, I heard the front door open. I groaned loudly, my mood dropping immediately. I left the kitchen to see what Kai was up to. I laughed incredulously as I saw him carrying multiple duffle bags and a backpack.

“Are you seriously moving in?” I asked.

“Yep,” he nodded. “What part of ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand? Do I need to spell it out for you so it can get through your thick skull?” I snapped, taking ahold of his arm and dragging him back to the front door.

“I understand!” He exclaimed. “Good. Then you’ll get out,” I sneered, pushing him out the door. I went to shut it, but his arm held the door open.

“I will smash your hand in this door,” I threatened.

“Yeah, I know, but hear me out. I can help you get back,” Kai said.

I scoffed, “I don’t want nor need your help. Get out.” I pushed the door further in his face. He dropped his bags and used both hands to keep it open.

“I know you don’t trust me and you have no reason to, but please. I still have Bonnie’s magic in me and I can fix the ascendent with her magic,” he begged. He pouted and put on his puppy dog face.

“No,” I said without any hesitation. “You get out of my life, okay? If I ever see you, hear you, or even smell you, you’re dead, okay?”

His eyes then filled with anger and frustration. “Fine!” He exclaimed. “You know, I only even wanted to help you because I want to get out of here. We both know that I would have only left you here alone.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, then,” I smiled sourly. “See you never.” And with that, I slammed the door in his face.

I sighed deeply, smiling in satisfaction. I went back to the kitchen and resumed my cake making.

A few hours later and I was finishing the last pieces of cake, and watching Forrest Gump.

“Life is like a box of chocolates, huh,” I muttered. “First I’m a regular girl with human friends and a family. And now I’m a girl who who has no family, vampires, werewolves, and witches for friends, and who is stuck in a never-ending prison world!”

I rolled my head around the couch ledge, my eyes looking out the window. It was pitch black now. The stars were shining brightly, many of them twinkling.

“Mom, Dad, Jenny, Andrew. Bonnie and Damon. If you’re out there, please help me. Send someone or something. I-I can’t do this alone, and I definitely don’t want Kai’s help. Please help me,” I cried out. I hugged a couch pillow and Bonnie’s jacket.

I hope someone could hear me up there. Otherwise I was screwed.

————

3 months later and I was still stuck in this hell-hole. Well, at least I think it had been 3 months. Ever since Kai kept me here, I had been counting the days. It had been approximately 90 days, give or take. I was beginning to think this was actually my own personal instead of Kai’s.

Speaking of Kai, he actually had been pretty good of avoiding me. In these 90 days, I have only ran into him twice. Once was while I was going for a morning jog and the other was when I was venturing into town, walking to the Mystic Grill and all the shops. During my stay, I have also been documenting my days with an old video camera I found. I knew that I would get out, but just in case, I would be able to have all those memories saved and if I died somehow and never came back and someone else got trapped here, they could see the glamorous life of Y/n L/n. Or what was left of it at least.

Today was going to be different, though. For the past few months, I had been sitting in my bedroom for most of the week, crying, talking to myself, screaming at the world. I had even considered killing myself once or twice, but I knew that I would only wake up in more pain and sadness. Every day I prayed and hoped for someone to come and find me. For my friends to find out a way to get to me, even though they didn’t have the ascendent or anything. It seems as more days past, the less and less hopeful I got, though. So, I decided that the only way I was getting out of here was to do it myself, regardless if I wasn’t a magical being.

And so right now, I was trying to build the ascendent. I was almost there, actually. It was just these little parts that were so frustrating to put back together.

“Go together, dammit!” I exclaimed out of frustration.

I put the device down, running my hands over my face, thinking of a solution. Maybe I should ask Kai for help.

No. That would only end up with me screaming at him the whole time and potentially killing him.

But he probably still had some go Bonnie’s magic left. He could help me get out. And plus, I could just push him away last minute when we go through the portal.

I groaned out of annoyance. I didn’t know what the right answer was. I thought I did. I thought I could do this by myself. But it turns out I can’t. It’s a lot harder than I thought and the fact that I’m a human doesn’t help either. I bit my lip in thought, racking my brain for an answer.

“You have to ask him to help, Y/n. It’s the only way,” I sighed to myself.

I got up from my seat and put on my shoes and jacket. I went out of the house and got into Damon’s Chevy, driving it to Kai’s house. I clenched the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white as I parked in his driveway. Just the thought of seeing him made my stomach churn. Thing was, I didn’t quite know if it churned in a good way or bad.

I stepped out of the car, putting the keys in my jacket pocket. I walked up to the door and gave it a good 3 knocks. A waited a few minutes, but no answer. I knocked a few more times and waited another few minutes. Still no answer.

“Seriously?!” I whined, raising my hand to pound on the door, but Kai’s voice stopped me.

“What are you doing here?”

I turned around and saw him carrying grocery bags.

“Oh. Good, you’re here,” I said, stepping down from his porch.

“You never answered my question. What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I need your help,” I confessed.

His lips upturned into a smile. He let out a laugh. “Wow. Princess Y/n has gotten over her pride, huh?”

“And sociopathic Parker still harasses me with nicknames, huh?”

Kai frowned and walked up to the porch, passing by me and unlocking his house.

“Sorry,” I sighed, following him into his house. “Will you please help me?”

“Hm, let me think about it,” he said, setting the grocery bags down. “No.”

I rolled my eyes. “C’mon! You barely thought about it. Why not?”

“Because I hate you,” he shrugged. “Why? What have I done to you?” I scoffed.

“Well, first of all you slammed a door in my face. Second, whenever we run into each other, you act like I murdered your whole family. And third, you denied my help before, but now you want it? I think not,” he explained.

“Look, I’m sorry. I really, really am, but I know for a fact that you want to get out. I want to, too! But I’ve learned that we can’t get out without each other. I’m sorry I let my pride take over me. So please help me,” I begged and apologised.

Kai grinned at me. “I love this.” “Love what?” I asked.

“I love seeing you beg,” he said, his voice dropping low. He started to walk towards me slowly. Stalking me like I was his prey.

I backed away from him, my eyes trained on him. I let out a huff as my back hit a wall. My eyes widened and stared into his menacing eyes.

“I love seeing you beg for me. Begging for my help like the helpless little human you are,” he muttered.

He arms went around your sides, trapping in-between him and the wall. I breathed out heavily and shakily, averting my eyes.

“I’m not helpless,” I protested. He smirked down at him, his eyes lighting up. “You sure about that, princess?”

The way he stressed my pet name set my fire to my heart, and set my stomach flipping. He head hung low. So low that I could fell his breath on my lips. I felt his knee nudge my thigh and that’s when I stopped breathing. I could fell myself slowly melting into a puddle right in front of him.

“You gonna answer me, sweetheart, or are you just gonna stand there gawking at me?” He chuckled.

I swallowed hard. “N-No.”

“Then answer me,” he teased me. “Y-Yeah… I’m sure about that,” I whispered.

He hummed in reply. I let my eyes roam his face and set on his lips.

“Offer is still there,” he said. “What offer?” I asked.

“The offer to kiss me. Remember when I offered when we first met?”

“O-Oh, yeah,” I stuttered, beginning to catch my breath

“The offer’s still there if you wanna take it.” My eyes flickered back up to his. I shook my head furiously. “I-I don’t want to take it.”

“Oh, I think you do,” he grinned.

I then snapped out of my daze, putting my hand on shoulders and pushing back. “I said no.”

“Alright, alright,” he held his hand up in defense, backing further away from me.

“Now you’ve had your fun, will you help me?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair.

“I guess so,” he shrugged. My eyes lit up, “Really? Oh, my God! Yes!”

I jumped up and went to hug him, wrapping my arms around him. I engulfed him tightly, entangling my fingers in his hair. It was surprisingly soft.

“This feels nice,” Kai sighed.

I groaned, “Okay. Moment ruined.” I pulled away, stepping back a good few feet.

“You hugged me first,” he shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Alright, so when do you want to get started?” I asked.

“After dinner,” he answered. “But it’s 2 pm,” I said.

“I know. But how about you and me have dinner together,” Kai explained.

“I thought you hated me?” I asked. “Oh, I do. I definitely do. That’s why I want to have dinner with you. I know just how to push your buttons. You’re so cute when mad,” he grinned.

I growled at him. “And you are so annoying.” “See! So cute,” Kai scrunched his nose.

“I bet it’ll be cute when I give you a black eye,” I muttered.

“It'd like to see you try. Anyways, if you want my help, then you’ll come to dinner with me,” Kai shrugged.

I sighed, “Fine. What time? What do I need to cook?”

“7 PM. And nope, I’ll cook.”

“O-Oh, really? You cook?”

“Yep,” he grinned proudly.

“Hm… Well, good to know. Anyways, I’ll be here at 7,” I said, making my way towards the door.

“Make sure to dress up! This is gonna be fancy!” Kai called out.

“Noted!” I exclaimed, stepping out of the house. I shut the door behind me, exhaling heavily. “Now you got a date with the town’s psycho, Y/n. Good going.”

I strutted over to the car, getting in and driving back to my place. I read a few books to pass the time until I had to get ready. I got done with Twilight: Eclipse, as I actually had already started that the other day, and I went ahead and started to read more into Bonnie’s grams’s grimoire.

It was all so fascinating, really. I was so amazed by just the spells themselves, I didn’t even consider the history of all of them. While reading the grimoire, I started to feel a little jealous of the fact that Bonnie’s a witch, and the fact that I’m a human with a ring that keeps me alive whenever I got killed. I almost started to feel jealous of Damon and Tyler, but I knew that I never would want to be a monster. Being a witch would seem nice, though. Not like Kai, though.

After a little heavy reading, I checked the clock. It was 5:49, which meant that I had to start getting ready. I put a bookmark in place in the grimoire and got up off the couch, heading up the stairs. I turned on the shower and got undressed.

I took off my sweatpants and socks, followed by my shirt. As I reached for my shirt overhead, the front of it brushed my nose. An unfamiliar, but calming scent filled my nose. I slipped the rest of the shirt off, turning it back right side out and held it up to my nose. I closed my eyes and breathed the scent in. It smelled like mint, paper of old books, and a little like grape jam. As soon as the grape jam smell came to me, I immediately knew who this scent belonged to.

“Ew!” I shrieked and threw the shirt across the room. It landed in the laundry basket, luckily enough. I let out a gagging noise, taking off my underwear and getting in the shower quickly.

I took my time washing up. Taking a shower seemed to be the only place I could really let go and bask in the quiet and loneliness that was in this house. It was strange because it was always quiet and lonely in this house. This was my only time to truly relax since I was doing everything to keep my busy during the day, so I wouldn’t start crying and throwing a fit about still being here.

I lathered my body with shampoo, giving myself a little massage on my shoulders. I closed my eyes and started to imagine what life would be like if I wasn’t stuck in 1994.

I would be with my friends, obviously. We would be at Whitmore, trying to live a normal life. Caroline, Elena, Bonnie and I would be having a picnic on campus. Sipping iced teas and eating sometime of desert. Damon would probably be with us, considering that Elena can’t be without Damon for more than 10 minutes without dying - literally. Stefan would most definitely be there. He’s my best friend, so of course he would be there. He would be talking to Caroline, though, her hogging all of his attention because she likes him (though she always denied it). And maybe Jeremy would be there, too, for Bonnie. Holding her hand and cuddling up next to her like the cute couple they are. And me? Well, I didn’t really have anybody special in my life. I actually had a thing with Kol Mikaelson before he died. I liked Tyler briefly in high school, but I’m 100% sure he’s into the girl that works at the coffee shop at Whitmore. Matt wasn’t my type at all. Neither was Enzo. Maybe I had a cute boy a Whitmore on my arm. A classmate that I had invited to the picnic. Someone cute, smart, funny… a little crazy. Maybe… Maybe Kai.

My eyes snapped open as I became aware that Kai was now in my fantasy. I couldn’t help but shudder, even with the hot water running on my skin. I washed the rest of my body, focusing on anything else but Kai. I turned off the water, wrapping a towel around me. I dried my skin off as I walked to the sink, putting on lotion and re-brushing my teeth. I stepped back into my bedroom and put on a nude-coloured underwear set. It was simple and very, very comfortable. I then went over to my closet, looking for an outfit to wear. I shuffled through all my shirts, not being able to find one that I liked. I sighed in slight frustration, stepping back to try and see if anything stuck out to me.

A little, annoying voice - that sounded much like my mother’s - sounded in the back of my head.

Maybe you can’t decide on an outfit because you like him and want to look nice for him.

I scoffed loudly, shaking my head. “No. I definitely do not care. That’s why I’m just gong to wear this.” I reached into my closet and pulled out a simple dark-turquoise dress. It was spaghetti-strapped and plunged a little bit at the neckline. It reached down just above my knees. Perfect for dinner with an… associate.

I slipped it on and back to the bathroom and did my hair, putting it in one of my favourite hairstyles. I then got out some makeup products. I put on a light coat of foundation and concealer, curling my eyelashes and brushing them up with mascara. I then shaped my eyebrows and filled in the sparce parts, dusting on some blush and putting on chapstick. I looked in the mirror, stepping back to look at my appearance. I cringed as it looked like I was going on a date. I shook those thoughts out of my head. I wasn’t dressing up for him, I was dressing up for myself. There’s no shame in wanting to look nice for yourself.

I went back into the bedroom and found a pair of black heels. I slipped them on, going over to the dresser and putting on a few gold bracelets and a pair of earrings. I re-adjusted my necklace that I was already wearing. I looked at my reflection and smiled. For once, I felt and looked good. I grabbed a black jacket and walked out of my room, checking the time once again. I had 10 minutes to get his house, which was perfect.

