#they were really surprised by the fact ive never dated anyone before haha

[plantmilkfetish]

i have suuuuuccch big feelings for this person like they have no idea i think about them all the time i love the way they smell i want them to feel safe which is impossible but like anything i can do to give them that ill do it but also right now what they need is something chill and not intense which they have invited me to try and do and im so !!!

[yesimwriting]

Hi! I have been having an off day I’m kinda exhausted and anxious slightly snappy haha. I was wondering how would the darkling react to an anxious reader that he cares about. 😊

a/n ive been a little MIA but im working i promise!! i felt really apathetic about writing for awhile bc of some personal stuff but ive been trying to get back into it bc im genuinely happier when i write :)

--

- ok so i think how he reacts to an anxious person that he cares about depends on where you're at in the relationship,, which might be kinda a 'duh' but it needs to be said for how im setting this up lol

- bc if he's kinda just starting to figure out his feelings, i think he'd be so surprised by how much he cares that he has to hold back his immediate reactions, bc he may have his faults but he's def protective once he realizes something is affecting/hurting the person he sees as the sun

- that protectiveness stems from wanting to be what makes you happy, he wants to feel like he's your shelter so that he feels like he's good enough for you. He wants you to be happy so he can feel your warmth but he also really wants the redemptive feeling that comes from knowing that he's your protector in a way.

- he wants to protect and make you happy so bad, sometimes you need to be like 'umm...i really appreciate that you want to torture the person that bumped into me a little too hard on a bad day,, but maybe let's not??' especially if you are still in that phase where he kinda scares/intimidates you bc you know him more as the General

- not only are his more over the top reactions a little scary bc you don't want to offend him by not wanting to talk about it to avoid blowing the situation up,, they're also confusing

- bc you had no idea he cared if you lived or died let alone cared if you were nervous or not?? but sometimes it makes you feel really comforted, bc if someone as hardened as the darkling can care that much about how youre feeling than you can't be as awful as you're feeling

- and it's also comforting bc he's clearly strong and powerful and when he puts a hand on your shoulder and stares at you like you're the only tangible thing in the world and telling you that he's not going to let anything happen to you,, the rational part of your anxiety is appeased to say the least.

- alright but that's at like the first stage of the relationship for him, bc i feel like he def has like twenty stages he goes through before finally being in a committed relationship bc even though he wants an attachment and love so badly bc he hates his eternal loneliness, he has a lot of layers to work through before he feels secure enough in you as a person to risk vulnerability

- so if he's at the point where he's accepted what he feels for you,, but has yet to really act on it, this is where he starts to give himself away a little

- like you'll mention being stressed about training in the Little Palace, or not getting along with someone and he immediately jumps to encouraging you. It's kinda funny bc at first he seems like he's just trying to be a supportive pal bc at this point ur sorta friendly (at least more friendly than anyone else is with the darkling) but then he kinda losses himself in talking about how amazing you are.

- and if youre feeling anxiety/bad bc of someone in particular, you better not mention their name unless you're 100 percent sure you're furious at them.

- sometimes it causes some strain bc you don't necessarily want him to get involved, and he's not above lowkey guilting you into telling him the full story, but it's not really intentional. He just starts talking about how much trust he puts in you and you just let the little things go after making him promise to leave things alone.

- if your anxiety is general,, or just bc of a. bunch of little things and he's at a point in which he's accepted how much he cares about you but has not told you yet,, he'll try to hide how soft he feels, but sometimes he slips up.

- honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if a really big relationship milestone came from that.

- like you crying one night and the darkling finding you, and then him taking you back to your room and promising to stay so that you don't have to feel alone and then the next morning you wake up and he's holding you

- at first ur like ?? but he acts so normal you're like maybe that can be platonic? but then it starts happening more and more and neither of you mention it and then when you two finally do get together youre like 'ohh? im stupid'

- and if your anxiety comes from your worry about him?? wow--he'll have to stop himself from kissing you

- this is a man who is so used to being hated/feared that the concept of someone worrying about him so much they physically don't feel well?? that would hit him STRAIGHT in the chest, and he'd be so quick to pull you to him, and then you'd be like--are you ok??

- wouldn't be surprised if that's how you found out he had feelings for you,, like he'd say something like "i didnt know the brightest star in the sky could want to protect the darkness instead of banish it. You're the brightest light I've ever known, it was more than enough for me that you weren't repulsed by my darkness...and now..."

- anyways,, if you were already established together and you were anxious, he would have no need to hold back

- if he notices your hesitant to let him 'help' he might do a thing or two to reduce sources of your stress without telling you...which sometimes leads to you getting a little mad, but depending on how extreme his actions were, he normally smoothes it over quickly

- i mean,, it's just how he shows that he cares, he's never had someone that could snap their fingers and get rid of his adversaries or reschedule a thing or two to make his life easier

- he sees no harm in it,, and even though sometimes other people may give you a bit of a hard time bc of his evident favoritism,, you know it just means he cares

- if he goes really far, you're more willing to be mad at him, but honestly when youre upset all you want is to be near him bc there's nothing more comforting,, so you agree to hold off on arguing lol

- i mean there are always lines that get crossed, so there are times he cant charm himself out of your anger, but the longer youre together the more he tries to hold off on doing things that make you really angry,, unless he feels like the person really hurt you, then nothing can stop his anger

- if youre actually together he's much more quick to comfort you physically if youre feeling really anxious,, he'll kiss you everywhere until he's all you can think about, which works for when your anxious over small things

- if your problem is larger, he cant exactly kiss it away though i cant say that doesnt help but it's still comforting and relaxing bc duh,, so i feel like he's really touchy if youre upset

- kissing sometimes leads to other stuff,, but that should be its own fic/headcanon bc i have a secret head cannon that feeling needed or like the only one his partner has is a turn on for him bc it returns some of the power he feels like he gives up by letting his partner care about him

- might have to write that fic now that im thinking about it....

- if youre so anxious you dont want to be touched, it'll be a little harder for him, but if he reaches for you and you back away he'll try to talk you down and remind you that he's not going to let anything happen and as long as he's breathing he'll make sure you're okay

- if youre officially together and youre anxious about something small, he's actually surprisingly nice to talk to,, before you were close you felt like you were bothering him with small, insignificant things,, but once you know that he cares about you he's a patient listener bc he likes being really present with you when he can bc he's busy so often

- sometimes if youre worried or upset he jumps to anger towards the object of your distress before comfort, but once youre at the dating part, you know that that's just how he is, and anger is how he shows love in a way?? lol, so you just have to clearly tell him that you'd rather him stay with you then rush out and like smite someone, he'll stop and comfort you

- sometimes how much he cares makes him angry at himself bc he begins to question if he'd pick you/your happiness over his goal, if he can't convince himself that you'd never get in the way of that, he gets a little cold until he feels assured in his loyalties or at least assured in the fact that your happiness would never conflict with his goals

- that can happen at any point in your relationship,, i feel like it'd happen more when he's unsure about his feelings bc seeing how much he cares about someone that's nothing to him makes him want to banish his nerves

- overall though,, once he cares about you, whether he's fully accepted it or not, he'd burn the world down to make you feel okay again,, or stay in bed with you for awhile, or both--whatever you want, really

[hello-yue-here]

i <3 oneshots oml

also may i please request some yueki??? :)

can be any sort of like banter/domesticity type of thing, maybe them cooking together? I feel like they would be barely functional and there is so much room for mayhem haha

ive never written yueki before but i absolutely LOVE them AND domesticity so I’m excited for it lol.

~~~

After 3 years of marriage to a professional chef and 4 years of dating before that, you would think Suki would have learned to cook something by now.

But alas, that was not the case.

Yue had just opened her second restaurant and Suki decided that she wanted to do something nice for Yue to celebrate. She saw how stressed out her wife had been lately with all of the financials and permits, not to mention the fact that Yue nearly worked herself to death in the kitchens while the hiring process was still going on.

After binging every Rachel Ray video she could find on youtube, researching cookbooks and recipes, and purchasing a matching set of koi fish aprons for her and Yue, Suki felt like she was goddamn Gordon Ramsey.

She was going to cook her gorgeous wife the most delicious meal she had every tasted in her entire life.

Suki had decided to whip up her wife's favorite meal. A fusion meal of caribous suasaat from her home in Greenland with a side of kiritanpo from Suki's home in Japan. The recipes she looked up online seemed simple enough and Suki was confident that she would be able to impress Yue with the meal.

Yue was going to be sooooo surprised. Suki could already imagine how Yue would react. She'd get all excited and shake her fists in front of her face, which would be all scrunched up and smiley in the adorable way she always did when she was happy. She'd kiss Suki and call her darling and they'd eat together and be mushy gushy and happy.

But before any of that could happen, Suki actually had to start cooking.

~~~

The scene that awaited Yue when she returned home from work was not at all what she had been expecting.

What Yue expected to see was her wife napping on the couch like she usually did after coming home from work, with Hoarders playing in the background.

What she actually got was her wife standing in the kitchen. Wearing an apron that was covered in god knows what. Throwing water at the microwave. Which had somehow caught on fire.

"What did you do!?" Yue shrieked, before running into the hallway of their apartment complex to grab the fire extinguisher.

She came back in and doused the microwave with foam.

Once the fire was out and the kitchen effectively the biggest mess Yue had ever seen, she turned to her wife who was standing sheepishly on the other side of their kitchen island.

"Suki, sweetheart, what on earth have we said about the kitchen?" Yue sighed, rubbing her temples.

"...that I'm not allowed to use it without supervision," her wife muttered.

"And what were you doing?"

"...using the kitchen without supervison," Suki sighed, "but I swear I had a really good reason!"

"Oh? And what would that reason be? And why did it involve a fire in the microwave?"

"I was trying to surprise you! I know how stressed you've been with the new restaurant and I wanted to cook you your favorite meal to celebrate it's grand opening and you were gonna say 'wow this is amazing Suki! I love you so much Suki! Would you wanna be a chef at my new restaurant because this is the best meal i've ever had Suki!' but then the kiritanpo got cold even though I put tinfoil over it like Rachel Ray said to do to keep things from getting cold, so I put it in the microwave and it caught on fire! How was I suppose to know that you can't microwave tinfoil! I thought it would make it heat up faster!" Suki rambled.

Suddenly, looking at the pout that was working it's way onto Suki's face and how upset she looked over her plan not going the way she wanted, Yue wasn't mad anymore. She was touched that her wife wanted to do something so thoughtful just for her, and it was making her upset to see her wife upset. So dammit, Yue was going to make sure that her wife would get to have her special night.

Yue walked over to where Suki was standing and wrapped her in a warm embrace, "I do love you Suki," she said as she placed a kiss on the shorter woman's forehead, "and that was the most thoughtful thing anyone's ever done for me. So here's what we are going to do: We're gonna clean up this mess and I am going to teach you how to cook and we are going to have the dinner you planned for us and it's going to be great and we're going to have a wonderful evening darling, sound good?"

Suki squeezed Yue tighter and replied, "sounds perfect."

~~~

Suki gave Yue her apron (to which Yue responded with her adorable excited face and fist shaking) and they got to work. If anything, it was even better than Suki originally planned, because having Yue stand behind her and guide her hands through the motions of cooking like they were in a cheesy romance film (with all the adorable neck kisses included) made the night even more special.

But yeah, Suki was never going to try cooking unsupervised again. She preferred her wife's help anyways.

~~~

I hope you enjoyed this!! Caribou Suasaat is a stew from Greenland where there is a decent sized Inuit population and I felt that this fit Yue's character, and Kiritanpo is toasted rice sticks made by wrapping mashed rice around skewers with other ingredients ranging from miso to green onions and more from Japan where I think Suki would be from!

[katsubiatch]

Hopelessly Devoted Part 1

So I tweaked some things and changed a bit around. I changed Shinsou’s character to Arata, just because it didn’t make sense for Shinsou to not be a hero. This is probably going to be 2-3 parts or so, I’m still trying to fill out the middle of the story because I already know the ending haha. Just have to fill in the blanks of the start and middle. I hope you all enjoy. (: 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Your head throbbed as you tried to concentrate on keeping your eyes open, forcing yourself to breath no matter how hard you wanted to just quit. You could feel blood pooling out underneath you and knew you were a goner if no one found you.

No one would find you, no one would suspect you to be here. You'd just decided to take an extra shift in the ER after your latest fight with Katsuki. What a pain that was turning into.

Your eyes traveled around the intake room, it was a mess now after the man had thrown you around it. You couldn't be angry, he hadn't meant to be violent and was passed out again in his bed.

The ER was busy, and this mans vitals were fine. No one was going to find you in time. You'd die here, never to see Katsuki again, never kiss him or tell him about...

Your thoughts were disrupted when the door to the intake room opened and in came an Angel you were sure of it. The Angel of death to take you away. At this point you'd have anyone if it meant the pain would go away.

The Angel dropped down to his knees next to you, pulling out all kinds of equipment and swearing under his breath. He looked a lot like Arata in his white coat. "What the hell happened?" He sure sounded a lot like Arata too. "Sweet cheeks stay with me." He muttered, a gentle hand touching your cheek. At least you'd have a gentle touch to help you through to the other side...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all started in a bar, isn’t that how most love stories started now a days? It hadn’t been expected, it had just been a regular night after a long shift that required a strong drink. Bloody patients, drunk people needing IV’s to rehydrate and more tragedies than anyone could count all that and more in the long twelve hours you had worked. 

“Oh my God I thought that would never end. You know I had like three drunk guys feel me up while I was trying to put their IV’s in?” You complained to Arata as he sipped on his beer beside you. He wanted to stay sober just in case you got a bit too tipsy and he had to help you home. The two of you shared an apartment but you were just roommates. 

“You should have told me, I’d do something about it.” Arata murmured in your direction as you scoffed and looked over at him.  “Right, right. It doesn’t bother me that much, at least someone is touching it.” You murmured, taking a long sip from you straw. “Kidding, kidding. I’m just kidding. God they’re so gross.” You shivered, remembering the man that had grabbed you and whispered promises in your ear about how he’d take care of you once he got you home. You’d made sure to fish around in his arm a little, pretending you couldn’t find a vein. 

“Well you know how they are.” Arata shrugged as he finished his beer and leaned back in his chair, pushing the now empty bottle around the table. “They think once they’re drunk they are invincible and can’t get in trouble for anything.” The two of you chatted for a while and you were nice and tipsy by the time it happened. When your whole life changed. 

You’d been going to the bathroom when it happened when your hero came to your rescue like you were some damsel in distress. As much as you liked to think you could handle yourself in situations like this it was nice to be rescued sometimes. Now you didn’t really keep up with hero’s much, you only knew their names from the few times that they’d come into the ER to get patched up from big fights. Even then you didn’t fawn over them like some of your coworkers. After all they were a patient just like anyone else. They were still human. 

Either way you were headed back from the bathroom when you were trapped between a wall and a body. You looked up just to see one of the drunk men from the hospital in front of you, even drunker than before. “See I told you I’d find you again, let me take you home sugar.” His breath smelled rancid, like old beer and fried foods.  “How did you get out in the first place.” You wrinkled your nose and pushed back against the man in front of you, sighing a bit when he didn’t move. “Listen I didn’t agree to anything and I do not want you to take me home so please just let me pass.” You shook your head and attempted to squeeze out under his arm that up next to you on the wall but he was quicker. How he was in his drunken state you weren’t sure but you didn’t have the wits about yourself to question it too much. 

“Oh come on now, don’t be like that. I know you were giving me signals back at the hospital. Girl come on I can show you a real good time.” He murmured, dropping his head down to attempt to give your neck kisses.  “Really no I’m good.” You tried shoving again but you were met with resistance. “Please just let me get back to my friend...” You trailed off as suddenly the mans over salivated lips were pulled away from your neck.  “We got a problem here?” A gruff voice grumbled, holding the drunk man by he back of his shirt. He looked familiar but you couldn’t quite place it. He was handsome if you were going to be honest but it could be the alcohol talking.  “Mr. Dynamight sir... uh no. No there is no problem. I was just having a conversation with this girl here.” Ah so that was why he looked familiar. You hadn’t ever personally taken care of him but a few of the other nurses had been drooling over him before.  “Actually... I was just leaving. Would you mind... maybe walking me back to my table?” You asked of the hero as you looked up at him, knowing technically he was off duty but this was the only thing you could ask of him. You were a bit shaken up, that had gotten too close for comfort and now you were nervous he’d grab you when no one was looking. You just had to get back to Arata. Then you’d be safe. “Yeah, sure whatever.” The ash blond rolled his eyes as he let go of the drunk and you moved to his side. Thank you, you managed to whisper as the two of you walked back. “Thank you again. Really. I took care of him at the hospital and he decided that I wanted him or something.” You shook your head once the two of you got back to Arata who was eyeing the two of you suspiciously. “So, thanks again.” You nod, only getting a gruff ‘just doing my job’ from the man before he stomped off to his table where there were a few hero's that you did recognize. 

