#this took me too long. bleugh

[bkd-b3ans]

A Shared Memory

Contents

>Ship: younger Sunday x GN!reader

>Rating: Fully SFW

>Contents: Before Sunday got dragged to forever remain within the Dreamscape, you two share one last night together.

>Extra info: Reader is halovian and not associated with the Family. Sunday might be slightly OOC, never wrote abt him before, just drew him half naked. It's just a short story I wanted to get out of my system while I design my oc for him. I refuse to read what I write, and that's not something I will change, you might find some mistakes but very small (?) anyway, enjoy.

Sunday sighed, feeling his patience run dry.

"Can you stop poking at my wings?"

A full day with no break again, running up and down to lessons and hearings and lectures and... Bleugh... It was too much sometimes even for young Sunday. But at least there was one single respite he could have, walking amongst the gardens of the Families estate. It was beautiful in a dream, but even prettier in reality, something the young master could not get over yet. Even if they were the gardens he had found that little helpless bird with his sister, that inaverdedly pushed him towards a harsh lesson, there was still a pull to them that he could not shake off.

He enjoyed walking amongst them at night, staring at the sky, dreaming of the stars still, finding a small clearing amongst the hedges to rest on top of a blanket, after all, he couldn't get his clothes dirty, father dearest would not allow for such a thing. He would rest there, in complete silence, contemplating over the long gone day. Or at least, that was his excuse, when the reality was so much more different.

It was almost like a forbidden ritual, going as far away as possible from prying eyes just to wait for the only person that could make his heart skip a beat everytime they smiled at him, the way his wings would flutter and halo glow whenever he locked eyes with them, how suddenly he became so aware of all of his clothes and that they might not sit right on him in their presence. It was dreadful, yet he felt real in those moments, like he was his own person. So he would wait patiently for as long as it would take just for another chance encounter. Even if they didn't happen often, tonight was going to be a lucky one.

A single wing poked from the well trimmed bushes, flapping in annoyance as you dragged yourself out of it, stumbling on the ground on your back, legs up in the air, while gripping at a package. The leaf uncomfortably resting on your nose made you sneeze, your wings ruffling up. Sunday just watched almost confused as you dragged your halo from the branches and let it float gently above your head.

"Always one to make the weirdest entrances..."

"Oh please, I didn't have a choice, there's guards everywhere! This feels more like a prison than a house sometimes." you shook your head, placing the package down and dusting yourself off.

You noticed Sunday looking at the package, his inwings slightly risen up while he tilted his head. You barely contained a chuckle at the image before you.

" Don't worry, I didn't bring anything bad this time. It's just some sweets. I remembered you saying you wanted some."

"You know you shouldn't have. Not only that, but those are simply childish desires. I have no need for them anymore."

"Mhm, sure, then you can just watch me eat them~ come on, scooch a bit to the side so I can sit down too."

He moved to his right, letting you sit down as you took off the packaging, pulling out a small box. Your wings played flat on your shoulders as you saw the two strawberry shortcakes mushed together from your fall.

"... " you just sighed "Well, they're still edible at least. They really need to make better packaging"

You weren't that picky to begin with. You just grabbed the little plastic spoon the bakery gave you and started eating... But you couldn't help but feel like something was just staring holes through your skull. You furrowed your eyebrows, trying to focus on eating, your wings fluttering around in annoyance, but it was getting too much, you turned your sight to your side and almost choked on the cake.

"You don't have to be so close! You almost gave me a heart attack" your exclaimed, seeing Sunday stare at you, his halo slightly glowing and his eyes shining in the moon light. You just pushed the box in his hands.

"Come on, I know you want some, you can just tell me and not hide behind false pretexes, ok? After all we've known each other for long enough for you to know that you can relax here."

Sunday took the box and the other spoon, looking at it a bit unsure. There was a small battle going on inside his mind. He spent so much resisting his urges, yet here he was, put in front of one of the hardest battle so far in his life. Even broken and squished, the cake still looked so apetizing to him. He just gave up, his wings covering his face as he took a few bites, his halo shining a bit brighter. You could swear you almost saw him smile even behind those beautiful feathers.

You couldn't help but poke at his wings, feeling just how silky smooth they were under your fingertips, you head resting in the palm of your hand as you couldn't help but somewhat admire the man you've known for so long. But even the most patient person would get annoyed at the constant poking.

Sunday sighed, feeling his own patience run dry, moving his wing away to look at you.

"Can you stop poking at my feathers? You've already won once, you don't need to further push your luck."

"I love your wings"

He froze in place for a moment, covering his face again. You couldn't help but smile, moving yourself closer to him until your bodies touched, leaning your head on his shoulder.

"I missed you. It's been rather hard to get a hold of you lately, with all these preparations for you to go into the dreamscape... Will we ever see each other again?"

"..." he let his own head rest on top of yours "I am afraid that I am unable to answer that. The Dreammasters plans are also a mistery to me, but I am sure I could still be let out. Robin can at least, so I don't see why not."

"Hm... You sound unsure. That usually is a bad sign."

"It is simply just something out of my control. But it is something I have to do, for harmony to exist in this world."

You looked at the ground. By then even Sunday placed down the small box, both cakes half eaten. You placed your hand on top of his, squeezing it gently, comforting. He didn't say anything in return, but simply returned the gesture interlocking your fingers with his. You couldn't hell but blush at the gesture.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Sunday leaned back in his chair, looking over the dreamscape as the small dreambubble floated up and down slowly, the image of that night burned into it by now. It has been several years now since he felt your hand rest into his, your warmth and your melodious voice. So long that he almost forgot your face were it not for these memories stuck in a loop, but even they were getting fuzzy, eroded by time. Nothing is permanent, not even in the dreamscape it seems.

The dreambubble floated alone on top of his desk, unnatended, left to rot as it merely contained the memories of a past long gone, as the Dreammaster put it. No reason dwelling on them for too long when the end is so near.

[gaytoru]

robin, gay panicking: SHE TOLD ME SHE LIKED GIRLS, STEVE. GIRLS.

steve, unbothered, making his coffee: yeah, and what else?

robin, freaking out: she looked so, SO genuine. i-i didn’t even know what to say. like, like- my THROAT was cut off. my throat went DRY, STEVEN. she was embarrassed? or something, there was like - a red hue on her face. it looked so pretty though, SHE looked so pretty and— steve. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?

steve, drinking his morning coffee: bleugh— this is way too bitter. i gotta get a different type of coffee at the store next week, why’s this one so bad??? and why does eddie like this??? anyways, yes i was listening, robin. nance already told me about this ages ago.

robin:

robin, grabbing steve by the shoulders: what do YOU MEAN SHE TOLD YOU?

eddie, walking past the room: she told me too, by the way! took you long enough to realize by the way she stares at you.

robin: she— wait— LONG ENOUGH— HUH?

eddie: OH GOD SHE’S GONNA BLOW—

nancy, walking to the room, waking up & rubbing her eyes: what’s the problem, guys?

in unison: nothing.

