#the one i linked is pretty damn huge too im

[zozo-01]

"but it burns me up when i let you down."

Google Docs said I started this fic back in August of 2022 and now two years and an accent change later, I'm finally done!! David and Darlin' unfortunately hold a part of my brain that refuses to leave me, despite my adoration for their canon counterparts. So its only fair if I gave them the same treatment that I do for the others!! :D

Thanking the lovely @thesunandmoons-blog, @lostinanothersmemories and @friendlyfaded for probably forgetting this fic existed, but it's here!! And thanking my beloved @taelonsamada and @nortyourself for reviving it again. Finally, a huge shoutout to @androgynouspenguinexpert for being the amazing beta they are and @floofdeloop for making the playlist where I got the title from!!

CW: No Angel or Sam AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Kidnapping, Torture, Blood, Broken Bones, Vomit, Character Death, it's off screen, Allusions to a Toxic Relationship and Sexual Assault, not explicitly mentioned but very much implied, Non-Consensual Trancing, vampires obvi, Quinn is a Bad Man, Canon Divergent, an alternative take on how the quinn storyline could have gone, Divine Intervention, it's me im the intervention, Love Confessions, in the most convoluted way possible, David is Bad at Feelings, And so is Darlin', Quinn is not British, apologies my bad for that, i started writing this two years ago and how so much has changed, shoutout to the Leafs once again except they're doing alright, for now

click here for the ao3 link!!

--

“Here.” 

“Why the fuck are you giving me a necklace?”

“Thought it was pretty and you’d like it. So take it.”

“Alright, no need to be pushy baby Alpha.”

“How many times have I told you not to call me ‘baby Alpha?”

“And I won’t stop… I- um… thank you for the necklace… David.”

“...Of course Darlin'.”

David was chained up to the wall of what he thought was a basement. There was blood seeping into the hardwood floors, some of it was his and some of it was dried up from long ago. The style of the room was similar to a bar that Darlin' frequented during their lone wolf days. How he knew that wasn't important. Was the dried blood theirs? He shook that thought from his head. He had more important things to focus on. But they're important too.

It looked like he was trapped in a bar storage room, judging by the varying bottles of alcohol along the shelves. He couldn’t tell. His eyes were too damn blurry to see his hands when he held them close to his face.

He tried to lift his head from the floor, but it was throbbing with pain. The pounding registered as its own sound, but that couldn't stop him. He needed to lift his head, move his body, so he could see what the hell was going on. 

His first thought was to shift through the chains, hoping that they would break with his larger wolf form. But one look at the handcuffs made him realize why that was a terrible idea. They were magic dampening cuffs, the kind the Department would use to contain 'dangerous shifters'. If he decided to try and shift through these cuffs, his wrists and ankles would have shattered. With no healer nearby, this would have been a death sentence.

David pressed his palms on the floor, attempting to get up. This time, he was able to lift himself onto his knees, ignoring the aches that seemed to be everywhere. After a deep breath, he straightened his back, leaning onto the wall behind him. As he shifted to sit in a more comfortable position, his eyes began to clear up. He was able to see properly again. He saw what—who was in front of him and sat there, body trembling at the sight of the man in front of him.  

“So tell me, Alpha, how long do you think it will take for my little wolf to show up?”

He may not remember how he got here. What he did know is that the vampire Darlin' has been hunting for the last two years was in front of him. 

Quinn sat on a chair, legs crossed and hands placed in his lap. He cocked his eyebrow. “Well, I’m waiting for my answer,” he said impatiently. Quinn wanted an answer now.

David took a deep breath. “They won’t be coming for me,” he said, lying through his teeth. Darlin' was the type to lay down their life for a stranger. They always cared more for others than they did themselves. If they had heard anyone was alone with Quinn, they’d haul ass to save them. Only God knows how fast Darlin' would be running if they knew it was David in Quinn’s clutches. Part of him was desperately hoping that they wouldn’t come. That they would have faith in him to save himself.

His more selfish side wanted them to be there. To see for himself that they were okay. To end Quinn’s life in front of them. To end their living nightmare.

It was his duty as their Alpha and it was his duty to his heart.

Quinn found David’s lie so amusing that he let out a laugh of disbelief, wiping the tears falling from his eyes. “Now that— that was a good joke Shaw,” he choked through his laughter. Letting out his final chuckles and calming himself, he got up from his chair and stalked towards the wolf. David tried to get up, but the chains locked onto his wrist were too short to let him stand. The most he could do was kneel before the vampire.

Quinn stood in front of David, eying the defiant Alpha. He crouched down to meet the wolf’s eyes. He glanced down to David’s bloody, snarling mouth. 

“I forget how sharp shifter teeth are.” Before David could move away from the vampire, Quinn grabbed his chin and opened his mouth, admiring the shifter’s canines. “Reminds me how much they loved my teeth.”

David’s eyes went wide. ‘Makes me remember how much they loved my teeth?’ What the hell did he mean by that? He didn’t know what Quinn was saying and he hated not knowing. But he had an idea.

A deep snarl came from the wolf within him. The images of his— no, not his. As much as he wishes they were, Darlin' was not his to claim. The image of the wolf he knew laying on a bed - fuck, they’d look gorgeous on their back - with Quinn on top of them was enough to make his skin crawl. Picturing the vampire sinking his teeth into Darlin'’s neck makes him want to throw up.

“Oh? You don’t like that?” Quinn smirked, showing off his fangs. Fangs that had the luxury of marking their skin. “You don’t like the idea that they used to beg for my teeth? That my fangs had the pleasure of tasting them?” 

David had to remove himself from this situation, at least mentally. He couldn't just sit there and let Quinn talk about Darlin' in such a demeaning manner. For a moment, David could forget about his predicament and just think about Darlin'. Their beautiful body and somehow more gorgeous heart. No one could have captured his heart the way they did, he'd keep 

 A sharp pain bloomed across David’s face, knocking him out of his thoughts, and his mouth filled with the iron taste of blood. It took him a second to realize that Quinn had punched him square in the jaw.

He looked up at the vampire, who was wiping the Alpha’s blood from his knuckles. 

“Apologies for the drastic measures, but I can’t have you think of them like that.” Quinn paced around the room and his hands were clasped together as he spoke. “Believe me, I know they are incredibly attractive, but that doesn’t give you permission to think of my wolf like that.” 

David took a deep breath. The chained up Alpha was in no position to make threats against the Old Blood in front of him, but he needed to say something to relieve the pent-up anger. He was going to explode from the rage at the thought of Darlin' ‘belonging’ to a man like Quinn.

In all honesty, David was fuming at the thought of Darlin' not being his.

“They’re not yours.”

“Oh really?” Quinn said in a low growl, daring David to finish his thought.

“They don’t belong to anyone.” David wolf howled right under the skin, and had it not been for the magic dampening cuffs, he would have made sure his body would be unrecognizable.

He cackled like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. “Is that sentiment supposed to make you feel better about the fact that my mark is on them?”

David’s jaw clenched as a smirk arose on Quinn’s face. “Am I wrong in saying that? My teeth were in their skin. My mark is on their body.” He let out a manic laugh, pacing around the room in a frantic glee, the total opposite of the calm villain role he was playing earlier. Darlin' probably just had that effect on him, unfortunately.

 He knelt down, cupping David’s jaw in his hand. "Whether you like it or not, they’re mine. And I never let go of what rightfully belongs to me,” he sneered.

David snarled, trying to bite off the vampire's hand. The thought of him laying his filthy hands on Darlin' was enough to make him hurl, so why not do something to prevent that from happening, or at least try to? “You fucking touch a single goddamn strand of hair on their head, and I swear to God I will rip you to shreds.”

Quinn clicked his tongue, dropping David’s limp head, and continued to slowly pace around in the glorified dungeon. “It’ll be easier if you just—” he paused, placing his foot on David's back and crushing him under his heel, grinning at the grunt of pain the Alpha let out. “Give them to me. You could never love them the way I do, it's clear with the way you call them trouble." 

David knew it. It was something he told himself every single night for years. He wasn’t good enough when it came to welcoming them to the pack. He wasn’t good enough to keep them away from trouble, and they had the scars on their body was proof of his failure. He wasn’t good enough to keep their heart from breaking, watching and doing nothing as they fell in love with the monster in front of him.

He wasn’t good enough back then and not much has changed since.

But he was better than the sorry excuse of a person sneering at him.

David gathered the spit and blood and bile in his mouth. He refused to lay down and let Quinn say another word about Darlin’. 

But as Quinn's ears perked up, David's heart sank. There were footsteps coming down the steps, rushed and desperate to reach the basement of the bar. One sniff of the air confirmed who it was sprinting towards him, the last person he wished it was. And the person he was desperately hoping for.

Darlin' had found him. They were racing straight for the belly of the beast.

"They always hated to be late," he mused, soft and sweet like he had the right to think of them like that. Quinn turned back around to David, a crazed and wicked smile on his face. "Shall we give them a warm welcome, Alpha?"

David didn't want Darlin' to see him like this; his stomach curled at the thought. As Alpha, he tried to maintain that aura of invincibility that was expected of him. Any comment that compared himself to his late father made him beam with pride, all efforts made to replicate his presence rather than replace his father with his own leadership. But it had taken some time to find his stride with his new title, and Darlin' was instrumental to that. It was them who continued to stand by his side, even when his displaced anger should have scared them off. Yet Darlin' knew what pain hid under his anger, and he's incredibly thankful for them being patient with him.

From then on, he made an extra effort to control and compose himself around them. Apologies through acts of love weren't uncommon, and for a man who's as bad with his words as he was, actions spoke volumes. It wasn't fair that Darlin' had to constantly deal with his outbursts without any respite, so he opted to give them an extended break.

Covered with blood from various sources and broken beyond repair, David was far from the usual picture of poise. He pulled against his shackles in a vain attempt to be free, if not to save himself than at least to provide them enough time to run away. The chances of both of them escaping were improbable, but he can make sure that at least one of them will be free.

"What the fuck did you do, Quinn!?" they screamed with desperation, their voice entering the room before they did. He couldn't help but smile, at least he would see them one last time before he died.

Quinn's arm wrapped around David's neck like he was giving him a noogie, squeezing it and causing another choking fit. "Oh you know, precious, just two buddies hanging out, ain't that right, Davey?" His smile darkened, or maybe it was the blood around his mouth. If you take away all the gore and move this scene to a picnic field, this could have been cute. David chuckled in his head, morbid thoughts like those were exactly what he needed to keep sane. 

With no fear for their safety, Darlin made a move to step forward, only to stop when Quinn clutched his neck, nails breaking skin and dragging down his back. "If you take a step forward, I will hurt him."

Hesitation flashed in Darlin' eyes, and he hoped that it would be enough for them to turn their back and run. (It wasn't, and it never will be.)

Stomping towards the two and their claws peeking, David could feel their core become a ferocious snowstorm, cold and vicious, making sure that there would be no survivors. "I swear to God, if you don't let him go, I will—"

Familiar pain burst across David's neck, teeth and claws becoming too familiar to differentiate at this point. He wanted to throw up at the lewd moans that Quinn let out, disgusted that this man- monster was finding pleasure in his pain. He shivered at Darlin' being in his spot, the one who Quinn's fangs dug into. Quinn had passionately spoken about their blood, to an obsessive and slightly creepy extent.

Biting David had the effect that Quinn wanted on Darlin', with Darlin' stopping dead in their tracks. Their fearful eyes locked with his, retaliations dying in their throat. Despite being frozen in place, David could see them go backwards, going back to the person they were when they were with Quinn. All the healing they had achieved was undone at sight of the monster in front of them.

He tried to speak, willing to beg in front of them to leave, but any attempts to speak were crushed like his windpipes. Quinn's doing, of course. 

"Quinn, please…" Darlin's voice quivered as the anger within them died down, while David's rage continued to fester. How dare Quinn bring fear to their voice after going on about how much he cared for them. If Quinn really loved them as much as he claimed to, then he wouldn't be doing all of this. But it wasn't love that he felt for Darlin', it was the desire to control them.

"There's my precious little wolf," Quinn cooed, letting David's limp body slump onto the ground. He was glad that Quinn finally let him go, but David was too concerned with the way Quinn was stalking towards his wolf. He tried, Lord knows he tried, to crawl towards Darlin' and save them, but with all the injuries, he was lucky to move a finger.

To their credit, Darlin' didn't take a step back as Quinn got closer. Davidd knew it was because they refused to let him scare them. Defiant in the face of death, dying as a martyr with conviction of steel was an honourable way to die. 

Their cold expression faltered a little bit when Quinn started to play with their hair. Growls died in David's throat, the only noise he was letting out was blood choking him to stay quiet. His inner wolf was begging to let himself out, but try as he might, he couldn't tackle Quinn where he stood. David didn't know if this hurt him more as their Alpha or as the man that loved them.

"What do you want, Quinn?" they asked, careful to not look him in the eyes, presumably to stop them from being tranced tonight. Darlin' took a moment to compose themselves, giving their signature killer look that would turn Quinn to ash. But they weren't Superman, and this wasn't a fairy tale.

(It could be if you wanted it, no? You have the power to turn this around and make sure everyone leaves tonight alive. They would be broken and bruised and would never forget this night, but they'll be able to remember. So please, help us, save them.)

(Darlin's hand slipped into their back pocket unbeknownst to the two men. They were lucky that their silencer was on.)

"Oh precious, that's no way to greet your man," he purred, eyes trailing their body in a way that made Darlin's skin crawl. He held the side of their face, nails digging into their cheek and making them look into his eyes. They ignored the pain, keeping their eyes shut to stop any trancing. Drawing blood from their face, Quinn growled, "open your damn eyes, mutt."

"Oh please, you never needed to trance me to force me to do whatever the fuck you want," they said with a cold fury. David's mind conjured up the worst of what they meant by that. He threw up at the thought of it, more blood leaving his body.

Sick bastard that he was, Quinn laughed. "It really is so much fun to make you, I love seeing your fighting spirit." His smile dropped, voice going cold, making another switch from his frantic personal to someone more composed. "But I need you to open your eyes, pretty thing. You wouldn't want me to bite your Alpha—"

Quinn didn't need to finish his sentence before Darlin' shot their eyes open, pleading with him to not hurt David even more. He didn't know why they were so set to defend him, he could take care of himself. What the fuck was the point of being Alpha if he couldn't protect the people he cared about?

"Quinn please…" David wanted to cry at how quiet Darlin's voice became, an effort to not set off the vampire in front of them. It was too rehearsed, a tone they practiced many times in the reflections of shattered mirrors. "Why are you doing all of this? I don't understand why you can't just leave me alone."

"Well it's quite obvious, precious," he started, his hands trailing from their face to their waist. "I want you back, sweetie. I've missed you, your love, your care, your intoxicating aroma," he sniffed the air around them, moaning at their scent. "It's nice to know that after all this time spent with these wolves, you still are my ferocious little thing."

"They're not yours!" David yelled out as best as he could, even though his voice was still muffled by the blood in his throat. It wasn't a lot, but it was better than sitting on his broken bones and doing nothing.

Quinn glared at the Alpha behind him, finally acknowledging his presence. Finally, David was getting bored back here. "Which brings me to this mutt," he said with so much disdain, it filled David up with pride that he was able to make Quinn hate him as much as David loathed him. 

Darlin's eyes went wide and their mouth moved before they could think. "He didn't do anything wrong—" 

"Oh yes he did precious, don't you dare try to protect him," he sneered at them.

Finally letting go of Darlin', Quinn stalked around the room, eyeing the two wolves with accusations ready at his lips. "You never really loved me, not the way I loved you." He stopped a few paces behind them, staring David in his eyes. Good, as long as that fucker looked at him and not Darlin', then it would be a good thing in his book.

“So that got me thinking, why could you never commit fully to me? Why wouldn’t you compromise your ‘moral compass’ for me? Why didn’t you love me the same way that I love you? It hit me." Frantic voice and manic eyes had David wondering how on Earth Darlin' was able to love a monster like him. They were the only person he knew that would treat this vile creature with love and respect that he didn't deserve. 

"But I did love you," they said with hurt and guilt in their voice.

"But you didn't!" he finally yelled out. "You couldn’t because of how you felt for him.” Quinn pointed at David.

…Darlin' loved him? Darlin' loved him.

This was a dream come true in the most nightmarish way possible. 

He had no time to ponder on this new revelation, already light-headed with the way his heartbeat pounded. A selfish part of him was happy that his feelings were reciprocated, that they long for him the way he did for them. But like this? Against their own will and him bolted to the wall, there was no way this was their ideal way to confess. Knowing them, they'd probably have a meticulous plan to make sure that everything went perfectly. They'll never have the chance to confess the way they wanted to. Neither would he.

His rationale came back to him after the initial high. He may have not known Quinn the same way Darlin' did, but from what he'd heard and seen from him tonight, he was a delusional and jealous asshole. Never trusting anyone to have pure intentions. He couldn't fathom that he was the issue, so he might have created this reality to remove himself from any accountability from what he did to Darlin'. Yeah, that must have been it. It broke his heart, but he'd rather a lie than Darlin' having their feelings ripped out of them to be on display.

(David remembered how casually their parents would talk about their biggest failures, as if it was gossip to them. How Darlin' would laugh along with their parents' friends, in a vain attempt to stop themselves from crying. Dance little wolf, dance for us, they would yell out, finding joy in every fumble and misstep. Yet they never stopped, always getting back up and entertaining the crowd. Ripping their heart on a silver platter to feed the wolves around them, but it was never enough. So they would break and build themselves to entertain and if they could get a good laugh, then their job would be complete.)

Again Darlin's shining eyes stood in stark contrast with their stern face. "Congratulations, you spilled my darkest secret," they said coldly. Their darkest secret? David could see their magic coursing through their veins, ready to shift at a moment's notice. 

"The fuck are you going to do now?" they asked while cracking the bones in their hands, a sign that they were itching to fight but desperately needed to calm down.

"No need to bring out the claws, pretty thing. Unless you're going to dig them into me," he cackled, but the sick desire to be mauled by them was painted in bright colours on his face. Quinn took a couple steps towards them, standing between himself and Darlin'. "I just want one thing from you, precious," he started with a composed tone. "Come back with me, and I let your pathetic Alpha leave tonight alive."

The only thing that was stopping David tearing Quinn apart limb from limb were the stupid fucking magic dampening cuffs that were still on his wrist. So instead he pleaded to anyone above who was listening to force Darlin' to turn away and run. He might not have been able to save them back then, but he could at least stop them from reliving the same tragedy.

David could feel Quinn's fingers dig into his hair, pulling him up to look into his rotten eyes. "Don't speak while they make their decision, mutt," he ordered and with a flash of red, he felt the trance take over his body. Throat constricted and choking on a silent scream, he couldn't do anything while Darlin' was mulling over their options. 

There was no point in trying to guess what choice they would make, it being as obvious as they were beautiful. David tried to memorize every inch of them before they were gone forever.

Darlin' had always been too selfless for their own good, always putting others over themselves. It was what made David so obsessed with them, finding beauty and good in even the most despicable people. They had a gentle heart, one that was beaten and hardened with life but at the very core still remained one of the best people he's known. If given the option to save themselves or another person, they would choose the other no matter the circumstances.

They looked up with determined eyes and a final answer. David tried to scream and yell to get them to stop, but both their resolve and the trance were too strong for him to overcome.

Walking up to Quinn, Darlin' put their hand in his. A sheep walking straight into the jaws of a wolf. 

"I'll go with you, only if you promise to leave the pack alone," they demanded, making sure their sacrifice would not go in vain. Not that it would stop him, but empty promises were always better than none.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll make sure that your silly little pack will be ok," he sighed with great effort and rolled his eyes. David couldn't help but be disgusted, not understanding how anyone could act like they needed to inflict pain to survive. "Besides, why need anyone else when I have you for the rest of our eternity?" he asked in glee, knowing his answer already.

(There were wolf howls in the distance, not far, but not close enough to make it there in time. They needed to find a way to stall him a little longer.)

Before Quinn could drag Darlin' off to their doom, they resisted, pulling back their arm to make one last request. "I want to say goodbye to him," they requested while looking at David. If they were scared, then they were doing a good job of hiding it. Something told him that he was the more terrified one between the two.

Quinn tried to argue against it, saying that if they stayed a second longer then he would go back on his promise. But with enough pleading and ass-kissing, he relented. "You can have your last goodbye. Make it count though because you'll never see them again," he sneered, spitting in Darlin's face in a show of dominance. 

They didn't respond, not wanting to test him even further. Not when David was here and in immediate danger.

They shuffled over to David, kneeling to be on eye level with him. Holding his broken and bruised face in their hands, he could see the amount of unsaid words running through their head. David tried to speak again, cursing the trance for forcing his silence. He wanted to reassure them that no matter what, he would always love them. That he was sorry for not telling them sooner. Maybe if he had they wouldn't have to turn to Quinn in the first place.

But most importantly, he wanted to tell them that he would hunt Quinn down, that through hell and high water that he was going to bring them back home. This wasn't a promise, this was a declaration that David would follow through with.

Finally finding the words to condense the years of love that they buried within themselves, Darlin' opened their mouth to speak. “I love you David," they whispered, tears already dropping onto their cheeks. "And I’m so sorry it has to end this tragically before it can even begin, but I would do the same thing. A hundred times over. In every damn universe where I have the honour and privilege of being able to love you.”

Darlin' did love him. And he repaid that love with nothing but pain. 

Quinn clearly had enough with not being the center of attention, deciding to take matters into his own hands to take Darlin' away. "Let's go, precious," he growled while dragging them up to his feet and pulling them away from David. "And before we go," he said, grinning while grabbing the necklace around their neck and ripping it off into a broken chain. "We don't need any extra baggage with us, right?" he snarked, glaring right at David. Quinn knew exactly where the necklace came from.

It was the necklace David gave Darlin' the night he realized how he felt for them.

As he tried to scream after them, his vision began to blur. Fuck, he couldn't have been passing out now! Not when they were still too close for him to save. But he lost too much blood, it being a miracle that he was still able to move, even if it was to hold his head still to look back at him. The further Quinn walked away from them, the looser the trance became. It didn't matter though, his voice was raw from earlier, and his body couldn't move with how beaten he was.

Darlin' managed one last look behind them, with one last apologetic look. He couldn't do much, but he could at least let them know the answer to their forced confession.

'I love you', he mouthed over to them. Tears were already welling in his eyes, knowing he would never get the chance to say to them properly, with confidence and love. 

But it seemed like that was all they needed. Vision fading, his last image of them was a content smile and the thought that they were loved was all they had asked for. Darlin' deserved so much more.

His eyes closed, hoping that maybe this would be the end of this nightmare. Maybe when he wakes up, Darlin' would be beside him, or even in his arms. Wouldn't that be lovely.

(The other wolves were close enough to help, leaving nothing but carnage and an unrecognizable corpse in their wake.)

–

"Oh God, is he gonna wake up?"

"It's gonna take time for him to wake up. Quinn left did a shit ton of damage, so the healing magic's need to take his time to work properly."

"Thank you, Marie. I don't know what we would have done without you."

"No problem, Asher. How bout you and Milo go grab us some food to eat? It's been a hell of a week for all of us."

"No problem ma."

"Hey kid, you alright?"

"Hm? Oh. Yeah I'm good. It's just… weird seeing David so… vulnerable."

"But he's alive and that's all thanks to you, Darlin'."

"He wouldn't have been hurt if it wasn't for me!"

"We both know this ain't your fault, that was Quinn's. So don't be out here blamin' yourself for shit you didn't do."

"…Ok, I won't shit on myself."

–

David never was a deep sleeper, always waking up at the slightest sound in the area. So why didn't he wake up to the sound of another person's breathing in the room?

He opened his eyes, immediately wanting to go back to sleep. Exhaustion was so embedded in his bones and his throat was as dry as sandpaper. Looking to his bedside table on the left, he saw a water bottle and silently cheered. He uncapped it and chugged it down, getting some feeling back into his mouth.

He was so focused on his thirst that he didn't realize Darlin' was sleeping in a chair to the right of him.

His breath hitched. How on Earth were they still so pretty while they slept? So serene and peaceful, David would do anything to keep them in this state. The detail that stood out most to him were the tear tracks on their face. Who the fuck made them cry? Where were they so that he could give them a piece of his mind and a bite with his teeth.

His head throbbed in pain with memories from what he felt was last night. Quinn torturing him to lure in Darlin'. How fucking creepy he was when they showed up. The way he was about to drag Darlin' away from him and the pack permanently. The confession that seared itself into his brain.

Oh my God. They confessed their feelings to each other.

In his pondering about the confession, he didn't realize that Darlin' had woken up. It was only when they jumped into his arms to give him the biggest hug they could have given anyone.

"Thank God you're alive," they said softly, voice muffled with their face in his chest. Frozen and unsure of what to do next, he followed his instincts and wrapped his arms around them. One arm snaked his way to their back and he put the other on their head, giving them a little massage. (Their gentle hands were nothing like Quinn's harsh ones.)

Reluctantly, they both let each other go, letting their hands linger on the other's body. Silence filled the room as the two wolves stared at each other, his green eyes meeting their tear filled ones. David brought his hand up slowly, giving Darlin enough time to move away if they needed to. But they didn't. He wiped the tears falling down on their face, watching as that simple action was enough for them to break.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," they sobbed and apologized profusely, pretty eyes not looking at him anymore. He was scared that they were going to pull away from his hand, but instead they went back to burying their face in his chest.

David was confused. He didn't know why they were apologizing. If anything, he should have been the one saying sorry. Had he been not stupid enough to get kidnapped by Quinn, then they wouldn't have felt the need to play the martyr. Not that either of them were to blame, the reason was hopefully left to burn in the sun.

"Shhh, this wasn't your fault," he said to comfort them, rubbing a hand up and down their back. They pulled their head back and he could imagine all the arguments that they were willing to bring up as a rebuttal. He wasn't going to let them get the chance to atone for the sins of a dead man, especially one as cruel as him.