There were a few snickers and questions from Arata but you didn’t notice the glances from the hero’s table, not only from the hero that had saved you but also from his friends who were curious about the girl who’d caught their friends eye. Though he’d never admit it, he hadn’t even said anything to them. Arata and you decided to leave with one last glance towards Dynamights table not knowing that you’d seen him so soon again. 

It had only been a few days since the incident at the bar but it was a typical night in the ER. Drunks, car accidents and injuries from bar fights or cooking gone wrong all competing for your attention. You’d been stitching up knife cuts, checking temperatures on sick kids and giving fluids to those who needed it before transferring the more severe cases to be admitted. It had finally calmed down enough for you to finally take a drink out of your abandoned water bottle when someone told you stitches were needed in room 3. A small sigh came out of you before grabbing your supplies and making your way to the room. “Hello my name is Y/N I’ll be your nurse this evening. I heard you need stiches?” You asked, setting down your supplies.  “I don’t need any stiches. I told them that I’d be fine but they wouldn’t listen.” That voice sounded familiar and you looked up from setting things up to see the hero from the other night. Dynamight! The name finally came to you.  “Oh? How do you know that you don’t need them?” You asked with a smirk, crossing your arms over your chest as you looked over the hero.  “You’re that girl.” He stated, looking you up and down. “From the bar.” He hadn’t forgotten you but he had come to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t ever see you again. He was presently surprised that he was face to face with you again and now he knew your name. 

“Yes, girl from the bar that has a name. It’s Y/N.” You murmured, holding out your hand only to be met with a confused expression. “Where do you need stitches? Hand it over.” You murmured as he sighed and put his lower arm into your hand. “Mmm that does look a little nasty. Just a few stitches and you should be good to go. It won’t heal good on it’s own.” You should your head and started to get everything ready again. “This is going to be a pinch and a small burn but it’ll feel better than the stitches.” You promised as you injected his arm in a few spots. “Okay I’m gonna get started.”

The two of you made light conversation as you worked and Dynamight watched you. Little things, like the weather and how he’d gotten the injury. He was still in his hero gear so you figured he just came from work.  “Well that is that. You’re all fixed up.” You nodded, setting a bandage over it and taping it in place. “Don’t go messing up my hand work Dynamight.” You smiled at the man, taking care of your mess.  “It’s Bakugou.” He murmured, looking over at you. “Might as well be on a real name basis.” He said as he looked at you. “I mean... if you want to go on a date with me Saturday. Unless you and that guy are together.” He murmured, all confidence as he looked at you. He didn’t usually do things like this but it was something about you that he didn’t want to let get away again. He was just glad none of his friends had tagged along with him. He’d get so much shit from them for this. 

“Oh? If I want to.” You smiled as you looked over at him. “Well I guess that could be arranged.” You pulled out a pen and piece of paper out of your scrub pocket and scribbled down your address and phone number on the paper, as well as your full name. “We are not involved, just room mates.” You smiled and looked at him. “I’d love to go on a date. Pick me up at six.” You murmured, taking care of your things. “See you on Saturday Bakugou.” 

You didn’t know then what would happen, how much your life would change and the ways that it would. But if you had known then what you knew now, well you’d go thorugh it all over again. Even the hard parts.

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mae-foster

[lilyshadowwriter]

Augustus’ Story Summarized

As there’s a story summary for Gemma, I figured I’d go ahead and write one for Augustus too, so here’s what’s happened up to this point:

While Augustus and Gemma are twins and two of the closest people you’ll meet, they are also in many ways opposites. Whereas Gemma is known for her cool logic and has difficulties putting herself in other people’s shoes, Augustus is all about the heart- both empathetic and compassionate. They do, however, share a tendency to be introspective and introverted, so rarely will you see either of them surrounded by friends or frequenting large gatherings.

Augustus has a much easier time talking to people and has several casual friends, but rarely does he let people into his own private world. He finds it difficult to completely let down his guard, which is why it was so significant when he met someone he was willing to let go for completely. That person, of course, was Isaac Santiago Taveras.

The two met when they were 15 (So, What Are We Now Pt. 1 and Pt. 2) and had an instant connection despite outwardly seeming like two very different people. Isaac was athletic, cool, and popular, whereas Augustus stuck mostly to his sister and was more interested in art and doing well in school, but it didn’t seem to matter because they each thought of one another as if they’d hung the moon. They spent all of their time with one another, but were always unsure if the other felt the same for them- whether they were seen as simply a good friend, or whether they too, felt something more.

This confusion was made even worse by the fact that Isaac wasn’t out- not even his parents knew that he was gay and because of events that happened when he was quite young, he was terrified of them finding out- terrified of anyone finding out. After a messy debacle in which Isaac’s best friend Elena kissed Isaac in the middle of the school hallway and Augustus saw though, he chased after a hurt Augustus and told him everything.

The two shared a sort of secret, shy, and “unofficial” relationship afterward, sneaking glances, fleeting touches, and even surprise ambush hugs, haha. It was precious, and it was good, and despite the need to hide, they were happy simply being with one another.

This all changed quickly though after one fateful afternoon, when under the orange hues of the setting sun, Augustus attempted to kiss Isaac. Isaac panicked and pulled away, suddenly pointing out some random turtle on the bank. Augustus was thrown off and embarrassed, but as he tried to fumble through an apology Isaac received a call from his parents that he needed to come home immediately...and he left, but not before promising Augustus that he didn’t do anything wrong. Augustus lets him go, still embarrassed, but hopeful at least that he didn’t mess things up between them.

It turns out to be the last time they ever spoke. 

Isaac moves away and never speaks to him again, save for some generic text message informing him that he was moving out of state and that he didn’t think he would be able to keep in contact with him anymore. Isaac’s phone gets disconnected, any emails sent to him get bounced back undeliverable, and no one ever hears from him again.

It leaves Augustus devastated because he loved him. It leaves Augustus devastated because it leaves him with the conclusion that despite everything, Isaac had clearly never felt the same as him.

Years later and Augustus had never really dated anyone. There were some half-hearted attempts, a mindless first kiss from a guy who’d kissed him at his junior prom who he’d had to awkwardly turn down, and that was about it. He never thought much about it though, simply chalking it up to having not found anyone he particularly liked.

This changed his sophomore year of college though (A&G I) when a certain purple-haired young man, Patrick O’ Doherty, manages to get through to Gus’ heart after literal months of failed and awkward exchanges that usually left Augustus perplexed and confused, lol. Eventually though, Augustus realizes that maybe he liked Patrick too, and so he gives him a chance, surprising Patrick with a sudden kiss in the middle of the campus grounds.

Ever since, they’ve had a rather sweet and happy relationship, often spending time with one another and never failing to make the other smile. However, even within its sweetness it’s also remained quite superficial, with Augustus clearly keeping Patrick at arm’s length for unknown reasons, and Patrick too nervous to rock the boat and risk losing him.

This begins to cause issues for them, particularly as Augustus’ worries grow about his twin sister, Gemma, who more and more seems to struggle to get through the days. It makes him feel like he’s failing, like he’s wholly lacking, because no matter how hard he tries to stop it, he keeps seeing Gemma slip. Augustus keeps this to himself though, never sharing his fears and worries with Patrick.

Then, during his junior year, Augustus bumps into someone he never thought he’d see again: Isaac (A&G II). It sucks, abruptly bringing back everything Augustus thought he’d forgotten years ago. He honestly tries to forget this brief encounter, but then Augustus sees him again (A&G III) and this time instead of cutting the conversation short and running off, Isaac insists that they talk. Augustus doesn’t want to hear anything that he has to say, but eventually gives in and learns the truth of what happened all those years ago.

The truth was, Isaac did feel the same for him. The truth was, Isaac did want that kiss, but despite wanting it, panicked when the moment came, not as ready as he thought he’d been. The truth was, that night, Isaac was so frustrated with hiding that he came out to his parents, and it went worse than he could have imagined. They accused him of ridiculous shit like being ‘tempted by the devil’ and threatened to kick him out of the house, and when Isaac bit back that he’d just go to Augustus’ place, they concluded that Augustus was the problem, and moved the whole family away. 

They took his phone after he snuck a message to Augustus and his friends, they took his computer, they had him on a 24/7 lock down and they told him if he ever spoke to Augustus again, that would be it. And Isaac, hundreds of miles from anyone he knew, cut off the world, and scared out of his mind, gave in. 

It would be another 3 years before Isaac confronted his parents again, and this time firmly stated that they could either accept him as he was, or they would never see him again. He was 18 then and had had enough. His parents shocked him by asking him to stay and promising to try and do better, but it’s been a rocky process.

Augustus feels awful for what Isaac went through. He forgives him, much to Isaac’s surprise. He still hates what happened, but doesn’t blame him. He was 15 and it was an impossible situation he never should have had to go through. They part on awkward, but mostly good terms. They agree to maybe try to be friends again.

A&G IV Pt. 1 finds Augustus quite shaken by all he’d learned, and annoyed with himself for being shaken in the first place. It was all in the past, after all. Why should it have mattered anymore? It didn’t, and yet Augustus can’t stop thinking about it.

That’s when he finds out that Gemma is doing worse than ever, and discovers her practically unresponsive with a knocked over bottle of sleeping pills lying on her bedside table. He panics, and even after he discovers that she’d only taken a few and that she was fine, just tired, he can’t get that image out of his head. He can’t rid himself of the horror he’d felt when he’d thought he’d lost her. He can’t forget Gemma’s tearful, mumbled words to him as he tried to comfort her, “I don’t want to kill myself, but sometimes I do wish that I’d never existed.”

It has Augustus throwing up because of the stress and feeling worse than ever, but it’s then that Isaac happens to text him some light-hearted, silly thing. Augustus texts him a thanks for the laugh and Isaac asks what happened. He debates not saying anything, but reveals he had a shit morning and that he can’t get it out of his head. To his displeasure, Isaac calls him, but they end up talking and little by little Augustus shares with him what happened. Afterward, he feels a bit better, maybe even happy that he got to talk to Isaac, that maybe they really could be friends again and that could be a good thing.

When he later admits to Gemma that he’s been talking to Isaac though, his sister has a negative reaction, shaking some of his previous confidence. She points out that Isaac probably could have done more to reach out to him despite his situation, and Augustus counters that Isaac feared losing his family and that the risk was too great. Gemma reluctantly relents, but still expresses some concerns, worrying that Isaac might hurt him again. Augustus reveals that he’s really missed Isaac, and that he wants to give him a chance again- that they would only be trying to be friends, after all. Gemma lets it go, but not without advising that Augustus should reflect on why this meant so much to him.

Later, when Augustus is talking to Patrick and on his way to having lunch with him, Isaac texts him a simple follow-up and asks how he’s doing and Augustus replies that he’s fine now and that he’ll talk to him later. It’s a rather nothing exchange to Augustus, but Patrick happens to see the texts and asks him what happened. Augustus evades, giving a general answer about Isaac happening to catch him after something occurred that morning, but that it was all fine now and that’s why he hadn’t mentioned it.

To his surprise, Patrick abruptly announces that he forgot he needed to go to work early that day and ducks out of their lunch date, but before he goes, asks Augustus if he’ll come over to his place after his shift. Patrick assures him that it’s nothing bad, but that he has something important to talk to him about. Augustus has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but agrees...

...and that’s where we catch up to him now- sitting on Patrick’s doorstep and wondering what it is that he wants to say......

[missmonsters2]

Drive Her Crazy || Part VI

PAIRING: Wanda Maximoff x OFC/Reader

Summary: AU. Meet Wanda, the new ‘It’ girl. She’s built her social standing as a social influencer through Instagram and vlogging on Youtube. Queen Bee in her social circle, she’s got everyone wrapped around her finger. She’s perfect, you think. Girls like that require a little finesse, and you’re ready to play the game.

Warnings: Non-healthy relationship, psychological games, eventual smut. 18+ only.

Note: Some real shit be happening. This is an extremely long chapter on the count that I have poor planning skills and will be trying to conclude this 10 parts total haha 

PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV || PART V 

PART VI of X

Count: 7711

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“No, that’s wonderful. Of course. Yes. If you could send it over to me. Thank you again.” 

You sigh as you hang up your phone, a huge smile on your face. You had finally gotten your present for Wanda. She was going to be so ecstatic. A couple of weeks had passed by so quickly. 

That night after Wasteland, you and Wanda had stayed out all night, even falling asleep a little at the pier. When you had dropped Wanda at home, the two of you could see the lights on, indicating that Vision was awake, most likely waiting for her. 

You gave her a soft smile and told her she could text or call you later. You met up with her a couple days after to help plan her party. She was renting out a venue as it was going to be a big gathering. All of her friends and work friends were going to be there. She needed help choosing catering and a live band. She had shown up at the meeting spot with a huff which caused you to raise your brow at her.

She confided to you that Vision and her have been fighting a lot more lately. It just seemed that Vision was on edge but wouldn’t say why that was, and she couldn’t figure it out.

You, of course, offered her comfort, which she soaked up greedily. You could only suspect why Vision was on edge. Wanda was spending a lot of time with you, drawing away from him. You didn’t interact with him enough for him to consider you just her ‘gal pal.’ 

You told Wanda to not worry about the live band, you would take care of that. As for the catering, you scheduled tastings that day to see which one would be best. The experience had you thinking that it felt like you were doing wedding things together. Wanda seemed to enjoy herself as well, often feeding you a spoonful of the dishes to see your opinion. 

When you had finished the catering, she told you everything else was handled, so you went to get desert together. Wanda had seemed to finally resign to the fact that you were always going to pay when you were together. 

In the middle of eating and chatting, your phone began to go off. When you looked at your phone, you saw that it was Natasha that was calling you. She had been pretty busy with some kind of work emergency with Tony. You gave Wanda an apologetic smile as you picked the call. Wanda pursed her lips, stirring her ice cream in her cup a little as she watched you talk on the phone. 

Natasha says the crisis had been averted and invited you to have dinner with her. You agreed and hung up the phone. When you told Wanda it was time to go as you needed to get ready for your date with Natasha, she seemed like she was going to say something but stopped herself. 

In the car, she had asked you outright if you were now dating Natasha. You told her vaguely it was just a date, neither indicating if you wanted to date the redhead or not.

Since then, Wanda had been a little silent, which had you smirking.

As it was nearing the day of the party, you had lunch with Natasha again at her request. You had brought some takeout and was currently carrying it to her office. 

When you arrived at Stark Towers, a security guard named Happy checked you down before allowing you through.

“Miss Romanoff is on the 30th floor, room 204.”

You thanked him and took your guest pass to the elevator. There was an automated voice in the elevator asking which floor you would like.

You knew Tony Stark was an inventor, but even you were impressed with what he has built and achieved.

Knocking on the door, you heard Natasha’s soft voice telling you to enter. She smiled when she saw you.

“Hey, stranger,” she greeted you with her husky voice and a soft jilt her lips. You looked around her office and whistled as you put down the food. Not shabby at all.

“Stranger?” You said with an amused tone. “We saw each other two days ago.”

“Maybe that’s too long,” Natasha quipped back, getting up to stand right in front of you. You quirk your lips at her, tilting your head slightly downwards to capture her lips in a soft kiss as you put her hand on the juncture of her jaw and neck. Natasha leaned into it, putting her arms around your waist. 

When you both pulled back, the redhead sighed with a soft smile. “Tell me again why we aren’t officially dating?”

You chuckle at her, pulling away to unpack the food. “Pretty sure it was you that said you had a lot going on currently and wanted to take things slow.”

You had started to officially see Natasha for about two weeks now. It was at a late-night dinner over at her place that she kissed you. The kisses had gotten so heated, but before anything else could happen, the redhead stopped. You then learned that she and Bruce had dated seriously and they had just recently broken up.

She was still trying to get over it and wanted to take things slow and slow meant that she wanted to keep whatever you had going on a secret. That had changed your plans a little in the sense that it was hardly benefiting you if Wanda didn’t know.

Still, it wasn’t completely useless. Timing is everything, you reminded yourself. 

“Huh,” Natasha hummed. “Now why would I go and say that?”

You just chuckled at her joke, handing a bowl of food over to her and settled into a seat.

“So,” Natasha said, scooping some food into her mouth sitting on the armrest of the chair you were in. “Wanda’s party is next Saturday. What did you get her?”

“It’s going to be a surprise,” you tell Natasha. Since Wanda had confided in you that she had yet to share with anyone else about her aspiration on becoming an actress, you were going to be giving her present in private most likely.