[deadlysoupy]

Would you do a basic tutorial on how to create your fanfic on AO3? without a user from Latin America getting exhausted from being without a guide trying to make a fanfic @_@

ye sure! ao3 may be hard to get used to, but all the "?" in the sections do help a lot, and there's a detailed faq page on ao3, check this one if you have any questions. i'll do one anyway though

first, you'll want to click on the "new work" button here (assuming you already have an account!)

then you'll see this section, we'll gradually get into each one, but for more info you can just click the "?" button

honestly the rating and warnings are a bit of a doozy for me too, but the general ideas behind them are explained in the help buttons. if you've read fics on this website before i think you'd have a foggy understanding of ratings, they aren't too complicated. i really can't explain it any better than the help buttons do, it's just spitballing a lot of the times for me

but! fandoms! i've seen people who list their fandoms in relation to how prevalent they are in a story (ie when you have a mostly, idk, cyberverse-related fic with lots of references, you should put it first), with or without the general tag for all media, that depends, i guess, on the audience you want to attract, or in case some things reference other things from a media. the tags DO auto-fill when you type a few words (be careful about the spellings and wording in general)

categories are pretty linear and expected, dunno how to even describe them. again, the help button helps lmao

relationships is an important part - they can be skipped, but a lot of people browse for specific relationships and not fandoms. i put them in a tier-list of sorts to the importance in the story - similar to that of fandoms. don't overdo it tho! it gets muddy fast (you'll be able to see stuff better once we finish making everything pretty). again, most of this can be auto-filled!!! in case it's very obscure and rare

characters shouldn't be listed wildly - put only the ones you KNOW are important, a tiny cameo may not count, it gets kinda annoying when you look at a character tag but it's just one line (speaking from experience lmao)

additional tags are what people usually call regular tags. you can list a genre, what people could expect beyond a summary, a few popular tags that fit (hurt/comfort, angst, that sort of stuff). don't overdo it tho! ao3 does have a limit, and it's easier for the reader to read short and concise tags. you can see a list of most popular tags here, in case you get stuck

now then! the preface! just learned what it's called and that's pretty cool!

work title is pretty self-explanatory - the name of your story. das it

co-creators are a thing for people who make works with someone else - don't tic it if you aren't doing that (i have no experience so i have no idea how it works)

summary is a short description of your story. shouldn't be too long, but i've seen people do long ones, that's not the topic of this post

notes are the creator's place to yell, tell something cool, promote stuff, whatever. i love to talk to my readers through there, explain some out-of-story context or aus in mind. it's not mandatory and can be totally skipped

this weird stuff

collections and challenges are wacky. i'm not explaining that, there are way more knowledgeable people out there for this section

"gift this work to" is used for... gifting a story to someone! who knew! but for real you just type a username and in the title it would say "(work name) by (username) for (username)", it would appear in the giftee's profile. or something

these other things are... complicated.

i've never filled this cause i never did this, but it seems pretty straight-forward

part of a series is easy! it's like collections but so much simpler. your personal hole to put stuff in. order doesn't usually matter. if you have created a new series, you can put it there, or you can create a series, its literally two buttons

multiple chapters is a thing in case it's not a one-shot. if you don't have an idea about how many chapters there could be, you can just leave it with a question mark. no need to name the chapters, either, they'll just be listed as "chapter 1, chapter 2" etc, or name it whatever you want

haven't used the publication date i have no idea what this magic button does!!!!

choosing a language is mandatory. just pick a language from their list and that's it!

i have no idea how work skins work

privacy is filled unless you're anxious about a guest (an unregistered ao3 user) seeing your work (sorry that's just a description of me. my bad). it's pretty clear though

now, let's get into the m e a t

html version of the text is the one where everything is filled with a command, but it's really complicated and i'm not a programmer, so i always use the rich text version

now, you can write your fic in the ao3 textbox, but if your website crashes - say bye-bye. people write in different apps i'm not listing here, so you can copy the text over and edit there however you please

there are a lot of nuances regarding the text editor, but you can test it yourself with anything, a bunch of things do cool stuff, like italics and bold text that can enrich your writing. i rarely use it for.... reasons (a bit of a ramble but i want my text to convey all these choices without me using them, but sometimes italics help)

the final stretch!

i always preview my works before they get published. period. you never know when an italic messed up your spaces, you forgot to delete a space inbetween paragraphs, and whatever

previewed works go into drafts, which you can publish once you check if everything is a-okay. if you take too long though..... ao3 will think that the date you made the draft is the day you basically published the thing. so be careful with that! don't rush it, but don't leave it for more than a few hours, you'll have to start over. maybe it's a me-only glitch, maybe it's not, i'm not willing to check

and there you go! once you do all that, and you've checked your tags and the text (preferably more than once lmao), you're ready to post it! should take about 5-10 minutes to appear in the tags and fandom. you're all set!

i do hope this was somewhat helpful bc i'm not a tech-savvy person and i just do things my own way. there are a bunch of posts on tumblr to help you post on ao3, so look for those in case there are questions

[yostresswritinggirl]

Merry Christmas! Hope you're enjoying the holidays <3

Please take care and don't stress yourself much, sending my love and best wishes! 🥰🥰🥰

Maehem, oh I'm sorry I took so long to respond but Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed the holidays too!

Bleugh the holidays are always hectic for me, the break up to New Year's is my only reprieve but thank you, and to you as well, you sweetie!

[webslingingz]

I posted 63 times in 2022

That's 16 more posts than 2021!

23 posts created (37%)

40 posts reblogged (63%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@webslingingz

@vixenngloss

@dotjpeg

@egberts

@murdock-barnes

I tagged 20 of my posts in 2022

#spider-man x reader - 4 posts

#daredevil imagine - 4 posts

#matthew murdock x reader - 4 posts

#matt murdock x reader - 4 posts

#daredevil x reader - 4 posts

#spider-man imagine - 3 posts

#peter parker imagine - 3 posts

#tom holland x reader - 3 posts

#peter parker x reader - 3 posts

#moon knight - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 69 characters

#i will keep quiet because if i don’t something terrible will be said.

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

If I got slapped in front of Andrew Garfield I’d Kill my Self bro

16 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

#4

Hi darling! I saw you taking requests for Matt Murdock, so here I am.

So I was thinking some angst and action. Reader gets caught up in the middle of a fight, cuz she trying to get Intel on a case she works on with Nelson&Murdock. So the reader doesn't know that Matt is Daredevil, and during the fight Matt has to save their ass,and he's feral about it, and reader finds out who he is. Something like this 😁

If you are interested I would like to read you story. Thanks love.

Yo! Sorry this took so long, but you can read this here !!

19 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

#3

I’ll Be Around (TASM!Peter Parker X Reader)

Yo !!! I'm so glad you liked Ibuprofen !! Ty for the request :)

I have never actually heard this song, so I obviously had to listen before writing and the chorus is real sweet and I love the concept of relating it to Peter !! Also, I can literally never ever avoid a good hurt/comfort fic even though I feel like 90% of Peter fics are hurt comfort idc it is like drugs to me

First post of the new year !! Hope u all enjoy it &lt;3

Title: I’ll Be Around Genre: Hurt/comfort, insane fluff (I care him <3), angst if you squint a little bit Word count: ~1.7k Warnings: Mention loss, injury description. Synopsis: Peter returns home only half-aware of the excruciating pain in his side, far too staggered by the intensity of the brawl he'd been in to even begin to form a cohesive string of thoughts. However, that night, under the effect of both of whatever painkillers aunt May had him on and your sincere monitoring, he comes upon a sudden, pain-induced revelation.

See the full post

163 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

#2

The Devil Ain't a Friend to No One (Matthew Murdock x reader)

Hey! I am so glad to be getting requests for Matt, I've been reading the Waid run of Daredevil and I've also been getting into the show again recently and I love him so much he is so <3<3<3<3 I apologise for how slowly I've been pushing these out, I'm back at school and have had like no time to write in my free time because I have honestly been spending it sleeping or doing homework LOL

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this little node. I suck at writing action so I kind of avoided it in place for EXTRA ANGST to make up for it.

Also, the title is from the song 'It's called: Freefall' by Rainbow Kitten Surprise, which is where I got a lot of the ideas for this specific fic. The song is very Matt to me and also slaps severely. I recommend.

I also barely proofread this, I wanted it out before Valentine's day, so excuse me if it seems a little bleugh. Happy Valentine's day !!

Title: The Devil Ain't a Friend to No One

Genre: Angst/fluff/action??

Warnings: Depictions of violence, bloody imagery, religious themes (it is MY Daredevil fic and I get to choose the religious trauma), swearing, descriptions of injury

Word Count: 2.0k

Synopsis: Hell's Kitchen is a wretched, friendless place at night. All hope was to be forsaken, all valour disbanded, especially so when faced with such violence; when faced with the glint of silver under the faraway street light as you turn a desolate corner. However, the Devil was invariably vigilant, and you had a sneaking scepticism that you knew him well.