Before they could open their mouth, David held them by the shoulders. "Hey, nothing was your fault," he said sternly. He needed to be clear with them, lest they carry this unwarranted guilt with them for the rest of their life. "You don't need to apologize for what that asshole did to the both of us. Look at me when I tell you this," he emphasized while tilting their head up. "Everything, all of this, that was Quinn's shit, not yours. Don't let the leech tell you otherwise."

A shaky sigh and nod indicated that they heard him loud and clear. But he knew that Darlin' hearing his words and understanding them were two different things. It was ok though, he was going to stand by their side and help them through this.

Another period of silence settled in the room, this time with stiff and uncomfortable air. David didn't know how he was going to address the fucking confession. There was no denying their feelings for each other, no way to downplay their words to just a heightened adrenaline rush. So close to their hearts coming together, only to let circumstances from putting their hearts on their sleeves.

He was tired of letting circumstances dictate when or how he got what he wanted.

"I have tickets to the Dires game if you want to come with me." He absolutely didn't have tickets for the game, given how hard they were to come by. But he was sure that he could use his connections to get some. Anything for Darlin'.

Confusion grew on their face. "…You don't like hockey," they said with a questioning tone, and they weren't wrong. He was never a fan of any sports, not finding the intense stress he's seen his friends go through worth the struggle. But he could learn to like hockey for them. He could learn to like anything for them.

He shrugged to hide the fact that his heart was beating erratically. Acting in the most nonchalant way was his only answer to not making a fool of himself.

Ever observant as they were, Darlin' asked him, "is this your way of asking me out on a date?" They nailed the coffin that buried David's confidence.

"Well yeah, only if you want to of course." He stopped himself from rambling, it would have been unbecoming of him as an Alpha. But David couldn't help but let his nerves and anxious thoughts run rampant until they gave him an answer. The butterflies in his stomach were at their beck and call, and there wasn't any other way he would want it.

"Well, I guess I can't say no to free tickets," they giggled. It was a heavenly sound, worth all the pain and strife he'd had to go through in his life. If he had a purpose in this world, it was to keep them smiling, and he was going to take that job seriously. 

He told them the details about the date, when to get ready and when he was going to pick him up. While he was talking, he was trying to find a way to get tickets, going through all of the contacts that he knew. If all else fails, maybe he can beg Milo for his tickets. Dreams can come true and David was going to get those tickets somehow.

Mustering up the confidence, he leaned in closer to their face. "Can I kiss you?" he asked, making sure he had their full consent before kissing them. (He couldn't help but remember what they said about Quinn forcing them to love him.)

"Mm, I don't know," they teased with that perfect smirk of theirs. "I only kiss after the first date, Davey."  Their sultry tone did nothing to hamper the desire to bite their lips.

Instead of rejection, he laughed at their joke. "You're such an asshole," he said, in awe of the beautiful wolf in front of him.

"Yeah, but you love me."

He did. He loved them the way water rises to kiss the moon.

[vivaciousoceans]

I just want to say thank you for your defense of Amanda Rollins. I feel like the fandom idolizes Benson so much that they forget how morally dubious she's been in the past (and how shitty she's been especially to Amanda) and constantly wants to put her on a pedestal and completely ignore the HUGE character development Amanda has gone through, like do I agree with the stuff Amanda has done no she's done some really messed up things but can I appreciate how flawed her character is and can sympathize with her situation and can appreciate the work she's put in to become a better person Yes. Anyways #amandarollinsrules

I just think it’s ironic for people to be fans of a show centered around sexual assault, primarily women who experience sexual assault, and then hate a woman character who displays symptoms from rape trauma syndrome. Her victim blaming, hypersexuality, addiction issues, issues with authority, could not only be linked to what P*tton did to her, but also her childhood. She grew up in an unstable home with an unstable mother and basically absent father. She had raise Kim, she put her body, her life on the line for her little sister. Amanda caught no breaks, and then she works her way to detective. She’s assaulted by her CO, and then she transfers to New York, where she gets to work with the deified Olivia Benson, who treats her like shit.

Like if we truly want to talk about victim blaming we need to address the fact that any time a mother is less than perfect, an alcoholic, or just “not good enough” in Olivia’s eyes, her blinders turn on. She was willing to believe her mother lied about being raped when she found out her father had kept up with her. If we want to talk about racism, then we need address the way Olivia (and pretty much every other character except maybe Carisi) is willing to weaponize ICE to make a case. Olivia isn’t this infallible character, and yet the narrative treats her like one. At one point there were back to back episodes, where she was guzzling wine like a horse in a desert.

Amanda has addressed her traumas, she has grown into a woman im damn proud of despite her flaws. She’s giving her babies a stable home, with an amazing man who has basically been their father since they were born. In a way, Olivia hasn’t addressed her traumas in the same way, and she is actively becoming a worse person.

Also we need to address how only the women (in which there’s only ever been 2-3 women at one time apart of the main cast) get criticism. Elliot Stabler is a disaster of a character, racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic. Fin has been very misogynistic and victim blames quite a bit. Sonny, my baby boy, he has his blinders in some aspects. Rafael, my husband, he thinks about politics too much sometimes, and I understand his job isn’t just to be Olivia Benson’s lackey, but he should be fighting for true justice.

Anyways #hotgirlmandaforthewin #aintnobodyworriedaboutthebitterbitchlinkup #juciestpeachingeorgia

[lazyveran]

legally obligated to ask (jk im just curious) whether you have particular stories/ideas about how/when katara and azula (and any other ATLA characters) got those scars. especially that sicknasty lightning on azula. love that drawing btw.

YES I DOOO!! these r kind of political marriage au, but most do also apply to my canon ideas as well <3

azula:

the lightning scars was azula's first attempt at bending lightning. this was when she was really Far Too Young to try such a deadly technique, but ozai insisted so she did. she was about 10 - maybe 11 - when she tried. no one expected her to actually be able to do it, despite her prodigy status. unfortunately the ridiculous amount of raw power she managed to produce couldnt exactly be handled by A PRETEEN and it offshooted, ricocheting back up her own arm. she has an exit scar somewhere near her nape (which she hides)! it was almost fatal, but ozai was giddy. im thinking shes probably the youngest person in fn history to master lightning bending (i also have a whole personal hc that lightning bending is regarded as sacred, which is a whole other thing. i digress.)

azula's shoulder scars were from a battle in which the tank she was riding in got it's engine destroyed. the damn thing blew up and threw her and a LOT of shrapnel across the battlefield. it took a huge chunk out of her arm and she had to bend w her legs for like the entire battle as a result

she has a bunch of little uneven scars from bending training or the odd practice weapon grazing her - i think a lot of the time she doesnt wait for wounds to heal properly, so she has a lot of shallow scars on her

in the vein of canon, she probably has scarring on the inside of her mouth/throat after breathing fire without proper practice/understanding of how. i also think she fucked up her arm during the western air temple raid bc, seriously, how the fuck did she stop herself falling at terminal velocity with a HAIR PIN. it mangled her hand, her foot and dislocated her shoulder. idc.

[secret info: i have a Story Idea based on azula gaining a physical disability of some kind. highly confidential tho.]

katara:

three clawed scar on her bicep was a wound she picked up during a particularly deadly encounter with a polar beardog. she basically duelled it one on one during a rough winter. while she won (of course) it left its mark on her. she has the pelt in her hut as a trophy for winning against that monster

the scar on her ribs is from a shiv in ba sing se. im thinking during one of her stays in the lower ring her and sokka got pulled into a whole situation with one of the underworld bosses in the area (ala, a corrupt city guard kind of deal, vulturing on the poorest and refugees and of COURSE the siblings wont stand for that). during an encounter they ambush her and manage to knick her pretty deeply. katara sort of sees this one as a badge of honour since the result of that fight saw her save a whole little community in the lower ring

her days as a fighter give katara a bunch of little knicks and scars on her elbows, knees and hands. i think katara uses mobility quite a bit, and her and sokka's war style seems to be more guerrilla based. as such its very rough n environmental, so shes scratching up her limbs a LOT

she also has a pretty hefty chunk bitten out of her thigh during a surprise orca attack on the waves. it was a protracted battle - because orca are like that - and at one point katara gets bit. links into a wider story about her time fighting the fire nation i think! but it was during a period in which she was sinking deeper into using her bending for fighting during the war rather than as a natural extension of herself. to katara, the orca attack was the ocean/spirits' warning to keep the spiritual side of her bending alive, instead of just its utility and violence!

kataras sustained other wounds/scars but her healing usually gets rid of them after a couple sessions. the scars she does keep have a certain meaning to them; like a lesson or reminder to her

[majorproblems77]

Bonus links is back which means so am I! Welcome back to my Comic analysis corner :D

You liked my rambling last time so here I am to once again ramble about this comic I love.

Its a wonderul comic and always so well made. Please go look at it if you haven't, it's well worth it. :D

All comic panels and art belong to @bonus-links and the artist @ezdotjpg. Please go and look at their other stuff too!

Grab some popcorn and a drink, and let's get started, shall we!

First these two, I love this frame right off the bat.

Give me more of these two please I love them okay

Loft looks so worried can you hear the fear i can hear the fear. Poor man give him a break.

Oblatory obsession with SKSW link in various links meet aus.

I love him a healthy amount. I love his design and think about him often.

Oh this frame

This frame is very pretty

I love the golden light in the middle, and how she basically makes up the lower part of the symbol. It reminds me of ribbon. Which is fitting considering we get red string all over this comic. (I still need to go into that at one point)

It makes me wonder if we see the other Zelda's more in this context if they too will get the golden ribbon rather than the red string. As I'm seeing it as a way to show how they are connected like how the links are connected.

Panic mode engaged

I'm living for evil laser eye slate. Straight up looks like hes about to pounce on this man and kill him

Slates thinking face

Fangs?

I love it

I love these two. Interesting how dismissive Wolf is being at this stage. (currently playing through TP so I dont know a lot about the triforce in it but I assume it's still there)

Lots to unpack in this one and i love it

Wake vibing in the rain i can kinda understand.

Wolf just looks kinda done with it tbh and I'm here for it its a vibe.

Slate covering the little fairy pal from the rain is low-key giving me life I love him

And Loft, looking up at the clouds with just pure annoyance in his eyes. Like my man, I know you don't like storms but please the clouds didn't do anything to you. (Yet...)

HES A GRANDMA'S BOY AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

ALSO ALSO

I can hear the music in my head as these actions are being done. Like, they are ingrained into my soul after watching enough wind waker playthroughs.

It's awesome he gets to use it with the melody he's learned. More windwaker melodies please i love seeing them used more

Hold on tight indeed! Cause it's about to get HECKIN WIMDY

Such an excited bean i love him

Help him

Help him so much man has fear

This little picture has me cackling, im sorry loft but omg.

And Slate looks so damn excited for this and honestly he deserves it.

Just his little face

Goddammit linebeck, man is just so done with the shenanigans by now. Impressive he's managing to drink from a cup while they are spinning like that. Man has got some amazing arm control to keep it together.

Tetra and Aryll! Them!!!

Also, can you hear the splash as the ship hits the water? People must be used to hearing the sound of a huge gale, then a massive splash and are just like...

Oh, link must be back again.

Love it

Hope you had fun with me today as I went through this one. More rambling than questions this time around which is nice i love just being excited about characters I enjoy. :D

That's all from me tho, until next time!

[glowyfissh]

hi guys whats up its me jamie and i have vocaloid headcannons for the yv boys cus im bored like really REALLY bored and also ive been hyperfixating on vocaloid for the longest time and yuurivoice

UMMM WARNING FOR THE LINKS lots of flashing lights and for the scary one uhhh blood and ooky spooky things like GORE and KNIVES!!!!!!!! BAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! and also plenty of disturbing topics (mainly for Okaasan, Secrets of Wysteria and The Fox’s Wedding those are freaky deaky)

Faust:

- before i start i wanna say that he definitely used to be a scene kid i can smell it i can smell the sour patch kids and monster energy off of him

- ok anyways this guy was also a HUGE vocaloid fan and im not talking about he only listened to miku songs he listened to ALLLLL of them

- back in the day if u asked him which song was his favorite he’d probably mention some scary, obscure and super old song like idk Alice of Human Sacrifice or (my favorite) Fear Garden but really his favorite song was probably either Romeo and Cinderella (ALSO MY FAVORITE) or World is Mine

- his favorite vocaloid is probably IA

- he’s probably the only one out of the boys that actually knows other vocaloids other than miku

- if you went up to him now and asked him what his favorite song was (cus i know motherfucking well he still listens to vocaloid) he’d still say some obscure shit just to sound cool and original but shhhhh its ok buddy i know your favorite song is Matoryoshka and Magnet

Alphonse:

- i know damn well he listens to vocaloid in private

- “i can’t let the bros know i fuck with this”

- he leans more towards the pop side of vocaloid like GimmexGimme and Freely Tomorrow

- he’s too scared to listen to any of the creepy vocaloid songs cus he’s a PUSSY (this is very lighthearted) he heard one kikuo song and couldn’t sleep

- his favorite vocaloid is rin

Auron:

- you know damn well he also listened to vocaloid i mean like he HAD to because of Faust

- at first he thought it was cringe and told Faust that all the time just to spite him but after a while be was like holy fuck this goes hard????

- he most definitely got too curious when Faust mentioned the scary vocaloid songs and went down a horrible HORRIBLE rabbit hole (its ok me too)

- it started out with Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance then Secrets of Wysteria and ended with Okaasan

- he ended up pretty NOT normal after that

- his favorite song would either be uhhhh Q or maybe Closer to You

- when it comes to his favorite vocaloid he’d probably tell you its miku just because but i like to think his favorite is ACTUALLY vflower because of how strong her voice is

Charlie:

- HUSH I KNOW HE HAD TO LISTEN TO VOCALOID BECAUSE OF CASPER

- hey do you know what a vocaloid is “is.. that an anime?”

- after hearing about it he got a little curious and started off with a classic Ievan Polkka because everybody knows that song

- he doesn’t really care about vocaloid that much and wouldn’t have a favorite song but shhhhhh he dabbles a little bit into it

Jack:

- i mean come ON guys he said he was a theater kid why wouldn’t he listen to vocaloid at least a LITTLE

- he probably wouldn’t be THAT into it like charlie but if you mentioned it he’d be like “oh yeah! i’ve listened to a couple songs!”

- i know DAMN WELL this man fucks with wowaka HEAVY

- “fuck man unknown mother goose is so good” TWINNNNNNN

- his favorite song would probably be Roki tho

- im still not too sure who his favorite vocaloid is but i think it’d be kaito

Finn:

- i can smell it off of him. he fucks with miku HEAVYYYYY

- also would not fuck with the scary songs if you told him to listen to uhhhh idk The Fox’s Wedding he’d cry

- he likes the much softer songs which is why kaai yuki would be his favorite because of her soft voice BUT he would really like meiko too

- his favorite songs (since he’s indecisive) would probably be Patchwork Staccato OR Deep Sea Girl

[brynnterpretations]

see youve been doing a lotta theboys ship reqs recently HUGE kudos to u got damn, and i love how u write them sm !! hope u dont mind one more ^^ (fine w p much anyone except homelander or deep)

im an anxiety-ridden autistic bi british tguy with a pretty hefty male lean, 5'6"-ish, long hair thats shaved on one side , lotsa face piercings , pretty hairy , scruffy jaw , got a "would be a bear if i hit the gym more often" kinda build . i wear shades 24/7 bc i hate eye contact and bright lights . i generally dont bother picking out an outfit but when i do i lean towards a kinda 50s greaser vibe even tho i dont have a bike or anything

im a recluse and not particularly social , i end most conversations quickly but politely tho i dont let myself get walked over . i do like going for walks , particularly walking my cat , or otherwise hauling something around , its a good workout , but most of the time im indoors and just drawing/animating (what im attending uni for) or playing games . i prefer talking online to in person cause of low social battery , even for family n close friends .

im insecure but otherwise i think j have pretty good self-esteem , and tho im not diagnosed im like 95% sure ive got covert narcissism , i see most people as below me in some way but i dont express this obviously . a lack of attention , particularly online , is distressing and upsetting , and i get defensive very easy . i THRIVE on the feeling of caring for or protecting someone both bc it feeds this and is the only time i can power through my social anxiety .

uhhh cat lover , marine life lover , would spend the rest of my life in an aquarium , would rather be a shark than a human , dont like getting dressed if i dont have to , nail biter , dragon fanatic , would probably be a supe given the chance

hope thats not too much , and thank you !

Thank you so much for the kind words! I hope you like this. ♡

I ship you with...

Frenchie ♡

Boyfriend

GIF Source: @samuelroukin ★ (link)

You and Frenchie meet while you're walking your cat. Frenchie is a huge cat guy (I will die on this hill), and though he hasn't had any of his own since his early twenties, he still makes it his mission to interact with them as much as he can. Cat on the street? Gets pet. Cat in those windows of veterinary offices that you can walk into if you don't seem too shady? Gets pet. Cat in a house the coup is raiding? Gets pet, and moved to a safer location.

So, when he sees your cat being walked, the dude has to go over. Plus, not gonna lie, even in NYC, it's pretty uncommon to see cats being walked, especially down the street that the boys' hideout is located on.

He uses small talk to warm up the awkwardness that comes with a random French man coming up on the street to pet your cat, and eventually asks if you'd ever want to go on a walk sometime. While he initially had his eyes set on your cat, when the guy looked up at you, he immediately saw that you're really, really cute. He has a weakness for facial piercings and for general "scruffiness", so add that on to the cat and the general reservedness? Bro's set.

Through that, you start hanging out a lot and getting to know each other. Frenchie's not a texting person, so you two tend to call a lot, and have a lot of cute but low-key dates, like cooking meals for you at his apartment and playing video games.

And, on that note: Frenchie absolutely sucks at video games, but he has fun playing them with you. While Frenchie is very spatially aware in real life, he is not in online games — bro would get absolutely flamed in any CoD lobby — but would have a blast going through your video game of choice by your side.

You would have to help him with the controls... a lot... but it would be worth it.

Frenchie doesn't really believe in "rushing in" or "waiting too long"; he just makes it official once he feels like it's right. After 2 – 3 months with you, he'd ask if you'd like to be together upfront.

And, once you are: you two would be very, very happy together.

Frenchie's a very intuitive person, and while he wouldn't make any assumptions considering your diagnoses/suspected conditions (he's not about that life), he would catch on to your need for attention and care.

Since he's not really a texter, he'd either call you or send you voice notes to say good morning, good night, tell you about something that reminded him of you, etc.

Is your #1 fan concerning your art, and is endlessly in awe of what you do. He would constantly show your work off to the coup, and would definitely commission you for artwork when your schoolwork slowed down (no, he won't accept free shit, he will commission you, point-blank).

Considering Frenchie's been through a lot, you being a caring person and a "protector" would do wonders for the relationship. While Frenchie's a protective guy himself, the dude wants some time to slow down and be taken care of, and would love anything you did for him and reciprocate it completely.

Is a huge physical touch guy, and as long as you were fine with it, would always have an arm around you, his hand in yours, etc.

Also would definitely love to be the little spoon with you, especially because you're very close in height (he's about 5'8).

Is a big gift-giver, and would always purchase anything he saw that reminded him of you, whether it's a shark stuffed animal, or one of those seashell necklaces that street vendors sell.

Also, he's a bit freaked out about marine life — the vastness of the ocean really, really freaks him out, partially because of a near-drowning accident he had as a kid — but would always go to aquariums with you and try to find aquatic spaces to do stuff.

He would do the ocean, but as much as he loves you, he's probably gonna try limiting that to special occasions.

Would 100% spoil your cat, and if you were up for it, adopt one for you two to co-parent.

Also doesn't have many reservations about moving in "early" — again, timestamps aren't really too important to him — and would especially encourage it if it helped any student finances.

On that note, the guy cannot do structured and organized learning, so he would always brag about your postsecondary education and do everything to encourage you, whether it's bringing you your favorite snacks while working on end-of-the-year projects or rubbing your hands and back after finishing an art piece.

He wouldn't hide his work with the Boys from you, and honestly, would encourage you to get involved, particularly through artwork — anti-Supe propaganda, especially aesthetic pleasing ones, have been lacking nowadays. He'd be open about his work and introduce you to the boys before you became official.

And that brings us to...

The Boys ☻

Friends

GIF Source: @yocalio ★ (link)

So, it's corny... but you and Butcher definitely both bond over both being British/from the U.K. You're one of very few people who were able to immediately understand both his accident and what he was referring to in British slang upon first meeting.

Plus, the guy likes you, even if he doesn't talk to you much. He respects reserved types a lot, and appreciates you leveling out Frenchie's chaos instead of blowing it up (...most of the time).

He wouldn't make an effort to get super close to you — let's be real, he's got a lot of shit to deal with — but would probably invite you out for drinks every once in a while.

A dealbreaker for Frenchie is whether you get along with Kimiko, and fortunately, you two do. While you're not extremely close — you're both pretty introverted, and Kimiko never wants to feel like she's prying — Kimiko really, really likes you, especially when she sees you drawing. She's quite the artist herself, and is fascinated by not only your amazing work, but by the fact you're going to college for it.

Whenever you stop by the hideout, she wouldn't communicate with you much, instead opting to just enjoy your company in silence.

And, if you bring art supplies, she would be so down to parallel-play with you and her drawing side-by-side. While she's not academically trained, she is extremely good at drawing landscapes, and would be very intrigued by your art, as mentioned.

Also would draw you as a present, which would be very cute, even if not fully anatomically correct.

M.M. would like you a lot — he vibes with the shades the first time he sees you — and I feel like you two would be the closest out of the coup. While him encouraging you to would be a bit... annoying... the guy really enjoys your company, and would bond over your shared love of cats.

Would also ask you a lot of questions about cats, because his cat is getting a bit too pudgy and might need to take some strolls downtown.

While you'd be close, he wouldn't ask to hang out with you too much outside of the coup, instead having most of your fun during late nights, considering he's so busy; he'd probably order a pizza for you, Frenchie, and Kimiko and talk with you, and play video games on the very rusty-crusty-dusty XBox that they got to placate Hughie.

Also: he's killer at FPS games, and if you play one with him, y'all will immediately become best friends.

Hughie, Annie, and you wouldn't be super close, but you wouldn't be on bad terms either.

Hughie, quite honestly, would be intimidated; as a ball of social anxiety who tends to seek out more talkative types (E.G. Robin and Annie), he tends to overthink with more quiet people who are less easy to read, and your shades can make it pretty hard for him.

However, your art would definitely lead him to talk to you more (albeitly awkwardly and only in passing), and, if you or Frenchie mention that you play video games... he would try engaging in a yap session with you.

Yes, yes, it's not a stereotypical, "cool guy" game, but Hughie is a huge fan of Minecraft — he's an excellent architect and has actually made tons of custom maps for people to download — so if you play either (or you don't give him a hard time about it), he'd open up to you a lot more.

As for Annie, she just... can't really get a vibe on you. She thinks you're a pleasant person and respects you (she has a lot of admiration for people who go into the arts), but she's someone who believes to be able to "vibe-check" people pretty easily, and because she can't on you, doesn't really know where to go from there.

She wouldn't want to pry, so she wouldn't push you to open up yourself, but if she got more glimmers of you — whether it's through overseeing you and Kimiko drawing, or catching you and M.M. playing on the XBox — she'd spark up a lot more conversations with you.

[gaming-thoughts-by-an-idiot]

Fable 3, fuck Logan, lil bitch

Game: do u want to be Prince or Princess?

Me: I'd like to be the third secret sex

Game: what?

Me: THE MAIN CHARACTER

Game: y-yes that's-

Me: WHO GONNA SAVE THE WORLD

Game: that's what the sex-

Me: gotta go girl, boys are so obvious, he's gonna be all proper

Game: have u ever met a man...?

Me: girls are so badass, just look at Buffy

Game:...

Me:...

"Ready to see my man... the bastard Reaver"

"Damn, the city sure got bigger in like 20? Years"

"The hen tried to fly but couldn't but they can actually fly so we were all lied to"

"Damn, children working..."

"I cant remember this part of my castle"

"Holy shit it's fucking huge omg"

"Hehe that's what she said"

"That feather had plans"

"Ew look at that hat"

"Damn my dog could've been prettier"

"Pff, do u wanna look princess-y or cool"

"Obviously I'm picking the short and movable one"

"I fucking LOVE Jasper"

"I'm standing still, I wanna hear his comments to it"

"What happens if I try to leave in my pjs"

"He just went 'are u sure?' "

"Damn, he just threw a word at me that idk what means, but I think its like 'silly' "

"I look so pretty- wtf is that hair?"

"Jasper said avoid my brother, but what kind of sister would I be if I did?"

"I'm glad the princess can talk"

"Lmao I just had like the most gangsta handshake with a guard love it"

"I'm so happy I get to pet my dog, not a fan of how she sounds tho"

"Oh wait, I think maybe since I'm playing 3rd on xbox one, but did the 2nd on 360, maybe I won't have the queen but default king..."

"I'm just walking around shaking people's hands"

"Elliot is such a.... name, and- wait... who's gonna be the girl if I'm playing as him???"

"Next time..."

"I will be EVIL and idk why that's a guy"

"Hohoho I kissed the man"

"The city doesn't look like my city :( or... are we not in bowerstone, was that the name? Jesus, I've played the 2nd game for so long and I've forgotten"

"I love we're holding hands"

"I love Walter"

"Oh no my Prince, he ran away"

Walter: I want u to fight me, like your life dependent on it

Me: wow, that doesn't sound like a tutorial at all

"I'm gonna fuck up the buttons"

"Hell ye I did not"

"Damn, thought I should end the game here so I could sleep, but apparently you can't until a spesific place in the game... oh nooo, I have to do my fave hobby? Terrible:)"

"Running with my bois<3"

"There were NOT this many doors in my castle"

"The default is king :/"

"Imo king is so vanilla, like you don't give the same respect as a queen"

"All my hard work of being a queen just gone"

"Basically next time I'm doing it all on xbox one"

"Right, war room"

"Listening in"

"Damn, I'd be upset too if I was Logan, if I had that haircut"

"Oh, same throne at least"

"Ah... here comes the choice"

"Well, as the queen... I'm a good person... until I charge rent ofc haha"

"Bye baby :("

"He loves me😭"

"My MOTHER'S daughter, thank u very much"

Game: the hero was your dad

Me: what was that?