“A surprise? Even from me?” Natasha asked with a quirk of her brow.

You nodded your head, chewing your food. When you looked at her expression, you put your food down, sighing as you pulled her into your lap.

“Hey, don’t make that face,” you tell Natasha, pinching her hip lightly and she wriggles in your hold.

“I would tell you, but it’s in relation to something Wanda told me in confidence. As a friend, I really value that.” When you say that, Natasha could only sigh lightly with a smile, wrapping her arms around your neck and kisses you softly.

“You really are a good friend to her,” Natasha says, respect in her tone and you smile back. With that, the two of you resume eating, making small chat.

“Vision has been bragging about his gift,” Natasha says after you both discuss what the other group members are getting her. 

“Oh, really? What’s he getting her?” You say with a bit of an amused huff. 

“Oh, he’s not getting her anything. He has apparently written her a song and is arranging to play it at her party in the evening. He’s literally telling everyone about it. Wanda is such a huge sucker for romantic gestures like that, so she’s basking in the accolades everyone is giving her. I think they might finalize their wedding date soon.” Natasha says, finishing up her food and putting it on the table.

There’s a momentary pause in you, but you continue on as normal to avoid Natasha being suspicious. 

“Oh, that’s really romantic,” you say. The topic changes and you continue the afternoon with Natasha as normal, kissing her goodbye and promising to call later when she’s off work. 

The moment you leave, your expression falls. Your jaw in a tight line as you get into your car.

You can’t let Vision play for Wanda at her party, it would really put a wrench in your plan if Wanda is swept off her feet by him.

No.

Not when you were so close. 

It would be a small price to pay, but nothing and no one would stop you from having Wanda.

It was time to call in a favor that was owed to you.

Throwing your Bluetooth headset, you dialed a number and drove off.

“Hey, it’s me. I heard you’re in the city. Come have dinner with me tonight, my treat.”

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You arrive at the restaurant in the evening. It was at a high-end restaurant that you had arranged for the meeting. The greeter at the front took your name, immediately leading you to one of the VIP rooms in the back. As he opened the door, you found you weren’t the first to arrive. 

“Hey,” you greet, with a smile. “It’s been a while, Charles. How’s the missus?”

He was a tall man, clean cut in every way possible, and a charming smile. A waiter comes and Charles orders for the both of you as you take a seat across from him.

“It’s been a hot minute,” Charles agrees. “Cheryl is doing great. How have you been? I can’t imagine that you’re here just to catch up.”

You give him a cunning grin. “Right down to business as always, Charles. You need to relax. I can’t even imagine how you’re an A&R manager like that.”

The man chuckles, adjusting his tie a little looser. “Oh trust me, I can relax plenty. But, you never come to see me unless you want something. You usually just email me what projects you’re working on and prefer that I just email you regarding any interviews or sponsorships.”

The waiter returns with a bottle of wine, pouring it for the two of you before leaving it in the ice bucket. You give the waiter a smile of thanks, taking the glass and taking a gentle sip.

“Well, I suppose you’re not wrong. I want you to sign someone on.”

Charles raises his eyebrow at you, clearly intrigued as he takes a sip from his own glass. You pull out your phone and already have Vision’s SoundCloud up. You press play, watching as Charles expression changes as he listens.

“I hope you’re kidding,” Charles asks, dead expression in his eyes.

“Not in the slightest,” You tell Charles. “Lyrics aside, he has a good physique, decent musical ability, and sings well. Ghostwriters are popular these days anyway.”

Charles eyes you with the tilt of his head and arms crossed. “Is there a particular reason you want to sign this person on?”

You nod, leaning back and crossing your legs. Your hand grabs a strand of your hair and twirls it. “He’s in the way of what I want.”

Charles sighs, rubbing his eyes blearily. “I don’t know about this, he could be a total waste.”

“Total waste or not, you owe me. You got where you are today because I chose you out of everyone else to sign me on to this label. That got you the bonus you needed to pay for Cheryl’s surgery.” You eye him from across the table and watch as he purses his lips and sighs in resignation. 

“Alright, fine. I’ll sign him on with a six-month contract and see where it goes.”

“One year,” you tell him. Six months was too short, in your opinion, and a lot could happen in one year. You wanted him to go on tour by then.

Charles scrunches his nose but nods. “Alright, fine. We’re even after this?”

You nod at him. “We’re even. Contact Vision next Saturday and get him to sign on.”

You spin your wine glass at the stem delicately between your fingers. “Celebrate. Make sure he understands this is his one shot and keep him busy the entire night.” 

Charles chuckles and nods just as the food is coming in. “Alright, will do. You’ve got a strange way of getting rid of things that are in your way. What if he actually becomes big?”

You smile sardonically, “I’ll make sure to send him a congratulations card signed by my girlfriend and me. She’s his biggest supporter.”

“Oh, you’ve got yourself a new girlfriend?” Charles asks, smiling at you.

“If all goes well, I will.”

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The day of the party, you woke up early. You delicately wrapped Wanda’s present and set it aside. Wanda had called you soon after frantically panicking about something going wrong today, so you had to spend some time calming her down and reassuring her that everything was fine and that you’d even call the hotel, the catering, and the band to triple check everything. 

The gathering was supposed to happen at 5pm tonight, so you made time to bring lunch to Natasha who told you she would meet you there as she might be a little late from work with Tony. Deciding to show up an hour earlier, you approached the venue to see Wanda running around to make sure everything was okay.

The venue was outside with a beautiful view and stage and dancing floor set up. There were flower decorations and poles with a box on top to hold a fire inside for when it got dark or cold. There were string LED lights set up as well for when it got dark.

You approach her, putting her hand on her shoulder to settle her down. 

“Hey, birthday girl,” you call, and Wanda looked so relieved to see you. “Where’s the fire?”

Wanda wraps her arms around your waist and pulls you into a tight hug. “Oh my god, this is a disaster. The catering company just let me know they’re going to be late. I don’t know what to do when people get here, and there’s going to be no food.”

You rub Wanda’s back soothingly and get her to sit in a chair. “Alright, just sit here and relax. I’m going to get someone to bring you a drink. It’s your birthday, and I feel like you running around like a chicken without its head is hardly what a birthday girl should be doing. Just let me handle this. Where’s Vision?”

Wanda leans back in her chair while you call over a server. “He’s practicing his song for tonight. He should be here when the party starts.”

You nod your head, opting to not say anything. The server comes back with a drink in hand that you pass over to Wanda. “Just sit here and relax a little, okay? Why don’t you make sure everyone you’ve invited will be here?”

Wanda nods to you with a grateful smile as you gently graze your finger on her cheek and walk off. 

Within 45 minutes, you have everything solved and walk back to Wanda, who is just finishing getting off the phone. 

“Hey,” Wanda says as you take a seat next to her, drinks in hand. “What’s going on?”

You hand her another drink and lean back in your seat with a sigh. “It’s solved. I called the catering company who is going to give you a partial refund. I arranged the hotel to serve appetizers that your guests can grab around those tables in the back there. That should probably hold them over until the catering arrives at least.”

Wanda sighs in relief, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “Oh, thank God. How much extra is that going to cost?”

You wave your hand off at her, “Don’t even worry about that.”

“No!” Wanda says to you. “You seriously can’t.”

You just smile at her, elbow against the table as your rest your temple against your fist. “Happy Birthday, Wanda.”

“So, is this my birthday present? You saving me from disaster again?” Wanda asks with a smile on her face and eyes twinkling.

“Oh, God no,” you laugh. “That’d be too tacky.” 

You chat for another couple minutes, but Wanda tells you she’s going to go change as she booked a room at the hotel for tonight. 

It isn’t long before she’s back and some of the guests start to arrive. You recognize some of them as other social influencers Wanda has taken pictures with or was in a video with. She has photographers and brand representatives she’s worked with before. Some of her personal friends outside of the ones you’ve already met arrive as well. 

The room is beginning to fill up, and the appetizers arrive just in time for the guests along with the band who are playing live music. 

Wanda is flitting around, socializing with everyone while you’re watching the hotel workers gather the insane amount of presents into one corner. 

God, this is bigger than a wedding. 

Soon enough, you see Steve, Bucky, Bruce, Thor, and Clint arrive. There are some other people that you don’t recognize with them. They walk up to you first as Wanda is lost within the crowd somewhere.

“This is so Wanda,” Clint comments with a smile and shake of his head. 

They introduce you to the people they brought with them, but honestly, the names just fly over your head since there are so many of them.

As a group, you go in search for Wanda who is currently chatting with a group of girls. As soon as she sees you guys, she turns back to the girls to say she’ll see them later and runs to guys. She immediately hugs Clint first before the rest of the group.

“Jeeze Wanda, did you invite all of California to your party?” Steve says as he hugs her. 

Wanda just laughs as they pull back. “C’mon, you know this is nowhere to Tony’s parties.”

The group seems to mumble in agreement with her. Hovering over the appetizer table, they’re all making conversation when you notice at the door Natasha, Tony, and Pepper walk in half an hour later.

They make their way over to your and Natasha hugs everyone first before saving you for last. 

“Hey,” you greet softly in her ear.

“Hey, yourself,” Natasha greets back with a smile. 

“You look amazing,” you tell the redhead, not even subtly eyeing her in a way that makes everyone look at the two of you. 

“Jesus, get a room,” Clint teases, but Natasha only smirks her lips in response.

You look at Wanda from your peripheral to see that she’s undoubtedly not smiling, but no one is currently looking at her right now.

Another half-hour passes and the catering arrives to serve everyone food. It’s you and the original gang sitting together at the table, except Vision. 

At this point, Wanda looks half irritated, and half worried that she stands up to go call to see where her fiancé is. 

When she comes back, she looks more excited but still a little irritated. 

“Where’s Vision?” Tony asks. “Isn’t he performing his undying love for you tonight?”

Wanda gives a smile as she looks at everyone, “Apparently, he got a call from an agent at a record label saying they discovered his SoundCloud. They want to meet up with him immediately to see if he will sign on because they’re flying out tonight.”

Everyone’s cheering, including yourself.

“That is the most amazing news, Wanda! Will he still be able to make it tonight?” Thor asks with his booming voice and cheery smile. 

Wanda nods, “Oh, yeah. He promised for sure that he was going to be able to make it back in time.”

You only smile as you eat your food, checking your phone discreetly at you do.

Going over the contract in excruciatingly full detail. Celebrating will be right after all night. You’re welcome. 

You read the text and put your phone away. The evening falls into the night as the band plays and everyone’s mingling and dancing. You had a couple guys approach you that you quickly shot down. Then a couple girls would approach you before Natasha would come and scare them off.

“A little territorial, aren’t we?” You tease the redhead as she huffs. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt?” She deadpans, and you have to contain your laughter because you don’t think she would appreciate it. 

You grab her hand and pull her on the dance floor. You hold her hand in one, your other hand settling on her back at the base of her spine while her hand settles on your shoulder near the bottom of your neck. 

You lead her through the rhythm and steps, smiling as you do so. As you turn, you can see Wanda watching the two of you from afar along with the gang.

“Is this too much?” You ask softly. “Might get exposed at this rate.”

Natasha’s lips curl upward in a seductive smile, her lips ghosting over your own. “Every secret gets revealed eventually.”

More people start to fill the dance floor. You eventually split up from Natasha as Bucky grabs her for a dance. You danced with Steve who looked really nervous and stepped on your toes a couple times, but you reassured him and guided him through the steps. By the end of it, he was still a little robotic, but at least he wasn’t stepping on your toes. You danced with Thor, who was just a whirlwind on the floor, completely confident in guiding his partner. You were almost dizzy by the time you landed in Clint’s arms.

“So,” he starts. “You and Natasha?”

You just grin at him if this was the attempt of his protective friend talk.

“Maybe,” you say. “She’s a complicated gal.”

“You don’t seem so simple yourself,” Clint comments as his eyes move over to Wanda. 

You had to give it to him for being so perceptive. But you were sure he didn’t know quite exactly what was going on.

“No one is ever just simple,” you finally say. Wanda finishes her dance with Tony and is making her way over to the two of you.

“Just remember everything doesn’t have to be difficult either,” Clint tells you as Wanda interrupts the two of you.

“Alright, Clint, I had my birthday dance with you. She’s the only one left who owes me one.” Wanda says, and Clint looks at you but still defers to Wanda with a smile and nod.

You hold her the same way you did with Natasha, but Wanda scoots much closer to you. 

“So you and Natasha?” Wanda asks, and you let out a light chuckle.

“That seems to be the big question tonight, but I think we should focus on you today. It is your special day, after all.”

Wanda looks at you with a slight pout. “It’s my birthday, so you will answer my questions.”

You just smile at her, twirling her around.

“It’s undefined,” you confess as she comes back into your arms. You swear you could hear a sigh of relief.

“When did that even happen?” Wanda asks as if she was trying to recall all the times she saw the two of you together.

“About three weeks ago, when I had dinner with her. She wants to take it slow and slow meant keeping it a secret and undefined.”

Wanda frowns, “That doesn’t seem very fair to you.”

You just shrug, swaying with Wanda as you glide her across the dance floor. 

“It is what is.”

To stop Wanda from inquiring anymore, you twirl her in your arms before dipping her slightly as you hold her up with your hand on her back.

The song ends, so you pull her back up with a smirk since her cheeks are lightly dusted pink.

Natasha comes up at the moment, putting her hand on your shoulder.

“Drinks?” She asks, and you nod, dropping Wanda’s hand and telling her you’d see her later.

You walk off with Natasha. She looked a little tense, but you assumed that was because of her last dance with Bruce. He had been staring on and off at you and Natasha ever since you had first danced with her.

It was now a delicate situation for you. It was clear that there were a lot of things left unsaid between Natasha and Bruce, but Natasha still liked you.

Perhaps seeing Natasha move on with someone was more surprising to Bruce than he thought would affect him.

If you played this right, you could probably keep whatever you had going on with Natasha long enough before Bruce snapped and went back for Natasha.

It was a mystery on how Natasha would react to that though.

It occurred to you that you really had no idea how to read Natasha clearly. You weren’t lying to Clint when you said she was a complicated person. 

Perhaps if you could have normal relationships, Natasha would be the perfect person for you.

But you couldn’t. 

It didn’t appeal to you. 

“Damn, Vision is pushing it kind of close,” Natasha said, pulling you out of your thoughts as she ordered drinks for the two of you. You looked around and could hear some of the people commenting on how Vision was missing. 

Some of the girls who came along definitely were more jealous of Wanda than a friend. It was like they were rooting for her embarrassment.

The night continued on but as the time came closer, Wanda began to get more stressed as she was trying to find out where Vision was. He had neither texted or called her. Still, she continued on, believing that her fiancé would show up like he had promised.

It was the last half-hour before Vision was supposed to play for Wanda. The birthday girl was calling him, but it kept going to voicemail.

“Oh my god,” Wanda whispered, putting her hand to her forehead. “Where the hell is he?”

The rest of the group looked unhappy and tried to reach the man themselves, but the same thing happened as it kept ringing until it went to voicemail.

Wanda could hear some of the whispers of her guest that Vision was missing and some backhanded comments made her clench her jaw.

“This is so embarrassing,” Wanda said, turning to face the group, so she didn’t have to hear the comments as much.

The combination of her hurt, disappointed, and embarrassed expression really did break your heart. 

“Maybe something happened? I’ll call to see if there have been any accidents on the road or if he checked into any hospitals.” Clint said as he walked off with Steve and Bucky, and raised his phone to his ear. 

Fifteen minutes later, they came back with reluctant expressions.

“Nothing,” Clint said with an apologetic expression.

Wanda sighed, taking a seat at the table in front of the stage and shaking her head. “Just...tell the band to keep playing, I guess. I’ll end the party soon.”

Wanda watches as you whisper something to Natasha and walk off. Everyone is trying to comfort her, but she can’t help but feel so flustered. Vision had literally made such a big deal that he wrote her a song for her birthday and was so excited to perform it for her. He had gone and told everyone when she was inviting people to her birthday.

She was excited to hear him play for her. He had been so weird with her lately, and this was such a romantic gesture. She was basking in the congratulations she was getting.

He had talked about wanting to finalize a date for their wedding and Wanda had actually hesitated in her mind briefly before agreeing they should.

Why did she hesitate? She wanted to say she didn’t know, but if she were honest with herself, your electric eyes popped up in her mind. 

She found herself obsessing over you ever so slowly. What were you doing? Why was Natasha calling you again? God, why did you treat her so good? Did you treat Natasha this good? Why did your hands feel so hot on her?

Wanda looked at her phone again to see if Vision was returning any of her texts. God, if he isn’t seriously injured, she was going to be so pissed at him.