See the full post

191 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Everyone’s Got Them (Matt Mudock x reader)

YO !! I love this little simple req I love doing just one little scene and expanding on it I think it’s so fun. I got this idea randomly when I was bored and looking at my arm LMFAO ty for the request !! (Also, I do not think there’s much of an audience for Matt rn but I love him so much so plz request more when I do end up opening requests again)

Title: Everyone’s got them.  Genre: fluff  Word count: ~1k Warnings: mentions of injury and drinking, maybe a little suggestive if you really really really squint super hard Synopsis: Matthew Murdock craved the innocence of waking up alongside you, tangled in the sheets of his bed, and is reluctant to break himself from that innocence when it’s presented to him.

See the full post

358 notes - Posted April 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tryskomys]

˚˙༓࿇༓˙˚˙ Strange Brew ˚˙༓࿇༓˙˚˙

Eddie Munson one-shot

Summary: Remember Tina’s Halloween party? The one where Billy was crowned the new king of Hawkins High and Nancy got drunk on ‘pure fuel’? Eddie and Maia weren’t missing out on the fun.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫

Notes: ok, here it goes. a little flashback to the times when the biggest problem on our protagonists’ minds was a disgusting drink on a high school party. 4k words of pure blueballing, i’m really pushing my filth-writing limits here. hope you enjoy! can be read as a reader-insert.

beware: descriptions of teenage drinking (both protagonists are 18+), raw jealousy, lewd behaviour, slutty dialogue

Masterlist

songs:

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫

Hawkins, October 1984

The entire house was practically shaking to the rhythm of Mötley Crüe as swarms of drunk teenagers clumsily danced through the night.

Come on, it’s one night, you’ll have fun.

That’s what Nancy told Maia that morning at school when she handed her the ugly orange flyer advertising a Halloween party at Tina’s house. And here she was, definitely not having fun. She couldn’t even think of a reason she decided to go in the end. Maybe because Eddie shockingly liked the idea of going to a high school party.

Free food, free booze, I’ll survive one night if it means I can get shitfaced for someone else’s money.

His voice echoed through her head as she leaned against the doorway, looking around the room to see if she’ll spot him somewhere. He left to refill drinks. Fifteen minutes ago. Maia was anxiously picking on the fabric of the long black velvet cape that rested upon her leather jacket. That and her messy thick eyeliner barely resembling bat wings was the maximum effort she was willing to put into her ‘costume’.

Her eyes spotted Billy Hargrove, the new asshole in town, chugging beer upside down.

“Jesus fucking christ, bleugh.” she whispered and her face twisted in disgust. She talked to him once and she already despised him, she was pretty sure she saw him abuse his little ginger sister, too.

“Hope he suffocates.” Eddie’s raspy voice made her turn around with a relieved sigh. A half-smoked cigarette was hanging from his mouth, smudged black eyeliner framing his obsidian eyes. A big metal cross dangled around his neck and fingers clutching two solo cups and were sporting a chipped black nail polish.

“What the hell took you so long? I was beginning to think they ate you alive back there.” she hissed at him and took the cup he was offering her.

“I almost drowned on my way back, it’s like a sea full of volatile pricks here.” he shook his head, took a drag of his cigarette and beckoned to her, clinking the two plastic cups together.

“Chin-chin.” she mumbled and took a sip, immediately sticking her tounge out with a scrunched nose, turning back to the room to watch the freak show.

“Fucking hell…tastes like piss.” she coughed and blinked a few times, taken aback by the aftertaste. Eddie snorted with laughter and took a swig.

“It’s free, halfling. Stop being a brat.”

A cold shiver ran down her spine. She desperately wished that it was the two cold beers they had on the way here causing the warmth in her face, but being called a brat by Eddie the Freak Munson in smudged makeup wasn’t exactly easy to digest.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure you’ll be ok with drinking this shit when you’re salivating over that piece of shit.” he stated while nodding towards Billy, who was surrounded by their cheering classmates, spit and beer dripping down his chin.

Venom was seeping out of his every word, his face clouded with smoke when Maia looked at him again with furrowed brows, frankly insulted by his comment.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean, you daft prick?”

“Don’t know, you tell me why you’re all red in the face for that fuckhead.” he shrugged, taking another long drag and puffing it right into her face.

“Exactly how of much of this abomination did you consume while you were gone?” she shook her cup in front of his face, pinning him to the wall with her gaze. He wasn’t planning on backing down, though.

“What’s it to you, Anderson?” he mumbled with the cigarette between his lips, swirling the liquid in his cup provocatively.

“You’re disgusting.” she hissed at him, mentally trying to coerce herself into believing the statement.

“But he’s not, right? It’s hot when he’s shitfaced, right? Bet you’d let him spit in-“

Maia’s face flashed with fury as she swung her palm to his cheek, but his quick reflexes stopped her just as she was about to hit him.

“Provoke me some more and I’ll spit in your face.” she growled at him through gritted teeth, twisting her wrist in his iron grip.

“Don’t tempt me, sweetheart.” he smirked, his eyes drunkenly out of focus. He let go of her wrist and she stomped away before he could get another glimpse at her.

A bead of sweat ran down her hairline as her cheeks burned so painfully she had to head straight to the kitchen to look into the fridge for something cold. She found an ancient can of Coke at the very back of it, behind a bag of carrots and some champagne bottles. She pressed it to her cheeks and forehead, breathing as if she just ran a cross-country race.

Her wondering eyes stopped on a bowl of the liquid she just drank from her cup. She looked around the kitchen for any signs of some different type of alcohol, but sadly this seemed to be her only option. She lazily dragged herself to the bowl and filled her cup, threw the can back in the fridge and walked out of the kitchen, mumbling a silent cheers to herself. Can’t deal with this man sober.

Eddie was leaning against the wall, mindlessly lighting up another cigarette when he heard a roar of cheers coming from the kitchen. What is he doing now, a fucking handstand on his dick? Eddie hated Billy with a burning passion. They had a total of one interaction and it was more than enough. Even though it was Billy’s first week at Hawkins High, he was confident enough to try to humiliate Eddie in front of the whole cafeteria. Bumping into him on purpose and knocking his food tray on the floor wasn’t enough, he had to target Maia as well.

Even freaks get pussy in this town, sweet. Eddie shivered with disgust when he remembered Billy’s smug expression after she fiercely cussed him out. Let me know when you get bored of him, though. I’ll straighten you out, hotshot.

“All alone in a place like this, Ozzy?” a female voice dragged Eddie out of his thoughts. His hazy mind thought it was Maia at first, but the voice was more high-pitched - less like midnight velvet - and missed the typical melodic intonation. A taller brunette stood before him, considering her figure she was most likely a cheerleader, dressed in a short fluffy white dress and sporting a perm, probably channeling Madonna.

“Not really.” he muttered and clouded his face in cigarette smoke again.

“Who could’ve left this man without supervision?” she batted her eyelashes, swirling around the liquid in her cup.

His mind conjured up a picture of Maia’s naked body shrouded only in her velvet cape in place of this girl, but it dissapeared just as he blinked.

What the fuck was in that bowl?

“You’d be surprised.” he snickered at her remark, downing the rest of the drink. She attempted a sultry giggle, but Eddie was unphased. The Reflex came on and the girl gasped and laid her manicured fingers on his forearm. He looked her up and down, raising an eyebrow.

“I love this song so much, come dance with me!” she exclaimed, lightly tugging his arm. He let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Not really a dancer, sorry.”

“I’ll teach you.” she leaned in and whispered just as Maia appeared from around the corner.

When she saw the scene in front of her, for a split second she thought her heart exploded. She considered turning around and walking away, but Eddie pissed her off. He doesn’t deserve to get laid tonight. She squinted at him when their eyes met and walked up to them.

“Well well well, what did I miss, lovebirds?” she looked between the two of them and took a sip of her drink, earning a fake smile from the girl.