I went out of the house and to the Chevy, driving to Kai’s house. I parked in the driveway, my heart beginning to race. I let out a few deep breaths and go out of the car. As soon as I was about to knock, the door swung wide open.

The door revealed Kai who was wearing a white button-up shirt and dark-blue slacks. He actually looked… nice, for once. My eyes traveled around his chest. I couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps strained against his shirt. I could literally see his abs through the shirt, too. It did not help butterflies that were starting to flutter in my stomach.

“Like what you see?” He smirked.

My eyes flew up to his face, taking a deep breath to calm myself down from all the excitement I was feeling.

“No,” I said flatly, going into the house and brushing past Kai.

“Well, you look nice,” he said as I walked into his kitchen.

“Thanks. You do, too,” I complimented genuinely.

“I’ve never seen you in a dress before. You should wear them more often.”

“I don’t like dresses.”

“But you like me. That’s why you wore one to our date?”

I balled my hands in fists, turning around to face him. “One, this is not a date. And two, girls can wear dresses for themselves, not for men like you.”

Kai grinned widely at me. I realised I had fallen into his trap. He was trying to push my buttons and so far, he's been successful. I couldn't let him win, though. I had to calm down and get through this night. Otherwise I would probably never be getting out.

“Your temper is almost as bad as Damon’s,” Kai remarked.

I sighed, “Well you’re not making it easy to stay calm.”

“I know,” he chuckled, walking past me and to the dinner table. “I hope you like ravioli and mushrooms.”

“Did you make these or buy them?” I asked, walking towards the kitchen table.

“Made them. The Salvatores have lots of cook books. I might have stole them before you came,” he explained.

"Well, it smells great,” I admitted, beginning to take off my jacket.

“Glad you think so. Here, let me get this for you,” he slid over to me and took the jacket off my shoulders. He folded it and put it on the ledge of his couch.

“Thanks,” I said. He then pulled my chair out for me. I sat down, thanking him this time with a smile.

“Wine?” He asked, bringing a bottle over. “Yeah, sure,” I nodded.

He poured two glasses and placed one in front of me. He sat down and took a knife and fork.

“Dig in,” he offered. “This isn’t filled with like, cyanide, right?” I asked half-jokingly.

“Ha-ha. No. I worked really hard on these,” he said.

“Hm,” I hummed. I cut one of the raviolis in half and popped on in my mouth. My eyes widened as it tasted a lot better than I expected.

“Good, right?” Kai smiled.

“Very,” I nodded once I swallowed.

We ate in silence for a few moments. I was itching to talk to him about getting home. I took a long sip of wine before beginning to take.

“So um…. I’ve started to re-build the ascendent. It’s a lot harder than it looks, but I’m really close. I just have-”

“No,” Kai said suddenly. I furrowed my brows, “What?” “No, we aren’t going to talk about that just yet. I want to get to know you,” he explained.

I rolled my eyes. “Why? All you need to know is my name and that I hate living here.”

He chuckled, “Not true. I have trust issues. So before I get involved with you, I need to know I can trust you. See, I didn’t trust Damon or Bonnie. I knew that they hated me from the second they met me. I knew that no matter what I would do, they would never give in to trusting me. You, however, you are so trusting. Didn’t you find it creepy that I, a strange man whom you met in a parking lot, offered you a ride?”

“Oh. I-I mean, I guess? But I needed a ride, anyways,” I said.

He shook his head with a smile. “No. Not a good enough reason. Any reasonable woman would have run away from me. You, though… You saw something good in me, didn’t you? You thought I was nice and cute. Maybe a little too forthcoming, but still you put some trust in me. And if you can trust me, maybe I can learn to trust you.”

“Is that why you didn’t let me go with them?” I asked, suddenly connecting the dots.

“Part of the reason. I knew that I had no chance of getting home with Damon and Bonnie. But with you, I knew that I had a chance. Even though you are just a human.” “I am more than that,” I argued.

“And I’m sure you are! But you see, I don’t know that for sure because I don’t know anything about you. See what I’m getting at here?” “Yeah, I see,” I grumbled. “Great! So let’s start with the first question. Why do you always wear that necklace?” He pointed to my neck.

“It was a gift,” I explained shortly, hoping he would notice the edge in my voice.

“From who?” He asked, the corners of his lips upturning in a smirk.

Of course he noticed. He just wasn’t going to stop.

“Family member.” “C’mon, you gotta give me more. I can’t help you if I don't trust you.” I slammed my fork down on the table. “So? There’s a lot of people in the world that you don’t trust fully, but sometimes you just have to help them! Like in school, you may not trust one of your classmates personally, but if they ask you for help on a math problem, you would help them, right? And plus, I don’t trust you. I never did, for the record. I just really want to get out of this place, which now I am believing is my personal hell, not your’s, but I can’t do that without you!”

Kai took a bite of his ravioli, taking his sweet time to chew and swallow. I clenched my knife, tempted to throw it into his carotid.

“Watch your temper, princess. If you keep yelling at me, then I definitely won’t help you.” I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly, trying to calm myself down. “Fine. Sorry. I just don’t want to answer the questions about my necklace.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why I’m asking,” he grinned.

I rolled my eyes, settling back in my seat. “Please, don’t. It’s really personal.”

“You know, I killed my family. It can’t get any worse than that,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, well, this is worse to me,” I muttered. “What? Did you kill your whole family, too? Man, I didn’t know we were so similar,” he chuckled.

“No. They got murdered right in front of me,” I whispered out. Tears prickled the corners of my eyes. I lowered my gaze to my almost-empty plate. Thick, uncomfortable silence filled the room. I tried to fight the tears that threatened to fall, but as memories came back, I could no longer hold them off.

“I-I’m gonna go. Thanks for dinner, Kai.” My voice was hoarse as I spoke. I swallowed hardly, trying to clear my throat, but it felt like shards of glass were rubbing the sides of it.

I went to grab my jacket and wrapped it around me, reaching out for the doorknob, but Kai pulled me back. He wrapped his fingers around my wrist gently, but firmly. He tugged me back slightly, enough for me to turn around and look him in the eyes. The expression on his face was something that I had never seen on him before. He looked regretful, guilty; full of remorse. For once I didn’t feel annoyed or scared of him.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he spoke softly, his blue eyes boring into my e/c eyes.

“I-It’s alright. It’s not your fault,” I sniffled. “No… I-I should have known this was too personal for you to want to share,” he admitted.

“Yeah, well, I know how much you like to push my buttons,” I chuckled.

“I do. I admit that. But I really do want to get to know you.” I narrowed eyes at him, crossing my arms around my chest and leaning back in my chair. “Why?”

“Because I… I think you’re interesting. When I was watching you and your friends, I was able to discover things. Things about Bonnie and Damon. But you… I couldn’t figure out a thing about you. You talk a lot to Damon, and I know you’re really close with Bonnie, but you’re still so private. I’m such an open person, so it was weird for me to see you be so closed-off, but outgoing at the same time,” he explained, his cheeks glowing pink as soon as he finished.

I couldn’t believe what I had heard him say. He was finally saying nice things about me in a sincere tone. I couldn’t help but smile and softened up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” He shrugged sheepishly. “Hm,” I buzzed.

“So, will you stay and we can get to know each other? I promise I won’t ask you about your family anymore,” he said.

I stared at him intensely. As much as I wanted to say no, every fiber in my body was screaming yes.

“Alright, sure. I’ll stay,” I nodded. I knew that if I said no, he probably wouldn't help me get back home, but I was actually looking forward to staying. It seemed as though my feelings for him were developing a lot quicker and stronger than I thought they ever would.

A bright smile lit up his face immediately. “Great! Do you want to continue eating? I have some ice cream, too, if you want.”

“Ice cream sounds good,” I answered. He nodded and let go of my wrist, walking to his freezer.

I felt alone and cold all of the sudden. I felt myself start to miss his hand on me, holding my arm. His skin was so warm and surprisingly soft. I wanted him to touch me all over.

“Take a seat on the couch.” His voice broke me out of my dirty thoughts.

I shrugged away the thoughts and made my way to the sofa, taking a seat and making myself comfortable.

“Do you want a blanket of anything?” He asked, setting down two bowls.

“I’m good for now, thanks,” I said, reaching her to grab a bowl. “F/f?” I asked.

“Yeah. This one of the few things I found out about you,” he smiled sheepishly, taking his bowl and sitting down next to you.

“Indeed I do. I assume you do, too?” I guessed. “Yep,” he nodded. “Hm. So, what do you want to know about me?” I asked.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“F/c.” “Do you have any pets back at home?” He asked.

“I had a cat a few years ago. She died, though.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” he frowned. “It's alright. She was 20, so she was bound to die soon,” I shrugged.

He nodded. “What’s life like back at home?”

I took a bite of ice cream, thinking for a few moments. “Fun. Busy, but really happy and colourful.”

“Are you in college?” He asked. “Yeah. Second year,” I answered. “What’re you studying?”

“I’m majoring in human studies and minoring in art and design.” “Sounds fun.”

“It is. And a little stressful,” I chuckled. He laughed with me, looking away from me for a moment and then looking back.

“Do you have a boyfriend, or girlfriend, back at home?” He asked.

“Nope. I’ve been single for a good couple years,” I said.

“You? Single? I find that hard to believe,” he snorted. “Why?” I asked, my heart fluttering just thinking about his answer.

Kai smiled softly at me. “Well, for starters, you’re beautiful. You’re strong and confident. You know what you want and have no issue in fighting for it. You’re a little hot-headed, but I find it attractive. You’re very smart; I see you reading almost everyday. You’re determined and dream big. I can tell you really care about your friends and family, despite how much you and Damon bickered. You’re like a girl in a novel or movie that other girls want to be.”

My whole face went warm at his explanation. My lips were upturned into the most cheek-aching smile, too.

“And you said it was hard to find things out about me,” I giggled, nudging his foot with mine.

“Well, I couldn’t find out personal things about you. That's all just from observation,” he shrugged, not seeming to be embarrassed.

I nodded, “Well, now you know a few personal things about me.”

“That I do.” “I…. I thought you liked Bonnie, too,” I spoke my thoughts out loud.

“She’s beautiful, too. She’s also incredibly smart and intuitive. She’s very strong and nice. But you’re the one that really caught my eye.”

“Oh,” I smiled impossibly wider. “Well, good to know.” “Yep,” he popped the ‘p’. I couldn't help but notice how his gaze dropped down to my upper chest, where my necklace sat.

“They died one and a half years ago,” I started.

His eyes flew up to mine. “You don’t have to-”

“No, no. It’s alright. Um… so it was at night. Everyone else was at the house, but I had snuck out to go to a party hosted by Caroline. At this time, I was involved with a vampire named Kol. He convinced me to go out. I knew it was wrong and I was going to get in trouble. I was what some would call a goody-two shoes. Anyways, I stayed out until like, 2 in the morning. I was getting tipsy and tired. So, Stefan, Damon’s brother, drove me home. When I first arrived at my house, it looked completely normal. It was quiet and peaceful. It wasn’t until I walked into my house when I knew something was wrong. There were lights on upstairs. It felt so tense, too. I could literally feel how tense and thick the air was.” I stared down at my ice cream for multiple minutes, blinking rapidly as tears fell.

“I went upstairs and that’s when I saw him. He was tall and wearing a ski-mask, like he was trying to rob us. I guess he had other things he wanted to do, too. He didn’t see me at first, though. It wasn’t until he shot my dad when I started to cry and that’s when he noticed me. I ran away though and into my sibling’s room. I saw that they were still were asleep and safe. So I did the first thing I thought was sensible. I called Stefan. I explained to him that someone had murdered my dad. And as I called him, I heard my mom scream,” I shuddered as her scream ringed in my ears.

“That’s when I heard the door being kicked open downstairs and I knew that Stefan was there. He had brought Caroline and Damon, too, with Bonnie. They were all here to help and I was so appreciative of them. I thought they were going to kill the guy, which was honestly what I wanted. But apparently, the murderer was a vampire. An old one, too, which meant he was stronger than everyone. My friends put up a good fight and I tried to get Andrew and Jenny out of the house, but as soon as we were going down the stairs, the murderer sped up to us and snapped both of their necks. I-It all happened so fast. I….I just couldn't register what was happening. They both just fell limp in my arms. I didn’t know what to do but cry. I was practically screaming while crying, cursing at the murderer. I tried to fight him, but I was so tired and weak, he almost ended up killing me, but luckily Stefan got to him the fastest and ripped his heart out. He fell right on top of me, too. I will never forgetting the weight I was feeling just then. Metaphorical and physical. I pushed him off of me and collapsed into Stefan’s arms. He held me for what seemed like forever until I stopped crying.”

I felt Kai move closer to me, putting a comforting hand on my hand. I smiled softly at him, letting out a deep breath as I was about to finish the story.

“I didn’t come to school for four months after that. I didn’t even come out of my room during that time. My friends took turns everyday taking care of me. Stefan was on cooking duty, Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie switched roles of helping me bathe, getting me to eat, trying to get me to take a step out of bed. Damon and Jeremy provided the jokes and funny stories to try and get me to feel better. Alaric, who was acting like Elena and Jeremy’s parent, adopted me into their family. He said it was Elena and Jeremy’s idea and he agreed fully. After my grieving period, I moved in with the Gilberts. Elena and Jeremy called me their sister and I fell into that role. It was nice to have a family again. It was nice to have siblings again. To have a parent again. I knew it wasn’t real, though. Jeremy and Elena acted like it was real, though. They were so welcoming of having me as a sister, it was just so good. Once I went to college, though, I tried to get a little more independent. Bonnie was gone, actually, so all I had was Caroline and Elena. But we made it work. I’m so thankful for all of them. They really helped me and never gave up on me. Even when I threw fits about getting out of bed,” I smiled at the memories of them helping me.