Game: I said the her-

Me: sounded like the wind

Game: tHE HE-

Me: whatever it was, it was saying bs... I miss my queen

Game: u know what? Fuck it.

"Run run run- Where's my dog btw?"

"Oh nevermind"

"Ugh, we're gonna look at the imposter, the king"

"I mean technically, Reaver IS a hero, he's just a bad one"

"Did Logan also go through the whole grab seal, end up in front of Theresa?"

"The seer of the SPIRE???"

"The queen would've fucking whipped Logan's ass if she knew"

"I'm sensing the fanfic energy... not from that Logan thing but for Reaver"

"I'm such a simp"

"For these terrible men...

"And my queen"

"You guided my MOTHER"

"What does Theresa even do in her spare time? I bet she crochets"

"I got a glove that let's me use magic... can anyone say Link? Cuz im getting Link vibes"

"OH FOR FUCKS SAKE, STOP RUNNING IN MY WAY, YA BASTARD DOG"

"Do I get to name my hero? Or am I cursed to see 'hero' every time she speaks?"

"Do I get to name my dog?"

"Isn't the dog supposed bark when there's treasure close by? Cuz I only found that key cuz of my own memory"

"Jasper is scared of bats, he'd make a terrible batman"

Walter: did u see that Jasper???

Jasper: indeed your MOTHER would've been very proud

"Why can't I run"

"Did the queen make these tunnels?"

"What happens if I don't buy the castle in the second game?"

"Can I slut around in this game too?"

"Like mother like daughter, or is it like daughter like mother? I honestly don't know"

"What's with the gift in the symbol in the corner?"

"Thought all the transportation gates were all gone, I'm pretty sure I'm on one"

"Oh wow, look at all that winter. Just like norway"

"I can make friends by shaking hands"

"I'm gonna make everyone love me with how great I am with my hands"

"For handshakes, I meant handshakes"

"I forgot I had to go back to sanctuary to change, which is much better than just changing out into the open imo"

"Oh hell yea! Look at all those gifts!"

"Bleh the outfit is... yeah"

"Dog potion? For what?

"Pink poodle"

"Doberman"

"White poodle... who wants a poodle?"

"Clockwork dog potion??? What does that even mean???"

"Setter dog potion??? What"

"Five star dog potion...?"

"That's all the gifts, i wanted a gift for myself"

"AWW I GOING WITH ALSATIAN DOG, LOOKS LIKE A GERMAN SHEPHERD OMG"

"I CAN NAME THE DOG"

"should be something fun-.... hehe"

"Betcha u can guess"

"I'm giving 10 coins to everyone, I have 129 left"

"Damn, 20coins left"

"Gotta talk to the man with the small fish name"

"What are those jester shoes"

"My mom, the queen, was busy for like 20 or something years..."

"Oh! I'm getting more gifts!"

"They better be for me istg"

"I went into a sink hole water thing and found a wedding ring"

"I think a fish is proposing to me"

"Ooo, dye"

"Are all my packages dye?"

"Tattoo set, nothing says rebel as much as this, I just got out of the castle"

"Bushy hairstyle"

"Bowerstone soldier uniform...???"

"Yule costume lmao"

"Silly outfits, dye and hair types, oh and that tattoo set"

"Out to explore more!"

[yellowocaballero]

Jake Stays Up Past His Bedtime, Meets His Contemporaries, and Wants a Dog So Fucking Bad

There was a stray dog in the all-night diner.

Jake had been in the bathroom during its dynamic entry, gone unnoticed except for the loud clangs and yells from the kitchen and weirdly wet mystery noises. Diners at three am could be surprisingly noisy places, especially in the City, so Jake hadn’t registered anything until he walked into the dining area in the secluded back of the diner to see an unamused Gena standing in the doorway and a ratty, slobbering dog crouched underneath a table.

“Just what I need,” Gena condemned. “More pests.”

So the 1970s saw a huge explosion in the popularity of horror movies, especially slashers and sci-fi horror. They were big swerves from 1960s B-movie and Atomic Age/Cold War sci-fi horror, and for probably the first time horror hit huge commercial success. Although the slasher/sci-fi horror movie genres would really take off in the 1980s, they were pretty damn popular in the 1970s among the 13-18yo teen boy demographic.

As it always does, Marvel sought to capitalize on this, and it quickly churned out a small batch of spooky sci-fi horror anti-heroes who were sooo cool, man. Over the top cool. Stupid cool. It was all very Hammer Horror - werewolves, demons, vampires, oh my. Yes, this includes Mobius. Now you know why Mobius exists. It also includes Moon Knight, who first appeared in Werewolf By Night as a werewolf hunter decked in silver - the werewolf component of this Hammer Horror lineup.

Yes. The superheroes in this cheap line up of overly cool and hip anti-heroes for teenage boys were all incredibly lame. I've been meaning to do a story with all of them for ages lol. Finally found a good excuse. Here it is.

That's some history for you. This is the second installment in my half-joke teen/mid alter Jake AU. Yes, only Jake is 15. Marc's life is awful. First part linked here. Very short 7k story under the cut. Hopefully it fucking works on dark mode...?!

There was a stray dog in the all-night diner.

Jake had been in the bathroom during its dynamic entry, gone unnoticed except for the loud clangs and yells from the kitchen and weirdly wet mystery noises. Diners at three am could be surprisingly noisy places, especially in the City, so Jake hadn’t registered anything until he walked into the dining area in the secluded back of the diner to see an unamused Gena standing in the doorway and a ratty, slobbering dog crouched underneath a table.

“Just what I need,” Gena condemned. “More pests.”

Jake craned his neck to peer over her head before realizing that the waitress was pretty short and he could see cleanly over the top of her headscarf. If he looked around the dining area he could see the usual suspects - cracked vinyl booths, faded sports team pennants tacked to the wall, a clock perpetually broken, that one creepy dude always conked out in the corner with an empty pot of coffee in front of him. And the dog. “Whoah. I ain’t never seen a dog like that.”

“New York City breeds them different,” Gena said grimly. Jake nodded, equally solemn. “I’ll call animal control. We don’t need fleas in the gyros.”

The dog did look like the dog equivalent of a New York subway rat. Its coat was dark and bushy, the tight curls smeared by mud and grime. Its proportions were spindly like a jackal’s or African wild dog’s (Jake had watched a documentary), but it was thick and muscular like the pittiest pit bull to ever pit bull. It looked like it bullied other pit bulls for their lunch money. It looked like it went on bodybuilding forums, for pit bulls. It was pretty ginormous too - easily the size of a Great Dane, maybe bigger.

It was the coolest dog Jake had ever seen. He needed to be friends with it. A dog like that upped the coolness factor of his human friends by ten.

“That dog is badass,” Jake announced. “Don’t call animal control, Ms. Gena. I’m gonna talk to ‘im.”

Gena whirled on him, cell already in her hand. “You will not. Look at it, it’s obviously rabid. You stay away from that dog.”

“He’s just scared!” The dog bared its teeth, growling like a revving chainsaw. “He just needs a kindred spirit. I can totally -”

“Nope. No way.” Gena lightly put her hand on the small of his back, pushing him away from the back dining area into the front.  “You sit down, I’ll bring you a fresh plate.”

“What about my Switch -”

“I’ll get it for you later. Come on, honey, let’s sit down.”

Jake sat down, somewhat mulishly. He always caved when Gena got all nice like that. It was mostly because she wasn’t nice to anybody else like that, so he had to respect the effort. And if you didn’t respect the effort then she busted out her unimpressed voice, which was how Jake discovered he was physically capable of feeling shame. 

Gena was most of the reason why Jake felt good about coming here without Marc or Steven or Layla, even at three in the morning. The others were always nagging Jake about fronting in a public ‘controlled environment’. If there was some sort of Mid parenting manual then Layla definitely read it. Working up to ‘hanging out with Layla in the house for more than an hour at a time in a non-emergency situation’ had taken months. They had picked the diner as Jake’s Outside Place, and Layla had come and sat with him a few times until he felt confident enough to do it on his own.

Nowadays Jake even told Marc and Steven to scram, ‘cause the diner was his place. It had Gena. She always sat Jake in the emptiest part of the diner, and she always had a question about his Animal Crossing island or Minecraft base. She was nice. She could also be super mean. And if you fucked around in her diner you always found out. She was gonna scare off that stray dog by her unimpressed voice alone.

Jake felt his dog friend dreams shatter like porcelain on cement. Gena would get super mad at him if he went back in there. She’d be even madder if he got himself mauled by the coolest dog ever. The dog was cool and Jake was immortal, so he wouldn’t mind a little mauling, but he just knew it would get Gina and her diner in trouble. Steven was always preaching about being considerate, so maybe this counted. Ugh. Jake hoped Steven never found out about this. He’d get so insufferable. His idea of a pet was a goldfish, what the fuck did he know.

Snarling sounds echoed from the back room. There were only three other patrons in the front - one drunk guy in his thirties with bright blonde hair and two very old men - and neither of them seemed concerned, so at least they wouldn’t have to worry about panicky civilians with no appreciation for dope animals. 

A howl broke through the diner, cracking the air. Somebody from the kitchen cursed loudly and passionately. Jake could hear the faint strains of Gena’s voice through the back rooms, arguing passionately with animal control. He caught some vague sounds of ‘of course it’s a dog -’ before a howl split the air again. The drunk guy looked around, checking if he should give a shit about this or not. Jake poked at his Wordle game. The drunk guy went back to his chili and the infinite ruminations of his drunk-ass soul.

Just a little too late, Jake realized that they were missing a civilian. 

Gena had totally ditched the creepy guy in the corner! The man was a regular! He and Jake always took up Most Secluded Spots #1 and #2. Unlike Jake, all he did was drink coffee and mooch off Gena’s space. She always ignored him, and sometimes yelled at him to get out of there. Jake had never heard him say a word. He wore a sick-ass trench coat and sunglasses everywhere too, like he was Neo or something. New York City sure had the subway rats of people sometimes. He could get mauled if he wanted, Jake didn’t care. 

But it might get Gena in trouble. Totally unacceptable.

She’d thank him in the long run. Jake bolted up from his seat, casually speed walking to the locked doors. The drunk guy squinted at him before shrugging and returning to his drink. Jake dug in his pocket for his lockpicks (Frenchie taught a lot of very useful life skills) and opened the door in seconds, cracking it open just enough so he could stick his head inside.

The dog was looking even unhappier. Jake noticed for the first time that patches of fur were singed off, and one of its ears was nicked. It was holding one of its legs strangely, and Jake wondered if the dog had gotten into a fight before fleeing and taking shelter in the diner.

That was worrying. Jake would really hate to meet whatever won against that thing in a fight. Maybe a human was bullying it? Jake would kill them. Nothing he hated more than animal abusers. Even that Harrow jerk had helped Jake out by murdering Marc and Steven so they could spring him from that stupid sarcophagus. And he had tried to cause the apocalypse.

The dog’s teeth were bared, slobber dripping from canines as long as Jake’s hand. Its eyes rolled to the back of its head, showing almost only red-streaked white, and its body was vibrating like a chainsaw. It could have been on the cover of a heavy metal album. So cool.

Less cool. The Neo Wannabe was, somehow, still asleep in his corner booth. Jake had no idea how that was even possible. Between the howling, growling, and Jake’s earnest overtures for friendship, something had to rouse him. Man slept like the dead. 

Nothing to do. Jake carefully slipped inside the room, keeping his eyes on the dog. Its ears were perked, and it carefully tracked Jake’s movements as he slid the door shut behind him with an almost inaudible click. 

“You don’t know we’re friends yet,” Jake whispered, “but we’re totally friends.” The dog was unimpressed, and Jake turned his attention to the zombie dude in the corner. “Hermano! Wake up! Rabid dog on the loose!”

The man did not move. The dog wriggled out from underneath the table - perhaps anxious for friendship, perhaps anxious to spread rabies. 

“Hermano!” Jake hissed. “Come on!” No response. What was he expecting from the dude who slept through that howling. He gave up on the stage whispers, settling instead for gesturing furiously at the door. “Dude, will you get out of here -”

The dog prowled forward, chest heaving with shuddering gasps. Jake froze, watching it limp forwards. Injured back leg. It was walking directly towards him. 

“Uh,” Jake said. 

“Don’t move,” the sleeping man in the corner said. 

Jake turned around, stepping closer to the sleeping man. “What was that -”

A snarl echoed in Jake’s ears, and the dog pounced. It leapt straight for Jake - or maybe to Jake’s left, at the slowly swinging doors. 

It never made it. Jake barely had a second to register the movement. Something metal flashed through the air, slicing through the apex of the dog’s jump and sending it tumbling towards the ground. It skidded across the floor, hitting the leg of a table and yelping, and Jake saw that the metal projectile had been a small sword. It was buried in the dog’s side, sliding slowly out of the wound as the dog wriggled and whined. 

The man walked forward towards Jake, a katana withdrawn from who the fuck knows where in one hand and his dumb jacket slung over the other. Jake hadn’t even seen him stand up, much less throw the sword.

“I said not to move.”

“Looks like you didn’t need the rescue,” Jake said blankly. The man tilted his chin in serene acceptance of the fact that he was, actually, a complete badass. “What are you, some mall ninja?”

“I vanquish prowlers of the night,” the man intoned. He looked towards the whining dog, adjusting his grip on the katana. It wasn’t sick. Katanas were for weebs. Jake was not a weeb. Liking Sailor Moon didn’t make you a weeb. “Such as that animal.”

“You hunt animals?” Jake asked, outraged. “Like that Kraven the Hunter asshole on TV?”

The man might have blinked. It was hard to tell behind the sunglasses. “I hunt monsters.”

“Monster? That’s a dog. You totally stabbed that poor dog. He wasn’t doing anything to you!”

“It was about to maul you,” the man said, tone finally bent in incredulity. “I was doing my job.”

“What’s that job, killing dogs!”

“Monster -”

The doors slammed open, and Jake jumped as the man blinked. Gena stormed inside, absolutely unsurprised to see either of them, and stopped short only at the very stabbed dog bleeding sluggishly on her tile floor. She surveyed the scene in grim appraisal, leaving Jake to anxiously fix his hat. 

“I was tryin’a rescue him,” Jake piped up. “You totally locked him in with the dog, Ms. Gina!”

“Guess I did, didn’t I.” Gena didn’t seem very bothered by this. Jake didn’t know why he was more worried about the reputation of her establishment than she was. She seemed more focused on the man instead, who was beginning to look uncomfortable. “And why didn’t you do anything ten minutes ago?”

“I was monitoring the situation,” the man said blandly. Gena looked like she wanted to kill him a little bit. More than customer levels, less than supply truck driver levels. Woman had enemies. “It is best practice to avoid aggravating them as much as possible.”

Gena crossed her arms, ‘impressed’ levels plummeting like a rocket on its way home. “So you figured you would just chill out.”

“I was avoiding aggravating it.” The man turned an eye on Jake. His expression and tone of voice didn’t change, but he seemed faintly disapproving. “You did not. You could have died.”

“It’s a dog,” Jake said, baffled and feeling a little condescended to. “Total beast mode dog but I think I can outrun a dog.” Never mind the Green Beret stuff. He was embarrassed to mention that most of the time. And Gena would really think he was lying. Oh, and never mind the fist of justice stuff too. 

“Is it not a dog?” Gena asked, equally baffled and slightly reproachful. “If you brought more of your crazy shit into my diner, Blade -”

“I had nothing to do with this.”

“Really? This isn’t a vampire dog?”

“You know those don’t exist.”

“I knew the vampire mafia didn’t exist until you told me that you needed to sleep on my couch for a week.”

“Can I hold your sword?” Jake asked hopefully. Katanas were totally cringe, but…katana.

“No.” Blade turned back to Gena, completely oblivious to how close to death he tread. “Do you have any silver on you? A blessed blade isn’t going to keep it down for long.”

Jake pointed at the much longer Western sword strapped across his back. How did the guy even sit. “Can I hold that -”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a blessed blade.”

“Are you some kind of Catholic or something?” Jake asked. “I don’t fuck with Catholics. Like, no offense.”

“Considering how you stole all of Nanny’s silver necklaces, I do not own any silver.” Gena shot a glance at the twitching dog on the floor. Sure enough, it was stirring. The sword - sorry, ‘blessed blade’ - was lying on the ground next to it in a small puddle of thick black ichor. Jake wondered if he could snatch it in the confusion. “It did survive you waving around one of your little swords. Maybe it is an evil dog. So can you make yourself useful for once and -”

“The dog’s evil?” Jake asked, crushed. “Ms. Gena, dogs can’t be evil. There’s no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner. Are you really gonna let your friend kill an innocent animal?”

“Not my friend,” Gena said. “I barely know him.” Jake stared at her blankly, and she sighed. “Blade’s a paranoid freak who only spends time in establishments where he knows the proprietor won’t sell out his location to the ‘vampire mafia’ or whatever.” The air quotes were palpable. “I still don’t think the vampire mafia’s real so I let him crash here when he’s recovering from his long path of justice or whatever.” Jake’s blank stare did not abate. “He’s my half-brother.”

Blade shifted uncomfortably. “You should not spread that around. I can’t afford for the Society to know my weak points.”

“Oh, I’m the weak link here?”

“An animal society?” Zoological Association of America, perhaps?  “What kind of messed up life are you living, hermano?”

“I’m a vampire hunter,” Blade stressed. “I cleanse the world of the night stalkers.”

“It’s still not a real job.”

“Why?” Jake asked, baffled. 

“Daddy issues,” Gena said. 

“Fuck you,” Blade said. 

A growl split the increasingly inane conversation, and Jake turned to see the dog stumbling to its feet. Its wound was half-closed, seeping blood, but as the dog growled and hissed the wound continued to seal itself shut. Blade drew up his sword, tightening his grip on the hilt, and he glanced backwards at the alert Gena and vaguely worried Jake. 

“I will take care of this,” he intoned. “You two get out of here.”

“You mean kill it?” Jake asked, voice accidentally pitching higher. “You can’t kill it! You can’t kill animals, that’s a rule.”

“Seeing as it is trying to kill us, I’ll rule it self defense,” Blade said dryly. He stepped in front of them, watching the dog stumble to its feet and snarl at them. “I recognize that look in its eyes. It won’t stop until we’re all dead.”

But Jake could only shake his head, strangely crushed, and Gena gently pulled both of them back towards the double doors.  “It’s not the dog’s fault it’s violent,” Jake said weakly. “Somebody else probably made it that way, you know…?”

Gena’s expression softened, and she reached up to squeeze Jake’s shoulder. He tried not to lean into the gesture. “I know, honey. It’s not fair. We’re going to do everything we can for the dog, alright? I won’t let Blade kill it.”

“I can’t.” Blade moved around the slowly rousing dog, silent footsteps brushing the tile. “With no silver I can’t kill it. We have to lock it back inside and evacuate the establishment.”

Gena cursed under her breath, squeezing Jake’s shoulder again before lightly pushing him back behind Blade. “Glad I got that Inexplicable Acts of God insurance now. Blade, you have to help me get Jake out.”

“Little busy,” Blade gritted out. The dog was fully upright now, eyes fixed back on Blade. It was panting even heavier, and Jake watched in fascination as the wound on its stomach completely finished sealing - leaving no memory of the mark but a patch of shaved skin. “Your friend’s a grown man, he can take care of himself.  I am more concerned about the darkness of -”

The dog sprinted forward, dodging Blade and making straight for the doors. Blade had clearly been expecting another aerial pounce, and he had to shift his balance and wrap another hand around the hilt, moving to stab it. His hesitation cost him - the dog dodged the strike and moved past him, jumping straight for Jake and Gena.

Jake wasn’t as fast as Blade, but he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Gena and threw them both out of the way, taking the fall on the hard tile as the doors burst open. Blade cursed loudly, immediately running after it.

Thanks for checking up on them, Blade. They were doing fine, thank you so much. Jake let go of Gena, rolling his impacted shoulder with a slight grunt. Gena scrambled outwards, reaching out a hand and helping pull Jake to his feet. 

“That was not the first time you’d done that,” Gena said. Jake grunted, massaging his shoulder. Tingly. “Why didn’t you mention you were ripped?”

“It never came up?” Jake liked bulky clothing with a lot of layers. It was cozy. “Only assholes brag about that kind of stuff. Guys who carry katanas, you know. Cringelords.”

“I thought all you did was play video games,” Gena said frankly. God, he wished. Beating up on guys was fun and all, but beating up guys virtually was funner. You could stop for snack breaks. Or you could just put on Animal Crossing if you felt like it. “You’re okay too?” 

Jake nodded fastidiously, pointing at the doors. “Just fine, ma’am. Should I go help out Blade? He looks like he might need it.”

“He’ll be fine,” Gina said blithely. She eyed the double doors speculatively, already digging in her pocket for the key again. "We better stay away from all that nonsense and stay in here. I don’t want to walk into the middle of an exorcism or something.”

Jake couldn’t help but falter. “Uh, Ms. Gena. I don’t talk about this much with you, ‘cause it’s never that important or anything, but I could…you know, take care of that dog for you. Quick and easy too. If you let me, I can just -”

“No. There’s no need for that.” Gena’s expression was set firm and immovable, but Jake opened his mouth to protest anyway. “No. I’m certain you could help if necessary, Jake. But that’s what people like my shitty half-brother are here for. It was his choice to swear on the tomb of his vampire dad or whatever to protect people, so let him do his job.”

“But it’s my job too,” Jake said weakly.

But Gena just shook her head. “Whatever that job was, Jake, it’s messed you up enough for a lifetime. I won’t let it happen here too. Not in my diner.” She grabbed his hand, and Jake was shocked enough that he let her. “Now come on, I’m getting you out of here.”

Jake, of course, could get himself out of there just fine. But Gena didn’t seem to care about that.

He had suspected for a while that Gena knew something was off about him. She never said as much and he never made it obvious, and it continued to be something they both politely didn’t talk about. But Gena always treated him like the person he truly was instead of the person he appeared to be, and that was reason enough to think she was great.

A familiar sound burst from the main room. A soft thump, as if something heavy had landed on a down comforter, followed by a harsh roar. No explosion, but something had definitely just been set on fire. 

Gena pulled him towards the exit, bursting out of the doors in hot pursuit of an exit out of the building. She stopped short, eyes widening, and it took Jake a second to register what had stopped her. 

There was a line of fire in front of the two main doors out of the diner. Just fire. Hanging out. The fire floated a few inches off the ground, blazing away merrily and perfectly controlled, but Jake could feel their oppressive heat from several yards away. The fire didn’t even seem to be scorching anything. 

Magic. Had to be. Jake tore his eyes away from the fire, scanning the emptied main room and searching for the magician dog. He found the dog easily enough - it was cornered against the far wall, howling in rage but unable to move either direction without leaving a clean opening for Blade. Blade couldn’t kill it, and the dog was clearly about to take its chances soon. Or it would, if it wasn’t for the man standing next to Blade.

It was the drunk man. Apparently not that drunk. He was dressed in some cool all-leather getup, with a black jacket flap zipped up against his chest and actual leather pants. There was a chain looped around his waist and fire crawling up his arms, reaching all the way towards his head. Tongues of flame licked at the man’s jaw, creeping around his eyes before receding. 

It was unbelievably cool. But it was too cool. Like, try-hard cool. Just like Blade. A guy cool enough to pull off a leather jacket didn’t need a leather jacket to be cool. All of that leather had to be compensating for something. Real cool was effortless and casual. Like Layla and Gena. Frenchie was pretty cool too, but he worked too hard to be cool to actually be cool. Frenchie wore leather, but it was only ever sick-ass bomber jackets and leather boots. It was tasteful. This was not tasteful.

“Excuse me!” Gena yelled, startling both uncool guys. “Why is the exit blocked off in an emergency!”

“So our furry friend here doesn’t get away and resume his reign of terror across Harlem,” the blonde guy said. He gave the dog a mean smile, teeth bone white and shining. “I’m sorry about that, I didn’t know there were still people in here. We’ll be out of your hair in a second.”

At least Blade looked vaguely unhappy. “Drop the fire, Johnny. If you’re going to kill it I want them both out of here.”

“Kill it?” Johnny asked, as if Blade had accused him of something distasteful instead of just murdering perfectly nice dogs. “I wouldn’t kill him! I told you, I’m dragging him to Hell. We’ll be out once he settles down. Think of it like Doggie Day Care.”

“Hard pass.”

Gena leaned in close to Jake, letting go of his hand. “See? It’s all fine. Mr. Zippo over here’s just sending the dog to Hell. That’s all.”

“That is not where I heard dogs go when they die,” Jake said dubiously.

“It’s where they go when they disrupt my business, that’s for fucking certain.”

The dog howled again, and for the first time Jake registered that something about the howl wasn’t quite natural. It rang like an unearthly bell, as if the sound was echoing someplace far away. If you really stopped and listened for that strange sound then you could hear something beautiful. Jake wondered if the leather jacket squad could hear it. 

Or maybe it was only Jake, finding the beauty in the deadly. He wondered if the leather jacket squad could find that too. Somehow he knew that they couldn’t. A sense in the back of Jake’s head - a sense probably born from Khonshu - told Jake that the men had a significantly lower body count than he did. And that was why Jake didn’t wear a leather jacket.

 Johnny (dumber name than Blade: discuss?) turned back to the probably-not-a-dog, flashing his bone white teeth in what could only charitably be called a smile. “Look at what Mephistophiles dragged in. Are you ready to come quietly this time?”

The dog snarled, hackles raised and neck arched in challenge. Jake wondered what kind of person had beef with a dog. Depends on the dog, maybe. 