She could hear some girls snicker behind her again, and she closed her eyes. Damn, being a social influencer could be hallowing sometimes.

Suddenly, there was some noise from the stage and a cough into the mic that made Wanda snap her head up. She found you, in your Lady Phantom mask standing up there. You were still in your same outfit though, so people who had seen and interacted with you earlier in the day knew it was you.

You stood up there, holding a ukelele a little awkwardly as you’re more used to standing behind a DJ stand.

“Hello, everyone,” you greeted into the mic, and you heard a couple cheers from the people who recognized you or was a fan of Lady Phantom. 

“I’m Lady Phantom, here to perform for a very, very special birthday girl. It’s no original, so forgive me, but it’s most certainly dedicated to you. Happy Birthday, Wanda Maximoff.”

Wanda could hear the excited whispering from her guests and friends. People had pulled their phones as Lady Phantom has never sung before, nevermind singing live. 

She watched as you turned around, signaling the band and then started to strum your ukelele.

Wanda recognized the riff immediately. She couldn’t believe you. You were playing Riptide by Vance Joy, her favorite song she mentioned in passing on the night in the Palm Desert.

I was scared of dentists and the dark I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations Oh, all my friends are turning green You're the magician's assistant in their dreams

You kept eye contact with Wanda the entire time, your voice was melodic in a way no one would’ve ever guessed. Though you didn’t possess a wide vocal range and not technically adept, this song was perfect for you. You were a little breathy, and it made Wanda’s heart skip a beat. 

Wanda laughed as you winked at her, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe you were doing this for her. Saving her from disaster once more. People around her were whispering about how it was possible to get Lady Phantom to sing for her. It outshined the news that her fiancé didn’t show up. People were so vapid that they were more amazed by a hotshot DJ was here singing rather than a heartful performance from a nobody.

Wanda looked over to see Natasha watching, looking a little conflicted as it was evident that you were only focusing on Wanda. 

And it made her feel smug. 

Wanda looked back at you as you sang with your eyes closed, strumming the ukelele and tapping your foot.

You opened your eyes, looking right at Wanda. This was for her.

Everything was for her. 

I can't have it, I can't have it any other way

The background noises faded out, people were blurring away as you looked at her with an intensity that forced her to only see you. 

I swear she's destined for the screen Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen, oh

You smiled as you sang that line, and Wanda was smiling back at you, tears welling up in her eyes. Her heart was swelling up with an emotion she couldn’t even identify.

Why did it feel so right?

You were coming down to the final riff as you sang softly. 

Lady, running down to the riptide Taken away to the dark side I wanna be your left hand man I love you when you're singing that song and I got a lump in my throat 'cause You're gonna sing the words wrong 

The song soon came to an end as you strummed the last note. The crowd erupted in cheers for you, phone flashes going off as photos were being taken. Wanda stood up, clapping as well. People were still recording as you bent down, kneeling on the stage on one knee in front of Wanda as you gave her the ukelele. She turned it over on the back to see your signature on it and a short message.

Happy Birthday, Lady

From your left-hand man,

Lady Phantom

A tear slipped out of Wanda’s eyes as she looked at you with a gigantic smile. You softly used your index finger to poke her nose with a smirk before getting up, waving to the crowd, and walked off the stage. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶ 

The party went on for another hour before Wanda ended it and bid all of her guests' goodnight and thank you for coming to the party.

It was pretty crazy after you had come off the stage. You had decided to keep your mask on afterward even though there were people who had seen you without it. But now, with all the flashing photos, you did want to minimize the amount of exposure you were going to get. 

It was increasingly difficult to be able to spend time with Wanda or Natasha after as you constantly kept having groups of people come up to you and chat you up or ask for a photo. 

A girl had come up to you too close for comfort and asked for a photo. You saw Natasha watching you in the distance with an unimpressed look before smirking at you a little. 

You chuckled awkwardly at the girl clinging to you after the photo was taken, using your hands to pry her off as you walked off briskly to Natasha.

Seemingly standing with the redhead, she emitted an aura that prevented anyone else from coming up. You sighed in relief while Natasha asked her arms crossed.

“Quite the romantic gesture you did,” she commented. 

You pursed your lip at her. “C’mon Natasha, it’s Wanda’s birthday. Her fiancé is missing in action after making such a big deal about his performance. She looked crushed and really embarrassed. I couldn’t just let that happen on her birthday.”

Natasha eyes you for a moment before sighing and uncrossing her arms. “I know, I was seriously going to beat some of these girls’ asses for making snide comments about Wanda. Why did she even invite half these people?”

“Networking,” you answer, adjusting your mask. 

Natasha made a disgruntled noise and looked at you again. 

“Come home with me tonight,” she tells you. You smile at her with a nod. The party was ending with people leaving.

“I’ll have to meet you later though, I still have to give Wanda her gift.” You tell the redhead who nods. She looks around to see everyone occupied and turns back to kiss you lightly on the cheek and leaves. 

You stay back until everyone has left, grabbing your present from the stack that had gathered. Wanda looks incredibly exhausted as you approach her.

“Let’s go to my room,” Wanda says, grabbing your hand and drags you off while the hotel staff starts cleaning up. They tell her they’ll have her gifts send to her room in the morning and keep it locked up for tonight. Ukelele in hand, Wanda lets go your hand to press the floor to her place in the elevator. With it now just the two of you, you relax a little more, the tension leaving from your shoulders.

“Your friends are kind of insane,” you mumble, referring more to her social influencer group of friends. 

“Yeah...I wouldn’t call Stacey a friend really. She’s pretty new and can be...aggressive,” Wanda says with a crinkle in her brow. You smile lightly, using your finger to press against the crinkle and watches as it fades out as Wanda looks at you. 

The elevator dings to signal you’ve arrived on the 20th floor. Wanda grabs your hand again and drags you out and down the hall to her room. She opens the door with her key pass and shuts the door behind you. 

With a sigh, she gently sets down the ukelele you gave her. The room is pretty dark, but Wanda doesn’t make any move to turn on the lights. She had a pretty good suite with the window facing the outside view.

Moonlight shined through the open curtains illuminating the room. When you turn around, Wanda is there, and she lifts her hands to gently take off your mask, smiling as your eyes framed by your long lashes come into view. 

It’s silent for a moment as Wanda puts your mask on the table. You just stand there, staring at each other. 

It’s more intimate than any kiss or sex you’ve ever had. 

“Thank you,” Wanda finally says. “Thank you for the beautiful performance, for saving me from embarrassment. You always seem to be my knight in shining armor.”

You chuckle softly, shifting to your other foot. 

“I would hardly call you a damsel in distress,” you tease her softly. Then you lift your present in your hand to her. She stares at the box in confusion. 

“What’s this?” She asks.

“Your present?” You reply with a raise of your brow and smirk. 

“You mean the ukelele isn’t my present?” Wanda asks, turning her eyes over to the instrument she had laid down. 

You let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, God, no. I don’t even know what you’d do with a ukelele. Can you even play? No, God, no. I just had that in the back of my car for my new collab I was working on this week. I can get another one.”

Wanda just let out a tiny smile, and she grabs the beautifully wrapped gift from your hand. She pulls the string to undo the bow and lets it fall to the ground. Placing the box to rest against her forearm, she lifts the lid and stares at the content confusedly. 

She grabs out the thin stack of paper that is neatly stabled together. 

“What...is this?” Wanda asks, eyeing the front page that only had a title on it.

“Your script,” you answer with a smile. “You’ll need to learn it for your audition in eight weeks.”

Wanda just looks at you, shellshocked. She looks back at the script and then back to you.

“What?” She asks, disbelief in her tone. You just continue to smile.

She drops the box and flips through the script. The first couple of pages had the characters and premise of the story. The rest only had a particular scene, but when she read it, she loved it. 

“How did you...? What?” Wanda asks again, and you laugh.

“It’s not guaranteed, but I know someone who is doing auditions for a movie he’s directing. He’s willing to give you a shot even though you have no portfolio in acting. It did make it better you’re a social influencer, and I did tell him even David is going to be working with you.”

Wanda is just smiling, letting out a burst of laughter in shock. Wanda just watches as you turn around, babbling about how you had complete faith in her she was going to nail it, that she seriously needed to get into acting because the world was missing out, and how you knew an acting coach you could contact to help her with tips or run lines.

It just hit Wanda. 

It hit her why she hesitated about finalizing a date to get married to Vision. Why she didn’t care that Vision ended up never showing up. Why she thought about you all the time lately. Why she wanted to throttle Natasha every time her friend got close to you.

She thought back to when she met you, the trust fund kid’s birthday bash, the night at Tony’s, the hot jealousy burning she felt at watching you get along with Natasha, how she cried about Pietro with you, how you comforted her with your own stories, the work you put in to make paprikash for her, the beach, Wasteland, your hands on her waist, the music, your lips, the pier, everything.

You were still babbling, but the moment you turned around, Wanda disregarded the script on the floor and crashed her lips into yours. She fisted her hands on your shoulder, sliding them up to cup your neck, pulling you closer as her eyes closed. 

As good as it felt, the next moment, Wanda snapped her eyes open and yanked away from you. You hadn’t even reacted, shocked that Wanda kissed you. 

“Oh, god,” Wanda whispered. She looked at you, lips trembling. “I--I’m so sorry, I--”

You didn’t even give her a chance to finish as you rushed forward, cupping her jaw as you collided your lips into Wanda’s again. She let out a moan, feeling your lips against her. You pushed her back until her back hits the table stand and you used your hands to lift her up onto the table. She was yanking at your leather jacket to get it off, and you released her for a quick second, to let the jacket fall down your arms. 

Your lips met hers over and over again messily as she wrapped her arms around your neck to keep you close. Her legs were spread open and wrapped around your torso tightly as your hands slid from her bottom up her back, finding the zipper of her dress to pull it down all the way. Wanda encourages you with her hand fisting your hair tightly, kissing you more aggressively, slipping her tongue into your mouth. 

You groaned, grabbing her roughly off of the table and turned around to walk towards the bed, throwing her against the mattress roughly. Her dress began to slip off her, exposing her chest covered by her strapless lacy white bra that had you biting your lip. 

Wanda’s hair splayed messily against the sheets, and her lips looked plump from kissing you so hard. She was flushed and breathing heavily as she stared at you with dilated pupils.

The sight made you moan softly, climbing atop of her as she readily let you between her legs. You kissed her lips again, not as fervent as you first did, slower but as hard as the first. Your hand traced down her arm until you reached her hand and brought it next to her head and laced your fingers together. Your lips left hers, pressing kisses against her jawline before moving downwards against her neck. 

Wanda let out a soft moan, her torso lifting up to press against you. You sucked against the skin, releasing just before you could make a mark. You moved your lips more down and nibbled against her collarbone. She let out a high pitched whine that made you smile against her skin. 

You wanted more.

You needed more. 

She wanted more. 

You were getting lost in her, wanting to stir more noises out of her.

You shifted your body, your navel ground against Wanda’s core firmly through her dress.

“Oh,” Wanda moaned needily as she lifted her hips, desperate to get more friction. Her hand tightened against yours, and you went back up to kiss her lips again. 

Wanda moved her lips against yours, sucking on your bottom lip, making you groan into her mouth as she released it and licked against it slowly. 

You were going to devour her. You really were. 

She was looking at you through half-lidded eyes that begged you to just fuck her.

Just as you were going to smash your lips against her, your phone began to ring loudly in your back pocket.

The noise woke you. You blinked as Wanda let out a quiet groan of disappointment, throwing her head back on the mattress.

You pull out your phone to see it’s Natasha calling. 

You looked at Wanda, flushed, chest heaving as she was hot and heavy. 

You needed to make your exit now. 

“Shit,” you swore, catching her attention. You picked up the phone.

“Hey, Natasha,” You said, trying to gain your breathing again. “No, yeah, I’m on my way. Yeah, see you.”

You hung up, looking at Wanda with an overwhelmed expression. 

“I--” You tried to say, but not sure what to really say.

“Fuck, Wanda,” You said, “What the hell are we doing?”

You get off of her, running your fingers through your hair. You’re about to turn around, but Wanda sits up and grabs your arm to force you to turn back to her. 

“No, you can’t go to her. Not after--not after you’re about to be with me.” Wanda says, her eyes telling you to stay. Her dress was sliding off of her body as she sat up and you had to rip your eyes away from looking at her chest and taut stomach. Her jaw was set in a line, and you’re tempted to stay.

But you know you shouldn’t. 

“Wanda,” you tell her. “We can’t.”

“You can’t lie to me and say you don’t want me too. You feel it, whatever it is between us. You can’t erase that.” Wanda challenges you.

You sigh, not denying it. You pull your arm away, forcing Wanda to let go.

“That doesn’t change that you have Vision and I have Natasha waiting for me. So whatever it is, is it enough to make you leave him?”

Wanda is silent. 

It confirms what you thought. 

“Exactly,” you say. “We’re friends, Wanda. That has to be enough.”

Not letting her say anything else, you turn around, grabbing your jacket off the floor and leave her in the hotel room alone.

In the elevator, you put back on your leather jacket and wipe the lipgloss that smudged on you from Wanda.

You smirk as your thumb swipes your bottom lip. 

Goddamn, Wanda was quite the dangerous one if you let her be. She lured you in to the point you couldn’t even think.

She was absolutely sinful.

The elevator dinged and you pushed off the railing walking out the hotel doors to your car. You briefly looked up to the floor she would be on.

Patience, you reminded yourself. You’re almost there. You could see she was starting to unravel for you. 

The game was far from over, and Wanda was quite the active participant now.

PART VII

[vegetalass]

Dog House

GOD this fic has been the death of me!!!! i started writing it OVER a month ago after getting the idea at disneyland.... 

ive honestly put so much time into it that i cant read it anymore and it probably sucks since i cant tell if its good quality anymore...

but i hope its okay! i really am proud of it 

beside, i LOVE john wick so... it cant be too bad haha... *broken heart emoji*

i posted it on AO3 here if you want to read it with better formatting

Enjoy!!!!

Warning: contains light violence

John Wick/Reader - 5105 words. 

_________________________

i.

It is a beautiful day. The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and as the waves crash against each other in front of you, it seems as though the world is stuck in time with your breathing.

It is warm, and things are good, as you think about what you should name the tiny gray sand crabs that rest in the small green bucket by your feet. You watch someone in the distance lift their hands and wave at you, smiling from afar, the sunshine a blanket that blocks their eyes from meeting yours, and you push yourself to remember what color they are.

Though it is warm, and you are resting, suddenly, the world spins and you are no longer at the beach but on a cold floor, and the sky is not blue but deep red. Although they were just waving, you can hear the shots, taste the blood and then see as the light goes out behind the eyes of the only person whom you so desperately love.

The image of raised arms blur as they reach out to you in one final stretch, and though you can’t remember their last words, and you’re sure that you don’t want to, you know that they have asked you to take care of the only thing they have left besides you.

A dog.

A dog who is loved and warm and probably asleep, safe at home in wait of a person who is not you and never will be, as you are busy holding a dead body and screaming as you watch a man dressed in black walk away and never come back...

And you are... Oh, God.  

You are...

You...

You are at the dog park, and the sun is bright, and the sky is blue.

You open your eyes suddenly, hands clenched into fists, with your heart hammering wildly against the bones in your chest. Your pupils dilate and then burn, the sun seeming so bright against the backdrop of the green grass and dogs in your vision who bound about through the open park as though there is not a care to be had in the world.

Maybe there’s not, and God, you wish there wasn’t, but you’re not a dog and you don’t like the park. You have long since learned better than to live in some pretend world where you can spend weekends at the beach with all the people you love, because at this moment in time, they are all dead.

Except your dog, that is, and he’s not even really your dog. But you love him, so you save the complaining for in your head and just tell people that he was a gift rather than an inheritance after his original owner died.

You try not to focus on the past often, but it’s hard, especially now that you’re alone. It’s not like you crave love or anything like that, really, because you understand that all things come and go. It’s just that your idea of the future has always seemed to rest on the balance between finding peace and hope, and you have been ashamed to say that as of late, you are not someone who can be considered either peaceful or hopeful.

Not since you watched love die by the hands of a Heckler & Koch P30L.

Baba Yaga, you remember. The title always used to seem so silly.  

Whatever, you think, hands still clenched, eyes still aching, Those days are over now, and I’m at the park.

Even if you can remember every single shot and the moans that came from the dying body you held in your arms after a raid that you were barely lucky enough to escape from alive. You almost wish that you-

“Hello?”

Someone says and you jolt, the deep voice piercing the bubble of concentration you were lost in. You raise a hand to your heart in shock, as you gaze wide-eyed at a man who stands in front of you looking hesitant and apologetic for something that’s completely unbeknownst to you.