“Anyways,” I shifted on the couch. “The summer before college, I ended up cremating my family and spreading them across the Pacific Ocean, thanks to Damon who gladly took me on a trip.”

“Wow,” Kai breathed out. “I know,” I chuckled.

“You have really great friends. I’m sorry that all happened to you,” he said. “I-I can’t imagine what you went through. And what you’re still going through.” “Yeah, well, I’m the survivor here. You’re an actual murderer,” I smirked.

He laughed, “True. You know, if you know that I’m a murderer, then why do you agree to spend time with me?”

I sighed and set the empty bowl of ice cream on the table. “Well, you’re right. I am trusting. I see the good in people and I see the good in you. When I was about to walk out the door, I saw the good in you. I see the good in you now. You can be good, Kai. I know it’s hard considering what you have been through, but you are just as much as a survivor as I am.” I intertwined our fingers and put my other hand on his forearm.

“You were abused as a child. You were punished for being different. And although that doesn’t excuse you killing your siblings, you still deserve love. I don’t know how being in a coven works, but I do know how being in a family works. You’re supposed to love each other and your father didn’t give you that love. Sure, you’re a little… eccentric at times, but you still have feelings like everyone else. I know Damon and Bonnie called you a sociopath, and I know I did, too, but now that I’ve seen this side of you, I know you’re different. You should be able to resent your father for being blamed for being a siphoner. Which, by the way, I think it really cool, honestly. I-I’m sorry for yelling at you and getting really mad all those times,” I apologised, looking at him in the eyes to know I was sincere.

He shrugged with a smile, “Well I didn’t make it easy on you.”

I laughed, “No, you did not. Anyways… You are a survivor Kai. A survivor of your family and this world. You deserve a lot more than you think.”

“Thank you. I guess that’s true,” he said.

I smiled and leaned into him, “I know it’s true.”

He smiled at me, his hand tightening around mine. My eyes trailed down to his lips, ogling them for a good few moments.

“Does the necklace has pictures of them?” Kai asked.

I leaned away immediately, my hand slipping out of his. “Yeah, do you want to see them?”

He nodded, moving closer to me so our thighs were touching. I took off the necklace, opening it up and showing him the left side where my parent’s picture sat.

“That’s my dad, Owen, and that’s my mom, Louisa,” I pointed.

“You look just like your mom,” Kai muttered.

I looked to my right, seeing that he was staring right at me. I blushed a little, looking down shyly. “Yeah. We got our genes from our mom.”

“Are they Andrew and Jenny?” He pointed to the right side of the locket.

“Yep. Andrew is 10 and Jenny is 13,” I said.

“They look like good kids,” he commented. “They were. I often wish that it was me who died instead of them,” I murmured.

“Why?”

“Because I was the one who snuck out that night. Plus, my mom and I were having some relationship issues. She was always so irritated with me and criticizing everything I did. The last thing I said to her that night was “I hate you. I wish I had a different mom.”,” My lips were pulled down in a deep frown.

“Well, you didn’t mean that, right?” Kai guessed.

“I didn’t,” I shook my head. “Well, that’s all that matters,” he said.

I nodded and looked up at him.

“You have a little… Here,” he said and lifted up his hand. He cupped my cheek, his thumb running across my cheekbone, wiping a few tears away.

My breath hitched as I felt myself leaning towards him. There was like this magnetic pull that I was feeling. I knew I couldn’t fight it if I tried. His eyes met mine, staring intensely at me. My eyes flickered down to his lips. They looked so soft. So pink. So unbelievably kissable. I was about to close the space in-between us when Kai stopped me.

He put his hand on my shoulder, pushing me back.

“What? Did I read the situation wrong? I’m so sorry,” I rushed out, getting up from the couch.

Kai’s hand grabbed my forearm roughly, pulling me back down on the couch.

“No, it’s not that. You read the situation totally right it's just that… I’ve never kissed anyone before,” he admitted, looking down shyly.

I smiled softly, reaching my hand out for his. “It’s alright. We don’t have to do anything. It’s late, anyways. I should get going.” I looked at the clock, noticing that it was 9:30.

“Or you can stay and we can watch a movie?” He suggested. “Sure,” I nodded with a smile. “Can I take my shoes off?” “Yeah, of course. Actually um, do you want a change of clothes?” He asked.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” I nodded.

“Sweatpants and t-shirt work for you?” He asked.

“It definitely does,” I said. “Great. I’ll be right back, go ahead and make yourself comfortable,” he said, getting up from the couch.

I smiled and nodded, taking my shoes and jacket off. I leaned back on the couch, sighing. I could not believe I was making nice with someone who tried to kill me. Damon was right. My type is crazy.

————

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tennessoui · 3 years

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1. Soulmates AU please! It is definitely my guilty pleasure trope

hello im only three months ish late maybe four but this is also 3.4k long and it's just wild i mean we're talking soul mates, superheroes, rushed world building, superhero names this is a trip this is something i wrote after waking up from a four hour nap this ever had a chance and also it's sad

1. Soul Mates (+ 42. Star Crossed Lovers)

“You shouldn’t have come,” Obi-Wan says harshly, pulling the children--they’re just goddamn children--into his apartment and slamming the door behind them. “Did anyone see you?”

The children--all four of them--stay quiet. Obi-Wan wants to wring their necks. He knows why they’re here. He’d rather them die on the streets than suffer through what they’re obviously here about.

But if that were really true, he would have just left them on his doorstep.

“Did anyone see you?” he asks again.

“Not that we noticed,” one of the girls in the middle says. Shili, dressed in a blue and white striped sensible jumpsuit and sporty cape. The leader of the new generation of superheroes and she sounds like she hasn’t even hit puberty yet.

Obi-Wan is suddenly very, very tired.

“Kam,” Shili gestures to the person next to her and a little behind, a tall boy with a helmet covering his face and white and blue armor covering the rest of him, “says he didn’t pick up anything with his sensors. We were safe. We’re not trying to get you caught, sir. We just need to talk to you.”

“You could kick us out,” the other girl points out, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s not even bothering to wear a domino mask, but Obi-Wan doubts very much he’s looking at her real appearance. She’s Mirial, of course.

Which makes the other boy in a padded white and orange suit Mando. Four of the fifty or so remaining Jedi superheroes are in his house.

Obi-Wan sighs and turns to pad down the hallway. “Shoes off,” he calls behind his shoulder. “And does anyone want any tea?”

“No thank you,” Shili responds politely, falling into step behind him.

“Sit,” he tells them roughly when he notices the four of them standing awkwardly in his cramped dining room. “Sit down.”

He puts the kettle on anyway, and bangs around the cabinets for a few seconds to find an unopened bag of chips and a sleeve of probably stale cookies.

He doesn’t have much else to offer them though. Not now.

Weren’t you the one always telling me to eat my vegetables? A laughing voice murmurs into his ear. Look at you now.

Obi-Wan has to stand for a second in his small and dirty kitchen, chips clutched in one hand and cookies in the other, and breathe for an impossibly long moment.

This is why he had not wanted to ever see another Jedi in his life. All they brought with them were questions and ghosts.

Obi-Wan has enough of those as it is.

The kettle goes off and he pours the hot water into his mug. The cowardly part of him that hasn’t faced a fight in ten years now wants to wait here until the tea has finished steeping and then think of a thousand other excuses to not ever leave the kitchen again. He's good at thinking of excuses. He calls them reasons and lives his life with them.

But he has always known someone would eventually come looking for answers. That had always been one of the prices he knew he would eventually have to pay.

He notices immediately upon entering the dining room that they’ve saved him a seat, if it counts as saving someone a seat when they’ve rearranged the chairs so one is on one side of the table and the other two are squeezed opposite it.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought snacks to my own interrogation,” he says blithely, depositing them onto the table in front of the children.

Kamino stares intently at them for a second, and then nods once to Shili, who reaches out to open the bag of chips. In a show of good faith, she takes one and eats it. Obi-Wan can’t see her eyes underneath the white lenses of her domino mask, but he’s quite sure she hasn’t stopped looking at him once.

“Are you sure you do not want tea, now we have established I am not going to poison you?” he asks, crossing his ankles and taking a sip from his own mug.

“It’s a bit too warm out there for hot tea,” Mirial says disdainfully, looking at her nails. “You know, what with the world on fire.”

“But I’d take an iced one, if you have it,” Shili leans forward.

Obi-Wan pauses, drink halfway to his mouth.

He sets it down gently on the wood of his table. “Ah. Going straight in, aren’t we?”

“There’s not much time for anything else,” Mando says, and at least he sounds a bit apologetic.

“A weighty statement from someone who can manipulate time itself,” Obi-Wan hums.

“Only for a few seconds,” Mando mutters behind his helmet, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“That’s because you don’t have much in the way of training, young man,” Obi-Wan tells him gently with a hint of steel behind it “Back in my day--”

He cuts himself off. He doesn’t know why. Clearly, they know who he used to be. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. He’s really just delaying the inevitable, but his throat feels tight. This truth, so long unspoken, is hard to drag into his mouth. And yet, every second he doesn’t speak it, it’s bashing itself to death against the backs of his teeth.

“Would you like us to tell you what we’ve found out about your days?” Mirial asks, looking up from her nails. “Would that make it easier for you, Ilum?”

“Meer--” Shili starts to say, reaching out to touch the girl’s arm, rein her in, but it’s too late.

The planes of Mirial’s face change and shift and suddenly for the first time in ten years, Anakin Skywalker is sitting across from him. “Would you like to talk about the old days, or would you like me to talk about the old days?” Mirial in Anakin’s smooth baritone asks.

It’s cruel. It’s so cruel that for a second Obi-Wan wishes his heart could just stop from the pain of it all. “Please put that away,” he tells the tabletop coldly. “And please. Do not call me that.”

“Meer,” Shili murmurs, and there’s a shift in the air.

When Obi-Wan looks back up, Mirial is back to the way she always appears in press releases, green skin and all. “That was a decent impression,” he tells her. She bristles at the perceived slight, but he holds up his hand. “But when I knew him, his eyes weren’t gold. They were blue.”

“Mustafar has had golden eyes since he joined the Imps,” Mirial argues back in a way that reminds Obi-Wan of another young teenager, who never could learn how to take criticism well.

“And he was someone else before then,” he tells the girl. “He had another name and he had a mother and he had a soulmate and a--fiancee and everything.”

His hands have started to shake, so he clasps the mug tightly, though it burns him.

“Tell us,” Shili insists forcefully but compassionately. Obi-Wan had wondered before why they had chosen to make the girl whose only ability is to fly the leader of the newest Jedi team, but it must be that. It must be her compassion. “Please. You’re the only one who can.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says. “I know. I’m the only one who is left. But if I am to demask myself, I will not do it to a table of strangers.”

The children turn to look at each other. Kamino cocks his head at Shili, who inclines her own head. Mirial shrugs. Mando shakes his head once, but Shili seems to override him, because she turns back to Obi-Wan and takes off her domino mask.

“My name is Ahsoka Tano,” she says, stumbling over the name. Obi-Wan wonders how many times she’s unmasked herself before. “Or Shili.”

She nudges Mirial, who sighs. “I’m Barriss,” she tells him grudgingly.

Kamino takes off his helmet to reveal a strong-jawed boy with a blond buzzcut. “His name is Rex,” Ahsoka says. “He can’t speak except through minds.”

Obi-Wan blinks in surprise at this. He had known that Kamino had an advanced sense of the senses, could tell something’s molecular makeup just by looking at it, could smell a gas leak from two miles away, etcetera, etcetera, but he hadn’t known the boy could communicate telepathically as well.

“And I’m his twin,” Mando sighs, taking off his own helmet and revealing a startlingly similar face, marred by a scar just across his temple. “Cody.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Obi-Wan tells them, drumming his fingers on the table. “You know already. I fought under the name Ilum. I could--”

He searches for words to describe his own powers, and settles instead on a demonstration. With a flick of his hand, the liquid in the mug rises and freezes into a miniature wave, suspended in the air.

He lets the ice drop into the mug, and inclines his head to Ahsoka. “Iced tea?” he asks wryly.

“Tell us about Mustafar,” Mando demands. What a heavy thing to carry, Obi-Wan finds himself thinking. The knowledge of all that time.

What Obi-Wan wouldn’t give to be ten years younger again. Not to even change anything, though he would be stupid to not try to. But to just enjoy the moment for what it had been in the end: just a moment.

“We didn’t call him that then,” Obi-Wan sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “We called him Iego in uniform, and Anakin in civvies.

“He was...radiant. In battle and off the field. I was the leader of our team for six years until Anakin came along. And I just knew as soon as I saw him that he would take everything from me. But he wouldn’t have had to take it. I would have given it to him right then.”

“I didn’t think he was that attractive,” Ahsoka mumbles, and then slaps a hand over her mouth as if afraid she’s spoken out of turn and ruined the story so completely that Obi-Wan won’t say anything else.

Instead, Obi-Wan laughs but it doesn’t sound much like a laugh at all. “Well, to each is his own, of course,” he says when he thinks the hysteria has worn off. “And finding out he carried my soul mark certainly helped.”

The room is blissfully silent, which Obi-Wan is beyond thankful for. He just wants to let those never-before admitted truths hang in the air, just for a few more seconds. He almost wants to say them again actually. Anakin Skywalker is my soulmate. Anakin Skywalker carries the same mark I carry, and he always has.

“But…” Barriss says slowly, “But Mustafar’s soulmark is on his neck.”

“It’s not,” Obi-Wan murmurs, staring at the wall behind their heads. “What he has on his neck is an ice burn scar in the shape of a hand. In the shape of my hand. His actual soul mark is on his mid-back, right over his spine.”