“I knew where your nose was leading you. I just got there first.” The man reached for his belt, grabbing one end of the chain wrapped around his hips and pulling it out. The chain snapped out, flying into the air and reaching far beyond its ordinary length. “Beats me why you’ve chased the moon’s trail into an all-night diner, but I guess werewolves just follow their noses.”

Under his breath, so quietly Jake almost missed it, Blade muttered, “The monologuing…”

The dog howled - the dog that might not actually be a dog - but the man just wrapped his chains around his wrist.

“Jack, you owe me dinner after this.”

The chain snapped into the air, a snake leaping for the kill. The air cracked as the chain lashed out, striking the wolf and eliciting a howl of pain.

Jake didn’t even register it. The noise and sight skipped straight past his brain and into his brainstem. It would have been fine if he had been remotely cognizant of it. But Jake felt a lot of things he didn’t quite understand, and he did a lot of things first and only understood why he did them later. 

This wasn’t so mysterious. Like a hand jolting away from a hot stove, Jake squeezed his eyes shut and clapped his hands over his ears. The snap hit his ears again, and he pressed harder. 

Something roared - like the dog, but not. Something far bigger and far more dangerous. Something toppled over and something else crashed, and waves of heat washed over Jake. Something tugged at his arms, trying to pull him away, but Jake shook them off.

Somebody grunted in pain - a highly familiar sound - as another crash rattled the diner. The werewolf howled in pain too, sending a spike of pain shooting through Jake’s own skull, and a second afterwards Blade cursed as something else went flying.

“Jake! Jake, come on, move!”

Jake opened his eyes. 

The first thing he saw was Gena, looking a little frantic and a lot like she wished she could chuck Jake like a football behind the counter. The second thing he saw was Johnny punching a giant werewolf. The third thing he saw was the giant werewolf. 

It was hard at work trying to maul Johnny, but Jake could still see it clearly. It was four times taller than the dog and standing on its hind legs - somehow turned bipedal and vicious. Its body was almost human-like, save for its strange knees and arching ankles, and its torso was nothing but bulging muscle and coarse fur. It had a purely wolf’s head, eyes crazed and wild, and when it reared back its ears brushed Gena’s hanging lamp fixtures. Tables and chairs were overturned across the diner, napkin holders and plates smashed on the ground, and Blade was picking himself up from the ruins of a shattered table. 

Johnny’s arms were practically in the werewolf’s mouth. Two thin human arms were the only things propping the gaping maw open, the teeth scraping against leather, and the werewolf didn’t seem to notice the hellfire scraping his nose. Blinded by rage. 

Rage. Was it rage?

“Gena, move -”

“Not without Jake!”

“What’s wrong with him!”

“Something, fuck if I know - just help!”

The werewolf reared back and swiped at Johnny, who caught the motion with another chain and pulled. The werewolf roared again, pulling hard at the chain and yanking Johnny off his feet. Johnny yelped, chain flying out of his hands, and it lashed backwards through a light fixture, shattering the bulb with a thick crash.

“This is wrecking the place,” Gena said miserably. “Shit.”

That snapped Jake out of it. The world came rushing back in, returning sensation to his fingers and toes, and Jake slowly shook himself. 

The werewolf was only attacking Johnny. Jake saw that it had batted Blade away, but it was trying to maul Johnny. Its eyes were rolling in his head, slobbering and growling. Johnny’s head was slowly catching fire, a worrying development that he didn’t seem to care about, and he groaned with effort as he fended off the wolf’s attempts to snap him in half. 

The wolf hadn’t even looked at Gena. But it was ruining her diner anyway. Wasn’t that the way of it. 

Jake realized, with a strange combination of wonder and slight embarrassment, that there were no bad animals. Just bad owners. 

“Everything’s fine, Ms. Gena,” Jake said, lightly shaking her off. “It’s just trying to help.”

This didn’t reassure Gena much. “Help who?”

Jake ignored her. He looked to his right, squinting at one of the intact booths. He pressed his lips shut and thought loudly: Khonshu, how do I make it stop? 

Khonshu reclined in the booth, sipping black coffee from a pure white mug. A logo on the mug read ‘MOONLIGHT ALL NITE DINER’. I had no hand in this one. You reached for my magic directly. You’ll have to cease the power yourself. He took a sip of the coffee, careful not to stain his all white suit. Somehow. We ought to fetch Marc. 

Marc would make this so much worse. 

True. What are you going to do? 

Jake didn’t have to think about it. 

He reached into the pool of Khonshu’s magic - obvious now that he knew it was there, so bright and hot it was a miracle he hadn’t noticed before now - and exhaled slowly. The magic had been boiling hot and heavy, and as Jake took a few more deep breaths he felt the choppy seas abate into subtle calm. He looked at Gena, wearing her worry like an iron shield, standing in the middle of danger just to be sure that he got to safety, and the seas turned peaceful and placid. 

The werewolf reared back - cognizant, now, that Johnny wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. The chains drooped and fell from its bulging arm, cut and rubbed raw by the metal. Its heaving chest calmed with Jake’s own deep breaths, and Johnny quickly scrambled upwards. 

“Leave him alone,” Jake said sharply. “He’s not hurting you.”

“Not hurting me?” Johnny cried. “He was going straight for the skull!”

“He’s not doing it anymore,” Jake said condescendingly. He gently shook Gena off again, walking forward and picking through the battleground of upturned chairs and split tables. “He felt cornered. He was just trying to get out. Then we started attacking him and he freaked. He only tried to hurt you ‘cause he was scared.”

“Uh huh,” Blade said. 

“It’s true.” Jake stopped in front of the werewolf. It had subsided completely, jaw hanging and spit rolling from its teeth. It fell down on all fours, crouched like a weird monkey wolf. Man, werewolves were super weird looking. “You alright?”

The werewolf snarled at him. Alright, Jake would be rude too. He normally was.

Jake bent down in front of it. It put him below the werewolf’s line of sight - the thing was giant - but maybe that made it feel better. “Thanks for helping. You did a really good job. And you were super cool. Do you have any idea how big your teeth are? They’re huge, man!” The werewolf growled. But, like, in a friendly way. “You got all super cool like that to help me out. But I know you don’t really like being this way. Everything’s all good now. You can relax. You’re safe.”

The werewolf howled. It was a new sound - different from its angry and scared howls. There was something mournful about it, as if it was calling for something far away. Jake wondered if it felt the moon, and if the moon always reminded it of that loneliness. What memory did the moon spark? Why did the moon always bring loneliness?

Was it the werewolf’s feelings? Or was it the feeling of that person inside the werewolf - the person who always turned into a monster alone, and who was left shivering in an all-night diner in Harlem surrounded by enemies and strangers?

“It’s a new moon,” Jake whispered, and - if only for the werewolf - he made it so. “It’s a new moon, and you’re safe at home…”

The werewolf subsided slowly - crumpling into itself from the monster into the dog, and reaching back outwards again to take the form of a man. Jake watched in fascination as a human slowly emerged from the monster - as the light changed, as the sun changed position, and the monster showed its other face as the man. 

The world didn’t stop turning, and the sun didn’t stop shining on somebody else’s patch of Earth. The human would show his monstrous face again, and there would be nothing he could do about it. No matter how much he hated it. Somebody put that monster inside of him, and the monster demanded to exist - for its pain to be heard, for its pain to be inflicted upon another. 

The man stirred, groaning with a werewolf’s bassy growl before it subsided into a regular human moan. He cracked his eyes open, and Jake would recognize that look anywhere. 

“I’ll get you some Advil.”

***

The sun rose over Harlem. 

Werewolf Dude - whose name was Jack Russel, hilariously - watched it with an exhausted fascination as he gulped his coffee. Jake had the sense that watching the sunrise after a full moon was a novel sight. Gena looked as if the entire situation was a novel sight, but she made them food anyway.

They squeezed into a booth, two pots of coffee standing sentinel over plates of cold pie and hastily assembled burgers. Jack’s plate was just a heaping of raw meat, which smelled weird but offered tantalizing possibilities. Jake tried to sneak a strand before Gena slapped his hand away. 

Johnny Blaze was telling some highly dramatized story to Blade, who was both pretending he didn’t care and correcting every second sentence. Jake got the sense that Johnny was the type of person to speak entirely in flowery metaphor and Blade was the overly literal type. They were friends, although Jake didn’t know how. Johnny and Jack Russel were also friends, equally mysteriously. For a guy who talked a lot about how he was a lone rider of the night, he sure had a lot of friends. Guess that was what happened when you took enough road trips. 

“You’re a bit of a legend, man,” Blade told Jack. He had surrendered his leather coat with easy grace, complimenting the scavenged pair of jeans Gena found in the chef’s locker. They smelled like mystery meat, but so did Jack. “So is the Man-Thing -”

“Real? No comment.” Jack stuffed another handful of meat in his mouth, eyes fixed on the window. “Johnny, that was the shittiest capture job I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you rate your captures?” Johnny asked, scandalized. 

“Wouldn’t the worst ones be the guys you ate?” Blade asked, always focused on the important questions.

Jack tilted his head in a concession of the point. “Worst that didn’t involve kebab. Why didn’t you even go full flame out? I hate fire.”

“I did,” Johnny said, “it just pissed you off more. And I don’t like walking into diners with a flaming skull, thanks -”

Blade sipped his coffee pointedly. “Vanity’s a sin, you know.”

Jake ignored them. He had finally rescued his Switch from quarantine, and he was happily settled with Animal Crossing and pecan pie. He liked watching the sunrise in Animal Crossing too. Watching the world slowly wake up and start another peaceful day was nice. You should take peace where you got it. 

The people around him seemed to agree. They could shrug off a rampaging werewolf attack as another day with Jack, and easily invite him to the table in the diner they ruined. Gena on the phone with the insurance people. Judging from the various and assorted noises, she was yelling at them.

“Hey. Uh…what’re you playing?”

Jake grunted, caught in the epic highs and lows of early morning fishing. “Animal Crossing.”

“That’s cool. Is it…like…a horse simulator?” Jack grimaced, fully aware how completely uncool he was being. Way cooler as a dog. Jake didn’t play favorites, but he totally played favorites. “Sorry. I still don’t know what’s up with those things. Last I checked people went on walks for entertainment.”

“Okay, Boomer,” Jake said, without looking up from his console.

“...right. Listen, uh…I don’t really remember what happened, but Johnny filled me in.” Jack eyed Jake carefully, soft brown eyes glinting yellow. “What did you do back there?”

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Jake said blithely.

“Johnny said that you calmed me down.” Jack glanced around before leaning in, folding his arms on the table. “He also said that I freaked out when you freaked out.”

“Sounds like everyone was freaking out.” Jake jammed the buttons, successfully landing a…sea bass. Damn. “I was just mindin’ my own business.”

“But you did something,” Jack insisted. “There’s something about you. You smell different. Like light and ozone. Who are you?”

“Somebody who doesn’t need an interrogation.” Gena materialized at Jake’s elbow, making Jack jump a foot in the air. “Leave him be. He’s had a long day.”

“Uh, Gena?” Johnny looked at Gena, then at Jake, then back at Gena. “Is your friend…” He made a little jabbing motion at his temple, somewhat abashed. “You know?”

“I don’t know,” Gena said pointedly, “are you an emissary from hell with a flaming skull for a head?” Blade snickered. “Don’t you fucking start with me, Eric.” Jack snickered at Blade. Blade flipped Gena off. “He’s a paying customer and never causes me any trouble. Unlike you three. He can be off if he wants, he ain’t hurting anyone.”

 Everybody looked away and mumbled vague assurances that they totally loved people who were off, nothing wrong with a good off, my cousin’s off, etc. Jake watched in satisfaction as ‘pulled some Sailor Moon bullshit in a Harlem diner’ was filed under the ‘off’ category, which was now untouchable. Smooth moves, Gena. 

“Your diner gets some real weirdos, Ms. Gena,” Jake said wisely.

“This is nothing,” Gena said, pained. “Daredevil landed in my dumpster last week.”

“Whoah, no shit!”

“Yup. Hit him with a broom ‘til he left. I don’t need men loitering in my dumpsters.”

“It’s, like, unhygienic.” Jake wondered if this was a statistically improbable number of weirdos, or a normal number of weirdos if you live in NYC. “Did you let him clean up at least?”

Gena abruptly looked a little shifty. “DD and I have an understanding.” Jake now somehow had the sense that the concentration of weirdos in this diner was not entirely random. “If you see any more weirdos walk in here, Jake, tell ‘em that I charge ten percent more if they’re seen.”

“Is this why Crawly keeps calling you a business partner?” Jake asked skeptically. Gena adopted a very innocent face, which did not suit her. “ ‘Cause you said not to let Crawly in either.”

“That is just because he’s nasty. Come on, Jake, I called your sister-in-law. She’s waiting for you outside.”

“I knew you two were friends,” Jake hissed. “I knew it.”

“All women know each other,” Gena said, straight faced. She looked back over the table. “You three are cleaning up my damn diner. Only time I’ve seen the place this bad was when Jessica Jones watched the Giants lose the play-offs. All of you up, up, up.”

Jake slid out first, leaving the other men to follow grumbling after him. “Who’s Jessica Jones?”

“The worst decision I ever made,” Gena said darkly. 

“Wow. Bad breakup.”

“Let’s get going.”

Layla was waiting for him outside. She looked mostly asleep, but also slightly wigged. Jake silently passed her a giant cardboard cup of coffee, which she began chugging without a second thought. The neon signs in the shops across the street were lighting piece-meal, lending Layla’s frizzy hair a glow that slowly grew until it framed a halo around her face. 

Layla finally surfaced for air, gasping. “Have you been here all night? I freaked out when I woke up and saw that you weren’t home!”

“Sorry,” Jake said, somewhat abashed. “We had a situation.”

“A werewolf situation?” Layla asked flatly. She glanced at Gena, who only looked exhausted. “A werewolf situation for real? In real life?”

“Shit’s weird in New York,” Gena said, pained.

Layla sighed, holding out an arm, and Jake embraced her. She squeezed him tightly before separating and squeezing his hand. Carefully, she said, “Apparently some arsonist biker took care of it. Before it…calmed down. On its own.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” Jake said happily. 

And Layla couldn’t help but smile too. “Not a thing?”

“C’mon, man,” Jake said, “I leave the demon hunting to the experts. Did you know there are demon hunting experts?”

“It’s good to remember my life could be worse.”

It could be worse. Way worse. Jake was pretty happy to be himself sometimes. 

He could probably have been a demon hunter if he wanted. Maybe Marc did some light demon hunting here and there. But Jake liked being Jake better - Jake, who could calm down a monster, and who didn’t have to hurt it. 

Gena flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, shutting the all-night diner for repairs, and Jake happily retold the entire sordid story to Layla as they disappeared into the rising horizon. 

[xamaxenta]

Hnnnn sabo with his beloved dragon lusting after the pretty prince steadily growing more and more rabid about it as breeding seasons causes these feelings to bounce between their mental bond. At first it’s only sabo. It’d be too much to spring everything on the pretty sheltered prince at once sabo and his dragon both know that they need to ease him into it so sabo seducing the royal is a good starting place. Sabos dragon gets some relief from the sensations of the event trickling through the mental bond.

Then they both lavish ace in attention sabo explaining that dragons are smarter then people think and how his obviously adores ace look at how he preens with aces attention. And oh he usually never lets anyone fly with us you’re special. Soon ace is spending an equal vast about of time with the two of them even coaxed into having a few intimate moments in front of sabos dragon and it starts really getting ace off when that happens because the dragon will not stop staring. Then one day sabos dragon will not stop licking ace even when sabo initiates a round and one thing leads to another until the dragon is using his long tongue to ‘clean ace off’ which just creates more of a mess and a sobbing overstimulated prince.

Ace ends up much more overstimulated when he’s opened up and fucked by the beast later huge ridged cock only able to fit because sabos giant dick has been breaking him in for weeks

DAMN THIS IS DEGENERATE AS FUCK 👑 here king u dropped this wowa

I like how you took my other dragon rider au and went so heres some beastiality bestie 💅 and you know what im a dragon fucker in every conceivable way why not

Its kinda hot to think abt Sabo and his dragon being so close they share a mental link and stuff and that the dragon wants Ace too thats so taboo especially if its Prince Ace too waiufhfht im a huge fan of Ace getting defiled by a dragon and his crazy rider thats the good shit

Luffy’s off bonding with Red his new dragon partner so Ace doesnt spend as much time with him bc according to Koala Luffy needs to be independent during this stage of Dragon bonding 101

So Sabo eases Aces concerns by sitting with him ajd going thru the stuff Luffy will encounter n stuff, maybe gets a little handsy, slides a palm up Ace’s thigh, and then Sabo’s dragon “North” helpfully supplies him the image of Ace pinned beneath his claws with those damned tight riding pants shredded to pieces

Sabo blinking away the lewd imagery glances at North who snorts gruffly in their chest and looks away, bemused Sabo hopes Ace didnt notice their little exchange

[sophaeros]

so i dreamt i was listening to sias on apple music and when i looked at the album cover it turned into a slideshow (some photos some videos) of a photoshoot they'd done with kate moss and some older guy?? in terms of style and colours it was exactly like the green/yellow sias release photoshoot yk the one. the italian ingenues in a car holding a scythe. same outfits too. except in this one they were in a garden and alex was playing the guitar and singing to a group of kids for some reason. it was really pretty tbh :( alex looked so soft and cute it was very ethereal. actually also kind of giving that one sias era snoozer magazine shoot. like alex was sitting cross legged on the grass with the guitar in his lap w the kids sitting in a loose semicircle in front of him and his eyes were half closed. and each one had like an alt text button you could click on but it wasnt actually alt text it was quotes that alex kate and the older guy had said in an accompanying interview BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT TJEY SAID UGHHH i found the link to the interview but all i remember was kate moss talking to the guy and saying yo 💀 💀 i wanted to read alex's part but reading was so hard i was like it's ok i'll send the link to the server im in and catch up later (i realised my mistake when i was drifting awake but i couldnt fall back asleep into that segment FML) i think humbug also had a similar slideshow thing but i dont remember anything about it

(next part under a cut bc it's so damn long and also derails in a baffling way)

then it turns out that back when this photoshoot was released (my brain said 2007 for some reason..) it was linked to a secret part of their website where you had this video game where you could choose to tear down this beautiful little pixel house for the chance to obtain. a bed. and there were only a few hundred available. but in order to do so you had to solve a series of clues and riddles and it was so difficult that most people couldnt complete it. after the event was over they'd posted an explanation of the solution with all four of them taking turns to say each part in transcript form and matt went first but i only took a short glance bc there was so much going on like i saw math adjacent shit and was like ok nvm my ass is not understanding all that. there'd been a post of a fan with the second fastest time in the world (about 160 seconds..?minutes? idk) selling the bed she'd gotten it was all bright green pixels very simplistic style. i wanted to experience it for myself so i looked up a link and it led me to a neocities of presumably a replica someone had done after am took the official one off their website it was smth like "theoriginof-mypixelhouse.neocities" something like that idk the game had some button pop ups like are you sure you want to proceed with tearing down this house? there was a philosophical element to it. idk. the game's voice was in japanese and it said "but it's dangerous.." as i clicked yes and then i saw some scary face flashing in dim red in the darkness to the side of the screen (also for some reason i was playing this on a huge screen it might have been a projector on the wall kjshdk) and i was like oh shit it's a horror remake bye im not brave enough for this and quickly closed the tab as the face flashed again.

thus ended the am segment of my dream. after this it was dr doofenschmirtz and perry the platypus improvising an instrumental song for a talent show with the aro and ace flags displayed on their table 😭 😭 😭

[ishikawayukis]

(hi!! I was pretty busy but I’m finally on vacation and came to my home country to visit my family last week!! hope you’re doing well<3)

Fr, I feel awkward when that happens bc I never know if I should be the one switching languages or waiting for the other person to do so, but I might change between both bc atp I’m just as bad talking in both JAJAJAJA pero no me sale el video:’) I’ve tried to click it but I think the link is missing lol

Okay idk if these are the flashbacks you were referring to, but now when I was finishing skypeia arc (my favorite so far!!) I did skip the whole Nolan backstory 😂😭 I’m sorry but I really needed to see Luffy go kick that electric ass ://

There’s more we can learn about the crew’s past?? That I don’t mind JAJAJA (es que si es lindo<3 him and Iñaki are so precious) so far I only know Sanji said he’s from the North Blue👀

NO WAY??? I mean I can see it if these episodes aired during 2001 but that’s not the reason I was expecting for Pell’s miraculous survival JAJAJ

SHUT UP IM DOWN BAD FOR HIM!!!!! Skypeia Zoro is everything to me I swear, he didn’t give a sh*t for that god act and he cared so much for everyone in the crew :c oh and I’m watching it in japanese!! I don’t really like watching anime dubbed lol Y SI BIEN LINDO JAJAJAJA I need more Luffy singing moments<3

OKAY I might reach it then bc I’m on the Enies Lobby arc rn (which is so freaking cool abilities-wise bc damn todos han tenido un upgrade increíble + el plot está tenso y emocionante JAJAJ) AND HELLO?? SANJI’S LEG JUST CAUGHT FIRE?? ZORO SUMMONED A FREAKING DEMON SPIRIT?? LUFFY HAS TWO NEW ABILITIES ON HIS SLEEVES??? (metaphorically at least lol) but yeah idk how much I’ll be able to watch while I’m home BUT I really want to know how this ends JAJAJAJ (y gracias por no dar spoilers<3 veremos como nos va con el timeskip JAJAJ)

Oh no you’re totally right, if it was zombie that would be a cry for help LOL when I heard the song for the first time, although I did like it, it felt too heavy for me if I were to listen to it on my bad days:’)

OH ALSO I GOT THAT THIRD PIERCING JAJAJAJAJ

have fun on vacation!! love that you were able to visit your home country too <333

(me dí cuenta q el video no estaba cuando se lo quería mostrar a una amiga y dije ay jesú la tecnología me ganó AAJJAJA) but it honestly was just dumb it was a video fo ace singing propuesta indecente to sanji and zoro being like i Will kick your ass it just had me giggling so much LMAO

those are exactly the flashbacks i'm refering to LMAO if you thought nolan's was bad...... i am so sorry they're gonna get worse LDSGKHL much love to those characters tho nolan's story was very fun i just did not care. and yeah there's more you're gonna learn about the crew, sanji being from the north blue is a huge huge hint tbh i honestly can't wait for you to get there

skypiea zoro truly is top tier 10/10 can you believe there's people that say you can skip thsi arc like are you stupid. and nice i can't watch things dubbed either unless they're things i watched dubbed as a kid LMAO otherwise i'm like what the Hell is going on man

ennies lobby is SO GOOOOOOOD they all go insane like we can see how much they've grown and just everything about that arc is so good, i'm usually not a big fan of the fights because they uuuuh pq las prolongan mucho AJJAAJ (se me olvidó el inglés) but the fights in ennies lobby? amazing 10/10 kaku i don't care that you're a bad guy i love you please be good man

AJAJAJAJ AMOOOOOO next time i'm about and about with my friends i will most likely get it as well because who am i kidding i don't have any self control LMAO

[commanderquinn]

Good Space Chapter 3: Hey Gringo

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

—

master list / ao3 chapter link

—

warnings: ayyy!! none this time!! unless you wanna count Highly Disrespectful Thoughts ❤️ tho!!! the flashbacks are shuri, heads up for anyone who is a big baby (like me) and still crying over WF. also (shocker) bucko angst/panic attacks

song: it KALEO time!! istg there are golden oldies and hippie classics on this intended playlist, we just havent gotten to them yet. this choice is mega self-indulgent on my end ngl, buuuuut thats the whole fic in general lbr (side note: every time i write Angy Ava, i want you to imagine the vocal intensity of jefferson airplane’s lead singer, grace slick)

the timing of this chapter could NOT have been better with the probably-russian hackers knocking out ao3 that long. i mean it dude, im pretty sure the universe had a good chuckle over this one bc i sure as shit had to sit here and go “youre pullin my leg bud”

also now feels like a good time to mention, for absolutely no reason in particular (definitely not bc of Bucky being a Huge Simp this chapter), that i hc bucky as a dom with service top leanings. i just didnt wanna give the impression that reader is dom for this and accidentally get anyones hopes up with no payoff. i try to avoid that as much as i can bc god knows i drop Big Honkers on y’all every damn chapter, id hate for you to get all the way to the end of this and not get your cookie, y’know? (i am, ofc, down to write mega sub bucky for smut-shot requests)

also remember when i mentioned giving ava a HANDFUL of physical details for writing fuel? 🌝 (ur gonna think im funny rlly soon, dw)

anyways if you dont have adhd, good luck and god speed with the idiots thinkin abt each other in this chapter ❤️ im so sorry in advance 🥺😔

—

Febuary 17th, 2015

"Good morning, Sh—"

"Have you left your worthless husband yet?" Shuri impatiently taps a finger against her elbow, where her arms are crossed over her chest. 

She watches Ava sigh on the other end of the vidcall. The woman looks too tired. She needs rest. Shuri wants to stab Alec all over again. She's going to make a new, self-lacing, possibly electrified dagger just for the occasion. "I know you're just trying to—"

"We can come to get you. I will send T'Challa. You must promise me that you will have him get me something from Washington." Shuri raises a stern finger, pointing it directly at the camera. "Do not let him pick it out himself—"

"Shuri, honey, I love you with all my heart, but please—"

"I want you to pick it. The furniture in your office is ridiculous; I want something like that."

A smile far too small pulls at the corners of Ava's lips. Her smile used to move freely, and it will do so again if Shuri has any say in the matter. Which she does. "Well, thank you, I work very hard to keep it ridiculous. Now—"

"It will make me think of you whenever you are not around to make fun of my brother with me. My mother will get the lawyers you need to start your divorce—"

"I—sweetheart, please, it's been a very long night—"

"It is the afternoon where you are. You have not even had breakfast, have you? Of course not. You are busy doing the work while Alec—"

"Shuri!" Ava puts a hand over her eyes and takes an unsteady breath in. "I'm sorry. This is—it's been a long night. I didn't mean to yell at you—"

"You need to start yelling much more, Ava. Aim it at your worthless husband while you tell him you are leaving," Shuri argues, entirely fed up with how the doctor allows the spineless dickhead to make her miserable. "T'challa will remove him for you while you stay here with us."