You didn’t even notice when he started standing next to you, his tall frame shading you from the sun as you try to look around him, confused.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to stop and say I’m sorry,” he voices immediately, sounding weirdly concerned about something you gather you’re supposed to know about but don’t.

So you freeze, almost completely sure that you look like an idiot as you stare at this stranger with your lips turned down in what’s probably an awkward frown.

“What are you talking about, sir?”

“I...” He blinks at you, eyebrows knitted together in confusion, before his face softens and his dark eyes look down to avoid your worried gaze, “Sorry. Forget about it.”

You blink, still surprised that someone is initiating contact with you at all, before you nod at him slowly.

“Okay,” You hesitate, unsure of what to call him, and what he could’ve meant by his words. He doesn’t seem like anyone you could’ve met before, but you still can’t shake the odd feeling that you have when his eyes bore into yours, “You are...?”

“John.” He replies slowly, almost in a sad way, and you smile back at him absentmindedly, trying to forget the embarrassing miscommunication that just occured as he reaches out to shake your hand.

Again, there is that familiarity to him, an uncanny edge to his presence that makes you feel like deep down, you’re supposed to recognize who he is.

However, you don’t bother wasting any more time with fitting the key into the lock of figuring out who he is, because you find everyone to be slightly familiar now, most faces blurring once you decide whether or not it’s worth it to keep looking at them.

Deep inside, you know it will never be the same.

Nobody is the same.

Besides, by now your concentration has slipped again, as you are distracted by a dog in front of you who is wagging its tail, its little gray face smiling at you as though you are some kind of angel in heaven.  

Which you’re not, but the dog wouldn’t know that.

“Is he yours?” you ask, shielding your eyes from the sun as you reach out to pat his head, once, twice, and then over his ears. The dog’s eyes squint in a deeper smile, so focused and intense that you almost don’t notice the way that John is glancing at you.

“Yes,” he says, relieving some of the tension between your awkward silence, “Do you have one?”

You turn to him, gazing at his profile, before you point, eyes glazing over the crowd as though you can’t remember who you’re looking for.

“I’m watching him for a friend,” you say, distracted by the happy wag of your dog’s tail in distant sunshine as you glance back at John as he nods.

You think of the beach, the sand crabs, and then of the guns that robbed you of that day and all others that could've been like it, and how much a dog enjoys playing in water.

You go silent again.

“...Name?” Johns voice startles you once more, just like when he first spoke, still deep and powerful, and you have to stop yourself from flying off your chair for a second time.

“What?” you turn your head toward him, blinking like a stupid, sitting duck. You never used to get distracted by boys.

“I said, do they have a name?” he smiles, hesitantly, almost kindly, even though you can tell that he knows that there is something deeply wrong with you that you are never going to explain. Not to someone normal.

Not to him.

“Oh,” you laugh, feeling breathless and slightly embarrassed, trying to play off the fact that you’ve already lost yourself again in that far-off world where you’re still on the beach, and still with the people you love. Even if it feels like a different earth entirely now that it’s gone, the sunshine at the park keeps reminding you of that day.

You thought you knew better than to play pretend, and you’re unsure of what to say, realizing very quickly that you don’t have a name for the animal, at least, not a new one, and you blink, nose scrunching, before trying to reply in a way that won’t make you cry, “I actually, uh… don’t.”

It’s not funny, but you laugh nonetheless, and as he raises an eyebrow at you in confusion, you do your best to smile, at least so he doesn’t question why.  

“That’s strange,” he says, in the midst of your childlike giggle, sounding more confused than upset, “My dog doesn’t have one either.”

Though you fall into silence again, being stunned by his response, it’s only after you take another five, okay, maybe ten peeks at him at your side, do you find that you are no longer thinking of the beach, or of the blood that is stained on your hands, but on the fact that John seems to be glancing at you, too, and you don’t have to guess why.  

He seems nice...

Kind of.

ii. 

You dream of a man dressed in black, but you never see his face.

You are sad, and wake up with wet cheeks, but when you finally open your eyes, it seems as though the clouds did all the crying for you as it rains sheets outside your window.

You are going to die.

You are going to die, and the last thing you can think about is the man in your dreams, the dark suit he was wearing, and the gun in his hands, a Heckler & Koch.

You can’t say that you know what love is anymore, though part of you wants to say that one day, you could.

However, you’re still not really that hopeful for the future, and it’s been too long since your last… romantic adventure... that you don’t really think that dreaming of some kind of evil monster in a nice outfit really constitutes as being romantic, and hits the bullseye more for being creepy, instead, especially since you  are  about to die.

Besides, you’ve been thinking about John-From-the-Dog-Park (as you’ve taken to calling him) a lot more than you should’ve been lately, and it’s probably weird to be grouping the two of them together whenever you think about what it would be like to start dating again.

Deep down, you know that being in love would be too hard, as you’re busy taking care of a dog you did not want and still wake up screaming every night because of the way your last relationship ended. But there’s another factor that hangs heavy over your head, and it’s because you have since restarted the process of accepting dangerous jobs you know you’d might not complete again, all for some dumb gold coins.

And this is the part that’s not a dream, even though it all feels so similar.

Though you can’t say that you were expecting this outcome to be your end, it doesn’t really surprise you that you’re going to die distracted and lost on the floor of some restaurant bathroom you have never been to before.

You hadn’t wanted to start working again. In fact, even the thought of seeing that damn leaderboard one more time made you shake, but you couldn’t stop yourself from charging up your old phone and digging up your gun from under a pile of years old blankets after at some point deciding that there was no other way to move on from your past except than to die because of it.

And now, there’s nothing you can do to change your decision except to wait for the end and hope that your neighbors take care of your dog when they realize you didn’t make it back home.

They always said that life is fragile. That you had things to live for, goals to set. And in a way, they were right. You have a dog, and a long road to recovery, but if you were to make it, even if not very far, you had at least one more conversation with John-From-the-Dog-Park to make.

But you cannot ignore the gun in your hand, and the way your sweaty fingers burn with fever as you hold it against your chest. It’s almost as if the entire space around you is some kind of fever dream as you barely slid into the bathroom fast enough to hear the final shots being unloaded into your former coworker’s head just outside its door.

You are going to die, and it’s because John Wick is here, and everyone else who was hired with you to take him down is dead.

You swore to yourself that you’d stop taking jobs. You’d promised. But it’s hard to keep a promise when there’s no one to keep it for, and when you thought you’d gotten good enough at running away and then being presumed dead that you could always make it out of these situations alive. Not that Winston didn’t give you a monstrous earful when he heard your voice for the first time in years after you called to ask who is standing chairman, but… he believed you were dead, at least.

You had wanted to apologize for running away, but in the end, he was right. If John Wick can’t escape, then neither can you.

And that’s why you’re going to die: because John Wick is here, and you can hear his footsteps approaching the locked bathroom door from which you are hiding behind, and the only thing you can think to do is long for things that are just quite out of reach.

Peace, for one. Love, another.

In their absence, you forgot what it felt like to be scared. To be sad. To realize the fact that your dog would be alone once more in a world where you never get to see the beach again.

But beaches don’t usually have guns, and the one in your hands reminds you that it’s waiting to be used just as the bathroom door creaks open despite the prayer you made when hoping that it wouldn’t.

Even though you know that you should probably be praying, you can’t help but think of the man in your dreams instead; the ghost, his gun, and then the color of someone’s eyes. You can barely remember who they belong to before you’re finally able to squeeze the gun in front of your face as though closing your eyes might be a shield that saves you from dying.

From John Wick.

You think about John-From-the-Dog-Park, and it’s only when the footsteps stop and the room rings in silence as you look up and see him that your brave facade falters and you realize the truth.

“John!” You half sigh, half scream when you finally manage to pry open your eyes all the way to take in the sight of the familiar man dressed in black peering down at you as if he were some kind of half-wit assassin.

You can’t tell if he’s shocked to see you, as by the time he is opening his mouth to respond you have already climbed from your slippery spot underneath the sink and left your gun behind to dive straight into his arms and heave.

Bloodstained and sweaty, as your fingers wrap around his waist and you sob into his chest, it’s only when he rests his hands on your shoulders that you realize how you distraught you were at dying. Part of you wonders if maybe the reason you’re crying is because you’re relieved that now, you don’t have to.

“What are you doing here?” John asks, distressed, sounding like an angrier version of the person who always startles you at the park.

It would be scary, except that you do not care if he’s upset and ignore the question. Ignore the fact that John, your John (at least, the one from the dog park) is  the  John Wick and was this close to killing you.

You knew he looked familiar.

“I said-”

You shush him, finally allowing yourself to release him from your grasp, using your dirty hands to smear grime across your face as you try to clear your eyes and nose of snot, tears, and blood so that you can look him in the eyes. You don’t know where he put his gun.

“I thought you were just some random guy with a dog,” you laugh, the same way you do when you’re trying not to seem bothered, which is uncharacteristic for someone who was about an inch away from dying.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” he responds, unmoving.

When you try to continue to smile, it falters instantly when John’s face doesn’t change to mirror yours and his lips do not crook upwards even the slightest bit. If you were happy to see him, he looks almost enraged at seeing you, and you can only whisper in return.  

“I’ve been meaning to quit,” you shrink backwards, your hands now at your sides, as you realize you hadn’t managed to think far enough ahead to wonder what you would do if you didn’t die.

Which you didn’t.

“I think… I should go home now,” you decide out loud, feeling as though the way he is staring at you in silence implies that there is still a chance he might kill you, but you continue to look in his eyes nonetheless, “But it was really nice to see you.”

You begin to hobble away, resting a hand on the cool wall next you while you stupidly turn your back on a man who you are well aware is not kind. A man who has lost more than most people could imagine. But you don’t worry, you don’t even have the energy to, and decide that if he kills you, it would probably be a good thing.

Besides, you’ve only really spoken a few times, and you know that you have both lost the same thing.

He’s just the one who did all the killing.

You stop walking.

“John?” You ask suddenly, not looking back, the empty air responding in the only way you need, “When you apologized to me, did you mean it?”

You can envision face, the way his lips are always in half a frown. You can see his hair, it being just that little bit too long. And you can remember his eyes, and how they look at you as though you are someone he thinks will never be normal, because they always look the same as when you were holding that damn dead body.

You didn’t even recognize him. It was a miscommunication. You were someone else.

But you know now. The dark suit, the Heckler & Koch, and the way he didn’t kill you.  Again.

You look at him, and you realize the reason why he was saying sorry was because he had killed somebody who you had loved, and that he had known the entire time.

The realization makes the world spin, and what little light is shining in the bathroom begins to make you feel sick. Your eyes blur as you begin to cry again, your hands now too limp to wipe your face of the tears and your body too tired to keep you standing upright while you process the new information.

“John,” you gasp, just as you begin to collapse, reaching out for him in the hopes that you don’t end up on the ground.

While you do realize that there’s a lot you should probably start being angry at him for, such as how he robbed you of the one thing you’ve been holding onto for years, the only thought you can seem to process is how warm his body is when he does manage to take your hands in his and pull you to his chest before it’s too late.

Nestled in arms, it doesn’t take much of an effort to close your eyes and pretend that he is someone else, and that this whole night never happened.

John’s voice is low, his lips close to your ear when he finally speaks, killing your fantasy almost instantly, “You didn’t recognize me, did you?”

You continue to weep, shaking your head no while you cling to his body. There are words you wish you could say to him; angry, nasty words. Yet, for some reason, nothing comes out when he finally takes your face in his hands to look into your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, before you can manage to speak, one hand back to holding yours, the other pressed into your hair. You’d feel guilty about this, as though you were the one pressuring him into responding this way, holding you like this, but you can’t bring yourself to move, and are so angry that you hope it hurts him to touch you like this, too.

You remember the beach, and how easily the sky can change from blue to red, and you suddenly think of the man in your dreams, the one in the suit, and decide that he sort of looked like John. At first, it makes you feel worse, and part of you boils with rage while you try to come to terms with the understanding of what he’s done to you. But there’s another part of you, one that you’re not sure whether to be grateful for, that also reminds you of how in love you could’ve been with the man you met at the park; the one with the happy, gray dog, if you had just decided to move on.

But it's not that simple, and these versions of people in your head just ended up being the same person.

Your body aches, but you shudder in relief when you finally release John’s neck, trying to avoid looking into his eyes one more time by using your dirty fingers to smear grime across your face. While you can’t say that you’ve forgiven John-From-the-Dog-Park for being John Wick, you still try to focus on the positives: that you are not dead, and you can finally go home to feed your dog in peace.

You should know better, as John breaks the silence first. John Wick, that is.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asks, reaching out for your hand. Though you want to say no, you can’t help but nod, still unable to look him in the eyes in fear of blushing at the man who killed the last person you loved.

iii.

Once again, it is a beautiful day. The sun is bright, and the sky is a beautiful blue. This time though, you are not at the beach, but at the dog park, and your dog is racing against the wind next to another dog you have seen before but do not know the name of.

You try to call out, voice swallowed by something you can’t place, but you don’t really mind, because it’s warm out and you feel sleepy. You watch as your dog runs towards another, a friendly looking gray one, and realize that John must be close by.

So you smile, feeling contented with this dream version of your favorite killer and his dog in a world where he is not a killer and you can be together...

But something doesn’t feel right, and you...

You...

You open your eyes to the sudden sound of knocking, before you realize it is too late to answer and the door to your house swings open in haste.

It is John, except this time he is not dressed in black and he is not covered in blood, and he looks so funny in contrast to the person you always think about, even if you’ve seen him in his pair of sweats before.

“Hi, John,” you smile, eyes closing again, chest stuttering slowly as you suck a breath through your teeth.

“Are you…” he pauses, seeming unsure about the sight that’s in front of him, “Have you been shot?”

“Yea,” You say, squeezing your eyes shut with your fingers pressed against your side. You know that you’re bleeding all over your ugly old couch, but for some reason you can’t bring yourself to mend the wound and save the cushions, as by this point, it’s probably too late to try.

“How?”

“You know…” you wave your hand around, blood trailing down your fingers, and you know that John is most likely thinking of the night when he decided not to shoot you and then of the next time he decided not to shoot you and instead sobbed in his arms, “Work.”

“I thought you wanted to quit?” he asks, though it comes out more as an accusatory statement than anything else. You wish you had a better response, a better excuse, but the only thing you can do is grunt, eyes closed, while you focus on trying not to bleed out.

You can remember the leaderboard and the assigned mission, firing your gun, and then escaping, but your memory stops at the part where you managed to get caught and then torn open by someone else with a firing weapon.

It’s probably not important now, because John is still hurrying to your side, seeming concerned if not just polite, and then lets you reach out a hand for him in a way that seems a little bit familiar.

“Hey, John?” you ask, not waiting for a response before you continue, “Do you ever think about how things could be different?”

He stays quiet, as you have noticed by now that he doesn’t usually respond to your comments, but when you open your eyes to peek at his face, he looks pensive rather than like someone trying to ignore you. He catches you staring, and his face twists in a way you cannot read.

“Yes,” he says, at this point now kneeling by your side.

You nod, your fingers wiping your sweaty face, and he reaches out with a cloth to wipe for you, as you’re sure there’s more blood than tears in your eyes now by the way his handkerchief stains red.

You remember the beach, and how the slaughter that robbed everything from you also gave you a dog, which in turn gave you the dog park where you first met John.

Life is a cycle, you think, and this is the part that’s always shown as an arrow instead of a picture.

Dying.

If this were a different life, and you were not an arrow, maybe John would look at you differently. Maybe you’d both have different jobs and he wouldn’t have to watch you bleed out on your couch as you slowly forget how you even got home.

Maybe he wouldn't have taken up two spots in your mind.

But this is your life, and you are dying, and the last thing you can think about is him.

“I’m going to call a doctor now,” he says, standing up, but you reach for him, grabbing his wrist with your bloody hand, smearing red across his arm.

He blinks at you, puzzled, confused, and you’re sure that he’s wondering why you haven’t passed out yet.

“Wait,” you whisper, blinking up at his face as he hesitates, “Tell me again what they call you?”

John looks confused, but humors you anyway, even though it's not funny, “The Boogeyman?”

“No,” you whine, though it ends up sounding more like a groan, “The silly name.”

“Baba Yaga?”

You attempt to laugh, but heave instead when the gasp you let out causes your wound to burn and forces you to let go of John. As you press your hands against your side, he pulls himself away quickly and sighs when you still manage to pout at him.

Though you recognize his behavior as kind, you still can’t help but think of what you did to deserve this; bleeding out and then being forgotten all over again.

You can remember the first night he walked away, the night when you were screaming so loud you were sure the whole of New York City could hear you. The same night you watched love die, and you don't even know if John was married at the time.