“You tried to kill your soulmate?” Ahsoka gasps, looking horrified.

Obi-Wan smiles with no joy behind it. “I tried to save the world,” he corrects her gently.

“You said earlier…” Cody speaks up. “That Mustafar--that Anakin had a fiancee. It wasn’t you, was it?”

“No,” Obi-Wan admits. “I never told him. I...couldn’t. I wanted to wait I suppose. I. Well. My soulmark is identical to his, but it’s on my thigh. And. You know what they say about a soulmatch whose marks aren’t in the same spot.” “Star crossed,” Ahsoka whispers.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan confirms. “I decided to wait. I was a few years older than him, he had so much to learn, he needed a friend more than he needed a soulmate. I had a long list of reasons, all as iron-clad as the next. But they were excuses. I was afraid. This man, my soulmate, could control fire and sunlight itself. He burned with passion, shone with power. And I...I was cold. Too pragmatic, too quick to criticize when he needed praise. The marks were just marks. Maybe they fit together, maybe they matched. But I was terrified that we wouldn’t.

“And by the time I thought to tell him, he came to find me instead. He was in love, he said. He had been seeing a girl for months and was going to ask her to marry him. And I suppose I must have asked about his soulmate, because he told me he would rather never know his soulmate, if knowing meant losing her.”

So. So Obi-Wan had let him go, though that part doesn’t make for a good story. He had distanced himself as much as he could get away with, which is not much really, seeing as how Iego and Ilum fought best when they fought together.

But in the end, his heartbreak had been too much, even for someone as cold as Obi-Wan had been known to be. He’d put in for a temporary transfer. A remedial medical leave, a Jedi-sanctioned sabbatical so he could ostensibly connect with himself and his powers. Nothing longer than a year.

You’ll miss the wedding, Anakin had told him, heartbreak shining in his own eyes.

But his heartbreak had been nothing compared to Obi-Wan’s, and so he had left. He had needed to. It had felt like rending his soul in two, but he had.

Two weeks into his stay at a different Jedi training base, Obi-Wan had died in an explosion. “That hadn’t been Jedi sanctioned,” he tells the children in front of him wryly. “We thought it was an accident at the time, but there were too many coincidences. Too many casualties.” But Obi-Wan’s death had been the only casualty Anakin had felt. It hadn’t mattered that someone had managed to restart his heart only a few minutes later. He had died. He had died and Anakin had felt his soulmate die. He had burned his fiancee in his own uncontrollable agony. She had not survived Obi-Wan’s death, even though Obi-Wan himself had.

“I...I don’t know what happened. Still. It’s been years and I have thought of little else. She may have been standing too close to him when it happened. Or...the house may have caught on fire and she was trapped inside. Or...I don’t know. I don’t know,” he spreads his hands palm up on the table and looks at the faces of the children.

He sighs and continues. There is so little left in the story now. “The Jedi Order decided to tell the press that there had been no survivors, though there had been a few. We couldn’t know if the Imperials were behind the attack or not, so we had to be careful. The survivor’s families were told, and their soulmates. Officially, I had no family. I had...no soulmate. They didn’t tell anyone I had survived. Ilum died in that explosion. Still to this day, he's dead.

“Anakin had always been absurdly powerful...and dangerous. He’d killed the love of his life, had felt his soulmate dying, and then...heard that I too had died. The first two had destabilized him, but my death and the Jedi Order’s staunch rejection of his request to see my body, to give me a funeral...it made him even more vulnerable to outside manipulation.”

“The Imperials….” Cody murmurs.

Obi-Wan nods, lip curling up. “The Imperials,” he agrees. “The timeline is fuzzy. I spent a good part of these weeks partially dead, one foot in both worlds. I didn’t know what was going on. When I was well enough to watch the news, the Jedi told me there was a new super villain working with the Imperials, going by the name Mustafar. I trained to kill him as he was helping the Imps decimate the Jedi. All of my old team was dead. Anakin was missing. I didn’t--”

He cuts himself off and runs a hand down his face. The children are waiting on his words. He’s telling them why they’re fighting wars adults should be fighting. He’s telling them why they’re out in the field after only a month or less of training. He’s trying to tell them why he isn’t out there fighting with them, but he knows already they won’t accept his excuses.

They shouldn’t have to.

“They gave me a new uniform and a new name,” Obi-Wan picks up the story. “Hoth. And I went off to kill my soulmate.”

“But you didn’t,” Barriss says, and she sounds vaguely confused and vaguely accusatory.

“I almost did,” Obi-Wan admits, like it’s a sin, like it's salvation. “Everything about him was different. He was not the passionate but warm boy I had known. He was a forest fire. A volcano. And Mustafar’s fighting style was completely different from Iego’s. I only realized it was Anakin--my Anakin--when I managed to knock his mask off. I had my hand around his throat, but when I realized who I was fighting...I let go. I couldn’t kill him. Even after everything he did. Even knowing...knowing Iego was gone.”

The dining room is silent for a second, before three voices burst out angrily at once.

“Why aren’t you helping the Jedi?” Ahsoka asks the loudest. “Hoth--Ilum, Obi-Wan. We need you. Mustafar--the Imperials...they’re not going to stop. They’ve killed so many Jedi. We need you to help us.”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says. “I cannot.”

“You used to be a hero,” Barriss accuses. “Now what are you? A hollowed out, sad man.”

“I was never a hero,” he snaps. “I followed orders. Anyone can do that.”

“You were the best,” Cody says quietly, cutting Obi-Wan to the bone. “You led the Geonosis team for six years. I studied you in class. You were...the best.”

“I wasn’t,” Obi-Wan disagrees just as quietly. “But perhaps you all are.”

“You haven’t even told us any weakness we could use against him in battle!” Barriss shouts, standing up suddenly, which causes the chair to clatter over. “You’ve been no help at all! I’m leaving, this is a waste of time!”

“Barriss--!” Ahsoka cries after the girl, grabbing her discarded mask and taking after her.

Cody opens his mouth and then closes it. He jams the helmet back onto his head. “The soulmark. You said it’s on his hip?”

Obi-Wan smiles mirthlessly. Cody is trying to see if he can catch him in a lie, if this is actually good tactical information or not. “It’s a few inches below his shoulder blades, right over his spine.”

Cody nods once and then files out, leaving Obi-Wan alone in the room with the silent, still helmetless Rex.

“I just told him how to kill my supervillain soulmate,” Obi-Wan tells Rex, even though he’s really talking to himself. “Soulmarks, even dead ones, are extremely sensitive. If Anakin had hit me with his fire on my other thigh, I would be dead. Not just crippled. Muscle, young man, doesn’t grow back easily.”

He rubs a hand over the leg in question, staring down at the uneven way his pants lay over the old injury. It aches from the walking he’s forced it to do today, from trying to walk normally im front of these powerful strangers.

Rex taps the table to get him to look up, and then gestures to his own eyes.

“I?” Obi-Wan asks, confused.

Rex rolls his eyes and then mimes writing something.

“Ah, there should be a pen and pad in the kitchen?” he trails off as the teenager goes to retrieve the aforementioned things.

It takes a second longer than it should, and he comes out carrying just a slip of paper with his helmet forced back onto his head.

With a flick of his fingers, the paper’s lying on the table and Rex is following his teammates out the door and out of Obi-Wan’s apartment and hopefully out of his life forever.

Curious, Obi-Wan grabs the note and unfolds it to read.

We thought Musta. had yel. eyes because all the top Imps have yel. eyes. But if Ankn had blue eyes, then mybe none of the imps should have yel eyes.

No one knows what sidious power is -> what if it’s mind control?

Obi-Wan puts the note down onto the table with shaking hands. He wishes desperately he had never read it.

Because those words plant a seed of hope in his chest he isn’t sure he’ll be able to live without now.

What if Anakin--his Anakin--what if he’s in there still? What if Obi-Wan had abandoned him to ten years of brainwashing and mind control with not much of a fight at all?

But more pressingly, what if there’s hope for him? For both of them? Still, after all this time?

#asks #my fics #look i did another prompt #obikin #superheroes au #i was thinkin of the robert frost fire and ice poem when i went to sleep #and this was the result lmao #obviously they end up together #idk what to tell you #probably big moment for anakin who still thinks obi-wan is dead #for him to show up ten years older than he ever thought he'd see him #limping and being called hoth #i liked the superhero names being after the planets they're from (i mean mostly #iego is cause of the angels thing and obi-wan is like oof hes radiant hes great hes an angel)#hes a mass murderer (again) is what he is #god i hope this fic makes sense its 4:41 #prompt fill

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fa-headhoncho · 3 years

Text

Amajiki Tamaki x Reader

Prompt: You get drunk at a party and Tamaki saves the day.

Word Count: uh 2487

Reader: Female

Warning: very Americanized, out of character Tama??? I've never written for him before so be nice

Masterlist

=====

You walk up the stairs to the large house, the music echoing through the street through the open door. The party was in full swing, drunk college kids littered the lawn playing various games or talking amongst themselves. It was a normal occurrence by this point. Mirio threw a party almost every weekend and invited everyone he knew… which was a lot. His kindness and ability to make anyone feel welcomed made him friends with almost everyone he encountered.

The blonde was impressive, to say the least. He managed to keep his place in the top three of his class and party. You didn’t understand how he did it. He never seemed stress either… Oh, to be Mirio Togata.

“(Y/N)!” A voice calls interrupting your thoughts. You look around, spotting Nejire trying to wiggle her way between the dancing twenty-year-olds. She gives one of them a hefty shove, apologizing before finally standing in front of you. The periwinkle-haired woman, pulling you in for a short hug, “I didn’t think you were coming-- Oh, my god.” She cuts herself off as she takes in your outfit.

You fidget nervously under her gaze, pulling down the end of your skirt. You were wearing something you stole straight from Pinterest, a black lace top with a simple blue miniskirt and some boots. It was simple enough for a college party but edgy enough to catch a certain someone’s eyes. She stares a little too long causing you to rethink the entire thing.

“Neji, finish the sentence. You’re scaring me.” You snap her out of her thoughts, shaking the arm she had a gentle grip on.

A small smirk comes across her face, leaning in slightly as she whispers, “Are you wearing that for Tama?” She innocently questions. Blood rushes to your cheeks and you duck your head away from her. “You thought you were being subtle, I know why you come to these parties. Mirio isn’t good at keeping secrets.”

You let out a groan, bringing your hands to your face to hide. A couple of weeks ago, you got a little bit tipsier than you planned and ended up confessing how you felt about the awkward, indigo-haired man to his best friend. Explaining how the only reason you came to these parties was to catch a glance of him. Mirio, of course, encouraged you to just ask him to hang out but you were too scared to ruin what little friendship you built up.

Nejire giggles, knowing she caught you redhanded. “He likes you more than you think, (Y/N).” She mindlessly confesses causing a kaleidoscope of butterflies to erupt in your stomach. “He was actually talking about you the other day! Oh, you should’ve heard him. She just so sweet for her own good--” She lowers her voice to mimic Tama. somehow keeping a straight face in the process.

“--The way her eyes light up when she talks about--” She stops talking again, his intoxicated state making her distracted. You furrow your eyebrows and try to figure out where her mind just went before she lets out a squeal. “Oh, I love this song! Come dance with me!”

“Actually, I wanted to go see Tam--” You don’t have any time to finish your sentence before she drags you into the sea of drunk college students.

=====

Tamaki sighs, running a hand over his face as he contemplates the pros and cons of not going downstairs. Pros: he didn’t have to interact with anyone or possibly embarrass himself in front of almost everyone in their grade. Cons: starve to death… which sounded better at this point. The last time he went down to the kitchen during one of Mirio’s parties, he accidentally ran into someone and made them spill their drink all over themself.

He feels his face start to burn at the memory, he couldn’t even bring himself to apologize before Mirio stepped in and lead him back up to his room. After that, Tamaki stocked up on snacks in his room but they, unfortunately, ran out when he got a bit too hungry last night.

A loud growl sounds out from his stomach finalizes his decision. He decides to rip the bandaid and sets his laptop on the floor, flinging his covers off then marching towards the door. He makes his way down the stairs, the confidence he found now diminishing once he reaches the bottom.

Indigo eyes scan the first floor. Bodies were everywhere, people from different grades and even some from nearby universities filled the small three-bedroom home. It was times like these that made him grateful for his two best friends.

When Mirio, Nejire, and Tamaki moved in together, it was an unspoken agreement that Tama would get the room in the attic. It was tucked away and you couldn’t hear the noise from the constant parties they threw. And, no matter what state of mind the two were in, the severity of the “no one goes past the second flight of stairs” rule was no joke. If they caught anyone trying to sneak off up there, they were kicked out and never invited to their home again.

Tamaki sucks in a breath then b-lines towards the kitchen. He skillfully avoids the bodies and safely makes it to his destination. Quickly, he goes to his cabinet of snacks and grabs the first thing he sees. He turns around and rushes back to the stairs but is stopped when he hears someone call out his name.

He immediately recognizes the voice and closes his eyes. Don’t say something stupid, don’t say something stupid, don’t stay something stupid--

His eyes snap open and his whole body goes stiff when he feels arms wrapping around his neck. Your signature scent flooded his nostrils making him relax into the hug. It feels as if the whole room disappears around the two of you, the music going silent and the people vanishing. His anxiety of coming down here was worth seeing you.

“Tama! I’ve looking for you everywhere!” You slur out, keeping your arms around him as you pull away from the embrace. “I asked Nejire where you were and I’ve been trying to get up to say hi but people keep dragging me away. I came here to see you, I--” You start to ramble off, your drunken mind taking over and allowing you to word vomit. He listens with stars in his eyes, his heart singing at the thought you came to one of these parties just to see him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for hugging you.” You suddenly unattached your body from his, a frown slipping onto your face at the action. “I know you don’t like that kind of attention. I just messed everything up--”

“It’s fine,” He rushes out before you could start rambling again. A small blush coats his cheeks as he watches your shoulders relax. “I don’t mind it from you.” He wasn’t sure you could hear him over the blaring music in the background but the large smile on your face says you did.