Alec—she refuses to call him Ryder; the man does not deserve to have taken the doctor's name—leans into the camera view, his expression bored. Dismissive. Shuri wants to smash his wrinkling, greasy face in with her fist. "While I appreciate the offer, your majesty, my wife and I can handle our private life alone."

Shuri glares back at him, one of her eyebrows hiked as far up as she can comfortably get it. "Do you really think being aware of your presence on this call will deter me from reminding my friend that you are a demon?" She looks pointedly at Ava, who's still covering her eyes. "He is a demon. A pasty, rude demon."

"Alec is going to shut the fuck up now, I promise." The fingers over Ava's eyes pull in until she's pinching the bridge of her nose tightly. She looks as if she's fighting off a migraine. She probably is. And it is Alec's fault. "That way, we can get this over with, and I can finally get some sleep—"

"Which you need and are not getting enough of." The words slip out before Shuri can stop them. 

Ava's shoulders deflate slightly. Her hand drops, and she attempts another smile that doesn't reach her eyes, making Shuri feel a pang of guilt. "No, I'm not. But I will, just as soon as we finish the basic adaptation matrix. I promise."

Ava always encourages her to speak her mind, no matter what. Sometimes it gets her into trouble. She is not looking to berate her favorite Canadian; she loves leaving the vidcomm between their labs on. The open connection is a comforting window into the outside, one that lets Shrui indulge in any question or raving that passes through her mind. 

Alec is a poison in her friend's life, and Shuri will not back down from reminding her of that. But mother and Nakia have sat with her over this, explaining that sometimes, an abused heart will cling to what hurts it. They have to be supportive while Ava works through this. She's getting there. Just not nearly fast enough for Shuri's patience.

Father has been reminding them all that Alec is a risk, given what he knows. Trusting Ava means trusting her for the duration, and they can't go back now. If she says she is handling the issue of separating the man from her work, they have to allow her room to do that. But T'Challa has been ordered to keep close, or at the very least, ready to go.

As much as she despises Alec, Shuri does not wish to see Ava hurt in this. Not any more than necessary. She is also not interested in trying to control her friend the way her mother sometimes tries to control her. It is infuriating. 

So, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she lets some of the fight leave her. For the sake of Ava, not the pasty demon. "I have the latest build ready for transfer." 

"You're sure you've secured the connection on your end?" Alec has the audacity to question, even outside of the frame. "I'm not interested in spending my week chasing traces of this—"

"Do I look as if I will hesitate to strike you, colonizer?!"

—

"I'm just saying, Humpty Dumpty."

"Fuck off," Bucky wheezes at the billionaire, compressing the towel he grabbed from his new medkit against his ribs. Why he expected to make it through his first mission back without having to crack it open, he's not entirely sure now that he's sitting in the hindsight. Getting shot today was, if he's honest with himself, entirely predictable. It's his luck, after all. 

"We let you out of the house again for five minutes, and you've already broken yourself." Tony shakes his head as he tsk's, making Bucky roll his eyes lazily. "What's Ryder going to think? If you keep this up, you'll give the woman a complex about draining your mojo."

"She's going to think I throw myself in front of armor-piercing rounds for idiots that don't notice when they're being shot at." The mention of Ava brings the doctor's smiling face to the forefront of his mind. Bucky leans back against the Quinjet's co-pilot seat, letting his eyes fall closed. 

He could take care of this latest injury himself. That's what he usually does. Thanks to the serum, all he has to do is keep the wound clean for a few hours while his body stitches itself back together. Nothing's broken, and he'd be in much more pain if anything were punctured. Hell, he'd probably be dead already. The fix for this is so easy it'll practically handle itself.

"You always get so cranky after you've played the hero." He hears Tony kick his feet up on the Quinjet's main controls. "Take a breather. Maybe a bow or two. Believe it or not, it's possible to accept a compliment now and then."

"Grandstand more often, got it."

Ava's probably going to hear about today's incident now that Bucky thinks about it. If anything, Steve's going to make sure of it. He doubts she'd guilt him for not being comfortable with an optional trip to medical. They've been having more conversations about boundaries and comfort, and she's been unwaveringly supportive of him moving at his own pace. 

"You don't have to grandstand, you gigantic baby," Natasha chides from between the chairs. Her hand smacks against his shoulder, making Bucky grunt softly. "A whole new world is going to open up for you when you relearn to accept praise."

Tony snorts, long and loud. "Has he reached that stage of modern education yet?"

"I reached that stage of education before you were born, Stark." Bucky's not territorial over his reputation anymore; those days are long since passed. The grand majority of his mojo got left in the 40s. He's just tired of Tony's shit. That's all it is.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Ava might feel bad that he didn't come to her for something like this. He doesn't... want that. He doesn't want her thinking that he doesn't welcome her help or that he doesn't trust it. He... he does. He doesn't just appreciate having the option; he enjoys it. The new routine is a breeze, and his neck feels better than it ever has. At least that he can remember.

"I'm confused," Tony mumbles around a mouthful of snacks. The man never stops eating. "Are we talking about your no-no years, or did you and Rogers hit up underground bars before Germany?"

"I know all his secrets from the vanilla days; they never went to any of the fun ones," Natasha confirms. It's not like Bucky was going to take the verbal bait anyways. Steve still falls for it regularly. 

"I like how you don't deny having the rest of the answer; I feel like it tells me all I can tolerate about the icicles when it comes to this. That's my favorite part about you, Romanoff. You know when I don't need to know, you know?"

His dumbass friends might as well be background noise with Bucky's mind this firmly in the memory of Ava's office. She's been so good to him, especially over this last week while she pushed through all the red tape for him. He'd been expecting it to take an eternity of hounding Steve all by his lonesome, but she got him back in the field in under two weeks. His best friend had actually been kind of pissy about it behind closed doors. For Bucky, it was like getting sprinkles on top of his cake. 

He's been thinking about getting flowers delivered to her lab for the trouble. It feels like too much whenever his thumb hovers over the confirmation button. He's reached the part of staring at the order details four times.

"I'm pretty sure your country doesn't appreciate it as much as you do. They tend to fight cold wars over it."

"Well, yeah, but our country—you see what I did there? That was a pretty funny communism joke. And it works as a reminder for both of us that you're actually an American citizen these days; isn't that wild? Back to the point here, our country fights wars over stuff we do ourselves all the time, so that doesn't feel like a fair reason to dismiss our friendship."

The doctor's forcing him to expand his music library. Her taste there is as scattered as her taste in movies, but she's got some leading themes he's been able to pin down. The 60s and 70s are huge for her, expectedly, and she's got a lot of nostalgia over the 90s. Paige keeps her versed in all things pop, folk, and country, according to her. 

"If I start referring to the US as my country, you people will expect me to do things like register to vote. Or put up wallpaper."

"I don't think anyone's expecting you to be legally allowed to do that. The voting thing, not the wallpaper. In most states. For multiple reasons. Although, the wallpaper might be a good call."

Ava invited him to their absurdly large archive of playlists during his second session. The ones Paige curates are nothing but insanity. Not one of them makes a lick of sense. Bucky decided that he should have expected that, given her Energizer Bunny reputation. Ava's are less scattered; more organized. Soothing for his mind to digest. He's been using them as workout music ever since. And driving music. And general background noise. 

"I don't think I'd know where to start buying wallpaper. Do you even want me putting that shit on your expensive building?"

"Not really, but the idea of walking in on you rolling paste on the living room walls is worth anything it could take to fix them later."

God, she's funny, too. He could listen to the woman's awful, soul-crushing puns and subsequent cackling for hours. He'll never say that to her face, not for as long as he lives, but they've made him feel lighter every morning that he's gone to let her work him over. He's already stolen two of them to torture Sam with. Another thing he's not going to tell her.

"Maybe I should start smaller. Bruce keeps suggesting a car that has legal registration."

"Heeey, that could work. You'll be signing up for mailing lists and bitching about state tax in no time. You know what?" He hears Tony snap his fingers. "We should get you a houseplant. Work you up to having a fish or something."

Alright. Maybe he'll go to Ava. He doesn't want her to think he's trying to blow off her expertise again. Or that he's avoiding her. He's not; he really does like hanging out in her office. Even if it's technically a medical appointment. He's a lot more eager to visit her than his therapists, that's for sure.

"I am not paying taxes," Natasha scoffs. "If you think I'm tying a legal address to my name, you're out of your fucking mind. Moreso than usual."

"You don't think you'd enjoy having a cave to lurk in?"

"What makes you think I don't have one already?"

"I'm talking about a real house, not a safe house."

This injury isn't related to his cybernetics. It's his ribs, well below any of his implants. He's not entirely out of the loop when it comes to what doctors have to do to get their licenses. She no doubt had to pull a lot of hard hours during her residency. Maybe she doesn't want to patch up the tower's notorious grouch every time he takes a hit. But he doubts she'd ever be impolite enough to refuse him walking in.

"I have my space here: bathroom, laundry room, small kitchen. If I haven't bothered decorating that, what makes you think I'll want to do it for an entire house?"

"Aww, come on. Look at Ryder! She's having all kinds of fun making her place as obnoxious as possible. That could be you after a few online shopping sprees."

Bucky's eyes open slowly, his brows drawing in when the second verbal mention of Ava pulls parts of his attention back to the conversation. 

Fuck, not going to medical still leaves the option of her taking offense. Okay. Alright. So, he'll split the difference and go to emergency intake. He's pretty sure she's listed as his surgical contact in the tower now—he can't stomach looking at his own medical file, not even the written records. Any injury this big will get flagged for trauma support, and she'll be notified. Then it's up to her what she wants to do. That feels like a good compromise.

"She's doing that to reclaim it from Alec; that's different. I don't have the same motivation. For me, it's just going to be extra work.

"Who's Alec?" Bucky asks without thinking. If the universe doesn't hate him today, Natasha's just going to assume he's being his usual kind of paranoid.

"She hasn't mentioned him?" Tony sounds surprised. "Alec's her ex-husband."

Ex-husband? She was married? And she's not anymore, meaning she might be—

He shuts down that train of thought immediately. 

Reclaiming the space of her house implies they lived in it long enough to form some heavy memories. She hasn't mentioned having a kid, and she strikes him as the type to bring up something like that pretty fast. So it was just the two of them, most likely.

"People usually don't like talking about the egocentric sack of shit they used to coexist with," Natasha points out. Of course, she already knows about the doctor's history. It's her.

"Bad divorce?" he prods, trying not to sound overly invested in the answer. These assholes will take it as an invitation.

"Oh, the worst," Tony confirms. "Shithead tried fighting her on it tooth and nail. She had to borrow my legal team just to get the guy to fuck off and leave her alone. He even kept her surname after the divorce; can you believe that?"

An uneasy feeling starts to rise in his gut, making Bucky look over at him. Then up at Natasha. "What kind of won't leave her alone are we talking about?"

"Down, fido, my lawyers took care of it. There's no need to start tailing him. Aside from being a self-absorbed asshole that insists they'll," Tony's voice turns scornful as his fingers form air quotes, "work things out with time, he's toothless." 

"She's got concealed carry permits she earned properly if that makes you feel better," Natasha offers up. The thought does help ease the tension building in him. 

He won't read Ava's file, no matter how bad the buzzing gets. But he might check in with JARVIS about her home security. He's noticed her name on the system logs. She, or at least her house, is linked to SHIELD's network despite her general distrust of the organization. He understands the opposing priorities completely.

He caved and read Wyatt's file two nights ago. The buzzing had been building since Ava mentioned him wanting an autograph, and it finally got to be too much. Nothing's lurking there aside from an impressive list of historians from all the fuck over Georgia and Alabama. The kid's got more family than some towns have population. 

Bucky leans forward with a muted groan to change the autopilot's intended LZ of the Avenger's balcony to the entrance hanger for medical. If he's going to grit his teeth through the antiseptic over a couple small holes, he's damn sure not going to haul his ass through half the tower while his ribs leak. His patience has limits, and that's pretty fucking far over the starting line. 

Tony looks over at him with a deep, suspicious frown. Bucky frowns at him right back with the same level of scrutiny. He can feel Natasha staring a hole into the side of his head, even if he can't catch her in his peripherals. He hates both of them with a passion at the moment. He knows what's about to happen—

"Did you just… prioritize your own health," Tony questions like he's baffled by the very idea. His whole upper body turns in the seat as he looks up at Natasha excitedly. "Oh my god. He's doing it. All by himself." He raises a hand to his chest and looks back at Bucky. "They grow up so fast."

It's good that the autopilot is on. If it weren't, Bucky would be tempted to crash them out of spite, mostly because he's sure he'd survive it. "Very funny."

"All it took was a hippie that gives him candy," Natash adds, her voice dripping with smugness. "Who knew."

"Both of you can fuck off." Bucky doesn't like how close she just got to his primary motivation on the first try. Old habits die hard, et cetera. And he hates that he can't tell if she was trying to guess. If he's lucky, which he isn't, she was just making fun of him.

Natasha knows about his visits to the florist's website; he's fucking convinced of it now. He doesn't know how, and he can't outright call her on it. If he does, he could fuck up and make himself right. There is nothing worse than having the Black Widow as metaphorical family. Not even Steve's hovering.

She and Tony harass him for the remainder of the flight. It's not long, mercifully, and he's starting to regret not grabbing something for the doctor. They were in Montreal, of all places, so it would have been fitting. He figures she'll understand once he shows her his side. The train of thought makes him wonder what part of Canada she's originally from. She hasn't brought it up.

His foot is already bouncing by the time he reaches the elevator. He's still got the surgical towel shoved tightly against his ribs. He hopes she gets there fast if she ends up taking the call. The last thing he wants to do right now is sit around in the burn of antiseptic and bleach while he fights off the urge to bolt. 

This is good, Bucky reminds himself as he takes his first few steps into medical. He's sat through plenty of trips to emergency intake. He can handle walking into his first optional one. It's a non-issue. Completely.

When JARVIS informs him that his file and general vital scan have been submitted for intake, the buzzing gets so intense that he almost leaves. The pace of his sergeant walk, as Sam likes to designate it, slows to a crawl. Then he thinks about a doctor with concealed carry permits. One that lets her house be monitored by a government organization she's actively pushing herself to trust. All in an effort to contribute something good to the world. The buzzing eases, and he picks up his pace, headed for the solo observation room JARVIS listed for him.

There's no moment of standing involuntarily from nerves this time. He doesn't have to force himself to sit back down and wait, even though the room smells wrong. His skin is crawling, and he wants nothing more than to put a throwing knife in his hand like a goddamn security blanket. But he doesn't panic. He doesn't try leaving.

Baby steps.

When the door opens, it's devastating. There's no diminutive hippie with UFO-sized glasses smiling at him on the other side of it. It's a guy in a plain white lab coat without artistic stitching, one that Bucky's never met before in his life. He's already squinting down at a tablet, meaning this will be his doctor for the duration.

This was the worst plan he could have possibly conceived. The universe is humbling him for thinking he could get away with something like this without some kind of suffering. He just wanted to make up for being dismissive of her help initially. Now he gets to sit through this. How fucking grand.

"Barnes?" The doctor that's not Bucky's doctor looks up, his heart rate elevating by a few notches. He's putting in a lot of effort to look confident. It's not exactly working. "I'm Dr. Erickson. I'm guessing you're here for the bullet wounds JARVIS detected?"

"Yup." Bucky's not about to volunteer for small talk at the moment. It's a miracle he hasn't jumped off the biobed yet. "Where's Ryder?"

"Your primary is in a staff meeting at the moment." Erickson puts his tablet down on the supply cabinet's main counter. He's already starting to gather what he needs, leaving Bucky to figure out real quick if he's actually willing to do this. "Don't worry; I'll get you sewn up and on your way in no time."

He doesn't want it getting back to Ava that he bailed the moment she couldn't show up. He doesn't want to leave her with the impression that he's only going to take on medical care if it's her; that's not anywhere near fair. The woman is a brain surgeon, not his private physician. He can grow the fuck up and accept help from people that haven't gone through his gauntlet of verification.

"Great," he pushes out, lifting the side of his undershirt to offer an unobstructed view.

It's not great; it's fucking horrendous. The first touch of the new doctor makes the overly physical memory of the buzzing build so high, he can feel it in his teeth. They're not actually rattling in his jaw the way they did back then, he knows that, but it doesn't matter because his body is screaming at him that it's happening.

The first stitch going through his skin makes him want to put his fingers through the doctor's eye sockets. His mind goes over all the ways he can violently put at least ten feet between them without having to get up. Looking back, it's probably good he didn't reach for the throwing knives. He's not unhinged enough to stab someone unprovoked; he's better than that. But they'd have been distracting to his impulse control, that's for sure.

Dr. Handsy is pulling the first suture in tight when the door to the observation room opens again. Bucky doesn't look up, his eyes locked on a random point on the far wall while he focuses on his breathing. He only looks over when a billowing, maroon pant leg enters his peripheral.

Thanks to a bunch of dead Nazi scientists that used to hide out in the mountains of Russia, Bucky Barnes has a trigger in his brain that is entirely out of his control. One that, when activated by his own interest, lets him process his surroundings in a sliver of the time that it should for a human mind. It is exceptionally helpful in the field. 

Watching Ava Ryder walk in, wearing a suede jumpsuit that mercilessly frames her curves, proves to him that having it in the 30s would have gotten him shot by someone's father. Definitely before he left Brooklyn. Or before he got chased out by several fathers banding together with baseball bats. In the time it takes her hand to come off the door handle and make its way to her hip, his mind goes on one hell of a fucking journey.

He already had more than a vague idea of the shape of her before now; he can't help it. Comes with the territory of doing threat assessment for a living. God knows his eyes have slipped down to her chest on a shameful amount of occasions. Her tits are being held up and pushed together fucking beautifully at the moment. Typically, that would hold all of his attention.

But this is the first unobstructed view of her that he's gotten, thanks to the lab coat being nowhere in sight, and good fucking god. Holy fucking shit. Godfuckingdamn.

She's half turned from him at this angle, so he's only getting a side view. That's more than enough to show off an obscenely rounded ass and the cushy thighs it rests on that are going to haunt his fucking dreams. It's bigger than his hands by a margin that's outright glorious. The mental image of his fingers digging into it, of how it would make her skin dip under the pressure, makes his blood race.

He can't spot the outline of any underwear at first. Then her hand makes contact with the jumpsuit, and his eyes pick up on it. Right there, above the top of her finger, pulled up high over her hipbone. There's a thin band leaving an impression in the fabric. An extraordinarily thin band. There is nothing else in sight.

Pulled between Ava's legs, right at this very moment in time, is a strip of fabric that Bucky's tongue would fit against perfectly. Right under that is a taste he's been catching himself wondering about for two weeks now. One good, long drag of his nose. That's all it would take to push in whatever she's picked out for the day and soak it with that taste. He could get it back out from between her lips with his tongue, pull it to the side with his teeth to give himself room to feast—

Bucky tries to shift his weight as nonchalantly as possible while his brain slows back down. The comeback from tactical analysis is always jarring, with this one being especially so. 

He's the worst kind of bastard. An awful, selfish, perverted sonofabitch. There's not shit he can do to change that. How unfortunate.

"David," Ava greets, the name coming out as tense as the closed smile plastered on her face. "You can put that down."

The other doctor doesn't look up from the work his hands are doing. "That you, Ava? I heard you were—"

"Now."

Bucky's back straightens up as David looks at her nervously, taken aback. Bucky doesn't blame him; he didn't know her voice could get that forceful.

David sort of laughs, which feels like the worst possible choice to Bucky. But, hey, not his call. "What, do you want me to just—"

"I want your hands off my patient right now. I'm not asking." She watches with unwavering intensity as the other doctor lets the needle and thread drop from his hands. She visibly bristles at the patronizing expression on David's face, her head tilting aggressively. Bucky kind of wants to watch her hit him. "I'll be back in less than a minute, sergeant. I need a word outside with Dr. Erikson."

"Take your time," Bucky assures, the tension bleeding out of him already. His ribs are leaking, and there's a piece of doctor floss looped through his skin that he's going to have to cut out of himself tomorrow morning. The immoral evaluation of her outfit that his head threw at him is going to eat him alive. Forever. Especially when he's trying to fall asleep for the foreseeable future. 

All things considered, though, he feels fan-fucking-tastic.

David still looks somewhat shell-shocked, and there's real insult starting to creep into his posture, but the guy doesn't argue. He follows Ava back out of the room, not bothering with a goodbye in Bucky's direction. When the door closes behind them, his super hearing picks up on Ava reaming David about prioritizing patients before ego. She goes into detail about the deep shit he'll be in with her if he keeps ignoring her written orders, long before it ever gets him fired. She tacks on why her anger should scare him a hell of a lot more than the idea of that. Then she instructs him to keep his damn hands off her patients and get back to the intake desk. 

The protective streak makes Bucky's chest feel warm, a half-smile pulling at his lips. She's a handful, alright. One he'd give anything to be brave enough to send flowers to.

Ava is calm, cool, and collected when she leans back in through the doorframe, hanging off it with a soft smile. "Hiya, stranger. I hear you picked a fight in my motherland today."

"I hear it has an arms dealer problem. I wanted to see if I could help." He gestures down at the needle swinging from his ribs without looking at it. "Not all Canadians are as welcoming as you, turns out."

"Eh?" she fires back, hamming up the accent. "Wellll, I'm not about to let a few cranky arms dealers tarnish our reputation. What do you say you push that bandage against your new bragging rights, and we head for my office?"

Licking his bottom lip nervously, he tries to give her a confident smile. "You were busy with something."

"Not too busy for my favorite popsicle." One eyebrow raises sternly. "You are not allowed to tell Steve I'm playing favorites." God, she's cute when she tries to deflect. It's never worked. At least not on him.

"That's—" Shit, where to even find the fucking words for her. "You don't have to do this. Go out of your way like this. I don't mind getting patched up by random medics. Comes with the job."

Her smile turns impish. "That's cool and all, but I mind when people ignore basic ethics just to have a story about stitching up an Avenger. If you need to tell yourself I'm using you as fuel for a workplace pissing contest, go for it. Whatever gets you off that biobed." She leans back, leaving the door open wide behind her. "Come on; I can't stand the way they organize these damn shelves. I wouldn't patch you up in here even if you did pay me. Next time, head for my office first."

Bucky does as she ordered, pushing the surgical towel she packed for him against his side, not minding the sting in the least. He swallows down the point that, by every definition there is, he's not an Avenger. "I'll follow you, doc."

—

"Alright," Wyatt plops his hands down on the glass of the holo, his expression determined. His tight curls bounce with the motion, making their resident gumdrop look adorable, even through the discomfort. "Let's get to dissectin' this cacophony. All in one go, preferably, so I don't feel like yackin' up my lunch two days runnin'."

Ava's head tilts sympathetically. "Oh, honey, tell me you didn't—"

His hand comes up, with his index finger pointed to the ceiling. "Nope. But I got close a couple'a times thinkin' about this." He mutters several things under his breath about creepy Nazi bastards while he pulls up the raw data from Bucky's implants. "All the more reason to get it the hell over with."

"A whole day of digging through coded war crimes," Hannah deadpans quietly, raising a steaming mug to her lips. "I'm glad we get the fun assignments."

"You'd ditch us if we didn't," Ava jokes. She scrolls through the sergeant's file absentmindedly on her tablet, reviewing the vitals added just a few hours ago. He actually came to medical. For something as minor as a field injury. Of his own volition.

"Mmm. I don't know. It's pretty fun watching a brain move like Jell-O. You might have been able to convince me to stick around just for that."

SHIELD's primary system makes a blaring noise of disagreement as Wyatt loads the main file structure. He frowns, looking over at Ava with concern. "Its askin' for administrative override."

"Heeey, that's that thing Tony says I'm not supposed to abuse. That's probably not a good sign." Ava pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and leans over to get a look at the error. "JAR, I'd like some reassurance we're not about to trigger an ancient LoJack if you wouldn't mind advising here."

"There are safeguards in place for importing code with an unknown source," JARVIS reports in. The warning on the screen is dismissed, presumably by him, and a new window comes up. A log of the programming in Bucky's cybernetics going through digital quarantine loads rapidly, with line after line being highlighted in red and labeled HYDRA Suspected. "I will process them for you. One moment."

"We have to clean the Nazi code before we can beat it to death," Hannah mumbles against the rim of her mug. "I think I kind of like that."

"Please, Hannie, I'm hangin' on by the skin'a my teeth here." Scrubbing his hands over his face, Wyatt groans exhaustedly. He drags them down slowly, giving Hannah a pleading look over the tops of his fingers. "You know I'm always here for supportin' you—"

"I'm aware." The ex-marine's clipped tone makes Ava snort and look back down at her tablet. They both know stopping him now isn't going to cut off the word vomit.

Wyatt's hands thunk back down onto the glass. "I'm so proud'a ya, y'know that—" And there's the thickening of the accent.

"I know."

Ava's eyes skim over the list of everything detected in Bucky's wound, locking on the word leather in particular. Today was her first look at his work gear—she's got a feeling he doesn't call it a uniform—in person. It was hard to keep professional in front of six and a half feet of Hi, how are ya? wrapped up in that much heavy black. The sounds that his vest made when he dropped it on the coffee table— Jesus. He's got to be packing enough in there to arm a small country. 

"All's I'm sayin' is that if I have to hear about murder right now, I might actually upchu—"

"Please don't."

Ava's too scared to ask what's in the sergeant's pants for a multitude of reasons. Professionalism is lower on the list than it probably should be. It's a shame, too. He's downright hilarious when he lets himself talk. There's not a doubt in her mind that he'd come up with something unbearably good—and unwaveringly dry—in response to the loaded question.