“Look, your little friend returned! We were just about to go dancing with Ozzy here.” she explained, puffing her full chest as much as she could to assert her dominance. Maia spat out the drink back to the cup and snorted with laughter.

“Ozzy?”

“I saw him yesterday on MTV and he was so hot, he looks just like him!” she giggled and squeezed Eddie’s forearm.

He was just silently darting between the two of them, holding back a smirk. He realized that shaking this girl off wasn’t in his power, so he decided to leave it up to Lady Macbeth’s sharp wit.

“Hm…don’t see it. Sorry, Ozzy.” she sympathetically nodded at Eddie and he looked to the ground while chewing his cheeks, trying to compose himself. She continued.

“If you’d like though, I could hit you up with the real thing. I once set up a date with Simon Le Bon for a friend. Just one ritual away from your idol, that’s my motto.” she enthusiastically nodded, flashing a professional smile to the girl. She slowly let go of Eddie’s arm, raising her eyebrows and nervously chuckling.

“R-ritual?”

“Aye. Just a little sacrifice, that’s all. I usually prefer pigs, but anything that bleeds red is good, that’s what my mama always said! Interested?”

Eddie masked his chuckle by acting like he choked on the smoke he just inhaled and when the girl turned at him with wide eyes, he just casually shrugged. She forcefully exhaled and backed away from them slightly.

“Well, I’m out of alcohol, so…yeah.” she flickered between Eddie and Maia, suddenly sobering up and noticing their fairly intimidating appearance. She dissapeared into the crowd and he burst out in giggles.

“Why are you laughing? I was serious, you look nothing like him.” she smirked and leaned against the wall next to him.

“I don’t?” he pouted, the innapropriate vision of her flashing before his eyes again. Crimson warmth flodded his face, forcing him to twirl a strand of his hair to hide it. She looked at him, snickering.

“He looks like that annoying plastered uncle everyone hates at family gatherings. Pretty sure that’s what he’s like, too. I mean, he’s a Brummie…”

Eddie’s drunken mind took a few seconds to realize she’s complimenting him.

“I leave you alone for a few minutes and you’re already surrounded by cheerleaders? So charming, Munson, you surprise me every day.” she chuckled sarcastically, jealousy lacing her words.

“Maybe they’d be around all the time and you’re just jinxing me.” he simply stated, lighting up another cigarette because the other burned out when he wasn’t paying attention. It was probably Billy’s booming voice from the kitchen that triggered his annoyance.

“Touché.”

“You never striked me as a jealous type tho, halfling. Kinda hot, if you ask me.” he shrugged with a smirk, fueling the flames in his burning ears. She choked on her saliva, shaking her head maybe a little bit too furiously.

“Jealous of someone who thinks Ozzy fucking Osbourne is sexy? Don’t flatter yourself, tough guy.”

He leaned in closer to her, his breath tickling her flaming ear.

“I see right through you, sweetheart. I can see you shivering.” he whispered and looked down at her, making her exhale shakily.

“Maybe if you stopped calling me these ridiculous things and minded your own fucking personal space, I’d be just fine, Munson.” she whispered back, attempting to sell her helplessly lustful tone as annoyance. He took a drag of his cigarette, his shivering breath carrying the smoke.

“Things like what? Sweetheart?” he chuckled, the alcohol swirling in his system giving him the confidence he always seemed to be lacking when talking to her. She looked away from him, trying to stare a hole through the floor.

“What about baby? Or honey?” he mumbled silently and tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear, his cold rings grazing her neck.

“Shut up.”

“Princess?”

“I said shut up.”

“Kitten then?”

She whipped her head around at him, quite painfully bumping her nose into his, but neither of them flinched.

“Shut the fuck up, Munson.” she muttered, her annoyed raspy voice sending a shiver through his whole body.

“Bet Hargrove would call you something like that.” he raised his eyebrows, clearly enjoying testing her patience.

“I told you to stop provoking me.” she weakly whispered, her ears booming with her deafening heartbeat. He slightly nudged her nose with his.

“Or what? You’ll hiss at me, kitten?” he smirked and backed away from her face to take a drag. She gulped down a big sip from her cup, trying to gain every bit of confidence possible to survive his antics.

“I admire your boldness considering I’m your only friend, I’ll give you that.” she forced out an insincere chuckle, shaking the vivid memory of him sitting on his throne out of her head.

Maybe being rude to him will work.

“Frankly, it’s kind of a testament of your great desperation when you hit on me.”

A low hum rumbled in his chest as he started playing with his hair again.

“I beg to differ, halfling. I’d call it progress. In fact…” he turned to her, this time using the fingers that held his cigar to mess with the bow that tied her cape together.

“…I feel like I don’t do it often enough.”

She stared at him, becoming more and more convinced he’s just plainly making fun of her.

“Are you on drugs?”

“Not at the moment, no.” he chuckled and turned his attention from the knot to her eyes, piercing her with his obsidian gaze.

She felt like a tiny moth, spread limbs pinned to a canvas sheet, observed under a big magnifying glass.

“This isn’t funny, Munson. Can we drop this and-“

“I’m not laughing.” he interrupted her with a serious frown and slowly leaned closer to her, ghosting his lips over her skin before he pressed a soft kiss on the shell of her ear. Her breath hitched in her throat when he pulled away, his exhale as shaky as hers.

Both of them jumped when the crowd’s loud cheerful screeching reached their ears again and they both cursed under their breath, immediately backing away from eachother.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” he muttered through gritted teeth, unscrupulously putting his cigarette out on the wall.

“Something about getting fucked up for free?” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Not worth it. Can we leave?”

“Gladly. Lead the way, sir.”

When they pushed their way out of the house and finally stood outside on the road, crisp autumn air filling their lungs, Maia rummaged through her pockets, cursing silently.

“Fucking hell…forgot my keys and dad’s at the plant.”

“School isn’t locked up for the night, if we’re stealthy enough, you can sleep on my throne.” he smirked and she rolled her eyes.

“Always dreamt about that, it looks so comfy.”

He snickered, his low chuckle sending a jolt through her legs.

“Come on, I’ll walk you.” he stood out of her way and waved his arm, motioning her to walk with him. She chuckled.

“I’d let you crash at my place, but you know my uncle, I’d never live that shit down.” he chuckled and swung his arm around her shoulders, still very much intoxicated. She swayed slightly, feeling the alcohol clouding her judgement as well.

・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● ●・○・●・

When they finally reached the abandoned school building after about half an hour of silent walking, they both sighed with relief.

“Thank god, my legs are about to fall off.” she huffed and opened the back door as slowly as she could, sticking her head in first to see if they’re in the clear.

They sneaked inside the dark hallway and headed straight to the theatre room, which was thankfully almost next to the main door. Eddie walked into the room, holding the door open for her.

“Be my guest.” he mumbled as she walked past him, chuckling. The room was dark, the usual colorful lights turned off, only one dark red light softly illuminating the playing table and Eddie’s throne. There were still some materials spread around the table from last night, when they were running a one-shot horror campaign. Maia snickered at the memory.

“Still haven’t recovered from how you butchered us yesterday.”

Eddie hummed, throwing his denim jacket on the table and rolled up the sleeves of his black t-shirt.

“What can I say, your desperate groaning was like music to my ears, halfling.” he chuckled and she tried to ignore the pit in her stomach that reminded her of the fact that they’re all alone in an empty building.

“Bet it was, you sadist.” she took off her leather jacket as well, so used to the cape by now that she forgot she had it on. She opened the first button of her black shirt, feeling suffocated by his presence.

“May I?” she tilted her head towards the throne and he nodded, smirking. She walked around the table and sank into the cold metal with a dramatic exhale, shuffling uncomfortably on the hard seat.

“It’s a lot larger than it looks.”

“That’s not the throne, that’s just you.” he chuckled and walked a bit closer to her, sitting on the table.