You open your mouth to respond but are cut off by some guy sliding next to you. “Hey there, sweet thang.” The man chirped out with a small smirk on his face.

“Hi!” You innocently giggle out, eyes turning to him for a second before directing it back to him to continue your conversation. “Tama, I found this little cafe you might like--” The man looks Tamaki up and down before going back to you, stepping in between the two of you causing a pout to appear on your face. “Hey, I was talking to Tama.”

“Why don’t you and I go find a place alone?” He more of demands than offers. You furrow your eyebrows in confusion at him, opening your mouth to deny him but snap it shut when he rests a hand on your hip.

“No, I don’t feel comfort--”

“Come on, don’t be a buzzkill.” He interjects, moving to lead you away from the crowd of people. Tamaki doesn’t know what takes over him when he reaches out and pulls the guy off of you. He has his hand on his shoulder as he looks down at him. He could tell by the steadiest of his words and the overpowering smell of body spray that he wasn’t drunk. He’s heard about the guys at parties that stay sober and scope out innocent girls who drank too much to take advantage of them.

He doesn’t realize how hard he was gripping the man’s shirt until he feels you gently place your hand on his lower back. “Tama, it’s fine. Let him alone.” He snaps his head to your voice and then back at the man, giving him the most intimidating look he could muster up before releasing the cotton.

“Tch. You can have her.” The man scoffs out, fixing the collar of his shirt and smoothing down the wrinkles. “She’s not even that hot anyways.” He mumbles out before walking away. Tamaki watches in satisfaction as Mirio stops him a few feet away, the bright smile on his face replaced with a scowl as he talks to him and then leads him out of the house.

Reality seems to come back to him when he hears a whine squeak out behind him. He spins around to see your lip pouted out and tears brimming your eyes. “Am I really not pretty?” You question causing his eyes to widen.

“No, no.” He rushes out, quickly moving forward to comfort you but stops himself. He didn’t want to make the situation worse by giving you an unwanted touch so he just stands there frozen. Your cries soon turn into body-shaking sobs, bringing attention towards you from other party-goers. Tamaki starts to panic on the inside, he was never good at consoling people but he couldn’t just stand there and let you degrade yourself.

Pushing down all his anxious thoughts, he reaches out and rests a gentle hand on your shoulder. He starts leading you out of the kitchen and towards the stairs as you continue to let the sleazeball’s words get to you. He couldn’t let you put yourself in front of all those people when he knew you were far from that.

Tamaki lets out a sigh of relief when you finally make it to the comfort of his bedroom. It was much easier to talk to you without anyone else around especially in this state of mind. He could focus on his thoughts and let you release your emotions freely without fearing the embarrassment tomorrow.

“I am ugly, aren’t I?” You suddenly croak out, voice still muffled by your hands.

“No, I-I think you’re very pretty, (Y/N).” You shake your head at him, dropping your hands to reveal your face. His heart sinks at your puffy eyes and red cheeks.

“You’re just saying that, Tama!” You cry out, stomping your foot like a child.

“No, I’m not!” He rushes out but you don’t look up at him. He allows his body to move over to you, cupping your cheeks and making you look at him in the eyes. Your lips were still in a pout but he noticed your tears yield. That gives him enough confidence to continue talking,

“You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” He confesses with a small blush on his cheeks. “You don’t even need to dress up to make an impression. When you show up to class in sweats and a sweatshirt, you still take my breath away. Don’t let that guy’s words make you doubt your beauty.” You let his words soak in, sadness replaced with fluttering in your stomach.

“Thank you.” You manage to whisper out with a tiny smile on your lips.

He lights up, a large smile on his own face seeing that he succeeded at comforting you. “No problem, bunny.” He gleams and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead. He doesn’t even realize he let his nickname slip until you let out a giggle.

“Bunny?” You innocently ask with a lift to your tone. He feels his face heat up, eye-widening once again. “I like that. Bunny, bunny, bunny.” You repeat as you rest your hands over his on your cheeks. “I’m your bunny.”

He can’t help the chuckle that escapes his lips at how joyous you were with the term of endearment. “You’re so cute.”

“So are you.” You're quick to reply, nuzzling yourself into his cheek. There's a moment of silence as you just bask in each other’s presence. The air shifts around the two of you as it happens. His gaze absently flicks to your lips then back to your eyes. You seem to notice since you start leaning in.

Before your lips could touch, Tamaki turns his head. He knew you weren’t in the right state of mind and he didn’t want you to regret kissing him. He dreamed your first kiss would be much more than that, something the two of you would remember.

Your kiss lands on his warm cheek. Your eyes flutter open to meet his downcasted ones. “I’m so sorry. I thought--”

“No, don’t apologize.” He cuts you off with a whisper as he takes your hands into his. “I really want to kiss you…” Your face lights up at that, “but I-- just think about it more, okay, bunny?”

You nod excitedly, “Can we cuddle then?”

“Of course, let’s get you into some comfy clothes first.” He suggests then presses another kiss to your forehead. You let out another giggle and wait patiently as he moves to his dresser and pulls out a t-shirt and sweats.

Tamaki turns around to give you some privacy while you change. He holds back a laugh when he hears you struggling behind him. Once he hears your shuffling stop followed by the sound of something plopping onto his bed, he decides it’s safe to turn back.

His heart nearly explodes as sees you in his clothes laying on his bed. You easily burrow into his pillows and find comfort in his blankets. He shakes his head, knocking out all the inappropriate thoughts and makes his way over to your grabby hands.

He slips under the covers and you’re immediately cuddled up to his side. He tries to calm his internal dialogue as you press against his side, carefully sliding an arm around your body and adjusting in a more comfortable position. Your head lays on your shoulder with a leg and an arm slung over him to get as close as possible.

You let out a content sigh, feeling the warmth of his body completely relaxing you. Your eyelids start to get heavy and you yawn, “Night, Tama. Love you.”

Tamaki’s body stiffens under you like a board, the hand that was absently playing with your hair comes to a halt. “I-I love you too.”

#tamaki amajiki x reader #tamaki x reader #mha tamaki #amajiki headcanons #amajiki fluff #tamaki amakiji #amajiki tamaki x reader #amajiki x y/n

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diary-of-an-onliner · 4 years

Text

lifelines [g.w.]

hi! first fic, pls be nice!

word count: 2300

warnings: none

After Gryffindor turned the tides at the last second, winning the second most important game of the season after a massive setback in the first hour, the celebrations raged harder than ever. Since Hufflepuff had beaten Slytherin to the ground two days ago, the path towards the Cup was clear. Angelina was sitting on the couch, having passed the point of looking pleased long ago, and now seemed almost frazzled by the result. People came up to her periodically, clapping her shoulder or topping off her drink, directing the buzzing energy of the common room straight into her.

Truly, the atmosphere was phenomenal, the stolen food and drinks from the kitchens juicer and a little more spiked than usual. Or maybe it was the sunlight still streaming through the windows as strongly as ever despite the past gloomy week. Whatever it was that made the day so electrically happy for everyone, it showed no signs of stopping.

This type of unrestrained feeling you always imagined started from the back of your head as s little star-like scribble that cast a net over you and spread the intensity throughout. This week it was stronger than it has been in a while.

You felt electric in the stands as you yelled for your team, an invisible line ripping the words from your throat before you even knew you were saying them. You felt elated as your housemates put their hands around you in delight, screaming themselves sore when they announced the winner. And you were feeling the happiness in your hair now, in every single strand from root to end as it swayed along with the bottle in your hand.

This was happy. This was joyful. This was utterly buttery in your chest and electric in the air.

You idly looked around the red and orange common room, which burned with excitement, deciding how to best spend this time before it runs out on Umbridge's watch and she ruins it.

No. No wasting thoughts on her today. She sucked enough life out of you and your housemates this year, she won't be doing it off the clock too.

Your eyes settled on possibly one of the strongest sources of this warmth - George Weasley, sitting on the arm of the couch next to his brother. The window behind him silhouetted him in gold perfectly, like the sun offered him to you. It accented how attractive he was, even if he burned a little at the top.

You've connected eyes before, talked before, even bantered. One wittier than the other every odd day, you toed the line between acquaintances and friends perfectly. Seeing as he's very popular, catching him in-between conversations was a matter of luck.

You imagined a line going from the center of your chest to his as you approached him. He pensively looked to the side, observing some goings-on on the far end of the room as you interrupted him.

"That was a good game. You got some very nice shots in," you said.

He turned to you with a mild close-mouthed 'hm', a look, and then a grin.

"You sure it was me?" he cocked his eyebrow and look at Fred on the couch next to Angelina, bumping knees with her and accepting congratulations in both of their names.

"You wear different numbers, genius. I know how to count this time."

"And you have my number memorized," he said, his voice glad.

"That would've been a great line if you were a Muggle."

"Pity, I already chose a magical career." he took a sip of his butterbeer and eyed you up, "Maybe I should start using my magical lines on you. Would those work better?" his eyes widened and his tone turned innocent at the end.

"I think I know too much anti-jinxes for that."

He pursed his lips in amusement. "Alright. What would work on you then?"

"Oh, I find responsibility and appropriacy really hot." you shot back, twirling a piece of your happy, charged up hair.

"Contradiction too," he said, "since you're still here."

"I find contradiction a natural state of the human soul, thus if I wasn't contradicting myself, I wouldn't fully be here."

"Hm. Brainy." he chuckled.

"Judgy. If you need me to simplify you can just say so."

"I think I can handle your smart mouth just fine."

"Then why am I winning?"

"I didn't realize this was a competition."

"Rookie mistake." you shook your head dramatically.

"I'm pretty sure it's a rookier mistake to assume you're winning. Who's the judge?"

"My innate inner sense of whether I'm winning or not."

"If it's inside you, then how would one file a complaint concerning an unfair ruling?"

"They wouldn't. It's a noble and just system that decided I'm in the lead. You just need to accept the truth."

"Don't make me come in there," he said, smirking good-naturedly.

"In where?" you shot back.

"In you." his smirk held on for a second before he seemed to realize what he said and his face scrunched up in apologetic laughter.

Your mind slipped into the gutter the way new yorkers fall into sinkholes filled with rats - hilariously fast.

Albeit greatly amused, he started to correct himself, "I didn't mean-"

"No, of course not." you licked your lips, "I understood you the first time " Was karma going to bite you in the ass for that lie? Who knows, but you might even be into that. Everything seems possible when the sun is shining. So he shone.

He grinned with his happy mouth and you once again noted how the light from the window behind him silhouetted him in the golden lining that made him look like a cutout glued onto the scene of this funny collage. His hair was aflame and his face was darker from the shadows but just as loudly burning with laughter.

This was happy.

You drew the word in your mind, line by line. H, a smooth move from the bottom, a decorative loop, then a parallel stroke, and a transversal. A, a circle with a tail, sharp move upward, and an even sharper drop for the backbone of p. P's tummy? Bulge? Nope, your mind shouldn't slip there in the middle of Binns’ class, no matter how boring he was. Another p, as George's knee bumped into yours. He was moved from "Mr. Wester, Phillip." for being disruptive, so he engaged in an under-the-table kind of disruption with his new tablemate.

You smiled. A long diagonal line, and another shorter one that cut into it. Y.

Happy.

You were, truly, right now. It sounded upside down to be happy though, both overall and when stuck in a soul-suckingly draining class, but you were.

George read over your shoulder, then audaciously engaged in over-the-table elbow-bumping-disruption and a cocked eyebrow. You straightened up, feeling a warm line unfold from the back of your head to the core of your brain, through the center of your chest, and straight to your stomach. Your happy line.

I'm happy, you mouthed.

Really? He mouthed back sarcastically yet good-naturedly. I can definitely see why. His eyes darted toward the professor. I say go for it, he's a catch. You might even be his type.

You burst out laughing, then immediately bit your lip. A few students, including Philip, looked at you as you shook with laughter, but professor Binns carried on.

George, on the other hand, shrugged with his shit-eating grin, pretending he has no idea why you were laughing, thus letting everyone know why you were laughing.

You scribbled, I don't know. What if it goes badly. I'd hate to be ghosted.

George raised his eyebrows at the Muggle slang you explained before. His hand slipped next to yours on the table and you felt your happy line thrum in approval. His hand was warm as he gently pressed it to yours, slowly took your quill, and scribbled back: Need someone more physical, huh? And I thought you were the romantic type.

Strong words for someone who never bought me dinner, you replied.

Mhm, as soon as I find a good line get you to agree to it.

Keep writing like that and I'll start thinking you fancy me.

Keep your mind in the gutter and I'll start thinking you don't fancy me back. He accented that line with a wink and an overdramatic lip bite.

You pouted sarcastically at him. Of course not, I only want you for your knobby knees.

He chuckled, reminded of the short line of warmth that connected your knees under the table. He pressed his into yours a little stronger, then pulled away.

That's a funny way of flirting. I'd know, I'm an expert at funny.

Self-proclaimed.

Untrue.

And I'm not flirting. If I was, you'd know it.

Would you? your breath hitched. For reasons you very well knew but refused to sound out to yourself, this short sentence drove the air around you two from joking to serious at breakneck speed.

Know if you were flirting with me? your happy line felt jumbled up in your stomach. He smiled at you.

Would you know if you were flirting with me?

The following week was arduous.

Gryffindors had a record amount of detentions, and Snape tore into them any and every chance he could. Even McGonagall was one edge, meaning lousy or missed homework was a death sentence. You forgot how to read from tiredness, submitting essays patchworked of other people's thoughts without ever having any information pass through your head. Everything was dull, gray, and dragged out.