"A'right then. We're in agreement. No bad thoughts today. We go in like—like excavators, right? With our helmets and our 'lil pickaxes, and we get what we need so we can—" The way he cuts himself off makes Ava look back up in concern. She finds the most horrified expression on Wyatt's face. "That—ah shit, that didn't come out all that right. That was mean, wannit? Insensitive. I'm not tryin' to belittle what the sergeant's been through."

"You weren't belittling anything," Ava assures, reaching out to rub his arm. "I think he'd be the first one to race you to a fossil joke about this."

"You'll tell 'im I'm takin' this serious, won't ya—"

A small chuckle escapes before she can stop it. "Wyatt, sweetheart, it's not like he heard you—"

"You take your pills today, Combs?" Hannah's calm question makes the gumdrop freeze in place. She blows on her coffee, taking a small sip. "If you say you don't remember, I'm going to—"

Wyatt snaps his fingers, his expression shifting to relief. "I didn't, and I remember why, too." He rolls his chair back with a sudden push, aiming for his desk. He reaches out before the chair finishes the trip to grab his patch-covered messenger bag. "One'a the cats got int'a my coat closet; dumbass got stuck on a shelf for reasons I'm still not real clear on." He pops open his medication bottle, tossing a pill into his mouth with a level of dexterity that makes her jealous. "The hollerin' was s'damn loud, I thought the landlord was gonna come knockin'."

"Which one was it?" Ava asks. "Not the new kitten?"

"No, no—Juno's been'a dream. It was Galileo again. I love that furry little bastard, but sometimes he can drive me nutty ." He pauses to take a swig from another glossy vacation mug. Today's is advertising a campground Ava's never heard of that's the best in the Rockies, according to the swirling font. "I got new pictures of Juno if you want 'em, though."

"Yes, please," Ava confirms happily. Holding the teacup-sized ball of fur made her whole month when he last brought Juno in. Hannah ended up hogging most of the cuddle time, but the sound of little meows filling the day had been enough to make up for it.

Wyatt pulls his phone from his back pocket and brings it around to hook up to the holo. The system dings with the sound of a successful transfer after a moment. He loads a collection of new photos, zeroing in on one of Juno clawing her way up a window curtain—

The power to the lab shuts off with a loud, electric click. Everything plunges into darkness with the privacy setting on the glass walls keeping the sun out. It comes back on before Ava can react, the building's primary system switching to the emergency power grid. She and Wyatt lock eyes in panic.

"Oooh man, boss, did I just—"

"I'm sure you didn't," Ava comforts, trying to push down her own panic. It helps that she's heard Tony rambling about the work he's put into making this place indestructible. "JAR?" 

There's no response from the AI. She trades another nervous glace with Wyatt.

"I know it was probably the Nazi shit, but I'm hoping it was the cats," Hannah says, sounding sincere. "I feel like that'll make a much better story."

"Oh my god, did I break JAR?" Wyatt looks between them frantically. "How often does he back up his servers? Did I kill'a piece'a JAR?!"

"I have not been murdered," the AI confirms after nearly a minute of being gone. "The safeguards reported a false positive regarding the programming of Sergeant Barnes' cybernetics. It has been handled."

Ava gives the hologram wall of code a warry look. "Handled by you?" There's a suspicion building in her gut around his phrasing, one that she's not planning on letting out of her teeth. 

"Mr. Stark has a protocol in place that cuts off my servers in the event of any irregular activity. Given the nature of the programming's origin, the system is designed to er on the side of caution."

"That's a really fancy way of dancing around the point, JAR." She's trying to stay civil about this. It's not an easy venture, and she's pretty sure it's not translating at all. Even she can hear the frustration in her voice. "How about we cut the shit, and you tell me what the false positive was."

"There are automated routines running for Sergeant Barnes' implants. They are not harmful; I've taken the liberty of checking them personally now that they've been cleared through quarantine. I am creating a stable update to forward to—"

"How long have they not been harmful, JARVIS?"

Hannah sits up from her relaxed position at the avoidance of their favorite nickname for the AI. Wyatt's brows pull in nervously, his eyes never leaving Ava. They both know exactly what she's digging at.

There's a long hesitation from JARVIS. Short by normal social standards but an eternity for a sentience with quantum processors. "There is not currently a risk posed within the Sergeant's—"

Ava's out of her chair and halfway to the door before he even finishes the omission. Fueled by some of the most intense rage she's ever felt in her life, she marches out on swift feet. She's going to kill him. She's going to string him up—maybe hang him off the side of the tower.

America's fucking Sweetheart, her ass. America's Doomed Liar is a lot more like it.

"Where is he," Ava nearly growls, still stalking down the halls, leaving the medical wing in a hurry. "JARVIS, I know you're still listening; you tell me where that puffed-up, hypocritical—oooh , you tell me where Rogers is right the fuck now. And then you tell me where Stark is—"

"Dr. Ryder, I know you're not inclined to believe this at the moment, but I assure you—"

"You're right; I'm not inclined to do that at all." She takes a deep breath as she passes through the front entrance, slowing herself to a stop. With genuine effort, she pushes down her anger. "I don't want to keep yelling at you. I don't like doing it in the first place. If you don't want to tell me where they are, I'll find them myself."

Ava heads for the elevator to do just that. She's not expecting a response as she pounds the side of her fist against the button for the Datacrux's floor. It's likely to be her best bet to find any of them. There's not a chance in hell that she's letting her team dedicate any more time to this until she gets some fucking explanations.

Halfway along the ride up, the light around the button goes dim. A flash of anger rises in her until she sees the one for the executive level illuminate. 

"Mr. Stark is not currently in the tower, but you will find Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes debriefing in the Situation Room," JARVIS informs her over the elevator's intercom, making the SHEILD agents around her pretend not to look over. She's tempted to ask them if it's the outfit.

"Thank you, JAR," she offers as an olive branch. Regardless of what's truly going on here, she doubts the AI is all that comfortable with the subject.

"You're welcome, Ava."

She's only been to this part of the tower once before. Tony dragged her up to the Avenger's balcony for a party after her divorce was first finalized. That's about the extent of her experience with this section. It's not hard to find her way with everything denoted like it is in the rest of the building.

The palm of her hand smacks against the door marked Situation Room, and she shoves it open aggressively. Both super soldiers, the Falcon, Black Widow, and a scattered group of SHIELD agents stare back at her in surprise. It doesn't slow her down any.

Ava points an irate finger at Steve in the uneasy silence of the room. "Unless New York just caught fire, you and I are about to have a very blunt conversation, captain."

"Hiya, doc." Bucky, unsurprisingly, is the only one in the room smiling at her while she glares daggers at Captain America. He's still in his not-uniform. There's still blood on it. The charm he's throwing her way reminds her that they won't want an audience. 

"I'm going to ask the rest of you to leave," she continues, but her eyes stay on the sergeant as her finger lowers. "I don't think you'll want to be here for this, Bucky."

"What makes you think I don't wanna watch you beat up my best friend?" He leans back in his chair, his hands coming up to rest on his stomach as his smile deepens.

"Can I stay?" Sam asks, his voice eager. It's a damn shame this is how she gets to meet him. She doubts the Falcon has any clue about unethical research.

"Come on," Natasha insists with a serene nod in Ava's direction, grabbing Sam's shirt to drag him up from his chair. "You heard her."

"I—hey!" Steve looks so insulted as he watches his friends and various coworkers abandon him with zero hesitation. "You're just gonna—I don't even know what I did!"

"Neither do I, but I am very ready to hear about it," Bucky assures Ava, not an increasingly distressed Steve.

Ava taps her foot impatiently as the room clears out, leaving her alone with the super soldiers. She ignores the nerves radiating off of one of them and focuses on the one that looks delighted. "I'm serious. This is about your case. Specifically, the work HYDRA was trying to finish."

The mirth leaves Bucky almost entirely. His posture doesn't adjust from its reclined position. "Alright. Tell me what's got you livid about it."

"Steve here made me a promise that was broken in my lab a few minutes ago."

Steve's eyebrows pull in with confusion. "Which promise? Wait—a few minutes ago—Is this about that blackout? Ava, catch me up here; what the hell is—"

"You swore to me that the intention of HYDRA—at least where Bucky's case is concerned—was to make an army of super soldiers, nothing more." She's letting him process this one step at a time. It'll make yelling at him for lying a lot easier. That, and she's honestly worried the technophobe doesn't understand the gravity of the situation.

"I—" Steve hesitates, and she watches the switch to tactical assessment come over him. It's startling to see it directed at her from a face that isn't Bucky's. "As far as I know, that was the intention."

"Yeah? You're sure about that? You're sure you're not omitting something pretty fucking important to my job, Steven?"

"JARVIS, what was the blackout?" Bucky questions at half the volume he started at when she first came in.

Ava points at the sergeant insistently. "See? I'm guessing he doesn't even know, but he's sure as hell already on the right track."

"There was an incident regarding the coding found in your implants, Sergeant Barnes. It has been handled. I have prepared an update to their systems whenever you're ready to undergo a transfer."

"As your doctor, I'm ordering it. We can go back to my office after I'm finished ripping your friend a new asshole for lying to my face." Her eyebrows lower at Bucky in indignation. She's doing this for him, but that doesn't mean she's going to let him off the hook if he knew. "We should probably figure out if I need to do the same to you before we get there."

"Hey, hang on now." Steve raises one hand, likely to try to calm her, but changes his mind and puts it back under the table. She's guessing someone's finally clued in the out-of-time man about that practice making women want to throw something. At his head. "We might not always be able to talk about classified information—something you agreed to, I might add—but I've never lied about HYDRA's intent as far as I comprehend it. I've been very careful to hold up that end of our deal."

"Let me tell you how I know, for a fact, that someone involved in this case is doing a piss-poor job of lying to me about it. Since you haven't quite figured out modern tech, I'm going to try to keep it simple." Ava points a far less aggressive, more instructing finger at Bucky's arm. "In order for that hunk of metal to work, it needs to be programmed. The hardware needs software that can tell it how to read brain signals. A few decades ago, some Nazis sat in a room and wrote a bunch of code for that software. That's what was supposed to be in Bucky's implants. That's all that was supposed to be in Bucky's implants."

"Wait—what the hell else is in them?" The flicker of fear that creeps into Bucky's expression breaks her heart. There's not a doubt in her mind that he could sell her on any lie he wants to with his mind set on it. That's the point of infiltrators like him. 

But Ava's willing to bet everything she's got in this world that the fear in him at the moment is genuine. He doesn't know. And it makes her feel awful.

"Given the size of your implants, I'm guessing not much," she tries to reassure. "We can always purge whatever is there later. However, if the code were as simple as 'read this signal, do this thing,' it wouldn't have been flagged as untouchable by Tony's security measures. The ones put in specifically to prevent JARVIS from being corrupted." She crosses her arms over her chest in exasperation, her eyes moving to one of the small security cameras on the ceiling. "Would you like to explain to the captain what kind of code it would take to accomplish that, JARVIS?"

There's another human-length moment of hesitation from the AI in response. "It would take adapting code."

"The part he's holding back—definitely because he's under orders not to break SHIELD protocol—is that something has to be driving the adaptation. There is such a thing as self-adapting code; that would absolutely explain it. If we weren't talking about something made in the 40s when HYDRA needed entire warehouses just to house a few terabytes of data." She glances over at Bucky. "While I'm sure the agents you scare the piss out of would disagree, your head isn't actually big enough to hold that much."

"You flirtin' with me to stop the panic or to apologize for not being Canadian for a minute?"

Ava blinks in surprise, the slightest hint of heat coming up the sides of her neck. That—she hadn't been—well. Steve's head turns to him, his eyebrows raising in mild shock.

Bucky clears his throat, then tries for a quiet chuckle, his eyes floating between her and the table. "Sorry—it's this damn room. Puts me in sergeant mode, makes me—let's get back to yelling at Steve."

"Thanks, asshole, I appreciate—"

"What makes you think I won't yell at you just because I'm Canadian?" Ava counters, finally recovering. "You trying to stereotype me, Barnes?"

The relief that comes off of Bucky is palpable. "I'd go for the hippie thing first if I was trying to do that."

"Didn't you sleep through the McCarthy era?"

"HYDRA gave me the long and short of it between naps."

Her hand flies up to her face to block a loud snort. Damn him, this is serious. But she's not about to begrudge him the gallows humor. She lowers it again while he smirks at her. "Do you mind? I'm trying to make an angry but valid point here."

"About a bunch of code that my head isn't big enough for," he continues for her dryly, one hand coming off his stomach to gesture up at it.

Ava sighs, the amusement from getting sidetracked by the Brooklyn heartstopper fading fast. "Not big enough by the standards of the 40s. By today's standards?" Her head tilts to the side sadly, readying herself to watch that fear in him get more substantial. "You tell me, Buck. Did the Nazis work in the mindset of single projects, or did they work in the mindset of generations that would lead a global empire?"

The words are the last piece to complete the puzzle in Bucky's mind; Ava can see it happen in his eyes. The expression of horror it yanks out of him will haunt her for the rest of her days. "Zola." 

It's said in a whisper, and Ava's not even sure what the word is. 

It takes Steve longer to reach whatever conclusion Buckys come to, and he looks resistant to the idea at first. "No, that's... no—Buck, you've been to what's left. You know what it took—"

"That's the point she's making, stupid. Look at how small everything's gotten." He stops, and Ava doesn't miss the sight of a hard swallow. "It makes sense. Think about it. It makes sense. They took care of the car until they could find an engine that fit. I was the prototype. Or—was going to be, at least."

The comparison—the one he's using on himself—is revolting. Accurate, but astoundingly revolting. She pushes past it, leaning down to tap a condescending nail on the table. "Hi, there. Still here. Still looking for some answers. What the hell is Zola?"

With Steve watching him like a hawk, Bucky breathes a long, tired sigh. "Not what. Who." 

"I can fill her in," Steve offers to him quickly. "You don't have to do this."

"Oh, I'm not doing shit. She's going to do it all." Bucky locks eyes with Ava, his expression passive. Having the Winter Soldier himself that focused in on her makes her breath catch involuntarily. "How's your Russian, doc?"

"I don't speak a word of it. Do I need to for this?"

"No, I'm sure you've got plenty of ways to translate anything you feel like reading. You should look up doveryai, no proveryai while you're at it." He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. His eyes never once move away from hers. "JARVIS, transfer a copy of my archive access to Dr. Ryder. Full permissions. And the next time she asks you a hard question, you don't have to bullshit her. Tell her to call me."

—

April 6th, 2015

"I want you to bring me with you next time."

"No."

"Is that a no because you do not agree or because you are afraid of mother?"

"Both."

Shuri frowns at the security feed, ignoring the quiet laughter she can hear coming from Nakia on the other end. "Coward."

The camera mounted on T'Challa's dashboard shakes as he turns it back to his face, his expression annoyed. "Say that to my—"

"Coward."

T'Challa rolls his eyes and turns the camera back around as Nakia laughs harder. He will be mopey now, for sure. "I am not taking you to stare at a soldier's office with us."

"Why not?"

"To start with, I refuse to be trapped in a car with you for that amount of time."

"You should be so lucky! Now, what is the real reason."

"What part of royal family do you not—"

"You get to go to these things."

"And when you leave your lab long enough to learn to use the spears of your foremothers, that privilege can extend to you."

"Okoye is always ready to teach you, Shuri," Nakia offers up diplomatically. 

"I do not need a spear to sit in a car annoying my brother," Shuri argues. They always do this to her. She is tired of it.

"You do not need to sit in a car annoying your bother at all." The moping has already started. She can hear it in T'Challa's voice.

"Fine. I will go to Ava's house and stay there while—"

"No."

Shuri slams her hands down on her desk, making the various instruments on it rattle precariously. "She is my family, too!"

There's silence on the other end in the wake of her anger. Then the camera turns again, this time by Nakia's hand. She doesn't stop the spin until it's pointed to show her and T'Challa. He does not look as annoyed anymore. He looks guilty.

Nakia gives her a sympathetic smile. "No one is trying to take that from you. We are only trying to keep you safe. We do not know how far Alec is willing to take things."

"And I am not willing to present the man with more temptations of power," T'Challa adds, the guilt on his face shifting to resignation. "It is not simply because I am afraid of our mother. I agree with her. And with our father. Alec Harlow is a man that is losing everything. That is a powerful motivator, Shuri."

"I am not afraid of that spineless demon," Shuri insists angrily. "I could handle him myself, thank you very much."

"Half the school children in Wakanda could," Nakia mocks under her breath.

She gets a stern look from T'Challa before he focuses it on Shuri. "It is not his strength we are concerned with. It is the allies he can call upon at any time. Men with strength and resources that we do not wish to deal with."

Some of the fight leaves her. Not much, but it does ebb. Her brother might be an idiot, but he is right about this. Ava would not be this afraid for no reason. She has been trying to disguise it when Nakia brings her for visits, which is how Shuri knows it is serious.

"I hate that man, brother." The word is far too inadequate. The contempt she holds for the worm who put fear in the heart of her favorite mad scientist feels immeasurable.

"As do I. As do we all." T'Challa smiles at her finally, his face softening. "I promise to bring you to hit him if he is ever arrested. That is when I will deem it safe enough."

"How many times?" she chases after quickly. "Can I bring a weapon?"

"You can bring exactly one weapon. Can you guess what it is?" The smile turns sarcastic as he reaches out and turns the camera back around to face Alec's office window. 

"I do not need a spear to break that man."

"No, you need it so I can stop being lectured by Okoye for enabling your avoidance of tradition."

"That will not help. She wishes for me to sit through her lessons. I would just bring the spear to hit him over the head with."

Nakia laughs, the sound light and soothing. "I am surprised you did not go straight for the idea of skewering him."

Tilting her head down at her desk, Shuri hesitates. She picks up the ridiculous coffee mug Ava got her, spinning it around in her hands with somber movements. 

Ava's last visit had been especially hard to stomach. The woman had looked so... empty as she talked about the start of the divorce. There had been no vengeful joy in her as she told Shuri's father she understood the gravity of the situation. No hard-won victory in her posture. There had only been grief and shame.

Shuri sighs, turning away from the screen to head for her lab's kitchen. She is going to fill the mug with one of the teas that Ava brings her. It will be a nice change from the energy drinks she has been binging. "No. I... I do not wish the man dead. I only wish to see him locked away somewhere he can never smile again."

—author end notes—

there’s one sentence in this chapter that is 14 words long (including contractions) that is the entire foundation of their incoming dom/sub and oh my g o d when i tell you that shit was cathartic to write 😫🤌 some day when this is finished, im gonna write a whole goddamn dissertation on that one sentence and all the narrative shit that tied into it in this fic so help me (YOURE ALLOWED TO GUESS BTW)

anyways, everyone is alive in wakanda bc i said so. and nakia and t’challa are really stupid uber mega important to ava’s backstory

i feel like we’ve all, as a species, Been Through Enough. you can talk my ear off abt anything, but dont talk to me abt the opening of wakanda forever i will Literally Die, i havent cried that hard over the first watch of a movie in so fucking long and i dont think im strong enough for a second. all i ever need for binging is winter soldier and black panther anyhow (FATWS is still growing on me and i only like it so far bc im a sambucky shipper. and a stucky shipper. and a 3 musketeer shipper. and a—i like making buckaroo be in love a lot. lets just. leave it at that). we can stop with the big owies thanks. let me escape to the fictional world where everyone is alive and Nothing Hurts, t h a n k s.

well. okay. some things are gonna hurt in this. probably really super bad too and youre gonna be really really mad at me when it hits. but like. theyre set up for comfort pay off so does it even really count??? i didnt think so, ty for agreeing 😌

ily 💖 tyty for reading 💞 and tyty in advance for yelling at me when i eventually hurt u ❤️🥰 i will understand, its okay, u are entitled to the emotional compensation on that one

[franeridart]

hi. hello. this is a bit embarrassing but i'm trying to buy my bf a tablet sort of thing so he can draw his arts. he's been wanting one forever but hasn't rly shown me which one he wants. i want to surprise him n buy a good one worth the money n was just curious if you had any suggestions. i've looked into wacom products, but i'm just such a noob to these things n was hoping you can help... i understand if this is silly, you don't have to reply! ur just so amazing, ur opinion is trustworthy 😅☺️

Okay, so, this is just my opinion and since it’s based completely on personal experiences it’s gonna possibly be incredibly different from other people’s opinions, so I just wanna make clear from the start that this is a personal preference and isn’t in any way meant as an absolute truth

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned when you’re just starting out you don’t need anything fancy at all. As an aspiring digital artist your bf might have looked up tablets and cried tears of blood over how much he’d like a cintiq or anything similar, but my very personal opinion is that fancy stuff is gonna be pretty much useless to you and be generally a waste of money? You’re just learning, you don’t need anything more than the basics. My suggestion is that you pick something simple and easy to use - I own this wacom intuos, had it for a long while and I like it a lot, but there’s also less expensive options you can go for too that people seem to like just as much! I’ve lately read on my dash about the Huion H610, they say it doesn’t cost much at all but it’s just as good as the Intuos, that could be a good option for you~

Anon said:  Hey!!! I was wondering if its ok to rb your oc art? I realized a lot less people rb those and i get anxious easily so... also i really don't want to disrespect either! But i always thought of rebloging as a way of saying "i appreciate your art" and i really really (really ) like yours (both the style and itself in general). (I hope you dont mind my bad english ha ha) i hope you don't mind this stupid ask! Im still kind of new to tumblr

It’s 100% okay!!!! *O* Thank you for liking them enough to want to reblog them ;A; !!!!

Anon said:i miss ur bokuroteru so much 😭💕 i love ur art but whenever i see ur header, i just remember ur bokuroteru comic and my heart cries storms for them to be seen again.

Aw anon I’m super happy you like my stuff for those three but as of now inspiration in that department is... super low... and tbh the haikyuu fandom is being incredibly unresponsive and non-vocal about their appreciation of fanworks in this period so even when I do have ideas for that fandom I sort of. Let them go. Or just sketch them out and never finish them.

Like, you know the whole deal about having to draw for yourself and not for others? That’s what I do 100% of the times when I’m starting a drawing, but to draw for myself I don’t exactly need to finish a drawing, you know? Sometimes there’s a scene I wanna see and I sketch it out in a super rough way and as far as my personal desire to see it goes I’m satisfied with that, and everything after that - the cleaning and lining and maybe even coloring - I put the effort in it because I want to share it with people. And the deal with the Hq!! fandom lately is that they don’t share my excitement for it. They either only like it, or don’t comment on it, or comment only to complain about this or that thing. In the worst case posting hq!! only ends up with people asking me to draw something else (ie I feel like drawing Karasuno so I draw it and post it and no one comments/rb/says anything about it but there’s 20 asks in my inbox asking me why I haven’t drawn any bok*ro lately)

When I think about posting stuff for hq lately I automatically compare it to posting stuff for bnha where I could draw a background character that appeared once 120 chapters ago and there’s still gonna be people that go “yes! that character!! I love that character!!! can’t believe there’s actual art for it oh my god!!!!” - that’s... that’s the sort of reaction that makes you wanna share stuff

I dunno, maybe I’m just expecting too much out of the hq fandom. But anyway, sharing for bnha makes me way happier and glad I decided to finish a drawing lately, so I guess that’s what’s happening there.

Anon said:Every time your soft doods art shows up on my dash I have to pause and take a deep breath and just thank god for all the good in the world because I'm blown away every single time

This is s o s w e e t oh my god ;A; thank you so much!!!!

Anon said:Johnny is a fucking angel dammit. Have you read the new DGM already?? I'm in tears. I love this manga so much. The frequency of the releases are killing me... it has such a great story and great characters. It needs more love

I did read it!!!! And yeah the fandom used to be way bigger, but honestly I’m glad it’s just the couple dozens people it is. Like a small town where everyone knows everyone else. No drama, no discourse. Everyone ships what they want and we all pass each other tissues to dry the tears. The only argument that happens regularly is people complaining about the relase schedule and the old fans telling them to let Hoshino live. A good place, this fandom’s a good place.

DGM was my playground for most of my experimenting as far as creating art goes, I really did reach in all directions with it through the years and it helped me shape myself a lot, so I really want it to stay quiet and nice and peaceful, that’s my dream for it haha smaller fandoms have a better chance to keep that freedom

Anon said: Oh man, I live for that Togata x Amajiki interaction

You talking about the color spread cause yes that was adorable!!! ;A;

Anon said:I look a little, and do you still draw Bakugo x Kirishima x Kaminari?

Sure, it’s still my main ship for Kaminari and my main ot3! Just wait for Denki to start being relevant in the manga again, I’ll probably fall headfirst into it all over again haha

Anon said:Your art is so wonderful you're wonderful everything's so wonderful i'm crying omg

SOB no anon you’re wonderful!!!!

Anon said:Due to my brain not wanting to cooperate with me (ever), Bakugou Katsuki is now Batsuki Katsuki in my head.

This is the funniest thing I’ve read today and I’m in t e a r s hahaha

Anon said:Artistic!Mina making pop art and colorful paintings :o what are ur thoughts

HELL YES that’s my main headcanon for Mina, she’s definitely an artsy girl!!! I like the idea of her sharing it with Bakugou t b h

Anon said:I'm still just repeatedly looking at your newest KiriBaku because hot damn.

I’m super glad you liked it!!!!!!! oh my gOD!!!!!!!

Anon said:Heyy please rec Kami comics please! I'm in a Kami art shortage and I currently can't find art as awesome as yours...

I’m so sorry I wish I could help you with this but I don’t know anyone who draws lotsa Kaminari either ;---;

[parkerrogersgirl]

Anything But Free- Chapter 2

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: you’re Ryan Reynolds’ assistant/best friend/go to gal for everything, and you’re having the time of your life. When he surprises you during the filming of “Free Guy,” you’re wondering if you can actually have it all

Warnings: fluff, language(?), aaaaaangst 😏, fluff again bc honestly it needs another warning

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: Im back!!!!! A huge thank you to @astheskycries for being my beta reader!!