In your stupor, you wonder what his wife must’ve been like, and if you are anything like her.

“You’ll be fine,” John whispers, but his voice still cuts your thoughts in half as you notice that he is staring at you, distracted by something of his own creation as his large hands move to pull an ugly pink blanket from underneath your feet to lay across your wounded body.

You’re not sure if he’s right, but you nod anyway, despite the fact that by now, you can hear his footsteps heading towards the door, feel the fading of his warmth, and when you do manage to open your eyes in one final burst of anxiety, see as he has already turned his back toward you to open your front door to leave. This time, when you reach out for him, you are reminded of the first time you lost someone who you loved.

“John,” you croak, and he stops to listen even though one of his feet is already out of the door, “We should go to the beach sometime.”

He nods, and you watch his lips to see if they twitch upward, even though in some ways, he looks as sad as when you first met him on that day when he tried to apologize.

“Thanks,” you whisper, watching as he finally leaves, hoping that if he saw your smile, you had managed to swallow all the blood in your mouth.

He hadn’t smiled back.

iv. 

You are at the beach again, except that this time, you know that you are dreaming.

Still, the sun is bright and the sky is blue, and the water looks extra beautiful with a happy gray dog that splashes in its waves next to one that looks like your own.

You do not have a bucket of sand crabs at your feet, or someone close to you in the water, but you know that there is a man dressed in black somewhere nearby and that if you were to look for him, that he would wave back at you.

Even at the distant sound of sirens that go off, which seem louder with every passing second, you smile, opening your eyes to look for him, hoping that this time, he doesn’t have a gun.

[shewasanamericangirl]

screamin bout zi-o 36

i had fun doing this last week, so let’s make another screencap post! of course, i said that, and then it took several days to upload all the pictures because tumblr just stops fucking working sometimes. anyhoo! it’s yuko kitajima roast hour. image-heavy and spoiler-heavy, naturally.

so ginga blew everyone up and they ran away to a sewer it seems.

honestly that theory makes as much sense as anything else on this booty ass fuckin’ kamen rider show

i was just like...he isn’t

but then he was

swartz: she could step on me in those red pumps and i’d say Thank You

hora: i regret so much right now

uhr: *shonen anime character walking down the street pose*

then over quartzer plays and im starting to feel a little lost because i don’t get to hear about the episode according to woz’s book? hello??

yuko’s still out gettin her spa treatments and shit, god only knows how she got the money for all that, and somehow she never crosses paths with the cops or anyone who recognizes her from the news?? uh

honestly yeah?? a queen deserves to look GOOD. her theme music is eerily sexy, i need an mp3 of it right now

don’t get me wrong, im well aware that swartz is being a suck-up to try and get yuko to help with his plan to seize ginga’s power, but damn im kinda shipping swartz with yuko now too...i mean, he WAS looking at her while doing the sexy ice cream thing last week. what flavor ice cream would yuko be? black cherry chip maybe?

(headcanon: woz tries apple pie ice cream and declares it a crime against both apple pie and ice cream alike--but he still eats the whole coneful)

hora and uhr get ZA WARUDO’D down the stairs by swartz

we were all uhr right here

yeaaaaaah she just doesn’t want to fight ginga

tsukuyomi’s a mood. someone put a band-aid on geiz’s forehead pls

ok woz i get that if you’re looking for a despotic ruler to follow that yuko is likely a better bet than sougo, but you’re missing an important detail: if yuko actually had a shot at becoming queen of everything, she’d already have one of you in tow, and you would most likely hate each other.

...majou means “demon queen” in this case, not “witch”, right?

aaaaaand this...is the moment when yuko started making me very uncomfortable. the way she responds: “yes...i do remember. it’s you.”

and sougo’s face just lights up--my guy, she could so easily be lying. she didn’t say one thing about the band-aid or the playground or anything that’d indicate she’s actually sougo’s crush.

like...if not for the fact that sougo had such a crush on the seifuku girl, it wouldn’t be all that major a memory. it likely wasn’t for the girl in question--just a happy sunny day cheering up a lonely little boy. a beautiful memory, yes...but memories fade.

can someone please explain to me why woz’s characterization is all over the place in kiva arc? are you pro-yuko or anti-yuko, woz? i don’t understand what’s going through his pretty head at all honestly. he gets pretty taciturn in the scenes he’s not inhaling pie, but then at times he seems to think yuko’s cool aaaaaagh i don’t know

junichiro: meowing, just wanted an excuse to cook lots of food

sougo: “yay, uncle’s cooking!”

woz: [deadpan monotone] “yaaaaaaay uncle’s cooking...”

ive had enough of this evil bitch honestly but when she points it’s still Good Shit

ridiculous move name, but also an awesome move name

and turning to stone to heal up while the sun’s clouded over? very cool

denied

i noped so hard at this part. like...i really do feel protective of sougo. yuko doesn’t give a damn about him, she just doesn’t want him to get in her way.

nope. no. nuh uh. you two step away from each other right now.

YOU CANNOT MAKE BABIES WITH AN IDIOT FETUS

ok but in all seriousness, do you want time jackers? because, im calling it now, letting oma zi-o go in raw is how you get time jackers.

yeah im pretty sure miho would’ve kept at it if she’d lived, and yuko...shes not gonna listen to sougo

thank you for the much needed reality check furry man

so she’s a...fu-joshi? 👀

☝☝☝

yuko wears such fabulous shoes

was anyone surprised at this point that yuko was the real killer? i sure wasn’t. not after all the obvious lies.

i love her leitmotif. i need it. where do i download

SHE DIDN’T PROMISE SHIT

hey kids! it’s time for *mashes play button* la-la-la lies! yeah, tell me that you love me! la-la-la-lies! look deep into my eyes! la-la-la-lies! say there’s no one else above me! i’m the king of fools, cuz baby, you’re the queen of actually very hurtful and manipulative lies!

that’s such bullshit

now im the last person to be like “don’t play the dead mommy card”--i practically keep that card in the hello kitty wallet my dead mommy gave me. but i bet you yuko’s mom is just fine (aside from living with the trauma of knowing her daughter’s a murderer and pathological liar).

sougo,,,,,pls

thank you tsukuyomi. god sougo really needs a chaperone with yuko around, he’s way too dumb and thirsty.

GUESS WHO’S BACK. BACK AGAIN. fortunately, it seems swartz and woz have been just standing there watching him for the duration of the rain shower.

lest we forget (because i didn’t screencap it), when zi-o took the brunt of ginga’s attack earlier, it sent him flying. now, that’s a human body, which has some ability to absorb force because it’s mostly pretty soft and fluid. yuko’s manhole cover almost completely absorbed this blast--she barely shifted her weight on impact. is it just that she’s THAT ripped? 

then The Boys rider kick ginga to oblivion. rip ginga, you didn’t have a personality or a character arc, we never even saw you un-transformed--you were just a cool looking plot device with pretty attacks. but for that much, we appreciate you!

swartz looks so pleased with himself. he must not have watched the preview for this episode.

YOINK! gotta love how swartz doesn’t look surprised so much as puzzled.

sure am glad kurowoz took his other self’s advice and kept an eye on swartz

i love it so much how woz just has these magic scarf powers and it needs no explanation? hell, he can fly and time travel and make people fall asleep and he’s super strong too, with no explanation? and he’s the comic relief? ALSO HE’S REALLY HOT? woz is a being to behold honestly

speaking of super strong and really hot, yuko is KILLING IT in that gown. i mean...i guess that’s the intention. killing it. cuz she’s a homicidal maniac. haha.

she’s so good at pointing. yuko could be a prosecutor in shuichi kitaoka: ace attorney. (FUND IT)

yuko throws her manhole cover at the boys (rude!) and next we see geiz holding it. a shame we don’t get to see him snatch it out of midair. or did woz catch it and just hand it to him? we may never know.

zi-o. listen to geiz, zi-o. use the fucking watch. just use the watch, zi-o. you seriously plan on just letting another kiva go on a killing spree? do you not get by now what she’s capable of?

thank goodness zi-o has his retainers to make wise decisions so he doesn’t have to.

please note the placement of mars on ginga woz’s suit. very important.

I Love You

lmao

WHERE IS YOUR MANHOLE COVER NOW

my favorite character gets a beautiful rainbow final attack. i feel so blessed.

i mean...protecting all mankind would probably include protecting them from people like yuko. just sayin.

is it bad of me that my immediate thought right then was “at least woz’s attack wasn’t what did her in.”

this shot, especially in the context of the church, definitely gave me pieta vibes--albeit reversed somewhat.

weirdly enough, woz does an outro instead of an intro this episode.

at this point while watching, i said to shylax “you know what this calls for? pie!” but before i could finish--

--PIE! cmon sougo, it’s time to gobble up your feelings!

fucking woz, i swear, you have pie in your mouth and pie in your right hand and pie on your FACE and when your overlord expresses how miserable he is you just go for his uneaten pie with your empty hand.

...is it normal to eat pie like this in japan? because the only times i’ve seen americans make this much of a mess eating pie is when they’re toddlers.

oh hey, what do you know? looks like sougo’s first love wasn’t a violent crazy person after all. she also wasn’t yuko.

sougo’s just an idiot who will mistake any older woman who rubs him on the chin and calls him cute for his sailor girl.

previews!

i blame joshua kiryu

how eloquently this one line sums up not only kamen rider zi-o but kamen rider decade as well. that’s it, that’s the show. that’s the clusterfuck we will inevitably get whenever toei decides to make a kamen rider crossover.

LOOK AT THIS! TSUKUYOMI REMEMBERED SOMETHING! who is she smiling at? is it her dad? is that swartz behind her?! omg baby tsukuyomi is so CUTE!

“a team”. uh huh. is that what the youth are calling it these days? cuz when i was a wee lass, i believe they called it “fucking”.

so what have we learned this week?

very little about ginga

sougo does not remember faces all that well

before sougo dates ANYONE that person should be fully vetted by junichiro, geiz, tsukuyomi, and woz because CLEARLY HE CANNOT SAFELY CHOOSE A PARTNER FOR HIMSELF

i still really like yuko as a character, if not as a person. same as i enjoy junji ito manga, but would be very upset if most of it happened in real life.

swartz loves a woman who can kick his ass

what the fuck are manhole covers in this world

i can’t wait for baby tsukuyomi flashbacks! that, and more tsukasa.

[onelovewonderwoman]

Petnelope || Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

this is so stupid, smh just read please. also, i mean no offense to anyone with the name Penelope of Petnelope (if you have that name, ive never heard it before) it’s just a stupid little fic that i hope people will enjoy lmao

tags : @running-outta-time @i-just-wanna-run-hell @munalisax @blossombarnes @sammie-blogs

words : 1408

Masterlist

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

You’d met Peter Parker not long after your father, Tony Stark, had recruited him during the time of the Sokovian Accords; when Steve Rogers had gone a bit berserk, as your father had explained to you in his own little way.

You’d met Peter after the fight at the airport, having accompanied him, your father and Happy on his way home to Queens, New York; not too far from the tower you lived in. Due to the fact that you were homeschooled, you didn’t have many friends, making you spark a deep interest in becoming closer to Peter.

The boy didn’t mind it, of course, from day one he’d thought you were not only kind and beautiful but had an intelligence that challenged his own; something he rather enjoyed.

Unbeknownst to your father, you spent quite some time with the boy. There were multiple nights where Peter would sneak into your room through a tower window, where you spent the time laughing at stupid science puns he’d throw out, and having some of the deepest conversations the both of you had ever had. The more you spent time, the more you realized how much fun it was to actually have a friend for the first time; until one night, it changed.

At first, it was like any other time Peter had come to visit you.

He tapped on your window, a smile broad on his face when you answered, giggling when he crawled in excitedly and jumped onto your bed, making it creak loudly,

“Shhh,” you moved forward to grab his shoulder as your features morphed into amusement mixed with panic, “My dad’s here, and so is Vision!”

“Sorry,” Peter gave you a sheepish smile before he outstretched his arms for his hands to land on either side of your waist, face tilting up to look at you with a devious smirk, “I bet I can make it up to you.”

Your eyes squinted in disbelief as your head slowly began to shake, your body beginning to back away, “Oh hell no.”

You let out a squeal as Peter pulled you down onto the bed, his gloved hands moving quick on your stomach as he tickled you.

“What did I do to deserve this,” you laughed through your words as the boy continued to straddle you and attack you with his fingers, “Peter, stop - haha - seriously! It hurt-,”

“Ms. Stark, I heard a shout,” suddenly your body has mustered a superhuman amount of strength, pushing Peter off the bed and onto the side of it that wasn’t visible to anyone, straddling him as Vision suddenly came through the wall, “It sounded of distress.”

Vision moved forward when he saw no one in the room, calling out, “Ms. Stark?”

“Here,” you stuck out only an opened hand from the side of the bed, the other holding Peter’s mouth shut, “I’m here!”

“Is everything alright, Ms. Stark?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” you looked down at Peter before saying, “I just saw a spider.”

You saw Peter give you an unimpressed look, making you give him a loud smack to chest, making Vision move forward once again,

“Are you sure everything fine, Ms.? Should I get your father?”

“No!” Your head shot up slightly, still trying to stay out of view from Vision, clearing your throat before saying, “No, I just need to you leave, Vision, now.”

You heard him move even closer as he asked why, making you shout in panic,

“I’m naked!”

Peter looked at you wide eyed as you did to him, Vision’s next words hesitant,

“Sorry…?”

You sighed, “I’m naked, Vision. Like really, really naked. Like I’m so naked right now, seriously. I have nothin-,”

“Alright, alright,” you heard him move away, “I’ll be leaving then.”

You waited until you thought he was gone, poking your head up to see that nobody was in the room anymore except you and Peter.

“You’re naked?”

“What the hell else was I supposed to say!” Your hands pressed onto his shoulders, pinning him down on the floor as your face came dangerously close to his, “Vision will a hundred percent tell my dad if he ever finds out that you’ve been coming here every night. I’d totally be under house arrest after that, and there’s no possible way we’ll ever see each other agai - hey! Are you even listening to me? Peter!”

“Huh, what?” His brown eyes met yours, as they’d previously been staring at your close lips; your very, very close lips. His eyes seemed hooded as he stared into yours, mind going mush as you smiled shyly,

“What‘re you staring at, Bug-Boy?”

Peter chuckled, “Something your dad wouldn’t want me to.”

You laughed lightly before you tongue ran over your lips quickly, leaning in a bit more. You felt Peter’s hand run up your back before situating itself on your neck, cupping it there. His other hand stayed at a respectable place on your waist, his head leaning up towards you. Slowly, but surely, your lips connected into a sweet kiss. Your hands cupped Peter’s face as your lips pressed against his softly and lovingly, his thumb stroking your cheekbone as you parted and reconnected your lips ever so often with each sweet kiss given.

“Do you think,” Peter said between kisses, “that we could actually go on a date?”

You disconnected your lips from the boy’s completely, beaming down at him as you responded with, “Of course.”

“Awesome…, but your dad’s going to kill me.”

Finally, the day that you and Peter would get to spend time together somewhere other than your bedroom came. The two of you had agreed on meeting up at the bookstore nearby in the afternoon, disappointing Peter slightly as he wished to do the actual date thing; later in the night, picking you up, taking you out somewhere romantic. However, due to the fact that your father has no knowledge of your secret relationship, the two of you were unable to do any of that.

After spending a good while getting preparing for your date, you were finally ready, having picked to wear a casual dress with flats, doing up your hair into a ponytail.

You made your way to the elevator before being stopped by no one other than Tony Stark, your father.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he gave you a stern look, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out,” You have him a hopeful smile, “You’re going to let me, right? I am your favourite child, after all.”

“You’re my only child.”

You shrugged, “Same difference.”

Tony crossed his arms over his chest, squinting his eyes as he examined you closely, “Who are you going out with?”

“Just some friends.”

“You don’t have any friends, Y/N.”

“Okay, first of all, ouch,” you held a figure up before they moved to your hips, “Second, I do happen to have friends. Well, a friend.”

“Oh,” Tony began nodding his head as if he was playing along, “Is that so?”

“Mhm,” you nodded in confirmation, “She’s awesome.”

“Oh, she now, okay,” Tony nodded his head the same way again, and unimpressed smile taking over his face, “And what’s this girl’s name?”

“Pet-,” you began before cutting yourself off, looking to the ground before looking back up at your father, face straight as you said surely, “Petnelope.”

“Pet-,” Tony repeated, “-nelope.”

You nodded as your arms crossed over your chest, standing slightly on your toes as you attempted to level with your father.

“That’s one,” your father stifled a chuckle, “That’s one interesting name.”