“Does it feel good?” he mumbled raspily with a sly grin, not realizing the effect it had on Maia’s drunken senses.

“It does Munson, not gonna lie. I just feel a sudden urge to torture you.” she scoffed, her cheeks burning for more reasons than she could name.

“You already are.” he let out before he could stop himself, not able to tear away his eyes from her.

She breathlessly laughed for a second before she realized he wasn’t smiling. She looked away from him, scanning the remnants of yesterday’s meeting on the table. She didn’t know what to say, so she just stared a hole into the table, hoping he’ll say his goodbyes and finally leave her to her own thoughts. Instead, he hopped off the table and walked around her, stopping behind the throne and hesitantly leaning on the back of it.

She didn’t move a muscle when he grabbed the armrests and slightly pulled the throne away from the table just enough to fit in the gap. She felt the air move around her as he moved in front of her, softly forcing her legs open with his knees so he could stand between them comfortably. He leaned his arms back on the table, studying her averted gaze carefully.

“Look at me kitten, I don’t bite.” he whispered and she snapped her head at him with wide eyes, the corners of her dark-painted lips turned down in a scowl.

“I told you to stop toying with me, Munson. I’m not in the mood for your sarcastic bullshit.”

He never left her eyes and moved as slowly as possible, as if she really was a scaredy little animal about to run away at the slightest sign of movement. He extended his arms to her and wrapped his fingers around her waist, then lifted her from the throne, turned her around and sat down on the throne himself, softly tugging her with him and positioning her in his lap. He sat her down so she’d face the table and firmly held her waist from behind. Her shocked eyes started prickling with tears, a bit confused about the reaction they should produce.

“If you’re so disgusted with me, I’ll turn you around so you don’t have to look at me.” he silently muttered into her ear, sending a wave of goosebumps all over her body. He let go of her waist and reached around her neck to the collar of her shirt, unbuttoning the next three buttons, barely exposing her lacy underwear.

“Your face is the least of your problems, Munson.” she breathed out with a soft cough. He hummed, the sickly sweet drink from the party that was pulsing through his veins clouding his otherwise rational thoughts.

“Please, enlighten me.” he brushed his cold rings over the side of her neck, earning a barely audiable gasp.

“You…talk too much…” she mumbled, leaned back against his chest and laid her head on his shoulder. He was the one to shiver this time. He nudged her burning cheek with his cold nose, making her sigh with relief at the sensation. Every movement was like a simmering brand burned into their skin.

“You’ll regret this tommorow, Eddie. You’re out of your mind.” she whispered, a hot tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek, dropping in his nose. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, inhaling her airy perfume.

“You tell me I talk too much?” he whispered and ghosted his lips over hers, finally cracking her self-control.

She smashed their lips together, smudging her burgundy lipstick over his skin in the process. She whimpered slightly when he snaked his hand around her chest, slipping past the shirt to touch her breast. Their intoxication only amplified the drowning sensation that flodded their senses, both out of breath, the pain of their teeth clashing together and bitten lips overwhelming every other feeling in their bodies until there wasn’t anything else left.

Only them.

When they separated to take a breath, Maia softly giggled and wiped his red lips with her sleeve, doing the same to herself so she’d get rid of the annoying lipstick. When she leaned back in though, he stopped her. She involuntarily pouted, feeling like a little child being scolded by this innocent gesture.

Another picture flashed in front of his eyes. It was her disgusted and betrayed face staring at him as she woke up next to him.

“I’m so sorry, halfling…I’m sorry, we can’t do this.” he whispered, forcefully shutting his eyes closed. She shook her head in confusion.

“Wh…what? Did…did I do something wrong or-“

“Nononono sweetheart, I’m sorry, I can’t…you’re drunk, I…we can’t do this, I can’t take advantage of you like this.” he whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

“But…” she whimpered.

“No, I’m…fuck, I’m sorry halfling, I shouldn’t have started this in the first place…I promise we’ll continue this when we’re sober, okay? I promise, if you feel the same way tommorow morning, we’ll continue…okay?”

She just wordlessly nodded and let the tears fall down her cheeks, her drunken brain functioning only on basic orders. They just sat on the throne in silence, their breathing calming down in sync as he hugged her around the waist tightly, holding her like a little plushie to help him fall asleep. She stared on the ceiling, her mind slowly shutting off, the alcohol and adrenaline exhausting her.

・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● ●・○・●・

A loud banging on the playing table woke them up. Maia curled up in a ball on Eddie’s lap during the night, his arms tightly hugging her whole body, his messy hair tickling her face as he rested on her shoulder. They both jumped, gasping loudly at the awful noise. The janitor was standing by the table with a broom on his hand, furiously huffing when they turned at him.

Maia realized her shirt was open, so she quickly buttoned it up before he could notice, her wide eyes scanning the room for any signs of something that could put them in trouble. Eddie took a bit longer to wake up properly, jumping again when he noticed the angry chubby man staring at them.

“The fuck are you two doing in here?” he exclaimed, clearly feeling the weird tension in the air.

“Sorry Gus, I left my keys at home and didn’t have anywhere else to sleep, so I crashed here.” she barely whispered, hopping off Eddie’s lap and quickly jogged to her leather jacket.

She realized she was still wearing the ridiculous velvet cape so she swiftly took it off and put the jacket on, giving the janitor her best apologizing smile. He squinted at her and moved his judgemental gaze to Eddie, who raised his hands in defense.

“I was drunk, so I passed out.” he simply stated.

The janitor rolled his eyes and scoffed, turning his back at them and walking out of the room.

“You’re getting detention for this, hope you’re aware, assholes.” he spat over his shoulder, closing the door behind him with a loud bang. They both exhaled in sync, both running a hand through their messy hair.

“Shit…do you…remember anything that happened here?” Eddie questioned silently and rubbed his eyes, scowling when he noticed the smudged eyeliner on his fingers. She cleared her throat and stretched so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Of course she remembered. Every movement of every muscle in his body.

“Well, I forgot my keys, that’s for sure…I remember kind of…shifting around in my sleep, but…that’s it…guess we passed out.”

She wouldn’t bear the feeling of rejection. She wouldn’t survive it.

Eddie shakily exhaled and slowly nodded, cracking his knuckles.

“Same. I wonder what was in that disgusting pink water I was pouring down my throat the whole night, I don’t remember a thing.” he chuckled, his pounding head trying to aid him in his lies.

He could still feel the taste of her lips on his tounge, as if she’d never left his mouth.

Maia quickly looked around the room and clutched the cape in her fist, forcing on a smile.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in detention, my lord.” she insincerely giggled and gave him a small wave, closing the door behind her. Eddie sighed deeply and put his head into his palms.

“See you in detention, princess.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫

Tag list: @kik51199 @preciousbabypeter @sebby-staan @sleepysl0th03

[winchest09]

Lights Out - Chapter Seven

Pairing: AU!Dean Winchester x F!Reader

Word Count: 3857

Summary: Y/N was different from the rest; living in a quaint lakehouse, on the edge of one of the most rich and prosperous towns in America. She was surrounded with the elite, the wealthy and people who never took responsibility for their actions. Money gave them everything, while in turn, it had taken something from her. In result, she kept her distance, never wanting to get involved with high society, until one fateful night changed her life…forever.

Rating: 18+

Warnings:  Angst, slow burn, sex talk, sex language, swears.

A/N: Guys, I am severely sorry this is late. I had a severe migraine that started late Friday night and last all the way through till not long ago. I couldn't look at screens or anything. Bleugh. Don't get them often but they SUCK! Anywho, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Sorry again!  I also want to say a massive thank you to my wonderful @deanwanddamons​​​​​ for being my wonderful beta, and for kicking my ass where needed. __________________________

Get five weeks ahead on Patreon! __________________________

Lights Out Masterlist || Main Masterlist || Let me know your thoughts!