Despite that, outside the castle the sky was blue and sunlight streamed through the soft clouds and a sweet breeze would blow around aimlessly. It was both comforting and a little mocking. The sky should be as exhausted and as beaten down as you. Good to know stress made you compare yourself to a literal sky. But maybe that's a little cruel. Nevertheless, it sounded like nature itself was turning its nose up at you, saying you're selfish for wanting grey skies, she doesn't care, she's above puny human affairs. The world turns and you have to turn with it or stop, then spend the rest of the time catching up.

You haven't stopped yet, but by all that is holy, you wanted to sleep. As the sun finally descended on a Friday after dinner, you finished your essays in hope that the next week might be kinder if you do everything quickly. The common room was dark, most of the light coming from the fire in the fireplace. It was also oddly empty for nine-thirty in the evening. Apparently, everyone had the same week as you.

Your almost finished essay laid on the table as you dozed, swinging your legs back and forth over the edge of your armchair.

The creak of the portrait opening caught your attention, and George Weasley walked in a second later, rubbing his sore hand and cussing.

Truly everyone had a shitty week.

"Love?" you said teasingly.

He looked up at you with a tired grin.

"It's late."

"Not really. You okay?"

"Nothing I can't handle, love." he sighed, leaning against the wall next to the fireplace.

"Can I see?" you crossed the room to stand in front of him. Again, the firelight licked at the lines of his face, clear and sharp. He had circles under his eyes and a heavily nibbled lip.

"It's nothing." still, George raised his hand. "Love." he added, distantly. He seemed to be staring right above your head. You looked at the middle line of his lips again. You imagined him biting it.

Was it him that bit it? That one hurt. You hoped it was him.

You took his hand in your and rubbed circles into his knuckles. His eye winced.

"I'm sorry."

"S'not your fault."

"What happened?" he closed his eyes.

"Two ickle firsties almost brought the wrath of Umbridge into themselves with some dungbombs. You know how it goes," he said, a corner of his lip tugging upwards. Your chest expanded looking at him being satisfied with himself. As he should be.

"How... responsible of you," you said.

His eyes snapped downwards to yours.

"Keep looking at me like that and I might also start being appropriate too, darling."

You stepped closer, your happy line thrumming against your chest like a quivering violin string.

"What if being responsible is enough?"

"Enough for what?" he breathed out before you pressed yourself against him.

At first, that's was it was - a press of two warm lips. Then he started to move slowly, almost gentlemanly. How appropriate.

As he touched you, you felt the daze of last week lift. The little star scribble on the back of your head lit up, pulsing with brightness rather than fogging your thought. This was clear, you felt his every stroke that made up his face and chest and hands. The scribble of happiness extended itself into a web, overtaking your brain - you could feel it and you wondered if he saw it too when he looked at you. You pulled away and lifted your head to check. Probably not, but his eyes were glassy and he gave you a dopey smile. He was glad you were there. You pressed your lips against his again. You were glad he was there too.

The web continued down your neck, arms and chest, into your legs until your toes buzzed with light coursing through you. You were more awake than you have been in a long time.

Your hands were the brightest of all, and as you touched his hands, connecting them fingertip to fingertip, things made sense. The web buzzed and his breath was warm against yours, hands pulsing with energy as your every lifeline connected into his.

#george weasely #fanfic #hp fanfic #george weasley x reader

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bluegalaxygirl · 3 years

Note

Hii, I have a request

Can you please write for the batchers being dads to the reader? It can be anything I just love them so much and think you would do it justice

Of cause I'll do a before and after order 66. I hope that's OK. Also echos is gonna be a bit different most likely you will be a teen like 12 to 18 while the other clones it quite open what age you are.

Hunter:

----- Before -----

🔴 He's very strict but for a good reason. You are his only child and he would do anything to protect you.

🔴He was scared that is anyone found out about you they would kill you or use you in experiments so he didn't tell anyone.

🔴On his days off he would go to see you and spend time with you. He would train you in knife fighting and self defence.

🔴Sometimes you felt the training to be more like a life or death situation than bonding time but you loved him anyway. Any time with your farther was well spent.

🔴The batch would ask questions about where he's been but he would ignore the questions knowing anything he said about it even a lie might give you away.

🔴Crosshair would often tease him about his time off. Often saying things like

🔴"he went to see his lover. Oh how sweet the star crossed lovers are"

🔴Hunter would just roll his eyes and get on with the job. The teasing was normal to him.

----- After -----

🔴After fleeing from crosshair his mind went straight to you. His child was in danger and he knew he had too come and get you

🔴Telling the others about you was hard but seeing omega light up at hearing about another child made him feel better

🔴They got there just in time. The home you stayed in was burning to the ground and you were on the run, the empire hunting you.

🔴Hunter manged to get you away and introduce you to the rest of the family. You had heard of them and took quite well to the members of the batch especially omega

🔴Hunter before more protective of you. When going onto a planet he would either make you stay on the ship or stick to him like glue

🔴Over time he started to calm down seeing how you can handle yourself in a fight. He was proud of you and one time sat down with you and told you that.

🔴He would try his best to talk to you instead of demanding you to do something like he would with his brothers. He was trying to be more of a full time farther to you than a leader

🔴Heart to hearts was something you two would often have especially after a stressful Situation. You would sit togeather often late at night with a hot drink and just talk. It was a peaceful moment you both cherished.

Tech:

----- Before -----

🟠 He's not good with kids so when he found out he had one he panickled.

🟠Emotion wasn't his strong point so didn't know how to feel about it so he turned to the only thing he knew... Logic

🟠It took him A few hours to figure things out but once he did he realised that he wanted you around

🟠The only people he told about you were Hunter and echo. He knew he could trust the two to keep a secret and look after you if anything happened to him

🟠When he got to spend time with you he would teach you new things, one day it could be about the planet he resently went to and the next maths

🟠You could talk to him about any problem you had and he would help solve it even if it was by being a bit to blunt about things but in a way you found that comferting

🟠After every mission he would write a letter about his trip and things he wanted to tell you or say to you but he'd never send them. He would put them in an envelope and hid them

🟠 The letters were for if he died. He knew better than anyone that he could die in battle and he didn't want to just leave you not knowing how much he cared for you. He told hunter and echo if anything happened to him take the letters to his child.

----- After -----

🟠The escape was rough on all of them but he knew where he wanted to go. He flew right to where your home was. He found out before he left that the empire knew about you

🟠Strangely enough hunter and echo didn't ask where they were going and he appreciated that. He just wanted to get you away from any harm

🟠Thankfully you were fine and happily joined your farther on the ship meeting the others that you knew all about thanks to your farthers stories.

🟠 Tech had to explain to wrecker about you quite quickly before pulling you away saying he needed your help with the ship

🟠Tech would often have you fixing the ship along with echo and you would often have to remind him that something are impotent to fix than others.

🟠Spending a few days with your farther was great but now your stuck on a ship with him for a few months now and you two had gotten into a lot of fights. Mainly over him not understanding your emotions and him. Being too logical

🟠 Sometimes you would go days without talking to each other and it was echo who pointed out what tech should do

🟠One day he sat down with you and pulled out a large box handing it to you. It was the letters he wrote. He told you how important you are to him and how he's sorry he might not show that. You two made up and he tried his hardest to show more emotion around you than logic.

Wrecker:

----- Before -----

🟡 The fun loving dad. He loves you more than life and even made you your own Lula doll.

🟡He told his brother about you right away and they were shocked. He was so happy he wanted to tell everyone but hunter and tech told him not to

🟡After they explained to him why he became worried for you and kept you away from Kamino.

🟡Any time he had off he would come and see you dragging one of his brothers along to see you. He would say family is everything so you had to know them.

🟡He would also bring you toys to play with even if you were too old for that stuff and you would make him things which he would keep hidden under his bed back home.

🟡Life was more fun with him around. You'd get piggy back rides, play games, tell stories and you both cryed when ever he had to leave

🟡When you were old enough he would start teaching you things he knew. He wanted you to be strong so no one would mess with you when he was away.

🟡He would teach you self defence and how dombs work but thanks to the people you lived with he would never be aloud to bring one for you to see. He would have to draw it out

----- After -----

🟡You were the first thing on his mind when things went wrong. He was pacing in the prison cell muttering to himself and getting angry.

🟡Hunter was the one to calm him down and tell him that you will be fine and that when they get out of here they will go get you first.

🟡The fight out hurt his head and heart. Crosshair had betrayed him and since crosshair knew about you that means your in danger.

🟡Wrecker got to you first and begged you to come with him. You were scared but you trusted him and agreed

🟡Over time you noticed a change in your farther. He kept getting beaten a lot and he kept holding his head. You started to worry and tried to take care of him along with omega

🟡You, wrecker and omega were like the three musketeers, ready for a fight and had a good laugh. You felt whole now that you were with your real family but that didn't stop you from worrying about your farther

🟡Learning about the chip scared you but what scared you more was the thought of your farther trying to kill you. You kept a close eye on your farther until it was time.

🟡He scared you when he changed. He tried to kill his brothers and then went after you and omega. It it wern't for Rex you might be dead. After he got the chip out he apologised and you hugged him. Just happy he's back to nornal

Crosshair:

----- Before -----

🟣He didn't know what to do with you. He treated you like you were glass. He never hugged you and it hurt.

🟣You became more angry and felt left out. When he would come to see you it was very rare and it was mainly filled with silence. You'd asked the odd question and talk about what happened while he was gone but he wouldn't say much

🟣On his day off he got a call from one of the people looking after you. You had gotten into a fight and were hurt but the other kid was worse. He came down as soon as he could.

🟣You expected him to be mad at you, to yell but he didn't. He ran over to you and looked you over. Seeing your busted lip and bruised arms made him mad and worried and for the first time he hugged you

🟣You cryed for the first time infront of him and hugged him back. He asked you all kinds of questions and after you told him what happened and how the kid had been picking on you for months he got madder but not at you

🟣He took you away from that place and brought you to kamino. They let you stay but under a few conditions. They wanted to draw some blood and you had to help out around the base.

🟣After agreeing and getting your own room crosshair introduced you to his brothers. They welcomed you with open arms and for once you saw your farther smile.

🟣He became very open with you. Telling you Things he would never tell his brothers and teaching you how to use a rifle.

----- After -----

🟣The shift in your farthers attatude scared you. He stopped confiding in you and when ever you asked him Something he would ignore you or just glare.

🟣When the rest of the batch left with omega you had the chance to go with them but you couldn't leave your farther behind.

🟣The empire kept you safe and away from your farther. You faught them on it but soon found out crosshair didn't want you around. It broke you but you couldn't do anything about it

🟣Crosshair saw you as a mistake thanks to the chip but once it was taken out his mind was clear. He got out of bed despite the doctors telling him not to and went Off to find you

🟣Once he found you he told you how sorry he was and explained everything. You didn't trust him right away but over time his actions showed he wanted you around and he wanted to be your farther

🟣What the chip made him do to you broke his heart and he did everything he could to make it up to you even taking you on missions when you asked to go.

🟣He kept you close so no one could touch you, he didn't fully trust his new crew so never left you alone with them

🟣He kept training you and talked to you about the desition he has made and if you were OK with it. He wanted you to stay but he didn't want to make you feel tapped.

Echo:

----- Before -----

🔵 You were born before he got blown up at the citadel and the kaminoans found out about you quite quickly. They took you to kamino where they studied you for years and raised you.

🔵You had no idea who your farther was until you met fives. He found out about you while looking into the chip and managed to talk to you

🔵From that day you decided you had to find your farther, something didn't sit right with you, it felt off the way he died and for some reason you felt he was alive.

🔵Your efforts paid off and the bad batch and the 501st found him. You went to talk with him and he was shocked but took it quite well. He told you about your mother and was happy to have you around

🔵Life was no where near normal for him now. Not only did he have cybernetic parts but a teen to look after. He took to it quite well though acting more like a mum than a dad on occasions.

🔵He refused to let the kaminoans do anymore tests on you and kept you close to him. You helped him when he needed it and he helped you.

🔵Education was very inportant to echo so he made sure you studied and did well in classes. He didn't want you to be like him, a soilder. He wanted you to have a real life outside of war.

🔵He would have to leave you to go on missions but he would make sure you were looked after. One of his many brothers or shaak ti would look after you

----- After -----

🔵After the ship left kamino for the last time everyone could take a breath. Echo made sure you were OK and told you things will get better

🔵He felt like he failed you. You were supposed to have a better life and now you were on the run with no home.

🔵He started to get more grumpy and snappy but would always apologise to you if he directed it at you.

🔵He tried to hide his worries and conserns from you but one day it all spilled out while you two were alone. He was surprised to find you being more of an adult and calming him down.

🔵He realised he raised you right despite the early learnings from the kaminoins and knew you could flourish in any situation

🔵He often asks for your help around the ship. He's one man, tech doesn't always help and hed be dead if he let wrecker help.

🔵More and more you would cone out on missions with them. He knew you could help but also he didn't want to lose sight of you. He was scared of losing you

🔵While on missions he would be quite bossy with you. Telling you what to do and where to go. It annoyed you at first until you realised he was doing all of it to keep you safe.

#clones #clone wars #star wars #clone trooper echo #the bad batch #echo #hunter #tech #wrecker #crosshair

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sjmsstuff · 3 years

Text

By the lakeside

Warnings: Smut, NSFW

A/N: this takes place by the mountain lake in ACOSF, it’s not explicitly spoilers but you probs want to read the book for like context reasons. Bit of training, bit of wings, guys pls don’t judge me it’s dirty x

Nesta swung the sword, arcing perfectly. The steel an extension of her very hand, and damn him if she wasn’t the most magnificent thing he had ever seen.