“Her parents were interesting people.”

You gave your father a challenging stare, not breaking until he chuckled loudly as he broke away from your stare,

“Yeah okay, tell ‘Petnelope’ I said hi,” Tony’s eyes made contact with yours once again before squinting, “and that his hands should not go lower than your waist. Got that?”

You eyes widened in surprise before you came down from your shock, deciding to play with your father for laughs, you said aloud, “But what if they already have?”

Your father laughed loudly, as did you, before his face turned into one of dangerous seriousness as he said, “Then you get in the car and tell me where to find him, ‘cause we’re removing those hands.”

You sighed before pulling out your phone as your father walked past you, sending Peter a text,

‘Run, Petnelope, and do your best to keep your hands in tact.’

[thesefoblog]

6.1.2017

On Tuesday, May 30, Wilson and I went to my regular prenatal check-up. I was 1 day away from my due date, and really anxious to have the baby. I thought about the possibility of going into labor or my water breaking basically every single minute of the day. When I brushed my teeth, I’d wonder if I’d have a contraction before I would finish. When I drove to work, I pictured hitting a pothole and breaking my water. When I sat down at my work desk, I’d wonder if I’d make it to the end of the day without going into labor. I was obsessed. I read this thing that said waiting for your baby to be born is like waiting to pick someone up at the airport. Except you don’t know when the flight is, or who you’re picking up.  

At my appointment, everything was looking good/normal. When the doctor took out the doppler to check the baby’s heartbeat, it took her a really long time to find it. I wasn’t worried at all because I could feel the baby moving all day every day, including WHILE she was looking for the heartbeat. She finally found it way up by my ribs, which was NOT where it should be! The baby was definitely not in the “ready position”. My doctor did a quick ultrasound to confirm…and yes, the baby was breech. Again. 

My doctor called the hospital to have them schedule me a c section ASAP. She told me that the next evening I’d get a call with my exact scheduled c-section time and I’d go in on Thursday, June 1st.

 I called my work and told them I’d see them in September and decided to take Wednesday to prepare myself! I filed my state disability paperwork, installed the car seat, and FINALLY packed my hospital bag. On Wednesday evening, I waited for my call from the hospital to get my surgery time. My doctor told me I’d get the call pretty late because they wait until the very end of the day to schedule for the next day to avoid cancellations/schedule changes. At 9pm, I still hadn’t heard from them, so I decided to call. They had me scheduled….for June 8! I was like, um..no. I need an appointment TOMORROW! They were able to fit me in and told me to be there at 9:30.

 I was so excited, I could barely sleep! So a typical night. During my last few weeks (or months?) of pregnancy, I pretty much did not sleep.  With the bathroom breaks, constant kicking/punching  in my womb and the need for a large crane to reposition me in my bed every time I needed to move…well, sleep did not come easy.  To be honest, I’m getting way more sleep now than I did when I was pregnant.

 The next morning, Wilson and I made our way to Roseville. I wanted to give birth in the hospital in Vacaville which is way closer to home and where I took the hospital tour…but for a scheduled c section, I had to go to Roseville. Don’t ask me to explain why because I don’t know.  But I heard Roseville was super fancy, the best hospital…it was nice, but Vacaville was better. But…after giving birth in the Dominican Republic, I won’t complain!

 When I checked in, there was a lady in the waiting area with me who said she thought her water had broken. That was exciting. Anyway, I got checked into a triage room…which are like the smallest, most uncomfortable rooms. But they said I’d only be there for a little while so it was fine. I was in a bed so it didn’t bother me, but there was nowhere for Wilson to sit, except for the spinny stool the doctors sit on when they come to check on you. Typically the triage rooms are just to determine whether or not the women are in labor, and then they get moved to the delivery rooms right away. I got hooked up to the IV, prepped for surgery and I was completely ready to go….and then my surgery got bumped back. Again. And again. And again. Finally, they were ready for me a little after 2pm. So we spent quite a while in that tiny room!

 I have a complaint about the Roseville Kaiser now…

There was a window on the operating room door. So anyone that walked by could see me completely. In the nude. Oh well.

 Once I was plugged into all the machines and full of the necessary numbing solutions, I laid down and I felt SUPER nauseous right away. I started gagging, but I was numb, so I didn’t have the strength to throw up. It was weird. I thought I was going to die for a second because I had to really focus to fill up my lungs with air…my chest just felt SO heavy. I was super scared and started kind of panicking! They gave me a shot to make the nausea go away and it worked super fast…within ten seconds. I wished I had a stash of those earlier in my pregnancy! Once the nausea was gone, I felt so much better and my anxiety went away.

 They let Wilson in, and I could tell he was really nervous. I didn’t know if he’d survive the OR because he even had to leave the room when Maya got stitches on her foot. He kept rubbing my hair and my face and I think it more to calm himself down than for me! Everything happened so fast, and before we knew it, the baby was out! Everyone kept saying over and over how big his head was. I was grateful that he was breech haha. They also said he was SO big and so chunky, etc. I felt bad for him…they were totally body shaming my newborn.

 They weighed him, and I guess they were right! He WAS a big boy- 9 lbs, 2 oz, 20.75 inches long, born at 2:57pm. Wilson cut the umbilical cord, and they brought the baby over to me and I got to hold him. I could not believe that whole baby fit inside of me!

After a while, Wilson went with the baby to the recovery room and I followed a little later. I was pretty amazed that at that point, I could already move my legs a little! I had flashbacks to Maya’s delivery where even the next morning the nurses had to like flip me around to clean me because I couldn’t move still. Things were so different this time…in a good way!

 We spent a few hours in the recovery area, where they have a nurse with you 24/7, and during that time we had our first visit from my parents, who brought Maya. Maya is always very shy when we take her to meet babies in the hospital, but this time she was more brve and outgoing and even wanted to hold the baby. It was so exciting and sweet to see my two babies together…she waited so long for that moment! Wilson surprised me with roses and balloons, which was so nice. I love a good balloon bouquet.

After a few hours, they moved us to our regular room. It was nice, but not as nice as the rooms I saw on the tours in Vacaville. But, on the other hand, it was MUCH nicer than my hospital room in the DR. Perspective.

 At this point, I could fully move my legs. I had pretty much no pain, but I was still moving pretty slowly because I was just a few hours recovered from major abdominal surgery. I had to keep reminding myself of that, because I honestly felt great. The only time I felt a little pain was when I’d go from a laying position to sitting up….the muscles required for that were just not firing correctly. But it was not bad AT ALL.

My nurse came in to help me stand up. She told me that I could take it slow, and if I got up and realized it was too much, I could just dangle my legs off the side of the bed instead. We just needed to get some blood flowing. In my mind, I was like oh, this is going to be easy! I can like run up the hallways right now! And guess what? It WAS easy! Ok, I wasn’t quite running up the hallway….but not only did I stand, I walked. And the nurse had given me a walker but I didn’t need it at all.

To compare to my recovery with Maya again...the day after my c section I was barely able to stand up straight and I was just barely hobbling along…definitely could’ve used a walker! But this time, it was just like 4 hours after surgery and I was walking fine! It was so crazy. I kept waiting for the pain to come, the meds to wear off or whatever…but it really never happened. My recovery was amazing and fast. Wilson had to keep telling me to slow down because I would kind of forget I just had surgery. I don’t know if they accidentally cut out something that made me feel no pain? Haha. But my doctor was definitely some kind of magician.  I never even took anything stronger than ibuprofen (except during surgery, obviously).

Our first night with Luke was…sleepless! Wilson actually had to be at work the very next day at 5am so he had planned to leave and sleep at home, but the baby kept spitting up blood, which was scary. Wilson decided to stay (thank goodness). The doctors told us it was completely normal, especially for c section babies to have blood and amniotic fluid that they cough up for the first few days so they weren’t concerned…but there is just something unsettling about hearing your newborn choking on blood every half hour during the first night of his life.

The next day, Wilson left for work and I was alone!! I was super nervous about this before giving birth…I told Wilson it would be impossible for me to handle the baby on my own right after surgery…but it turns out, I felt great and was able to take care of the baby with no problems! Also, he was sleeping pretty much allllll day, which helped. In fact, at this point, I hadn’t even really seen his eyes! I think he was not ready to be born yet. Sometimes he would like flutter his eyelids and raise his eyebrows and you could just tell he wanted to open them, but he couldn’t quite get it.  We had our second round of visitors on Friday- my brother and his family and my mom and Maya came again. I even got dressed for the occasion. Well, just FYI, when you give birth they give you a special lactation hospital gown…with 2 holes for your boobs. So its not really something you want to be wearing to greet visitors.

The baby continued to sleep for hours at a time, which was amazing. But right before we got discharged on Saturday morning, a lactation consultant came to see us and said they were concerned about is weight loss. He had lost 8% of his weight…which was not a big deal, as long as he didn’t lose any more. They delivered a hospital grade pump to my house to use and told me to wake up the baby every 2 hours to feed him. And thus ended my sleep. 

We left the hospital around noon on Saturday and we actually rode in the elevator with the lady from the waiting room while we were checking in…apparently her water HAD broken because there she was with a baby! 

Looking back on my birth experience, I would say I have zero regrets. It didn’t go how I had hoped/planned, but I really can’t complain about how things turned out. Plus, I’m super grateful I did not birth a 9lb baby vaginally. The past 9 weeks have been quite a blur (hence the super delayed post...), but we are completely happy with our sweet baby boy!

You survived this post, time for some pictures!!

Papa and baby in the OR...he was very white at birth! haha

In the recovery room

Meeting big sister

98th percentile head accentuated by extra tight swaddle

Taking home our squishy-cheeked boy!

[ciscoshairconditioner]

Texts Between Strangers

Note: female/woman ‘reader’

---

Hey, it was really nice meeting you last night. Maybe we can grab lunch tomorrow? This is Cisco btw.

The text pops up on your phone screen as you're scrolling through social media. You've been lounging in bed on this rainy Saturday morning planning on doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day but binge watch The Walking Dead and order thai take out later. You just stare at the text for a minute, blinking.

You definitely didn't give your number to anyone last night because all you did yesterday was pull a double shift at Jitters because they've been short staffed lately. A long day at work usually left you looking a bit wrecked so you're damn sure there wasn't anyone slipping their digits your way either.

This person has the wrong number.

You frown a little bit for them because you wonder if the wrong number was intentional. You've had to give a creepy dude the wrong number on purpose before just so he'd leave you alone. You finally reply after another minute.

Hi I didn't give my number to anyone. Sorry dude, they gave you a wrong number.

You figure that will be the end of that and roll out of bed only to shuffle your way to your comfy couch for some TV time. The notification on your cell pings again and you glance at it, brows raising when you see it's wrong number guy.

For real? This isn't [Girl's Name]? And you weren't at Stanley's Bar last night?

You've actually been to Stanley's a lot over the past couple years since you moved to Central City but last night was not one of them.

My name is definitely not [Girl's Name] and even though I love Stanley's for the sole fact drunk me can make peanut shell confetti rain everywhere during karaoke and not get in trouble, I for real wasn't there last night.

You felt like you were a tad on the sassy side with that text but he was a stranger who apparently one girl had already blown off so you figured he must not be worth much niceties anyways. You were always for girl power so even though you had no idea who [Girl's Name] was, you were going to go with her assessment of wrong number guy, what'd he say his name was? You scrolled up in the message feed, ah—Cisco.

Best peanuts in CC, read his next text which came with a peanut and praise hands emojis.

You laughed and said aloud “Agreed.” as you typed the same reply.

You're flicking through saved episodes of Walking Dead on your DVR, trying to find where you left off when another text comes through. You already have a suspicion its him again before even looking.

I must have heard her say the wrong numbers, it was so loud in there last night :(

Your brow furrows at this one. You remember why you avoid Stanley's on Friday nights. It's usually two for ones and they aways try to get local rock bands to come play. It tends to get too crowded, too hot and yes—too noisy, in there. You read over the text again and find yourself frowning along with his sad emoji.

Next time, you gotta just hand her your phone. No mistakes can be made then. Unless you have an embarassing wallpaper.

His reply is immediate, Pfft no way. It's followed by a screenshot of his actual phone background and a typed No shame along with it.

You're not sure if its a Harry Potter lightning bolt or a reference to Central City's local hero, The Flash. Either way, you're impressed. Wizards or Superheros, a cute guy could totally score your number if you peeped that wallpaper on his phone. Well, the jury is still out on if this guy is cute, you think.

You're right, that is legit. Maybe you did just hear the numbers wrong.

Of course I did. You make it sound like something else. You can't tell if his text was meant to sound cocky or confused.

You bite your lip and reply. Well...

??? is shot back instantly and you sigh.

You decide to just keep it real with him. Guys tend to be overbearing when picking up women. You sure you weren't reading her wrong?

I happen to read people's vibes quite accuratley. She totally was feelin all of this. There's even a smirking emoji.

Alight, cocky it is. You laugh and decide to challenge it. All of what? You send the eyes emoji along with it and wait patiently for him to chicken out.

That's when he sends a picture. Your phone drops into your lap and your mouth hangs open.

It's him.

It's the Jitters customer you've been crushing on for the past year. And that's his name? Cisco?Everytime he places an order to go he always thinks it's hilarious to use the name of a famous fictional character. You've been trying to psych yourself up for months just to work up the courage to ask him for his name and maybe out on a date.

Your mind races with all the daydreams and fantasies you've had starring him. They range from adorable ones where you accidentally bump into him, coffee spilling all over him and you both blushing profusely while you attempt to clean him up; to downright explicit ones where you're the only one on closing shift and he's the last customer so you lock the doors and ravish him right there in one of the plush accent chairs.

You take a smooth five minutes to freak the hell out.

What finally pulls you away from your panic is the muffled sound of your cellphone. You hurridely dig it out from the depths of the couch.

You pass out from all the hotness huh? Lol

You just stare at the message. All language escaping you in that moment. You hadn't attempted flirting since coming to live in Central City. You left a pretty toxic relationship behind and wanted a fresh start. You had spent the past couple years focusing on finishing your MA but now that graduation was right around the corner, you suppose you could actually start dabbling in that real life stuff again. How many hours had you spent making unrequeited heart eyes at a stranger in a coffee shop? You weren't too sure about the mechanics of fate and destiny or whatever.

“Of all the wrong numbers in all the towns in all the world he texts mine,” You blink, “Err, or something like that.” You say to your phone.

You're startled out of your dramatic monologue by another text from Cisco. My self confidence is increasingly deflating  :|

Crap. You realize you haven't sent anything back to him in fifteen minutes. You just type fast and without much thought because you're scared if you think too hard on it you'll back out. Being behind a screen is supposed to make people a little more fearless, right?

Haha no it shouldn't. Its just that I've actually seen that handsome face before. :)

“That's only mildy creepy.” You say to yourself upon rereading your message.

That's... not creepy at all. Is his response, follwed by a How?

Well, we do live in the same city and I work at a popular hang out. You decide to tease him.

Oh, are you that redhead from Big Belly Burger? I told you the offer was flattering but I don't date high schoolers.

You have a good laugh at that before replying, Um, not a BBB employee or a high schooler. I assure you, you're texting a grown woman.

Oh yeah? A grown woman who can do whatever she wants? ;)

You think there's a Beyonce reference in there. Yes is your simple reply.

Idk. I could be getting catfished rn.

You scoff at that. If anyone could be getting catfished, it's me. You texted first.

True, but I genuinely did think you were someone else.

It's followed by another text. Hold up. On reinspection, I've actually have been incredibly generous. Ive given you my name, wallpaper AND my picture. The only thing I know is one place you don't work and that you're karaoke friendly. I think you have to pay some dues miss.

You scoff for a second but then realize you have withheld more than what he's given up in this conversation. You're nervous as you type back, What do you want?

Simple. Even trade. Name, wallpaper, and picture. Gimme.

Another text bubble appears, Please :D

You text him your name and hold your breath wondering if it will spark any memory. You have taken his order countless times at Jitters.

:D One down, two to go!

You sigh and nervously smile to yourself. You snap a screenshot of your phone background, which is just a quote thats partially obscured by your apps. You picked it to ground yourself, to make you never forget your self worth again. You haven't changed it since you moved to Central City. It simply reads 'I am too full of life to be half loved.' You send it on it's way and then go scrolling through your recent selfies to find a picture of yourself looking somewhat decent.

That's some sage advice. You should send me the actual pic so I can pin that to my quotes board on pinterest :)

You smile while sending over the original for him.

Thanks! Now last but not least...

You've picked a picture you took right before going out to a show a couple of weeks ago. You felt confident that night because of your new show stopping outfit and the fact that your hair did absolutely what you wanted it to do. You held your breath as you sent the picture, knowing that for sure he'd have to know who you were. The awkward, babbling barrista that often times tripped over her own two feet.