Letting a long sigh pass his lips, Dean stared at his reflection in the mirror as he straightened out his suit, and the black mask that rested upon his nose. It covered his face from just above his brow to the top of his cheekbones, his shaped stubble and cushioned pink lips being the only features on show. He couldn’t really describe how he was feeling at that moment as his emotions were a cocktail of different things. If he was honest with himself, he wished he was still standing on the old fisherman dock, enjoying the sound of peace and quiet instead of the party ambience that he would soon be surrounded with.

Once he returned from his trip to Singer’s Salvage Yard, he had managed to dodge his cousin and the event coordinator while heading to his room to shower. He was not in any kind of mood for more scolding, especially from his cousin. Just the thought of it was getting him all riled up again, causing him to roll his shoulders under his shirt as he turned away from his reflection. This was his event and he was in control, Dean was not having anybody telling him what to do in his own home. If that happened again, he would be more than happy to throw Christian out himself, knowing he would take great satisfaction in seeing the disgruntled expression that would be undoubtedly staring back at him.

Pulling him from his deliberations, was the text tone that rang out from his pants pocket. Without hesitation, he retrieved the device and looked at the bright display screen that was glaring back at him to see a message waiting to be read.

Sam: Good luck for this evening, and with dad. I’d be there if I could.

“Yeah, of course you would Sammy,” Dean muttered, a little chuckle leaving him as he replied back and let him know his thoughts. “Sure you would much rather be here than on the beach drinking your pina coladas.”

After he pressed send, he couldn’t help but smile slightly. It was times like this, that he truly missed his little brother. They made a good tag team, and no-one ever questioned his motives or authority when both Winchester boys were together. He got lucky; scouting Thailand for new properties was something that sounded like a lot more fun than hosting this event. His sibling had a beautiful woman on his arm that loved him dearly too which was basically the icing on the cake.

Was Dean jealous? Maybe. He had never really thought about falling in love and having the fairytale romance that Sam had, and didn't really think that he was worthy of it. Besides, all the women that have been around him have always been after his money, or his cock; never his personality, as cliché as that sounds. He had never been with anyone who remembered what his favorite band was, or noticed any of his little quirks. Hell, he didn’t even know what his quirks were, no one had ever told him. Still, he didn’t like to dwell on that, never spending no longer than a few minutes wondering. He had his business, his house, his car; what more could he need? He was happy, he had money, he had friends, there was a constant supply of sexual interest; he didn’t need somebody to play with his hair after a long day, or cook him apple pie because it was his go to desert. No, he was fine just the way he was.

“Mr Winchester, the event is about to begin.” The loud, Scottish interruption was accompanied by a few strong knocks on his bedroom door and he could only let out a deep sigh as he began to walk in that direction.

“I’m coming, Rowena,” he fired back, double checking he had what he needed before he opened the wooden barrier to reveal the strong willed redhead that was waiting.

“This isn’t a function where tardiness will be ignored,” she stated harshly, a clipboard in her hand that was being held tightly against her chest, her own eyes glaring at him through her mask. “Your father–”

“--I know what my father expects,” Dean interjected, slamming his door behind him before he began to walk towards the stairs. “I don’t need you to tell me about my own family.”

“With all due respect, I am merely trying to advise you on what awaits,” Rowena argued, attempting to keep up with his large strides, her feet moving as fast as her long black velvet dress would allow. “This isn’t my first Lights Out Masquerade.”

“Neither is it mine,” he argued, stopping in his tracks to turn and face the woman who was hounding him. “Now please, do your job and make sure my staff are in position.”

“That means I need you in the main hall,” the redhead stated, tapping her forefinger against the paper on the clipboard, giving him a pointed look.

“And I’m going,”  Dean told her, rolling his eyes before he began to continue to move further down the hall.

“Oh and by the way,” Rowena shouted after him, “your girlfriend has already entered the building, she didn’t want to wait in line.”

“My girl–” he started, before cutting himself off, rubbing at his brow when he realised who she meant. “Bela,” he muttered, taking a deep breath in preparation of greeting her. “Great, thanks.”

He tried not to sound too resentful when he answered, but the idea of the brunette already standing in his main hall, waiting on him because she didn’t want to stand in line, was an irk that was already irritating the shit out of him. That and the fact that people kept assuming that they were official. He had never mentioned anything about being exclusive, had tried to make it very obvious that the only time they would ever be together was when they would be within the sheets. He needed to make it very clear to Miss Talbot that he was only interested in her mouth, and the honeypot between her legs; nothing more. If the speculation continued, then he would have to find himself a new woman to roll around with. Dean Winchester would not be tied down.

As he descended the stairs, passing waiters and other staff on his journey, his gaze landed on the lonely woman who was standing in the middle of the hall. Her brown hair was curled and bunched off her shoulders, her eyes covered by a silver mask that contrasted wonderfully to her silver and black gown she was wearing. Yet, before he could reach her, his stride was interrupted by a voice that sounded from behind him.

“So he finally makes an appearance,” he heard someone snark, and turning to look over his shoulder, he was met with the smug face of his cousin. “How was your afternoon adventure? More important than this event?”

“Fuck off, Christian,” Dean warned, his voice low and authoritative as he stared him down, he did not want to deal with his shit right now.

The other man got the message pretty quickly, turning to walk back down another hallway as the green-eyed Winchester let out a small sigh. If his whole evening was going to be filled with shit like this, he didn’t know how long he was going to last sober. It was then that his thoughts then wandered to Joanna Harvelle, the little slice of normal he had as the ace up his sleeve. She wasn’t part of their society, she was unaware of all the rules and strings attached to this event which made her the perfect escape. He would be able to have a conversation with her without having to wonder just what he could offer her in return. He was worried that with his invitation would mean she would be initiated into it all, but that was a bridge he could cross at a later date.

Pulling out his phone once more, he traversed the last of the stairs as he opened the text message application and typed out a quick sentence to send towards Jo. It was just something simple and to the point; he could only hope that his friend would see it and respond.

Dean: Looking forward to seeing a familiar face. Well, half of one at least. Let me know when you’re here and I'll come find you.

His loud footsteps upon the polished wood floor was the sound that alerted the waiting woman in the room to his presence, and within seconds, he heard her sultry tones echo off the walls. “Well I must say the place, and the host, looks exquisite.”

“Bela,” he greeted, forcing his lips into a smile as he watched her walk closer towards him. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the kitchen, told security how I needed to be on the arm of my man for his big night,” she almost sang, stepping ever closer before she slid her hands up his chest, resting her fingers upon shirt.

“Hm,” Dean hummed, looking between her eyes as his thoughts whirred.

Had she been the one that was telling all she could that they were official? The ‘my man’ comment certainly made it seem like it was so and he did not like that. The idea of this woman making a decision about his future, without consulting him, was a major red flag. One that he could add with the rest of them that he had collected ever since he had met her. He needed to be smart about his next move, had to work out how to let her down gently and inform her that they weren’t a thing without rocking the boat. Her father was pretty important in this town and he knew his father would never forgive him.

“Dean!”

The deep, gravelled shout of his name caused his focus to shift, and land on the couple that were now moving ever closer towards him. Within seconds, he recognised them as his parents. John and Mary Winchester. Speak of the devil.

“Dad,” Dean greeted, holding out a hand for him to shake before turning to the blonde. “Mom, you look lovely.”

“Thank you, honey,” Mary replied, leaning in to kiss her son on the cheek before she rested herself back against her husband's arm.

“Are you not going to introduce us to the enchantress beside you?” His father spoke aloud, his gaze on the brunette at his side. She was currently looking up at Dean with the biggest puppy dog eyed look he had ever seen, and that was saying something considering his brother did the same thing all the time.

“Er sure,” Dean spoke, a little hesitant. “Bela, these are my parents which I’m sure you know.” He placed his palm in the middle of her back while the other stayed lodged inside his pocket. “This is Bela.”

“You never told us you had a girlfriend!” His mother gushed, playfully slapping the chest of her son before her attention fully focused on Miss Talbot.