“Again”

Something primal in him stirred as she swung his blade. Some ancient beast purred as she wielded his steel.

Eight moves, eight perfect strokes. Her grip tightened on the hilt as she swung a final time, bringing that blade back to centre. The vision of Nesta gripping another thing flashed across his mind.

Cassian could tell the instant she scented his desire. The fire lit in her eyes, not the silver flames, but the burning embers of desire that taunted his very soul to come out and play.

Without meaning to Cassian drifted closer. Those embers flared as he took the sword from her hands, and some ancient part of him buckled in relief as that emptiness fled her gaze. As that gaze dropped to his pants and her own desire filled the air.

He nearly choked on the scent and would have found bliss in that death. In her death.

Their gazes locked as Cassian leaned down, brushing his lips against hers.

She melted.

Urgency overtook Cassian as he realised she was pliant in his hands. He needed her underneath him, around him, all over him. He needed it like a flame needs oxygen, like a bird needs to fly.

He deepened the kiss as Nesta’s hands slid into his hair.

Gripping tight, a spark of pain.

That was all Cassian needed to deepen the kiss, pushing her, so she lay back on the soft earth of the shore.

Her fingers grappled with his leathers. He felt her desperation as she struggled to touch his skin and he understood that need to be close. That need to feel her against every part of him, to know they are with each other and will never leave each other again.

The thought had him ripping her clothes from her as she finally managed to tug his leathers from his arms. He kissed her neck and the fabric slid over his sensitive wings. His cock jumped in his pants. Nesta ground her hips against him and he almost bowed to the touch. He could feel her heat through the layer of leather that separated them.

Cassian kissed under her jaw, down her neck till he reached the spot where it met her shoulder. He scraped his teeth, nipping slightly and felt Nesta’s nipples pebble against his own bare chest.

He groaned, nipped harder and Nesta arched beneath him, fingers grappling with the stays at his pants that now strained against him. Those damn fingers.

Nesta palmed him through his pants and he thrust into her hand, she moaned, the sound vibrating through him, straight to where her damn fingers tightened around the shape of him.

He stroked a finger down her navel, almost to where he could feel her heat radiating, then back upwards, to those gorgeous breasts.

That’s when Nesta grabbed his hand with hers and cupped herself, pressing down on his hand.

Cassian almost came immediately.

It was only the promise of sinking into that heat that allowed him to fight off the wall of release that neared as Nesta removed his pants and he kicked them away.

Completely bare before her she reached down to stroke him just as he sunk two fingers into her liquid heat.

She was soaked.

“Fuck Nes,” Cassian choked out, curling those fingers. “Do you know what it does to me? What this does to me?”

He motioned to wear he had removed his fingers from her, rubbing them together as if savouring the feeling of her arousal.

“Only for you,” she gasped out, as he sank those fingers back into her. “I’m only ever wet for you.”

Cassian groaned and reclaimed her mouth, then. Driving deep, tongue moving in strokes, laying claim to her mouth, ensuring she could never kiss another again. She would never want to, this man had ruined all other boys for her.

He groaned again as his cock lined up with her entrance, slipping in the liquid gathered there. He gripped himself and pulled back. Nesta arched up again, trying to find his lips but he pulled back further.

“I want to watch you,” his voice was a hoarse, almost a groan, “I want to look into your eyes as I fill you.”

And then he was entering her, slowly until about halfway, then he seemed to loose control and slam into her. His grip on her hips was bruising and she lived off the pain, knowing it made her feel alive.

He made her feel alive.

Hazel eyes stayed locked with blue-grey as Cassian began thrusting in earnest.

Nesta wrapped her legs around his waist as he moved deeper and harder and faster. Release built quickly in her and she might have been groaning or screaming or something in between because it was all too intense. Cassian marvelled at her, loosing himself, unable to feel anything but how tight and slick and perfect she felt around him, squeezing him with those inner muscles.

That’s when he felt it.

A gentle stroke against the inner membrane of his right wing that almost had him loosing it right there. He stilled trying his hardest not to explode inside of her.

She tightened around him, wriggling trying to get him to move, and he hissed. It was too intense what this female did to him.

Nesta stroked him again, harder this time and he gave in. Slamming in to the hilt, hard enough that they might have cracked the bedrock beneath them, but neither noticed. Nesta dangled from on the precipice of pure pleasure as Cassian plowed into her. He reached down and flicked that bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs and she toppled over the edge.

Legs shaking, mind reeling in the midst of her orgasm she reached out and dragged a nail down the inside ridge and his wing and he exploded. Roaring he rucked into her, panting her name and he spurted, desperate to release as far inside her as possible.

His deep thrusts hit that exquisite spot inside Nesta and she screamed, pleasure tearing through her again as Cassian still moved in her, thick and hot and heavy.

She craved his steady weight atop her. The shadow of his wings blocking the cruel world from view as they twitched with the final spurts of his pleasure.

Cassian was reeling. Left in pure paradise, deep inside Nesta. Where she gripped him so delicately but with all the force he hadn’t trained into her. The force that she was born with. The strength that allowed her to steal from the very cauldron. The strength he knew would see her through this dark journey.

He would be with her every step of the way he realised, as he slid out of her. He looked down at her prone body, that still trembled with the aftershocks of his actions. He would never leave her side again, he couldn’t. Not when she was so perfect and so blind to her own worth.

With her eyes closed she looked peaceful, resting. So Cassian tucked her into his side, chin resting on her head, mind at ease.

“Cassian I-“

He kissed the top of her head, “I know, Nesta, I know”

Minutes or hours later Nesta moved out from under his arm. He almost growled at the loss of her heat.

Cassian noted with some male pride that her legs shook as she rose. She reached over him and every thought eddied from his mind as she gripped his sword.

She stood, back straight, naked in the moonlight.

She found first position with her legs spread, their release glistening down her thighs, her hands firm on his blade.

He hardened again immediately.

And as she started moving going through positions Cassian was helpless. He reached down gripping himself as he watched her.

She swept into first position.

Pump.

A block came next, executed perfectly and he shuddered, gripping himself tighter.

His wings rustled behind him as he sat up, better to observe her.

She swept into the next position, moonlight glinting off his seed as it dripped down her thighs. He bucked his hips.

Nesta moved into the fourth thrust, gutting an invisible enemy and Cassian panted.

Fifth position jabbed at an enemy.

Pump

Sixth dragged a foe to the ground and Cassian stopped breathing at the intensity in her eyes.

He knew she was aware of him but her focus remained on the blade in her hand.

She adjusted her grip for the seventh position and he groaned, fucking his own hand faster.

Nesta moved into the final position of the star and Cassian reached his other hand to grip his balls.

As Nesta moved back to centre and finally looked at Cassian, he launched at her, needing to be inside her again.

He plunged in and roared at the pure pleasure resonating from every cell in his body. She writhed beneath him and he pinned her hips to the ground. He was so close, chasing that final release and he could feel Nesta, tightening, racing right beside him.

He was determined to get her there.

“Do you understand Nes,” she fluttered around him and he gritted his teeth, “Do you understand what it does to me, seeing you wielding my blade, covered in my release?”

He twisted his hips, ensuring he stroked that bundle of nerves with each thrust. She was screaming and he had never heard a more beautiful sound.

“Can you comprehend just how much you fucking turn me on?”

She gasped, the breathy moan sweeter than honey.

“Come, Nesta”

She did, and she was glorious. Arching off the ground, channel tightening so much he had to fight to get through.

His balls tightened and he climaxed to his name on her lips. Her cries were the only reason he even remembered his name as he shuddered within her.

Mother knows he couldn’t remember anything else, didn’t care about anything but her, his Valkyrie, his Nesta.

Please ask if you wanted to be added to a tag list for Nessian, one shots or for my writing in general

#sjmsstuff writes #nessian smut #nessian #nessian fic #sjm books #sjm fandom #sjmaas #sjm #acosf #sjm fanfic #nesta #nesta fanfic #cassian #first fanfic

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theclockworkmonk · 3 years

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Out of the Mouths of Babes — Chapter 4

Read on AO3

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Chapter 1 on Tumblr

Chapter 2 on Tumblr

Chapter 3 on Tumblr

Written for Hinny Ficfest 2021

Prompt: “Uncle Ron said something about Harry knocking Ginny up, but I don’t know what he means,” Teddy said.

*******

Ginny had disappeared, dragged through the kitchen door, before Harry could come up with an excuse to keep her by his side. He sighed and took a long gulp from his glass of firewhiskey, welcoming the burning sensation down his throat. Whatever his family was so wound up about, Harry knew he wasn't in danger here, so he hoped the drink would dull his overactive auror instincts so he could enjoy the evening.

"So...how's the shop?" asked Harry, choosing to focus on George, "any accidental new body parts I can't see?"

"Harry, I'll have you know that we ascribe to only the highest of safety standards at Weasley Wizard Wheezes," said George with his nose in the air, "We strictly adhere to a dual-fault system to make sure a trained wizard is on-site to intervene in case of emergency."

"By that he means that he doesn't try any weird shit on himself without me there to rush him to St. Mungo's," said Ron with his mouth full, wincing as his mother smacked him in the back of the head with a wooden spoon for his language.

Harry's eyes narrowed at his best friend. "So you two are already partners now? Really wasting no time on bailing on me, aren't you?"

"Don't be a prat!" grumbled Ron. "No, like I said, it was just a thought that I had. You know, the kind of thought you would hope you could share with your best mate without him jumping down your throat?"

"Well I think it's a marvelous idea," Mrs. Weasley announced loudly from her place at the stove."

George's eyebrows shot up. "Who are you and what have you done with my mother? You're glad that another one of your sons is considering wasting his life at this silly business, instead of a respectable job at the Ministry?"

"Well, if said Ministry job involves chasing after Death Eaters every day," huffed Mrs. Weasley, "Then I suppose my nerves will take any alternative."

She sent a stern look towards Harry and pointed a threatening spoon at him, making him jump back. "You could do well to learn from Ron in that regard, Harry."

Ron was grinning ear to ear, bouncing in his seat from being the favorite child of the moment.

"There's nothing wrong with Ron doing the responsible thing." she lowered her voice to a grumble so Harry barely heard, "at least someone is."

Harry surveyed the tense atmosphere in the room again.

"Okay, what's got everyone in such a mood?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"No one's in a mood!" said Mrs. Weasley quickly.

"Harry," Mr. Weasley spoke up for the first time, and his voice too was less assuring than Harry usually found it. "I'm having trouble with a fascinating new muggle device I've discovered, would you mind giving me a hand out in the shed?"

"Oh. Sure," said Harry easily. Mr. Weasley got up from the table and led Harry outside. They entered the man's infamous tool shed, and Harry noticed new mechanical and electronic devices in various states of disassembly. Mr. Weasley gestured to his work table, where a VCR sat.

"I've heard that muggles use this to see recorded images, like a pensieve, but I've put in those black blocks, and nothing happens."

"Oh, well," said Harry, trying not to laugh, "You need to attach it to a television. It can't just work on its—"

He was interrupted by the door opening again, and Harry was surprised to see Mrs. Weasley entering the shed which he always knew her to avoid, wanting nothing to do with her husband's "nonsense" tinkering.

"Molly, what are you doing here?" Mr. Weasley asked crossly, "We agreed we wouldn't. The boys—"

"I told them I was getting apples from the orchard," his wife said dismissively. She crossed the shed and looked beseechingly at a very surprised Harry.

"Harry, dear, you know how we think of you as a part of this family. We've been wanting to say….we hope that you don't think that has changed because of you and Ginny's relationship. We know young men have trepidation about 'the girlfriend's parents,' but you're not just our daughter's boyfriend to us, you're one of our own."

Harry was as touched as he was confused. "Th-Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," he said softly. "I can't tell you how much that means to me."

"And one reason we had no objection to you and Ginny dating," Mr. Weasley continued, "is that we trust you to always do right by Ginny. To always do what's best for her."

Harry looked back and forth between them, their expressions pointed and expecting.

"Well — ehem — I'll remember that. I promise to never do anything to hurt her." He meant it.

There was another moment of silence before Mrs. Weasley spoke up again.

"Sooooo…." she prompted. "We just want you to be aware that….should you decide to propose…you wouldn't have to worry—"

"What!?" Harry's heart leapt into his throat and he knew his face had turned scarlet. "Oh, no no," he said, putting his hands up. "I'm glad to have your blessing, but we're not ready to think about that yet."

Harry rubbed his neck nervously. It was only a half-lie. In truth, Harry was ready to think about that. He thought about proposing to Ginny damn near every day, in fact. But he was fairly certain that Ginny was still years away from being ready. She was fiercely proud of her independence and she was still dealing with the papers referring to her as "Harry Potter's girlfriend" before "star Harpies Chaser," even without marriage.

Mr. Weasley sighed in what seemed like disappointment and Mrs. Weasley's mouth thinned and her expression turned sour.

"Well...the roast should be done, we should all head back inside."

The Weasleys led the way out of the shed and Harry cautiously followed them. When they arrived back in the kitchen, Harry saw Bill shoot his father a stern, questioning look, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Mr. Weasley shake his head grimly, and Bill and Charlie gave Harry a glare that would make Mad-Eye Moody quake in his boots.

Harry froze and all the breath left his body. It suddenly all made sense. He was the thing that the Weasleys were so on edge about. Ginny's parents inquiring about him marrying her.

They had somehow found out that he and Ginny were living together.

Harry suddenly felt like a sheep in a cage with several wolves.

"Hey mum," said Charlie, "while you were outside, Aunt Muriel floo-called and said that the gnomes are in her attic again. Apparently she's upset at the way dad tried to take care of it last time."