———————————

You’re pacing back and forth across Ryan’s trailer, somehow feeling both elated and betrayed.

How could he do this to you? You knew his heart was in the right place, but still, how could he do this to you?!

You hear a soft knock at the door and spin on your heel as Ryan pokes his head in, “can I enter my own trailer?”

“At your own risk,” you snap, glaring daggers at him.

“Listen, bud. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. In my defense, I kinda felt like I owed you because you do so much for me and my family. So this seemed kind of small in comparison to everything you’ve sacrificed for me.”

You groan, feeling like an asshole, “okay.… I mean, I guess that’s fair. You just know I don’t like surprises. And this is kind of a massive surprise.”

“Yeah but it’s a pretty damn good one if I do say so myself,” he says with a smirk. “Will you come back out here and at least talk to the guy? You hurt his feelings a little bit.”

Your eyes go wide and you look in Ryan’s mirror, fixing your resting bitch face before turning to face him.

“Okay, how do I look?”

He grins, patting you on the back, “like a knockout. Now let’s go find that Yankee,” he links your arms and walks you out of his trailer, and you see Chris off in the distance talking to Taika Waititi.

Taika sees you and immediately sprints up and hugs you, “well if it isn’t the golden girl! I’ve missed you darling!”

You giggle, trying to ignore Chris’s gaze on you, “Taika you saw me yesterday.”

“That’s much too long! You’re easily the best person on this set,” he says with a squeeze, making you notice this hug is going on for much too long.

You look at Chris apologetically and slip out of the hug, reaching out to shake his hand. Taika tenses up and stares at Chris before begrudgingly walking away.

“Hey, uhhh I’m sorry about earlier. It was just kind of a surprise because you’re kinda my favorite actor and you have been since 2001 and you’re kind of a big deal and am I talking too much?”

Chris laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, and thank you. I’ve heard nothing but good things about you from Ryan for years.”

“They’re mostly true, very little embellishments added,” Ryan says with a grin.

You hear a bell ring, and Chris takes out a pen and writes something on your hand before kissing it, “I gotta go, there’s my number, text me. I’ll be waiting.”

Your eyes go wide as he walks away back to set, and Ryan pats you on the back before heading the same direction.

“Good job, killer.”

You giggle and stare at the number on your hand before punching it into your phone. You practically skip over to set to keep an eye on Ryan, unaware that someone is watching your every move.

———————————

Filming wraps after a very, very long day, and you head back to your hotel room in downtown Boston. You missed the L.A. shoots, after which you could go straight home to your own bed. Boston is nice, but nothing compares to your home in Venice.

You drop your bag on the floor and immediately get in the shower and begin to wash off the day’s stress. You couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d forgotten to do something, but you shrugged it off while you finished up in the shower.

You dry off and put on your coziest sweats and hoodies, absolutely over the cold weather in Boston. You’re doom-scrolling on Netflix trying to trick your brain into falling asleep when your phone rings, snapping you out of your trance. You pick up without checking who it’s from and you’re immediately greeted by-

“CHRIS EVANS?????? My husband got you CHRIS EVANS???” Your dearest friend, Blake Lively, shrieks from the phone.

“Jesus Christ, Blake, take it down a few decibels. You’re reaching a pitch that only dogs can hear.”

“Okay okay okay I’m sorry. But seriously, when were you going to tell me?”

You groan and turn off the TV, “I honestly kinda spaced and thought it wasn’t real. I thought I made it up.”

“Okay, well tell me what happened??? How did it go??”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay? Tell your kids their aunt loves them, I gotta go to bed.”

“Fiiiiiine but you better keep me in the loop otherwise I’ll make Ryan do it.”

You say your goodbyes and turn off your phone, quickly falling asleep.

—————————

Several loud bangs wake you up, and you realize somebody is pounding on the door to your room. “HEYYYYY COME ON WAKE UP!!!”

You sit up and check the clock on the bedside table. Bright red digits read 7:38AM. You and Ryan are supposed to be on set by 8, and it’s 30 minutes away.

“FUCK,” you shout as you jump out of bed and strip off your pajamas, choosing the first outfit you find, which happens to be skinny jeans and a pale blue cardigan. You give a sheepish grin as you open the door, seeing your best friend looking rather pleased with himself.

“Why are you smiling? You should be pissed,” you ask with a raised eyebrow as you step into the hallway with him.

“I paid housekeeping to set your clock forward 30 minutes so we could be early to set.”

“You son of a bitch you WHAT?”

He grins and puts an arm around your shoulders, ushering you toward the elevator, “relax, buddy, I did it for you. I figured you’d want more free time with your boy, Chris.”

You groan and smack his arm, “fine, but you owe me coffee.”

——————-

You make it to set 30 minutes early, with a fresh coffee and blueberry scone in hand as you sit on top of Ryan’s trailer and look out at the water.

“You didn’t text me,” a voice says from behind you.

“Ryan your wife called me last night and kept me awake because of YOUR actions, I would really like some alone time.”

“Uh, not Ryan. Guess again.”

Your eyes go wide and you stand quickly, seeing the large frame of Chris Evans.

“Oh, uh.….. sorry. Long day yesterday. I just went to bed after I got to my hotel.”

He steps closer to you, brushing a hair out of your face, “I waited for you to text me. I was looking forward to it.”

“But why? I’m a nobody. I’m just an assistant.”

He shakes his head, looking you in the eyes, “no, you’re not a nobody. As long as I’ve known Ryan, you’ve been there for him. All he does is talk about how good you are to him and his family. I’ve wanted to meet you for years.”

“But why?” You ask, still in disbelief.

“Because you’re genuinely good. There are so few good people in the world. And I want to get to know you.”

You hear a bell ring on set, knowing that’s your cue to go. He gives you a longing smile before kissing your forehead.

“I’ll see you on set, sweetheart.”

You blush as you climb down from the roof of the trailer, seeing Ryan standing right outside the door.

“Oh buddy,” he says with a grin, “you’re so screwed.”

——————

After another long day of filming, you’re in the car with Ryan on the way back to your hotel. Your finger hovers over Chris’ name in your phone, trying to find the will to text him.

Ryan groans and reaches over to grab your phone, but you pull your arm away.

“Okay fine I’ll do it!” You snap, making the decision that will change your future.

Me: “hi”

You lock your phone, not expecting him to respond for a while. Second later, you hear your phone ding.

CE: “hey, sweetheart. I was just thinking about you. What are you up to?”

Me: “heading back to the hotel with Ryan, probably gonna get room service again and then go to bed.”

CE: “if you want to skip room service, I’ll take you out to dinner :)”

You gasp, looking at Ryan, “dude he asked me to dinner.”

“You better fucking say yes, I swear.”

Me: “when and where?”

Chris texts you the address, telling you to meet him in 5 minutes since it’s close to your hotel. You give the driver the location, panicking as you fix your hair and makeup in the mirror.

“You’ll be fine, killer,” Ryan says with a pat on the back as you get dropped off at the restaurant. “Text me if you need a ride, bud.”

You take a deep breath and get out of the car, going into the restaurant. You smile at the hostess and quietly say, “I’m here to meet a Mr. Evans.”

She gives you a soft nod, leading you to a secluded booth with a privacy curtain.

You pull back the curtain and see your favorite set of eyes.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

You give him a small, sweet smile as you sit in the booth and the hostess closes the curtain behind you.

You blush and sit opposite from him in the booth, not making eye contact.

“You feeling okay?” He wonders, concerned.

You let out a nervous laugh, “I’m on a date with Captain America. I’m a little anxious.”

He smirks and takes your hand, “is this a date?”

“Uh shit uhhhhhhhh-”

“Gotcha,” he puts his hand on his chest, letting out a deep laugh.

“Oh that’s so not funny,” you say, trying to suppress a giggle.

“Then why are you laughing?”

You roll your eyes and take a look at the menu, noticing that most of the entrées have an ingredient you’re allergic to. You wrinkle your nose in annoyance, and Chris raises an eyebrow quizzically.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just allergic to pepper. I have to be careful about what I eat. Most stuff is pre-seasoned with pepper.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m good friends with the chef, he can cook it separately.”

“No it’s fine, it’s too much trouble. I’ll probably just get plain chicken or something.”

“What do you want?”

“I mean.…. The chicken parmesan sounds really good.”

He grins, beaming at you, “that’s my favorite too. When the server comes back, I’ll tell her we need yours made without pepper.”

“Thank you, Chris, I appreciate that.”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” you sigh, sitting up straight before looking at him seriously, “what is the deal here?”

Before he can answer you hear a soft tap on your side of the booth, and the server sticks her head in to take your orders. Chris orders for you with your adjustment included, and she leaves.

“So; the deal?”

“Yeah. You said you were messing with me when I called this a date, so I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting.”

He sighs, running his fingers through his hair, “the deal is, I’m attracted to you. The deal is, I think you’re wonderful. I want to get to know you. I want to learn everything about you. What gets you up in the morning, how you take your coffee, what movie you watch when you’re sad. I want to know every inch of your heart. If you’re not interested, tell me now and I will be content with being friends. But, whatever your choice, I’m in this 100%.”

You’re lost for words. Speechless. Something you’ve never experienced before. So you do the only thing you can think to do in that moment.

You kiss Chris Evans.

——————————

Tag list:

@sis-tafics @my-emotional-self @thankyouforanonymity @gatorgal94 @supernaturaldean67 @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @princess76179 @srgntjbarnes @jcc04220 @ilovethefandomwho-blog @dancer2001 @a-tale-of-two-comics @p-parkerrr-blog @magellan-88 @healojane @sarahp879 @mizz-kraziii i @lostinspace33 @destielinamoose @esther-maslow-90 @astheskycries @kunaikunari @girl-with-an-orange-cat @turningtoclown

[dienamights]

Not Your Best Man | D.Kaminari

✎ Denki Kaminari was resentful of all the things Katsuki Bakugou has, the high hero ranks, the fame despite his demeaning behavior, his intelligence, and most importantly, you.

✎ Protagonists: Denki Kaminari x Fem!Reader

✎ Word count: 5.2K

✎ Category: Smut MDNI, angst

✎ Caution(!): Smut MDNI, swearing, denki is jealous, bakuhoe is an asshole, mommy kink, loss of control of quirk during sex, degradation, praise, oral (male!receiving), unprotected sex, orgasm denial to a certain point, mention of puking, doing denki dirty in so many ways and I’m sorry but I’m also… not sorry.

✎ Author’s notes: Hello! Hope everyone’s well! I’m here with @forrest-fern’s Seven Deadly Sins server Collab! I snatched Denki and chose Envy! I wasn’t able to get bakugou but you know damn well I’m squeezing his ass in there lmao (peep the banner you can see the boom boom boy) (shut up im not late shush)

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Her hair is piled up and back, showing more of her delicate yet strong features. Skin so flawless his hands feel bound when he wants to touch it, afraid of staining it with his fingertips, not deeming himself worthy to taint it. Eyes brought out beautifully with makeup products she knew how to work to make her look even more gorgeous than she already is. Lips perfectly coated in lipstick, always formed in the littlest smile, and he feels compelled to kiss the product off of them.

The dress is perfect, it sits on her body as if it has been made just for her. Its fabric folds hugging her figure, following her curves. It’s color is gorgeous against her skin with long sleeves that cover her arms, the backless dress shows skin that begs him, taunts him to touch it and to guide her along with him. The collar exposes enough shoulders that teases him to bite and mark up. It's tight skirt pooled till the floor with a slit up to her left thigh. She looks stunning and he couldn't stop but linger his eyes on her.

She looks as though she is an angel, in the form of the most beautiful girl on earth. Mesmerising eyes, so crystal clear that he could see rivers, oceans, the whole world through them. No flower, no goddess, not even Aphrodite could ever compare to her beauty. She has the body of a dancer, lithe, supple and oh so beautiful. With every step she takes, it looks as though she’s floating, and Denki only became more convinced that he had been around an angel for the majority of his life and he -regretfully- only was able to realize it a bit too late.

Regretfully, because she wasn’t his, isn’t his, will never be his. Not the measly unimportant groomsman. No, she is the best man’s, Katsuki Bakugou’s, meant to be his forever. 

Bakugou’s BakugousBakugousBakugous… Dammit

“I do.” 

An adorable little boy dressed in a black tuxedo walks up and hands Kirishima a ring. He slips it on Mina's finger. The pastor smiles and turns to Mina. She wears a strapless wedding gown with embroidery on her bodice. Rhinestones and pearl beads sewn on her gown. She wears a two-tier veil, with a matching crystal head-piece. She holds a French rose silk bouquet. Kirishima is stunning. He wears a black, single-breasted, satin tuxedo with a white-wing collar shirt.

The pastor repeats the question and receives the same reply. You watch her take his ring from a small girl dressed in pink and place it on his finger. "By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife." 

"You may now kiss your bride." He does so, placing his hands on her shoulders and pressing his lips against hers. The pastor holds up his hands, bringing the cheering crowd to their feet.

Kirishima and Mina leave the gazebo, arms linked, with huge smiles on their faces. The best man, maid of honor, and the groomsmen and bridesmaids follow suit, falling in behind them. They stop near the end of the walk, forming the start of the receiving line. 

The family and guests file down, pausing for hugs and kisses and congratulating the young couple. Mina then turns around and throws her bouquet of flowers behind her. The women collide with each other as they try to catch it. 

She cheers loud when the bouquet falls in your hands, and you giggle and wave it around, the women’s disappointed groans muffled in your ears when you catch the beautiful vermillions of your partner, oblivious to the golden specks that have been eyeing your every move since you stepped foot into the wedding.

“You could’ve been more obvious about wantin’ me to put a ring on your finger.” Katsuki chuckles against your ear, standing behind you with his hands on your hips, both of you looking at the newlyweds as they enter the reception with everyone awwing at them as they did their first dance as husband and wife.

The sun has set long ago, the full moon hanging and illuminating the area beautifully, the fairy lights and lamps circling the area, making the happy couple look absolutely glowing, and you smile at the scene from outside the dance floor.

“They fell in my hands ‘Suki.” you giggle, lacing your fingers between his, “Besides, you already did, didn’t you?” 

“Hmm,” his breath tickles your ear, fingers twisting your engagement ring around your ring finger, “was forced to, after all that whinin’ ‘bout wantin’ to settle down and not knowin’ when we’ll see each other when we’re goin’ on missions, and cherishin’ the lives-” he fakes a snore and rests his full weight on your back, both of you laughing as you tip forward and he catches you in time, placing his hand on your waist again and swaying with you as you see your friends happier than they ever were.

You look perfect, standing there holding each other, absolutely and utterly disgusting. Denki stares at you, fire spreading in his abdominal, his lungs constricting with every breath he takes the longer he looks at you. Swaying together, Katsuki’s lips pressing against your temple and you letting out the most beautiful laugh, Denki can’t help but clench the front of his shirt at the sight, wishing, hoping for nothing more than to be in his shoes, being the one lucky enough to be able to hold you that close, the one that has the privilege to hear your laugh, the one to make you laugh.

“Hey Denki,” He is snapped back to reality when Kirishima stands in front of him, blocking his view from the flawless couple. “H-hey Eiji! Congratulations bro, you’re finally a married man!” They hug, Denki’s eyes never leaving you while Katsuki twirls you to face him and peppers kisses across your face. “Thanks man! Hey sorry, could you get Bakugou for me real quick, we’re taking a few pictures with the best man and the maid of honor.”

“Right away, man of the hour.” 

Oh God, oh God, he isn’t ready to face you yet. You look too pretty, he doesn’t feel worthy to be in your presence, driven to bow down and ask for forgiveness for even breathing the same as yours. And yet, you smile upon his arrival, even letting go of Bakugou’s hand to wave him over, and you’re blessing him with your smile, giggles sounding like the singing of angels when he waves back excitedly.

“Hi!” you beam up at him the minute he’s close enough to be graced with your voice, “Where have you been, it’s like you were avoiding me all this time,” you pout for a second and Denki could swear he felt his heart skip multiple beats when your lips wobble and a smile makes it way back up at him.

“H-hey, ummm, Baku- uh.” he laughs at himself, trying to collect whatever dignity he has left. “Uh, Eiji is lookin’ for ya bro, something about a photoshoot with the maid of honor?” The groan Bakugou lets out is enough of a confirmation.

“Fuckin’ pain in my fuckin’ ass bitch” he grumbles, pressing his lips against your temple again, promising to come back after the ‘Motherfuckin’ bitch shoot’ is done. You only reply by squeezing his arm, a silent reassurance that you’ll be waiting for him when he gets back.

It's so revolting, the way he swears up and down, having the filthiest mouth with his words, not even respecting the beautiful goddess that tries to calm his nasty self down, he should be more considerate of you and your feelings, God he loathes the way he treats you. The way he mistreats you. 

You deserve to be treated so much better than that, the way Denki would, he’d downright kiss the ground you walk on, remind you every day that you’re the best thing that ever happened to him, the best goddamn thing to ever grace this earth.

Okay, you’re staring. God, has she been staring too? Denki, people always say you never shut up, use it to your advantage for once in your life.

Denki extends his arm to you, curses under his breath, wipes his sweaty palm against his pant leg before extending it again. "Would you like to dance?" You raise your eyebrows. "Would you like to dance?"

"Well, dancing is what a charming gentleman like myself would do.” He beames at the chuckle you let out. “Besides, you're beautiful and I want to show you off.” He pauses. “You know, while Bakugou is busy with his best man duties and all."

You smile, your pretty lips letting out a little giggle at his posture as he starts wiggling his fingers persuasively, and shake your head. "You know what? Yeah, I would like to dance."

Arm-in-arm, you and Denki head into the dance floor and step onto the wooden ground. You felt him move easily with you, agile and confident with the music as he takes the lead. His hands slowly yet surely reach to your lower back, but you shrug it off.

"Ah, expect tango music after this," he says. Eyes gleaming as they shift over to the DJ that nods in acknowledgement to him. He frowns when he sees your averted face, shifting your eyes away from his, observing, searching for him, your fiance, the person he wishes he could be, someone he could never be.

Denki trips over his words in an effort to regain your attention, “A-anyway, uh, um. Hey! Did you know that uh, t-tango is banned in other places of the world?" you raise your eyebrows. 

“Is it?”

 “Yeah, wanna know why?” 

“Didn’t expect you to know honestly.” He smiles as you laugh lightly, but something tugs at his heartstrings, its because you think of him as nothing but stupid brainless dunce face, depsite him entering and graduating one of the best hero courses in all of Japan, alongside you of all people, despite his hero work, the people he saves, the villains he captures, fuck. 

You don’t miss the way his face falls after your remark, an almost sour expression passing through before he clears his throat and looks behind your shoulder at basically nothing. “S-so,” you start, “Why was it banned?”

The blond’s eyes flicker over to you and soften at the way you’re cocking your head and smiling at him, despite him getting upset with you. What is he doing? He’s experiencing something straight out of his fantasies, having you pressed so close to him, dancing with him and smiling at him. No one else. 

“Oh, okay okay, so. It was considered the dance of the low-lifes at the worst places of society when it first emerged, and so the church banned it, because they said it had the music of the “immoral” factions of society”

“Oh? Why’s that.”

“It was considered an oversexualized dance. Portraying the sin and seduction of the Devil. It represents the Devil's nostalgia, his unrequited aspirations, loneliness, rejection, and misery. The longing of someone who will never fit in, who has never had love nor passion.” He takes a deep breath.  

“It's like sex, except with clothes on.”

 In a failed attempt to seduce you, he stumbles and steps on your heels. Earning a weak yelp from you as you back up from him.

It's okay, it's okay, he can fix this. Oh God the music stopped. Okay he gets to dance tango with you now and press you even more against him and hold you even closer, okay. God, are his hands always this sweaty?

The silence that follows the stopping of the music makes him panic, you’re so close, he just needs to reach out and hold you against him again. Press your tender body against his, let him pretend you’re his, pretend that he’s lucky enough to take you home with him. Help you take off your dress, press kisses against the curves of your body, make love to you all night.

Put all of that is cut short when he feels a daunting presence behind him, and he doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. Because the way your face lights up at that presence is enough to stop his blood from pumping, enough for him to see only red, for him to dig his nails into the palm of his hands until he feels it piercing his skin.

“Hey,” the taunting voice of Katsuki Bakugou reminds him how beneath him he really is. “Yer havin fun with my girl.” it wasn’t a question. Despite that, in a desperate attempt to feel your touch one more time before you’re swept away by your big strong hero, that he would never be able to match to.

With trembling fingers, Denki grasps your hand and brings your knuckles close to his lips, eyes boring into each other while he kisses them, and you only grin in appreciation at his manners, doing the most adorable courtesy he has ever seen in his life, almost forgetting the looming presence of his former classmate.

Bakugou moves around Denki to reach you, and Kaminari knows at this point all hope is lost for you to dance with him, or better yet, have any interaction with him again for the entirety of the night. Katsuki held your hand with surprising firmness, caramel scent wafting through as you feel how sweaty his hands really are. 

“Are you warm?” You mumble, lacing your fingers through his when his reaction is to pull his hands away to wipe them at his pants. 

“No.” It's firm and it's rough, yet it isn’t directed at you. It’s directed to the other blond that surprisingly still hasn’t backed down and is still standing straight, eyeing how you two act as a couple, how he wishes you would hold his hand, ask him if he was warm, embrace all his insecurities.

As your fiance leads you back to the center of the dance floor. Hand starting at your waist but quickly slipping to grab a handful of your ass, chuckling when you squeal and slap his chest. Something wicked gleams in his eyes when the first tune of the violin starts playing, drifting with the harmony of the accordion.

“You and I both know that my knowledge of tango is as much as my knowledge for knitting, that’s right, nonexistent.”

“You know my body, don’t you?” he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Follow my lead, let your body do the talking.”

“You’re crazy.” yet you still laugh, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips as he pulls you impossibly close to him, raveling in the feeling of your chest pressed to his. You’re rolling your eyes a little at the way his smirk stretches when he pinches your butt, but you instantly shiver when he places his warm calloused hand within the cutout of your dress on your lower back, skin to skin. And just like your body is made to be molded against his, you place your arm over his shoulder while the other is engulfed in his. 

He steps close, too close, scandalously close. Pressing his cheek against your temple and only then meeting the eyes of Denki, that's when his smile drops, every playful act with you is gone. His magma filled eyes staring into the soul of the electrical hero.

Mine MineMineMine

Neither were stupid, Katsuki knows what Denki is doing, and Denki is well aware of Katsuki’s ability to piece shit together.

Denki is left lonesomely standing by the DJ, watching the way you two dance, the way Bakugou steps forward in your space and you stepping back to accommodate him. He seethes in his stance as you two rock on your feet, the way Bakugou handles your body with firmness and strength, yet softly watching you when you giggle at the way he spins your body effortlessly. Kaminari sees the way you let yourself be led, the way you trust Bakugou to handle you, hold you, care for you, in ways he could only hope for you to see him.

You are perfectly synchronized, almost fluid like, an extension of each other, like you had done this a million times before, practised day and night to perfect it. Bakugou takes his time twirling you across the room, seductively slow. Thighs brushing against each other with every stupid turn.

His body whispering commands to yours, daring it to misbehave, you step and lean and sway, every movement perfect and precise, like an intricate choreography that you have never learned, but your bodies remembering them. He dances with you the way he has sex—with exquisite control, infinite patience, and aggressive moves.

Huh, that's what Denki must have meant.

At that moment, your eyes catch him standing outside the dance floor, and you almost don’t recognize the man alone, filled by ugly emotions they couldn’t help but spill and show on his expression. Sour and hateful and just plain cruel looking.

Katsuki’s mouth curves in a lazy smile at how your brows furrow, spinning you in a vigorous turn so he’s the one facing him instead. You aren’t dense, you feel the eyes on you, well aware who they belong to as they burn through your back. He lowers his head, forcing you to look back up at him, your lips grazing against his, too close.

“Yer puttin’ on a show for your boy?” 

“A show- no you ass, weren’t you the one that wanted to dance?” you try to lean away to scold him -yes, middance- but the blond lowers further, until you think he’s trying to get you to shut up by kissing you. Suddenly he’s dipping you low, his face stays only a few inches away from yours, your back arching beautifully.

A static sound dwells on you, followed by the buzzing of electricity. The lights flicker and you instinctively grab at Katsuki, tightening your hold against his bicep, your eyes searching his when he doesn’t lift you back up, only to find him not even looking at you.

His fingers are tingling, tips wiggling as they shoot little sparks at the sight in front of him, his golden eyes illuminating in the momentary darkness as they clash with the magma filled rubies, challenging him, taunting him, mocking him.

MineMineMine

And when Denki accidentally short circuits the entire DJ booth, the dance hall instantly quiets, a blanket of silence weighing them down and daring someone to break it. And yet, Bakugou has other plans, of course.

Sneakily, he slides his hand down from your back to your knee, firmly grabbing your leg as his eyes meet yours before lifting it to his hip. Fingers slipping under your dress and grazing your upper thighs, sending goosebumps racing across your skin, not having the courage to break eye contact until you hear the gasp of a few of the attendees. Only then does he close the gap between to press his lips against yours, the little audience you collected clapping and cheering you along.

The whistling and cheering is loud enough for you to miss the sound of Denki’s fist slam against the table and the sobs wrecking him as he drags his feet away from the scene. 

BakugousBakugousBakugous

Sero grunts as he struggles to push the hotel room door open with Denki leaning his full weight on him. It takes him a couple of tries to finally get the drunk man on the bed, slapping his hands away as Denki tries to grab at and kiss the man. 

“C’moooon, Hantaaaaa, s’not like you don’ wanna, look atchu, you’re takin’ off m’clothes but you don’ wanna kiss me?”

“You ass, I’m taking off your shoes because you stepped in your own vomit.” 