“She’s no–”

“--it’s all fairly new,” Bela cut him off and it took all the strength he had to not shout out the truth there and then. Yet before he could rectify the situation, his father had already ushered him away from the gossiping women, and towards the bar that was waiting to be used at the other side of the room.

It had been kitted out in true lights out fashion. There were standing candelabras, a string quartet, a fully stocked bar as well as servers waiting with their silver trays in which they would offer appetisers. The food would be served in the adjoining space, where large round tables were waiting with a lantern filled centre. He had to say, he was proud his home was able to be transformed into something so elegant, but at the same time, he hated it.

“Have to say son, the place looks good,” John complimented, as he glanced around the space they were currently standing in.

“I told you I had it under control,” Dean muttered, looking anywhere else but at his father as he waited for the reply. He was trying to bite down his annoyance, not wanting to fall out with the paternal figure in his life.

“Really?” His dad scoffed, shaking his head as he signalled for the barman. “Because Chistian told me you did a disappearing act this morning.”

“I had to sort something out with the Impala,” the green-eyed Winchester stated, standing his ground as he tried to swallow down the fury that was bubbling like lava in his stomach. “Everything was fine here.”

“Dean, you are part of a legacy, and that legacy has a reputation to uphold,” John continued, signalling to the staff member he wanted a bourbon. “You want to keep your status, your money, your privileges? You need to step up like your cousin did.”

That statement threw the younger of the two men, a frown creasing on his brow upon hearing his dad’s word. “What?”

“He took over the preparations, worked with Rowena to get this night arranged,” John explained, eyeing up the tumbler that had been placed in front of him on a fresh white napkin.

“That’s bullshit!” Dean exclaimed, his voice deep and resonating as he stood his ground. He was ready to erupt, wanting to find Christian before beating seven rounds of hell into him. That fucker.

“Is it?” His father shot back, licking at his bottom lip before he took a sip of his drink. “I can’t hold your hand through this, Dean. I have relationships I need to withhold. So I need you to stand up straight, put a smile on your goddamn face and make this night a success. You got that?”

Sure, Dean could argue. He could stomp his feet, scream from the rooftops and plant his fist in his cousin's face but he knew that wouldn’t achieve anything at this moment in time. If anything, he would be blamed for bringing shame to the Winchester family. So instead, he bit back the comments, and fought against his instincts.

“Yes sir.”

“Oh and before I forget,” John added, just as he was about to turn and walk back towards where his wife, Dean’s mother, was standing with Bela. “Keep Miss Talbot happy and on your arm. Her father and I are in the midst of securing a merger. She’s an attractive young thing, surely won’t be too hard for you to keep her satisfied. Don’t mess it up.”

Before he could put across his opinions on his fathers choice of woman for him, one of the security detail from Dean’s team had come marching towards them, one finger on the earpiece in his ear as the other stayed in position in front of his stomach.

“Sorry to interrupt sir, but the guests are entering,” he informed the green-eyed Winchester and Dean could only nod in acknowledgment before turning back to his dad.

“Good,” John smiled, his silver grin clear through the edge of the glass he was holding to his lips. “Let’s have an amazing evening shall we?”

“Yeah,” he muttered in response, taking a deep breath before his father slapped at his upper arm.

“Get a drink, son,” John urged, “You can do this.”

Could he? As he watched the paternal figure walk back over towards his mother, he had to question himself. There were always all these expectations, always these unwritten rules that he had to follow and now he was being told to continue to ‘date’ the woman he wanted to pull away from. Still, as he watched his father wrap his hold around Mary’s side, he could only think of everything he had to thank them for. Not going hungry as a kid, being given a career which had allowed him to buy his own home, having a car that felt like an extension of himself. The least he could do was play happy with Bela if it meant his dad could secure more business. It wasn’t all bad, at least the brunette knew how to satisfy him and he could definitely have some fun while waiting for the merger to go through.

So, doing as John had suggested, he forced his lips to upturn as he watched how the young woman came sauntering towards him. He began to fall into his role, already beginning to play into his role as he extended his arm for her to slot right into his side.

“Here they come,” Bela smiled as she looked towards the main entrance where guests were walking in, the music of the band now beginning to play. “I always forget how many people are a part of our little society.”

“It might do you some good to network, strengthen your connections,” he advised, his fingers gently squeezing at the skin under his fingers. “You’ll never know when you’ll need them.”

It was the truth, the whole purpose of this evening was to do just as he had suggested. The society was a key part in remaining in a good social standing, to getting the best properties and the most excellent healthcare. To have the best lawyer in your pocket, or even the most exquisite table at the top restaurant in town. It was a membership which could only be renewed by attending these events, by socialising and ensuring your name was still well known within their small community.

“Can we not just skip straight to the good part?” Bela returned, her tone sultry as she looked up at him from under her lashes. “Head downstairs?”

“Patience Bela,” Dean chuckled, a smirk now pulling at his mouth. She was always so needy. “Good things come to those who wait.”

“Is that a promise?” Her hand began to snake around Dean’s hip, her fingers dancing along the hem of his pants as her pupils widened.

“Only if I get good things in return,” he almost growled, lowering his head towards her ear as placed a gentle kiss just below her lobe. He knew exactly how to play her, could push all the right buttons that would allow her to melt in his palm and do exactly as he said. This was one of them.

“Oh don’t you know it,” Bela purred, arching her body against his as her words left her in a breathless manner. Delicately rubbing his stubble against her cheek as he pulled back, Dean gave her a grin before he manoeuvred her against the bar next to him.

“Get yourself a glass of champagne,” he almost ordered, staring at the barman as he signalled his head towards the brunette by the side of him. “Start this night as we mean to go on.”

“Alright,”  she replied softly, before threading her fingers through his hair as she pulled him down to meet her mouth. He couldn’t say he was surprised, but his eyebrows raised all the same. Her tongue was teasing at his lips, but he was in control here, not her.

“I’m going to go greet everyone,” he spoke against her lips as he pulled back, and she could only nod in response. He’s still got it.

Turning away from his faux girlfriend, as Dean refused to call her the real deal as he had no deep interest in her, his eyes scanned the growing crowd for any familiar faces. Of course, one by one, he noticed some of the most important figures in their society. Crowley, the valley's ruling judge, had just walked in with a woman on his arm. The green-eyed Winchester didn’t need to ask for his name, the bald spot on the back of his head, and the short stature gave him away entirely. Then there was Zachariah, the family and the rest of the society's lawyer. The way the light was shining of his crown, and the small pudge of his stomach were his giveaways.

The rest, he couldn’t really put his finger on and that was where the networking played a massive part. He hoped to catch a few of the guests before they headed down to the lights out floor, knowing that a few wouldn’t emerge for the rest of the night if any of the rumors he had heard were true. So, he planted a wide grin on his face as he began to disappear within the crowd. He held out his hand for the men to shake, and he politely kissed the backs of the women who had offered. Of course, he had told them who had asked who he was, wanting them to know he was the host and if something wasn’t to their full approval, to let him know immediately. However, so far, so good.

After about fifteen minutes of greeting, laughing and drinking the one glass of champagne that was given to him by one of the attendees, he felt his phone vibrate against his leg. He excused himself politely, and eagerly discarded the flute full of half drunk alcohol to the nearest surface as he grimaced. The sooner he got a beer or whiskey inside of him, the better. Pulling out his cell, he was greeted with a notification of a reply from Joanna and he couldn’t help but feel the small wave of relief that flooded through him.

Jo: We’re here. I’ll stay close to the main doors. I’m the one in black sequins.

Automatically, Dean craned his head and looked in that general direction. He was curious as to who the blonde meant by ‘we’, knowing that he had added a plus one to the invitation. A part of him had thought she would bring her mother along, but that was something he would find out in due course. Once his gaze locked onto his target, he grinned and began to weave through the bodies that were still walking towards him. But he wasn’t anticipating having his attention stolen by the woman who was currently striding off towards the bar, her body covered in long red dress, the silk hugging every curve, rippling across her body like the waves of a gentle sea.