A minute went by without a reponse. Your nerves were catapulting all over the place while you just sat there and stared at your phone.

Finally a new message notification pinged and you swallowed hard as you opened it. Then, your heart stopped for a second.

Its you. The text simply reads.

What's that supposed to mean? You think. Before you can form a reply, he's sent another text.

I mean, you work at Jitters. I've definitely seen that beautiful face before. :) He mimics your reply to him earlier.

You feel a blush blooming across your face along with what your sure is a goofy smile. Yeah, surprise haha

Would it be weird to say my original question still stands?

You blink in confusion. Excuse me?

It's just that, I've always thought you were cute and you laugh at all my made up names when I order. It's a beautiful laugh btw. You're mouth has dropped open and you just reread the message a few times and then reply.

Hold up. Why haven't you asked me out before?

I've um... had some bad luck in the past with Jitters barristas. Figured I'd steer clear for a while.

And now?

Well now fate has given me your number so I figure I should just go with it :D

You bite your lip to try and control the goofy smile that's forming. Lunch sounds great.

Your phone slips free of your graps and you look up to stare out the window. The sky is clear and bright.

[itschrissenpai]

♫ (dance!au with Miyuki)

     @thatbastardmiyuki Letme start with saying that I’m sorry that this took so long. I used to botheryou with this for a while, telling you how things kinda developed without meever finishing it - and now, probably half a year or even more later, I’mfinally able to show it to you. Man, I need to get over my own laziness, haha(and learn how to write other characters because omg have I failed at this). Also, I dare to saythis is not 100% what the prompt was about. But oh well, it’s ChrisMiyu withCEO!Chris and model!Miyuki and I’ll never stop loving this AU. I hope you’llenjoy it! ♥

  — 5 Times… Prompts ( Not Accepting )

♫ - Five times my muse swears it’s not a date, and the one time it maybe is.

I.

     The first time definitely wasn’t a date because of two reasons.

     First, there were too many colleagues around when they sat next to each other at that bar they had gone to after work - and to Chris a date was clearly something for two people in private.

    Second, things may or may not have ended with them having sex in Chris’ apartment, quickly turning this potential ‘date’ into an unexpected one-night-stand in the heat of a moment. Not that Chris minded much. Nor did he regret practically spending the night with a stranger who happened to be one of the most popular models in Japan. This wasn’t something that would go public either way, since they both had some sort of reputation to keep: Him, the soon-to-be CEO of a company worth a fortune. Miyuki Kazuya, the famous model probably everyone in Japan already heard of (and needless to say most women - and perhaps even men - considered attractive).

    They wouldn’t see each other again after that night; because Chris knew the rules of one-night stands without having any prior experience with them. And yet he had the decency to make some coffee for both of them the next morning, surprised by the fact that Miyuki had still been slumbering peacefully beside him when he woke up.

    Just because this clearly hadn’t been a date, didn’t mean he should forget his manners, right?

II.

     The second time was even more spontaneous than the first time.

    Miyuki had refused additional money for replacing a model that unexpectedly had been unable to attend the photo shooting for Chris’ companies’ new advertisement series. Of course he was thankful that he did the job (although it meant for Miyuki spending his free time with work again), but Chris was known to pay back his debts as soon as he could. And if there was one thing about him that one could always be sure of, it was that he was a man of his word.

    So after work, they ended up in a small café with Chris paying for both of them. It wasn’t really what he had in mind by repaying him, but he went with it as the model suggested it to him.

    Oddly enough, even before Miyuki ordered anything, Chris remembered that the model liked black coffee without sugar - and it slightly irritated him how much he could still recall from their small talk a few nights ago.

    “You don’t look happy”, he heard Miyuki say. “How come?”

    “Frankly, I didn’t expect you to suggest to come here. It doesn’t make up for the fact that you helped us out on your free day.”

    There was a teasing smirk on the other’s face - and Chris even remembered the exact same smirk from that night when they–

      “What if I told you that there might be a way to really make up for it, then?” Chris felt a foot nudging against his and amber eyes resting on him without any kind of shame, causing him to feel a weird tension in his gut. It didn’t feel bad, he had to admit, but he tried to not let it show too much. It would be a mystery to him if he actually succeeded, but it turned out to not really matter barely 15 minutes later when they left the café again.

      Two things were crystal clear for Chris the moment they entered his apartment again: First, this wouldn’t be a date, because he’d never end one with fucking someone into his mattress. Second, he didn’t date for the sake of repaying them, even if it was very tempting in Miyuki’s case.

III.  

     It was his birthday when Miyuki suddenly appeared for the third time, causing Chris to forget that the actual surprise was the chocolate cake and the neatly decorated office his colleagues prepared for him, not the model standing next to him.

    He wondered who had invited him in the first place since he wasn’t working regularly in his company. In fact Miyuki had only worked as a model for their advertisement posters twice, which had coincidentally been the only times they had seen each other to begin with.

    Perhaps this was Miyuki’s reason to wait until the other employees returned to their neglected duties before he dared to talk to Chris. Or maybe he just wanted no one to overhear their conversation.

    “I always thought you were just one of the co-workers here. Should’ve known that you’re higher positioned than this - according to your fancy apartment.”

    It made Chris smirk. “You never asked for my occupation in detail. I prefer not to talk about it.”

    Miyuki chuckled, leaning against the desk as his eyes wandered through the office for a couple of seconds before he pushed away again.

    “Well, I should probably go too”, the model mumbled suddenly. Chris turned around to face him, the obvious question of why he’d been here heavily hanging in the air, even if he never uttered it, doubting he’d get a response. There might’ve been some disappointment too though.

    Turned out his guess was true when Miyuki placed his index finger over his lips and gave him a playful wink. It left Chris in a state of confusion as the model went to the door with a nonchalantly spoken “See you, CEO-sama.”

    Of course this wasn’t even close to be considered a date and Chris wouldn’t have thought about it if it wasn’t Tanba who asked him when he had started dating the model barely an hour after Miyuki had left. There was some sort of harsh tone in his words, as if to complain about Chris being secretive although they had been best friends since high school.

    “We’re not dating”, he answered calmly. “I didn’t expect him to know my birthday.”

    “You told him when we were out for a drink that night. It was shortly before you suddenly left with him.”

    Chris blinked at that. How could he not remember this ever happened?

    Tanba sighed and pat his shoulder as he stepped closer. “Be cautious around him. He seems twisted.”

    Yeah, I know, Chris thought. He was twisted and mysterious. But this was exactly what was so attractive about him. Although he did wonder what sort of hidden message was behind that little wrapped up box on his table. When he opened it, there was only a key inside of it and a cryptic note.

     ‘Thank me another time.’

IV.

     The fourth time had been what Chris thought to be the encounter that started to really set the cogs into motion.

    “I should really feel offended by how you expect me to have any kind of fashion sense. I’m a model. I only wear clothes others chose for me.”

    And yet he was still there, helping Chris choose a new suit without making the impression as if he didn’t want to. Surely, it was mostly because the owner of the shop wanted Miyuki to wear one of his suits in public to promote his clothes. They had been in the middle of measuring him up when Chris entered the very same shop.

    “Is that so? You seem pretty independent to me.”

    Chris earned a snort at that.

    “So, what do you need a suit for? Shouldn’t you already have a bunch by now?”

    “It’s for a wedding.”

    “Oh? Guess I should congratulate you then.”

    Chris knew that this was the part where he should correct him and tell him that this obviously wasn’t his wedding he’d attend but someone else’s. But Miyuki was also just teasing, knowing that Chris wasn’t involved with anyone else - aside from him for a few times by now.

    Still, something seemed off with the way he looked at him; He seemed a little tense, like he was concerned - and Chris wanted to know why. Shouldn’t he be glad that he was sticking to his freedom even after it seemed like they somehow got closer?

    “You want to look like an old man?”

    Chris furrowed his brows at the sudden question.

    “Pardon?”

    “Did you actually take a look at that tie you’re wearing? You look like a grandpa who’s visiting his family. Here, try this one.”

    He shouldn’t trust him so blindly with this, but Miyuki seemed to know what he was talking about and he actually chose a tie that Chris liked as well.

    “Maybe I should ask you more often about some fashion advice.”

    “That’s going to be expensive.”

    “But it’ll most likely be worth it.”

    This time, they both chuckled, and although it only lasted for a few seconds, it felt different to him than any other time.

    “I’m already finished with work for the day. If you want to book me, you better make it soon. I’m usually very busy.”

    “How about now?”

    There it was again: That teasing smile on his lips, so nonchalant as Miyuki tied his tie. And Chris wanted to kiss it away.

     “Have you decided on a suit yet? It would be a shame if you came here to find one only to get distracted and leave without one.”

     If Miyuki only knew that Chris had long decided on one - even if he looked like his other ones. “Actually, I think I did. Thanks to your helpful advice.”

     “You’re welcome”, Miyuki hummed. “Your place?” It wasn’t really a question and Chris didn’t bother answering.

     Not dating Miyuki Kazuya surely had many advantages. And just a few hours later, Chris would add another one to the list after he realized that holding him in their aftermath felt better, the more often he got the chance to.

V.

      “We’re not dating”

      “But he stays overnight, you’re fucking and meeting each other since months.Yeah. Definitely doesn’t sound like a date to me.” Isashiki gave him a look Chris could barely avoid, rubbing his temples. He was standing in front of his wardrobe, looking through his clothes while Isashiki layed behind him on his bed, reading through a manga without ever giving off the impression of being too distracted by it.

      “Why do you even know about it?”

      He regretted his own question but as soon as he opened his mouth to take it back, his friend was already speaking. “I’m living next to you, Chris. I’m not even surprised anymore whenever he walks out of your place in the morning. Also, Tanba saw you two at the convenience store on Christmas’ Eve. He said you were stressed because your Christmas plans with your family got cancelled, so he wanted to cheer you up. But after he saw you with your boyfriend, he crashed my place before the storm started. And… wait, did you really sleep with him…?”

      “He’s not my boyfriend”, Chris muttered, refusing to admit how right his friend was with practically everything.

      “I can’t hear you. Your voice gets too soft whenever you lie.” Weirdly enough, it was the truth - and the reason Chris preferred not to lie in the first place. “When will you ask him out again? Also, don’t put that on. That looks like it’s from your grandparents. Man, how are you even dating a model?” He huffed. “Well, guess he’s not after your fashion style.”

      “We’re not…”

      “Dating. Try again. I know a couple when I see one.”

      Why was he even trying? If anything, Chris had to admit that his friend had read enough love stories to read between the lines. Still, it would be wrong to call any of their encounters a date. But maybe–

     “Did you know that in the next chapter…”

      “DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT, CHRIS.”

      “But you might want to know that the heroine is going to… ”

     “DON’T TELL ME A WORD OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HER!” There was a pause. “She’ll be fine though… right?”

      Chris only smiled amusedly, closing the wardrobe. 

VI.

      “I’msurprised…”, Miyuki said when they made their way back to the car. They’d been visiting a concert he had gotten two tickets for - because apparently the band’s lead singer had given them to Miyuki to ‘convince’ him to appear in their new music video. Of course mostly for a better promotion. As far as Chris knew, Miyuki hadn’t declined or accepted yet - but given that Miyuki had emphasized that he liked the band, he’d probably accept sooner or later.

      “Yeah?”, Chris replied when they reached red traffic lights, leaning back some as he gave Miyuki a curious look.

      “Yeah. I’m surprised you actually have other clothes than suits.”

      They stared at each other for what felt like half an eternity, a strange silence between them until Chris took a breath.

      “Did you… think that I’d wear a suit on a concert?”

     “Well, it was hard for me to imagine you in something else than a suit.”

     Chris huffed, his smirk giving away that he wasn’t upset. Granted, he’d never seen him out of his business clothes (aside from him completely naked at least). “I know it might seem strange to you, but I’m actually pretty normal. Most of the time.”

      “You mean, whenever you’re not leading a company?” The model chuckled. “Guess I’m no one to talk. Not with my occupation at least.“

      Not really, Chris wanted to answer, but kept it to himself when the lights turned green. Miyuki’s place wasn’t very far away from the concert hall, he reminded himself. Better not start any teasing or smooth comebacks, or it would end in disheveled clothes and sweat again - although Miyuki honestly didn’t seem too eager to push for anything that night. Or maybe he was and Chris just didn’t read him right.

      “Thanks. For driving us.”

      “It’s alright”, Chris replied. “I like driving. I just barely have any reason to do it on my own.”

      “I see.” He could see him tilt his head. “Does that mean you only drive if you have a reason to?” 

      It wasn’t obvious where this question would lead them, so Chris only slowly nodded. He didn’t have anything embarrassing or secretive to hide about this; although he knew that it wasn’t very normal to have a driver whenever he went to work (or back home), just because he could spend the time sitting in the car with looking through his daily schedules rather than dealing with traffic.

      “You could say that.”

       Miyuki didn’t reply immediately: “So if I need a drive, I could just give you a call and hope you’d pick me up?”

      “Perhaps.” Chris was pretty sure he didn’t sound nearly as relaxed as he thought he would. God knew why. “Depends on the occasion. I’m afraid I won’t be the right person if…” He stopped. “Under… certain conditions.”

     “Certain conditions?” Chris couldn’t shake off the feeling that the model had hesitated again, maybe because he wasn’t sure whether he’d wanted to hear a possible answer or not. Obviously his curiosity won that fight - much to Chris’ despair.

      “Well, I’d feel out of place if you wanted me to pick you up from a date.” Not that it would happen anyway, because first, Miyuki wasn’t the dating type, he’d made that pretty sure a few times. And second–

      Chris was probably the last person he’d call anyway.

      If there was anything he’d expect from Miyuki,it was definitely not a short laugh. 

      “Wow Chris. So mean.”

     Chris. He’d never called him by his givenname before. Nor shown any signs of being hurt by what he’d said.

      But it definitely rang a bell.

      “I didn’t mean…”

      “No, it’s alright.”

      Was it though? The weird feeling in his guts told him the opposite. But then again his guts were giving him very strange signals lately. Especially when he was around him.

      “I wasn’t referring to tonight.”

      It was definitely a weird coincidence that theyreached the street Miyuki’s place was in - now that Chris actually realized whatconversation he’d started. He let out a sigh when he turned off the engine.Weirdly enough, Miyuki unfastened his seatbelt but didn’t open the door.

      “Does that mean that this is a datethen?”

      Chris looked up from the steering wheel,seemingly baffled. They’d never dared to cross their boundaries and talkedabout anything related to dating.Well, at least not dating each other. Chris remembered that they once talkedabout past relationships, how difficult it was to find someone who’d be able to deal with their tight schedules and how they both came to the conclusion that it might be for the best to just take things easy.

      So there was definitely a chance Miyuki wasplaying with him now. Trying to force a reaction only to push himaway again. Just like he had after he’d helped Chris choose a suit for thatwedding he’d attended months ago; It had taken Miyuki weeks to text him back after that night and Chris had to be the one trying to actually initiate a conversation again.

      But then again; wasn’t this actually a date? They had been without a third party (except that one time when Miyuki had to talk to the lead singer of that band which - if Chris was brutally honest - really didn’t give the best performance; and he had already come with the smallest amount of expectations considering he wasn’t much into modern music in the first place). They also hadn’t spoken about spending the night at either of their places together, which made Chris assume that Miyuki might simply not be interested. He’d lie if he’d say that it didn’t somehow hurt his pride. And perhaps his feelings overall.

      Still, there was some hope left. He didn’t knew why or what he was actually hoping for on the long run, but it was connected to spending more time with him - even if it didn’t include any physical contact.

      “I see.”

      Chris didn’t understand Miyuki’s words at first, but when he opened the door to get out of the car, his body reacted on its own, grabbing Miyuki’s arm before he could turn and get out.

      “Yes”, he heard himself say. “It might be a date.”

      There was pure confusion and hesitation on Miyuki’s face, that fortunately Chris understood quicker than before, lips curving at the realization.

      “But I can’t decide this for both of us, can I?”

      First frozen in his position, Miyuki slowly sank back onto the seat. Which really wouldn’t have been a sign of a win yet, but when the model smirked back at him, he knew that he might’ve turned this around.

      “Fair enough”, he replied. “How about we get inside then? Would be a shame if we didn’t come to a conclusion, wouldn’t it?”

      Usually, Chris would assume that this was the beginning of another of their sexual encounters. But there was something different about the way Miyuki was talking, was offering him to stay over. He’d be damn stupid to not go and see where it would lead them this time.

      “Gladly”, Chris replied - and little did he know that this would be first time that they’d wake up very dressed the next morning yet happier than any time they hadn’t.