The man gags, chugging the shoes in the trash can and helping his friend ease off of his suit jacket. “Yer a good man Hanta, say, you wanna be m’best man?” Sero laughs, shaking his head as he tries to help him lay on his stomach, “y’know, when I marry y/n.” 

The silence that follows is deafening, Sero not having the heart to talk when he catches the sound of Denki sniffing and burying his head in his pillow.

“I- “

“Jus’ leave me alone, Sero.”

And he does, the only confirmation of his solitude is the echoing click of the door’s lock as Sero leaves Denki to brew in his own self loathing.

It takes Denki a few minutes to collect himself, the nausea forcing him to take off his shirt and pants, lying down on his back to feel the cool air on his chest. He doesn’t realize he has his eyes closed until he snaps them open when he hears his door click close.

There you are, radiating, mesmerizing, you’re practically glowing, standing there by his door, adorned by your… nightgown? 

God, please don’t say you’re in the wrong room, please don’t say you’re in the wrong room.

“You sure you’re in the right room y/n?”

You don’t answer, you just simply, untie your robe. And Denki’s eyes practically bulge out when the silk robe slips right off of your shoulder and drops in a pile on the floor by your feet. He can’t look you in the eyes, he’s looking at every inch of exposed skin he can muster, committing every curve, every dip, every contour, every fucking thing to memory.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” that’s when he looks back up at your eyes -after shamelessly staring at your peaking nipples for a second too long - blinking twice at your words. He sits up with a struggle, “W-wait, what about Bakugou?”

“What about him?”

And honestly, that alone almost made him bust a nut.

You’re pushing at his chest until he lays back down, throwing your leg over his figure and straddling him. Instantly, he feels your warmth pressing against his strained length and his body shivers at the thumbing against it. 

“You’re so good to me Denki,” you breathe, fingers combing through his hair before you take a fistful of it and lightly tug, rolling your hips against his and relishing in the whines he lets out, slender fingers reaching for your thighs and grabbing handfuls, his eyes begging for you to do it again, and when you do, he throws his head back and moans.

“You treat me so well,” you pout, nails tracing his sweaty flushed chest, peppering kisses along it, moving up until you reach his ear, biting at it and giggling when he ruts his hips up against you. Feeling your slick dampen the front of his boxers as his leaky cock does the same. “So pretty for me” he whines again, eyes blown out and chest heaving at the feeling of being kissed by you, held by you, touched by you, hell, looked at by you.

“Fuck, again, ah- d-don’t stop, pleaseplease-”

“Use your words baby, wadda you want?” he thrashes against the bed when you grind your hips against his again, the tips of his fingers buzzing and twitching when you’re lowering yourself to press your chest against his face. 

“Fuck, wanna feel your pretty pussy, feel you squeeze my cock, please, just -ah, put it in.” it's all muffled from the spit collecting on tongue and the way he’s smothered by your tits but honestly he wouldn’t have it any other way.

His body refuses to move as you scoot lower, straddling his thigh and grinding your hips against it, wickedly smiling as he whines ‘nonono’ when you do, “m-my cock, my cock, please stop teasin’.” the tip of your finger traces the elastic of his boxers, giggling at the way his body jerks up and at the gasp he lets out when you snap it against his hip. Before gliding your finger against his strained cock, enjoying the way it twitches under your touch, feeling it harden against you.

You coo at him as you pull off his boxers, when you see that there is no initiation from him to move. The sight of his pretty cock with its fiery head welcoming you and you can’t help but grab at it. “Pretty boy all needy for me, hmm?” You give it a lick from the base to the tip, sucking on the head of his cock and feeling it twitch inside of your mouth, hollowing out your cheek and looking up to see the way his face flushes, his body illuminating with the crackling of the thunders around him, twitching his body before he breathes out a few times to calm himself down.

How is he so lucky? How is he blessed with having your lips wrapped around his cock, just looking at you is tightening a knot in his belly, and he can’t help but throw his head back and close his eyes in an effort to prolong his orgasm to feel even more of you.

He doesn't open his eyes until he feels a looming shadow on him, and that's when he catches sight of you again, the moon hitting your face, your glistening precum-covered lips smiling down at him.

“Want me to take care of you?” You tease, chuckling breathlessly as Denki feels your pussy on his cock, your slick covering it as you roll your hips and feel your pussy gush at the way his body shivers in ecstasy at your touch. “Yes! Please mommy ye-”

“Mommy?” Did he just say it out loud? “No, ah- fuck, no-no I didn’t say that I-” you don’t even let him talk, gyrating your hips again, covering his dick with your slick, without having your walls flutter around him just yet.

It takes a few teasing grinds of you against him to have him sobbing at this point, “m-mommy please just please! I wanna, ah” he thrashes when the tip of his leaky cock catches your clit, the lightnings he’s producing passing by his eyes and obscuring his blurry vision for a while, before he’s blessed with the sight of you beautifully arched on top of him. “In, in, wanna feel the pretty pussy, please please lemme feel the pretty pussy.” it's just meaningless babbling at this point, anything to get your walls tightening around his cock, all sensitive from being rubbed against you for god knows how long.

And when his head catches your cunt, he all but cries out at the way it clenches at the head, bucking his hips up to feel more of you. Wanting you to swallow him whole, take him all the way in. “Y’gonna just fuck into my pussy like that, hmm? Is that how you’re treatin’ mommy now?” “n-no! Ah, m’sorry pleaseplease, I just, you feel s’good, you’re s’tight aaah, wanna feel more, please I want more more more,” and he does. So, without a warning, you drop your hips and impale yourself on his cock, and for fuck’s sake all of what Denki saw what white for a few seconds, he could’ve sworn he heard a few angels singing, even.

“That what you want, hmm? Want her to take care of her pretty boy?” you pout mockingly, bouncing yourself on his lap as he tries to grab hold of your hips to guide you, but the way you’re jerking his body has his head dizzy and his sight swimming, the low buzzing of his quirk muffled by the wet slaps of your skin against his, your ass clapping against his thighs and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that sound, and he just settles for letting you please yourself with his cock, because if you’re gonna use him as a fucking dildo, then he wouldn’t fucking have it any other way.

Weakly snapping his hips upwards with the drops of your hips, Denki’s leg shake and it takes a few more times for his cock to fully seath itself in your tight walls for him to let go, feeling your pussy squeeze his cock for all his worth as your pants turn into whines, suddenly they’re very afar, almost like you’re underwater. Yet he’s the one feeling like his lungs are constricted when he hears the name you’re calling, and it isn’t his. “Ka- ahh- suki…”

Only then does Denki realize that you aren’t in his room, your discarded rope isn’t thrown haphazardly on the floor by the door, your slick isn’t covering his thigh or coating his dick, and the worst of all, your pussy isn’t the one that has been squeezing his cock, oh no.

It was his hand, those slender fingers wrapping around his softening cock, smeared with his cum. He lifts his hand in horror, disgust and shame eating him up, especially when his ears perk up at your sound.

“Fuck, Katsu- yesyesyes, right there, yes!” Whatever nausea he felt subsiding is coming back tenfold, burning his throat as he slaps his hand over his mouth, anything to stop himself from puking on himself.

“Ha, that what you want? Getting dicked down after havin’ fun with that fuckin’ dunce face.” The wet sounds of Bakugou’s hips slapping yours is almost making his ears bleed. “Havin’ that prick touchin’ ya like that. Fuckin’ slut, all of that to rile me up so I can fuck that tight lil pussy, that what you want?”

Denki doesn’t know what’s the last nail on the coffin, the absolute filth being spewed to you, tainting your angelic ears, that aren’t meant to hear anything but praises and confessions of love and gratitude, the fact that you’re squealing and moaning for him to fuck you even harder, or the fact that he’s listening to every squealching sound, every creak the bed made, every slam of the headboard against your shared wall, every breath, every moan, every scream, everything.

That's when Denki flings himself off of the bed and empties his stomach, right on the floor next to his bed, tears stinging his eyes as he tries to trick himself that it's because of the way his throat is burning and not because of the way his heart is shattering, feeling it wrenched from his chest and thrown on the floor, stepped on and spat on and just beaten to the point of no return.

Sniffing and lifting his head up, Denki can’t help but see red, his whole body crackling with newfound vigor, his whole body is numb, like his quirk is taking the lead, putting his consciousness on the back burner. He chuckles, despite you moaning out Katsuki’s name when you find your release, despite him calling yours as he finds his, despite hearing your giggles and the kisses he’s pressing against god knows where on your body, despite the tears streaming down his face.

The last thing Denki remembers before he lets his quirk take complete control over him, is the humming of energy, the fleeting blinding brightness, the shattering of the light bulbs all around him, the loud deafening bangs, almost like music to his ears and finally, the sound of you screeching in horror. 

Hope you like it! Kithes kithes

[jeonfiles]

once more to see you | kth 01

pairing: taehyung x reader ft. seokjin

genre: angst, fluff, unrequited love

synopsis: taehyung is the complete opposite of you, and you're so in love with him. he's not interested in you at all, but he's willing to pretend so he won't be known for breaking the sweetest girl in school's heart. he knows you'll end up hurt either way.

warnings: taehyung is an idiot, a lot of pining, y/n is annoyingly dependent on validation, y/n does a lot of silent prayers, y/n is a track star, childhood bsf seokjin (cute), mentions of deceased family member

music for this chap: she had the world , carry me out

a/n: taehyung will disappoint u in the beginning but hes cute i promise

"I get why you like him Y/N," Sohee swallowed the rest of her sandwich before finishing her sentence, "He's so hot. People say he's interested in you too, y'know?"

Sohee visibly tried to get food out from the back of her mouth using her tongue, and it made you chuckle at the sight. "I don't think he does." You sighed, resting your chin in your palm.

You were both situated at the table in the inner corner of the cafeteria, with a full view of who walks in the door, and sometimes you swore you could see Sohee drool when attractive guys walked in that exact door.

"Hello, of course, he does! Even his friend Jimin told Kang Seulgi from Class 1, who told Go Euntaek in class 3, who eventually told his girlfriend Baek Ho-rang who ran to me to tell me the great news." Sohee gasped for air after rambling, and you rolled your eyes,

"Stories change when that many links contribute." You scoffed, sitting back in your chair and reaching for your juice box on the table, taking a huge slurp, which you knew would annoy Sohee.

"You don't believe me? Guess we gotta ask a link closer to the source then." Sohee stood up from her chair, and you looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Park Jimin, get your ass over here will ya?" She nearly shouted across the cafeteria, and now all looks were pointed at you two, and you felt the urge to just slip down the cracks of the floor tiles and hide there forever grow stronger for each nanosecond.

You sunk further down on your tacky, orange chair, but you could still see Jimin's black locks sway a little over the crowd as he walked over to the table you were sitting at.

"What's up sugar?" Jimin smirked at Sohee, and Sohee didn't even budge, and you had no idea how she did it. He was stupidly attractive and could make any girl drop her pants with a comment like that.

"Jimin my dearest, a little birdie told me that Taehyung likes my sweet Y/N, could you confirm?" She batted her long lashes and smiled prettily at Jimin.

He looked to the left, sucked his teeth, and said, "I can't, I'm sorry." You realized you had grown a little too hopeful, and your heart sunk quite a bit when he spoke.

"Does he think I'm pretty at least?" You spoke up, eyes shining when you looked up towards the standing Jimin, the harsh lights in the cafeteria reflecting in them.

"He hasn't mentioned you much, to be quite honest." He shrugged, walking back to his table, where Taehyung and the rest of his friends sat.

Your heart thumped when he met your eyes, and you looked away in panic. The rest of lunch was just Sohee apologizing and you avoiding eye contact with any of the students at the nearby tables.

Jimin mentioned you and Sohee's name several times, he was a loud speaker, and you were so scared of what he was saying you could probably die right then and there.

Saved by the bell, you picked up your stuff and got ready to start running to your classroom, praying you wouldn't meet any of Taehyung's friends, and especially not Taehyung as you ran Usain Bolt style.

You looked down while running, not thinking twice about leaving your best friend behind, you suddenly fell to the ground with a thud. This was surely not one of your glory days.

When you looked up, you wanted to cry. It was none other than Kim Taehyung, and he didn't look pleased. You gathered your things and muttered "Sorry." under your breath probably about 10 times, and he just watched, disappointingly.

"You're a klutz. Why were you running?" He spoke, and your knees turned into jelly when you tried to stand up, you nearly fell and dropped all your stuff again, but he caught you by the arm, straightening you up like it was nothing.

"Uh... Uhm... Err..." you mumbled, and he rolled his eyes, and not in a joking manner. "Fuck that, why are you going around telling people I like you?"

Your breath hitched, and he stared at you coldly. "I didn't! Gosh, my friend Sohee told me someone had told her that you liked me, and- uh... We asked Jimin, and-" He put his hand over your mouth, making you shut up.

"I don't want you two to go around making up baseless rumors about me, it's incredibly annoying for me to go around correcting people who assume shit just because your little friend speaks louder than a bunch of hyenas at a tea party." Taehyung nearly spat, and you took a step back.

You noticed that people were listening in, their stares burning holes in your back. He was livid, and you didn't understand why, you just smiled, praying to god that this would end soon.

"I just thought you liked me-" You began, and he interrupted you, "You thought I was gonna like someone like you? Get over yourself and enter the real world."

The hallway went silent, your lips trembled as hot tears raced down your face, and like the track star you were, you fled the scene and passed the finish line into the bathrooms.

You stayed till the school day ended, not knowing what was unraveling outside the four walls of the stall.

Sohee 💜: 01:12 pm

Y/N, where are you? i heard what happened :( i hate taehyung im gonna chop his sausage off

Sohee 💜: 01:38 pm

taehyung is fighting w doyoung because doyoung decided to defend you this is hilarious

but fr where are you

Sohee 💜: 01:57 pm

doyoung gave taehyung a black eye damn

doyo is on the verge of tears when taehyung said you liked him and not doyo

taehyung cant not have feelings for you like there must be smth deeper going on

Sohee 💜: 03:39 pm

class just ended i'll wait out back

Sohee always knew when to leave you alone, so she did, partially. You usually shut off your phone when you're upset, but she still sends you texts to update you whenever you turn it back on.

This time, it was quite dramatic, and you rushed out of the icky stall and ran (again) to reach Sohee to get the full story, and as you expected, it was interesting.

"Basically, Doyoung punched Taehyung and Taehyung was a little too OP, so he failed to initiate a fight, so it just turned into Taehyung being an ass to Doyoung for defending you." She shrugged, adjusting the straps of her leather backpack as you walked home.

"Taehyung's rep is so tainted right now, I don't know how he's gonna fix this my dear Y/N, so I guess he got his karma. He's an idiot and I'm glad other people are starting to see."

You nodded yes, pushing out a fake chuckle, while silently you prayed that everything would soon be back to normal and that Taehyung would forgive you for the mess you caused.

Being in love with Taehyung for a year had taken a toll on you, and your best friend since freshman year had noticed too. You were different.

You used to be so independent and optimistic, but now you would strive for validation, and you had turned into one of the most insecure people Sohee had ever met.

Sohee tried to pull you away from him, but to her demise, it only got worse when you tried to meet other guys. She figured that the only way for you to disconnect from him was if you had your go with him, or if he treated you like a complete idiot.

You waved goodbye to Sohee as you entered your house, kicking off your shoes and throwing yourself down on the couch. You wanted to scream, but you saw your brother's and another guy's shoes in your hallway, so you kept it inside.

After having watched an episode of Seinfeld, you could hear the floorboards creak, and your gaze found its way to the hallway, where your brother, Yoongi stood, peeking out from his door.

"Ah, Y/N, you're the one who's home?" He smiled brightly, eyes turning into small crescents, which made you awe at the sight.

"Yuppers." You said and sat back again, pressing play to start the next episode. "Who's your guest?" And as you uttered your last word, another head peeked out from the door, and you couldn't help but feel the happiness brew inside you.

It was Kim Seokjin in all his glory, and this time, he looked even hotter. It had been about two years since you last saw him because he moved to Germany to study medicine.

Seokjin had been your neighbor since you were born, and you pretty much grew up with two older brothers who always took care of you.

No one dared to mess with you, because Seokjin and Yoongi always got to them first. That way, you grew up without a care in the world, protected from all evil.

You had no idea when you fell in love with him. It was somewhere during puberty, where your interest in Brad Pitt and Kim Soohyun from Dream High had grown stronger.

You remember Seokjin was scouted for modeling, acting, and even idol groups all through your childhood. He did a few ads, photoshoots, a popular teenage drama called Double Trouble, and even managed to get his own Wikipedia page.

There was no doubt that Seokjin was an attractive man, and in the two years he had been gone, his face fat was completely gone, and he had defined cheekbones, a slimmer and tighter figure, and you thought he couldn't be any more perfect.

"None other than God himself," Seokjin said smugly, opening his arms to greet you with a hug, and you threw your blanket you were covered into the side as you bolted into Seokjin's arms, legs wrapped around his waist.

He slowly put you down so your feet touched the parquet, and you felt a kind of euphoria as he smiled at you again, the same smile he had flashed you as long as you could remember.

Everything about Seokjin had matured and changed, but his smile remained the same. "What are you doing back?" You sniffled, holding back the happy tears that were forming in your eyes.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I love Germany, but it's a little bland. I miss ahjumnas complimenting me on the subway and the bomb ass food here in SK." Seokjin grinned as he wiped a tear that fell down your face.

Yoongi was leaning against the door frame, smiling at the grand reunion. You knew he liked seeing you two together, and you had a small suspicion about him shipping you guys.

"Please don't ever leave again." You gripped onto his shirt, digging your face down in his chest, and he said, "I swear to god if you're wearing makeup right now-"

You laughed as you pushed him away, placing your hands below your chin and batting your eyelashes dramatically, "I'm all-natural."

"Naturally pretty." Seokjin leaned forward and whispered in your ear, and your heart did a little somersault.

Seokjin's always been a charmer.

You woke up in your room, pink sheets draped over your half-naked body as tons of messages poured in on your phone, vibrating so much it nearly fell off the edge of your nightstand.

You grab it while rubbing your eyes, and you're shocked to see the messages that had exploded on your lock screen.

Unknown: 08:39 am

Hey, it's Kim Taehyung.

Look, I'm sorry for the shit I said to you and I would love to make it up to you in some kind of way.

Maybe I could take you out?

I get it if you don't want to, but I heard you were interested in me so...

What kinda food do you like? Activities, hobbies?

I really wanna make this right :)

You: 08:43 am

oh hey! I'd love to, you kinda owe me one. if it's your treat, I suppose we could get some sushi and boba...

btw I don't like u like that

Contact made, saved as "taehyung <3" at 08:44 am

taehyung <3: 08:47 am

Okay. Meet me at Nori Table at 6 pm. Don't make me wait.

Your heart was palpitating, and when you pressed your phone up to your chest, you could feel your body heat up from your scalp to your toes.

Maybe Kim Taehyung had no interest in you right now, but he sure would after tonight. You were gonna make him love you, soon enough,

Running to the shower a few hours of Seinfeld later, you scrubbed with all your might with your newest strawberry scrub, did your makeup, curled your hair, and sat down on the couch, outfit draped over the armrest of the chair.

It was an hour till you were leaving, so for the time being you sat with hair rollers in your hair, dressed in pink sweats. Seokjin and Yoongi had been awake all night, you had heard them laugh and play Mario Cart all night, it reminded you of old times.

Old times where you went to bed crying because Yoongi and Seokjin's bedtime was later than yours at sleepovers. Thinking back, your parents made a pretty rational decision, but you resented them for it.

When Seokjin left for school in Germany, during your Sophomore year you cried again. You thought it was so unfair that you had to be two years younger, why couldn't you come with him?

You were painfully in love with him, and you had been probably since you were. A few months after he moved, your feelings faded. You were love-free, only to fall stupidly in love again with Taehyung just a year later.

You were forced to snap out of your train of thought because you heard the floorboards creak again. When you looked over at the dark hallway, you saw a tired, yet familiar face smile at you.

Seokjin looked quite disoriented, hair ruffled and eyes puffy, yet he looked like a Greek god. Sculpted to perfection, he smiled at you like he did yesterday and all the times before.

"Morning." He grunted out, his morning voice prominent. You chuckled when you looked at the time, feeling kind of bad for Seokjin who had slept away the majority of his day, which you knew he didn't like.

"It's 5 pm, cutie. Mom said you guys could order takeout, cause she's working late." You stood up, and Seokjin gave you a good look up and down, and then diverted his gaze to the lavender ruffle skirt and white long-sleeve blouse you had neatly hung over the armchair.

"What's the occasion?" He nodded over at the clothes and then your hair rollers and full-face makeup-covered face. He threw a few walnuts from the little bowl on the coffee table into his mouth.

"It's none of your business, but I have a date tonight," you said smugly, and a walnut flew out of Seokjin's mouth in shock.

"A date? Like a real one?" He frantically asked, and you nodded as you walked away with your outfit in hand.

You came back out minutes later, and Seokjin had to hold his mouth shut so it wouldn't drop to the floor. You had matured so well, a white blouse adorning your waist, and the lavender skirt hugged your curves nicely.

You had decorated your neck and ears with golden jewelry, and you had a pair of Air forces dangling from your left hand. You were beautiful, hair let free from the hair rollers, curls swaying as you did a twirl.

"It's alright, I guess." He pretended not to care, and your proud grin morphed into a frown pretty quickly, and he noticed.

He stood up and walked towards you, standing very close. His tall figure was hovering over you. Seokjin leaned forward towards your ear, not whispering this time,

"You're gorgeous." He pushed your curls behind your shoulder, adjusting your golden necklace as he returned to Yoongi's bedroom.

You were screwed.

The time on your phone showed 6:06 pm. You recall him saying ‘don’t be late’. What a hypocrite. It had started to pour down, so you were squeezed up against the brick wall of the restaurant so the ledge above you would shield you from the rain.

You were shaking from the cold, legs exposed because of your skirt. Sighing deeply, you reached down into your purse to text Taehyung, but when you looked up, you saw him running over to you.

He was holding a bouquet of pink delphinium and peonies. You’d always been interested in flowers, and this small gesture made you all fuzzy inside.

“I apologize for my late arrival m’lady. The flower shop was about to close down for the day, and I had to beg the cashier to let me in, promising to buy a huge bouquet if she did.” He smiled as he stood in front of you.

“No worries sir, I haven’t been waiting for long.” You chuckled, as you accepted the bouquet. His eyes scanned every inch of your body, and he said, “You’re shivering. Let’s go inside.”

This was a side of Taehyung you had barely seen before, caring and warm. This was also the side of him that initially made you fall for him.

The memories of him reading stories for children at the hospital was heartwarming. Whenever you went to visit your brother, who has now passed, you would see him read stories for all the unlucky kids.

Your brother, who was only 7 years old talked about Taehyung like a superhero, and it seemed as if Taehyung’s stories were the highlight of his days at the hospital.

Daejung wasn’t a kid you would pity. In his last months in the hospital he never once cried. You believed that Taehyung was a big part of the reason.

That’s why you fell in love with him. He hadn’t been a superhero in the form of saving lives, but he definitely made a whole lot of sick kids happier.

How could you ever repay him?

Taehyung rested a hand on your shoulder and lead you inside the door, and there stood a beautiful tall woman, black hair to her waist, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips.

She was beautiful. You looked up to see Taehyung’s reaction, and he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at you. His eyes met yours, and you could’ve sword the whole world stopped.

“Excuse me?” An unfamiliar voice spoke up, and it kicked you right back into reality. It was the pretty woman speaking, an even prettier voice to match her.

“Do you have a reservation?” She questioned, smiling so genuinely from ear to ear. “Yes. It’s on Kim.” Taehyung spoke so confidently.

“Ah, for two. I’ll be your server tonight.” She waved for you to follow her, and before she turned around, you saw her name tag.

Bae Eunmi. A pretty name for a pretty person. Of course, she had to be pretty. Your confidence sunk even lower, and your insecurities grew.

“I’m not interested in her, by the way. I’ve talked to her before. She’s all beauty and no brains. Not for me.” Taehyung whispered into your ear, possibly to reassure you.

You sat down at the table and ordered a huge plate of different types of sushi, maki, nigiri, uramaki, and even sashimi.

This restaurant was fancy, nearly too fancy for your liking. It was huge and flashy, and it made you doubt your outfit choice completely.

The restaurant fell silent since there weren’t many guests here this early. The silence wasn’t awkward between you guys. It was just, too silent, and you decided to break it.

“Do you still write stories?” Taehyung’s face froze. How did you know about the stories he wrote? Had you been stalking him? Was this when everyone would find out how weak he truly is?

“How did you find out... About them?” He asked hesitantly, fidgeting with a small woven basket with bread placed on your table.

“When sun and moon met, moon felt bad. When the moon was alone at night, he cried, because he wanted to shine just like the sun.” You quote his story word by word, it was your favorite paragraph.

He looked at you with a confused look and his eyes told you that he wondered why you knew the story so well.

Before he could speak up, you said, “My brother's name was Daejung. He looked up to you and constantly told me about how he wanted to be like you when he grew up.” You placed your hands on top of his over the table.

Taehyung was speechless. He sat there, body completely frozen as he processed what you just said. The little boy he had mourned for many months was the same flesh and blood as you.

“Daejung told me how he wanted me to marry you because he thought no one else deserved me.” Letting go of his hands, he continued sitting completely still.

First, he felt disappointed in himself. Disappointed of the way he had treated you, how sad Daejung would be if he knew.

Second, he could see him in your traits. Your button nose matched his completely, and your eyes sparkled just the way his eyes did.

Third, he realized he had to take care of you. Fall in love with you, for Daejung. Taehyung had promised the little boy to take care of his friends and family when he has at his worst.

His expression completely changed. It softened, and his eyes looked at you like you were godsent. He believed you were too. It was fate.

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a/n: u guys know the angst isn't over lol u guys r never gonna see the light at the end of the tunnel ! this chapter was originally a bit longer but i have to test the waters and seeing how u guys like it !! pls reblog <3