"Is she sure it's actually the gnomes, or is it the doxies nesting in her hair?" Mr. Weasley grumbled as his wife shooed him into their sitting room and through their fireplace. Harry's heart was thudding in his chest as the few Weasleys he could count on to not murder him due to this secret getting out abandoned him with the curse breaker, dragon tamer, master prankster, and Ministry power-broker.

Several murderous eyes turned towards Harry.

"Look...er…" Harry stammered. "I really thought that, after everything, we had all moved past the whole 'overprotective big brothers' routine."

"Yeah, we thought we had too," said Charlie darkly, "but mum and dad's diplomatic approach clearly didn't work, so the gloves are off. I guess we never figured that the savior of the bloody wizarding world would do this to our sister."

George snorted, still finding this whole thing quite amusing. "Sorry, do this to her? Harry's the real victim here. Ginny's a nightmare already, can you imagine what living with her will be like now?"

"What the hell are you lot talking about?" Ron cut in, looking around the room in confusion.

"I think your brothers have become aware of me and Ginny's...status change," said Harry.

"Oh, that is just so typical!" huffed Hermione, crossing her arms and adopting her lecturing pose. "Ginny is perfectly capable of handling her own life and she doesn't need a bunch of chest-beating men to defend an outdated notion of her 'honour!' I still can't believe how sexist magical society can be sometimes."

"Yes, Hermione, our world is sexist, whether we like it or not" said Bill, not backing down. "You can pontificate all you want about how it's not right, or a double standard, but once the public finds out about this — and sooner or later, they will," he shot another glare at Harry, as if he wrote to the papers about it himself, "then it will change how people see her. And since she's a Quidditch star, the way people see her matters."

"Yup, can see the headlines now," George sighed dramatically, "the ambitious social climber Ginevra Weasley, raised in a pauper's home, so she used her feminine wiles to land herself this sweet gig."

"Look, ultimately, it's none of our business — no, I'm serious!" Ron finished in response to his brothers' looks of betrayal. "Look, Bill, Charlie, you two were only around when Ginny was a little girl. You didn't go to school with her. You never saw first-hand what happens when you try to meddle in her life to defend her virtue, trust me." He shivered a bit, as he remembered the traumatic memory.

"I don't even understand why we have to meddle," said Percy, "I just don't understand your logic, Harry. There's no question you would be willing to throw yourself into mortal danger all over again to protect Ginny. What you're hesitating to do is comparatively easy."

"His reasons don't matter, he should have thought of that earlier," said Charlie, pointing a threatening finger at Harry. "I don't care if this makes me a hypocrite, but you're going to do the right thing and—"

Ginny suddenly burst into the room, causing every word to fall silent. Harry knew that Ginny always hated it when people were obviously talking about her, but as he started towards her, he was surprised when he saw that her eyes were watery with tears. Ignoring all of the eyes on her, she ran straight towards Hermione, throwing her arms around her friend.

"Erm, is something wrong?" asked Hermione. She threw a questioning look to Fleur as she followed Ginny into the kitchen, but the young mother looked just as confused as anyone as she took Victoire back from Bill.

Instead of answering Hermione's question, Ginny withdrew from the hug and smacked Ron upside the head.

"Ah! What the shit!" Ron cried, rubbing the back of his head.

"Ronald, language!" scolded Mrs. Weasley, re-entering the kitchen along with her husband, making the room quite crowded.

"That's your main concern?" asked Ron, "Not the unwarranted physical assault?"

"It's not unwarranted, it's for being a stupid, forgetful git!" barked Ginny

She walked up to Harry and took his glass of firewhiskey, still mostly intact.

"I need this more than you," she informed him, and began to raise the glass to her lips.

"GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY!"

Mrs. Weasley's ear-piercing shriek caused everyone in the room to wince, and Ginny momentarily jumped behind Harry for protection. "Merlin's balls, WHAT!?"

"Molly…" Mr. Weasley cautioned.

"DO NOT 'MOLLY' ME, ARTHUR!" his wife shouted back. She had a crazed look in her eye and she was pulling at her hair. She rounded on Harry and Ginny.

"We have tried to be respectful, but you two are clearly not ready for this kind of responsibility! I am so disappointed in you both for not taking this more seriously! You haven't even given a thought to how this will affect your careers!"

"Our careers?" asked Harry, confused. "How would that possibly—"

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. He had gotten it completely wrong about what the Weasleys were talking about. The talk about responsibility, their careers, affects to Ginny's public image.

Somehow, the family had gotten word about the "honour" bestowed upon Harry by the Wizengamot, and all the implications that had for his and Ginny's future together. He supposed it wasn't too surprising that Arthur or Percy had heard about it through their Ministry connections.

He looked sideways at Ginny, and from one look he knew that she had come to the same realization. Both their faces split into wide grins as relief flooded through them that all of this drama was over something so silly. Apparently, the family somehow had the absurd idea that Harry would keep the title and actually take the status, power, and responsibilities being offered to him.

Harry and Ginny cracked up into delirious laughter, leaning on each other for support, which did nothing to help the livid look on Mrs. Weasley's face.

"Oh Merlin's beard, is that what has you all concerned? Don't worry about that," laughed Harry, waving one hand dismissively and wrapping the other around Ginny's shoulder.

"I mean, come on, we're obviously not keeping it!"

There was a moment of silence, then the entire kitchen exploded.

#hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #hinny #romione #hinny ficfest #hinny fanfic #hinny fanfiction #ao3 link #harry potter #hp #harry x ginny #ron x hermione #ginny weasley #weasley family #farce #comedy #ron weasley #hermione granger

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natromanxoff · 3 years

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25 - Just Chatting...

Hello one and all.

It's been a long time since I graced these pages and, believe it or not, nothing much has been happening in my life, apart from the odd soiree or two. Winter has finally left us and spring has sprung, and it's nice to see the sun again. Let's start by wishing my old mate a happy birthday and I hope you all had a little drinkie for him, I know I did. In fact I got legless, he would have been proud of me. Whenever we were in London there was always a party at Fred's on his birthday, be it a handful of friends, or one where he invited half of Britain, but which ever one it was there was always a good time to be had and a lot of chaos. One year he actually took over Pikes Hotel in Ibiza and chartered a private plane to fly his friends in. Roger and myself were already on the island recording some of his solo stuff so we didn't have far to travel to the bash. When I say we were working, it's kind of true as we spent a lot of time on his boat "Ga Ga" whizzing around having lunch and fun. The party was held outside around the swimming pool, now is that an invite for trouble or what? There were hundreds of balloons hanging from every available fixture, and of course there is always an idiot that thinks he's a clown. This particular clown, who will remain nameless, decided it would be funny to light one of the balloons, and needless to say the whole lot went up in flames. Phoebe and Crystal to the rescue. We had to get this "fire" off the wooden rafters before the whole hotel went up in smoke, so we were pulling bits of string while burning rubber was dripping down on us. I was so traumatised by the whole event I had to have another drink ....... a lame excuse I know, but hey, it's my story. Back to the pool. Edwin Shirley, of trucking fame and also an all round good guy after a few too many, decided to have a swim, so he removed his clothing and was flapping around the pool when some daft countess told him to get dressed and behave himself. Wrong move lady. Edwin was not impressed by his telling off and threw her in, and she was even less impressed with that and started ranting and raving, much to the amusement to the rest of the party hounds. She left with her tail between her legs and didn't look at all glamorous in her soaking wet dress, running makeup and failed hairdo. We continued till mid morning and went straight to the airport and caught a flight home. Thanks F for the great parties and good times, you will never be forgotten.

I still get asked a lot if I'm gonna write the "Real" story about Queen. Well the answer is no, and the reason is that the guys gave me a great job and a great life and I have far to much respect for them, their wives/girlfriends, children and families to tell the world what we got up to in private. I feel that is our business and ours alone. Most of us are all in relationships and telling tales could make life awkward for a few people, band and crew alike. I'm sure at some point in time someone from the organisation will write a book, have 5 minutes of fame and make a quick buck, but it sure as hell won't be me, and I'll still be able to sleep at night and when I see the guys I will still be free to say, "Wanna beer MATE."

I've had a few questions asked me that I'm gonna answer quickly.

First off is "Do you have any stories about Freddies cats? (ripping furniture etc.)" Here's a good reply, No. So moving right along, "Of all the famous people you've met, who impressed you the most?" Tricky one this. After years in this "Biz" they all become "Just normal people," and some become good pals, but on one occasion I was in Paul McCartneys studio and I was handed his violin bass and I was sitting there holding it when someone said, "Paul is left handed, hold it like he would." When I turned it around, still taped in the cutout was the Beatles set list from their days in Hamburg, now that impressed me.

Deaky and myself were the only two reggae lovers in the outfit, and Bob Marley turned up to see the show at Madison Square Gardens. Strange choice of show for Bob, but he loved Another one bites the dust, and he happened to be in New York on a stopover on his way to Germany for laser treatment. Show time and our intro tape was playing, and someone told JD that Bob was in the audience, so he cranked his bass up and played "Lively up yourself" over the tape. This was very possibly the last time Marley ever heard this played as he died shortly after. I didn't get to meet him, but I did get to meet Tyrone Downie, Bobs keyboard player in the Wailers, and Tyrone and myself got up to all sorts of mischief that night. RT on the other hand hates reggae music, but I did manage to drag him to the Circus Krone in Munich to see Peter Tosh. I loved it, he hated it. I look at this as payback because years before he insisted that I went to Hammersmith Odeon to see Laurie Anderson, of O Superman fame. This show he loved, but I put it alongside Cher as one of the worst concerts I have ever seen. Needless to say I have also met a couple of stars that I didn't see eye to eye with. Like the American rock star we encountered in a club one night, and he was such a pain I had to take him into the toilets to have a quiet word with him. He finally got the message so I released my hand from around his neck and let him drop back down to the ground. To finish this segment I wanna tell you something that Bev Bevan said. Bev was the drummer with ELO, and them and us were touring the US at the same time, and as it turned out, staying in the same hotel in one city. Roger and myself were leaving the hotel and waiting for the elevator. When the doors opened Bev was in there and him and RT said their hellos. Rog then said, "Bev, this is Crystal, he looks after me." Bev turned to me, shook my hand and said, "Pleased to meet you. If it wasn't for guys like you, guys like us wouldn't be where we are today." He didn't need to say that, and was genuine when he did. I wasn't impressed with meeting him, but he is certainly in my top ten of nicest people I have ever meet.

Over the last few months I've spent a lot of time in the Chatroom, and I highly recommend it to you all as it can be a bit of a laugh. For anyone who has never visited the room please remember a couple of things, if you come in and start swearing you will be kicked out. I know, it happens to me all the time. Also don't come in and start going on about knowing axemen and murderers and other such garbage, cause that also warrants a kicking. Some buffoon from Ireland, who went by the name of "Death" turned up with an attitude and was going on about how f***ing awesome Queen were at Slane Castle. He was not known by anyone in there so I asked him to watch his language. He said he was the Grim Reaper and could do and say what he liked, so I told him otherwise and he was most put out when I kicked him. What a fool. A while ago there was some prat who called himself F***queen, good name eh! Anyway, he/she/it was picking on a lovely young lady called Raisa, and was saying some awful things to her and completely freaked her out, so I went to her defence and FQ turned the attention my way. As far as I'm concerned it's only letters on a screen and it didn't phase me at all, but at least he/she/it gave up on Raisa. In all fairness to FQ, whoever you may be, he/she left a message on the Bulletin Board saying sorry to Raisa and myself and would never do it again. So FQ, from the both of us, thanks for the apology, we accept it. What other weirdos have we had? Well, there was a brightspark who decided it would be funny to use the nickname QueenRshite, another bad move from this person who was honoured with a ban.

While in there I've seen a lot of friendships made, and a couple that have fallen apart. I got a private message one evening from a very drunk girl who, how shall we phrase this, offered me her body and wanted to do all sorts of naughty things to me, I thanked her and declined...must be getting old or something. I have also witnessed relationships being made and, usually there is a lot of humour involved, but needless to say some arguments do occur. I have also seen some of the daftest things said. One guy was so convinced that one of the regulars was either Deaky or she was chatting with him in private that he actually started tracking her every move on the net. He also told me about some highly illegal activities he was up to concerning the band. I wouldn't have thought I was the best person to tell such stuff to, and needless to say I had a go at him. Just to add to his stupidity he's been recently boasting about his affair with an underage girl, and I reckon if he had any more sense he would be half witted. Having mentioned all the twits I'd like to say a quick hello to all the regulars, White Queen and Killer Queen, the lovely girls Blue Rock and Rannnnnnni, SQJan, Mayflower and her boys, Farookh (aka Leroy Brown) MarshMallow, the three Tigers - Babe, Lily and Stripes and the mighty Falc, also to all the rest who I haven't mentioned by name, you know who you are. I'd also like to say hi to Daddy Cool who is the singer in the Dutch cover band Miracle, and Dad, if you never make it as a singer you could make a great career from being a stand up comedian. Finally an extra special hello to the gorgeous MTB, who is about to make an honest man of me ;)

Before I go I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone of a certain date in November that is engraved in all of our minds. And I know that a lot of you will be heading to Garden Lodge to leave flowers. I don't wanna preach and tell you what to do, and I know flowers are a nice gesture, but they do die and the only people to really benefit from this is the florist. This year lets all give a donation, no matter how small, to Aids research, this way the cash will be used to try and stamp out this awful disease. If you really wanna leave flowers, buy a smaller, cheaper bunch and donate the balance of what you would have spent to these charities. It's been said a million times before but it is true, Every penny counts.

As always, Loadsa Love.

Crystal

#queen #queen band #freddie mercury #john deacon #peter freestone #crystal taylor #crystal's tales

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