Like a moth to a flame, a hummingbird to the sugar water, he was drawn to her. It was almost as if everyone else in the room became blurry and she was the only one in focus in the entire room. He swallowed hard, his palms already clammy as he willed his body to move towards her. Enchanted, his eyes were pinned to her movements, almost as if he was scared to lose her at any given moment.

Well fuck, he wasn’t expecting her.

——————————————– Chapter Eight ——————————————– A/N: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I can’t wait to share the point I’m at now with writing it! I hope you enjoyed this one, thanks so much for reading! <3 Tag list is open! If you want to be step into the darkness with me, then let me know HERE :)

Tags will be separate <3

[floraljae]

GET TO KNOW ME TAG !

tagged by @dazumis aka lia the torturer

tagging @wh0sthe5pecial0ne @heephoriia @ilovjaehyun and anyone who wants to do it

what day is your birthday? september 16

what's your favorite color? black and dark green

what's your lucky number? 5 and 2

do you have any pets? yes, three dogs that are my cousin bros (who live downstairs)

how tall are you? 179 cm/ 5'10.5

how many pairs of shoes do you have? 6-7?

favorite song? kids in love by mayday parade and so let's love by day6

favorite movie? Yeh Jawaani hai deewani and Anything disney (not the latest ones though bleugh)

what would your ideal partner be like? Tall, no glasses, good at studies, has good hands and OFC doesn't nag me and yuh respekts me

do you want children? idk, maybe

have you gotten in trouble with the law? I am a good citizen

bath or shower? I'm shower

what color socks are you wearing? haven't worn em for the last two days

favorite type of music? japanese rock, korean indie, boltero rock

how many pillows do you sleep with? two

what position do you sleep in? on my back and I still have the back of a 70 year old

what you don't like when you're sleeping? having dreams with kissing/skinship involved, or just falling off my bed because of all the plot heavy dreams 🧎‍♀️

what do you have for breakfast? I don't

have you ever tried archery? yes and I'd rather not talk about it

favorite fruit? mangoes, bananas & strawberries

favorite swear word? Kutte ki aulaad, mchod and f**

do you have any scars? two, one right below my knee when I fell off a rickshaw and the other one was given by one of my dogs (cousin bro) while fighting for ice cream

are you a good liar? uh,,,idk lol. I am pretty honest- but can lie when necessary

what's your personality type? infj-a

what's your favorite type of girl? Lia, amelia and girls with big eyes

innie or outtie? innie

left or right handed? right but I can catch with both hands

favorite food? uH,,,,chicken or beef- idek

favorite foreign food? prolly steak

are you clean or messy? messy but I can be clean

most used phrase? W H A T UHM🤨

how long does it take you to get ready? procrastination= 10 minutes, getting motivated= 5 minutes, actually getting naked and putting on clothes= 3 minutes

do you talk to yourself? yeah, I get in trouble for it too

do you sing to yourself? yes, and my parents keep asking why the cats are crying outside

are you a good singer? took classes for 7 years, pretty okay ig

biggest fear? failure, getting ganged up on, being neglected/ avoided, not being understood

are you a gossip? depends, gimme quality stuff and I'll listen

do you like long or short hair? short, I FUCKING CANNOT KEEP LONG HAIR PLEASE IT'S TOO HOT HERE

favorite school subject? english and bengali literature

introvert or extrovert? introverted asf

what makes you nervous? haha not in the mood to write a 3k paragraph honey

who was your first real crush? still haven't had one

how fast can you run? due to playing ball games, I run pretty fast.

what color is your hair? black

what makes you angry? when people think they're right but aren't yet still drag things on. also, when they make out a perfectly opposite meaning of something i say.

do you like your own name? yes, it's hot and unique

do you want a boy or a girl as a child? girl. boys make me wanna yeet em off a cliff

what are your strengths? I am tall, have some good connection, I can cook- but apart from that, me is very weak

what are your weaknesses? I procrastinate, I get really nervous at times, can't control my emotions, bottle things up a lot, lie at times, do or say things that might hurt people, never feel lonely even though I am all alone most of the time, can't talk back at people who badmouth/insult me, feel a lot, lie at times and yes I cry a lot and blame myself too much, remember all the bad things from the past way too vividly

what's the color of your bedspread? white and pink

color of your room? white

[twistedlymad]

What if you became a mouse? (Ft. Ace, Deuce, Grim, Ruggie, Kalim and Jamil) (Part 2/2)

Here is part 2 of this request! 

You were running around aimlessly. The only thing on your mind was to get away from that creature! So, you unknowingly ran to the hall of mirrors. Since you were too focused on seeing whether the furball had followed you, you had ran into one of the mirrors that led to a dormitory.

More specifically, the dormitory founded on the meticulous planning of the Sorcerer of the Sand, Scarabia.

When you arrived, you were greeted with a blazing sun. You immediately searched for anything that would provide some shade to hide you away from the light and heat. Once you did, you tried to give yourself a break after running what seemed like a marathon to you.

While you were resting, you noticed there was a new shade in front of you… The shape of the shade was quite familiar but you couldn’t figure out what it was. The shade had this long nose and big ears! So, being curious, you decided to inspect this new shade.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve brought in 100 elephants Kalim.” Jamil said as he and several other Scarabia dorm members tended to the elephants.

“Because! My family has a lot of pet elephants! And I’ve gathered a few of them today for the party later!” Replied the cheerful dorm leader, Kalim. Jamil let out a sigh as he tended to one of the elephants.

The exact elephant that made the shade you were inspecting. As you stepped into the shade of the elephant, you looked up in curiosity to see the elephant eating. It didn’t take the elephant too long to notice your presence though.

And once it did…

Trumpet-like sounds blared in your ears as the elephant panics around, alerting all the other elephants surrounding it. And because of the elephant’s actions, you were in a state of shock to fully understand what was happening.

“J-JAMIL, WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Kalim asked.

“I don’t know! One of them suddenly got scared! Quick, everyone! Calm the elephants down!” Jamil gave orders to his dorm members.

Meanwhile, Ruggie, Ace, Deuce and Grim had just arrived at Scarabia in hopes of finding you here. They had asked a few students on the way here on whether or not they had seen a (H/C) mouse running about. Thankfully, a Diasomnia dorm member had seen you running into the mirror that led to Scarabia as he was going back to his dorm. Though, they had to shake him a couple of times while he was describing what he saw as he would suddenly fall asleep.

“Are we sure (Y/N) is here?” Ace asked the other three.

“We can only count on what that senpai had just said.” Deuce replied.

“But, Scarabia is so big! It’s going to take forever to find a small little mouse!” Grim groaned.

“I’m not quite sure on that, look.” Ruggie said as he pointed to the parade of elephants freaking out and about. Ace, Deuce and Grim’s jaws dropped as they saw the chaos happening in the dorm.

“We better go check it out.” Ace said and they all ran in the direction loud trumpets and heavy footsteps.

Once they got there, they were greeted with a flood of elephants and students running in every direction possible. Jamil and a few students were rounding up the elephants while Kalim and two students were trying to calm every elephant down.

“Jamil, what’s going on?” Ruggie asked his friend.

“I don’t know either! The elephants suddenly started to go in a frenzy, as if they had been spooked by something.” Jamil replied while using his magic to round up two elephants by making a fence.

“What could possibly spook them this hard?” Ace asked out loud.

“These elephants aren’t easily spooked at all! My relatives said they only get spooked when they see a mouse or a rat. That’s why we had to make sure no rats or mice were around in Scarabia.” Kalim said as he managed to calm the two elephants that Jamil had rounded up.

“Mouse?” Ruggie, Ace, Deuce and Grim deadpanned.

“Yes, a mouse, why?” Kalim asked.

“We uh… May or may not have let a mouse run into here.” Ace said and Scarabia’s dorm leader and vice dorm leader’s eyes widen.

“What? We have to find it and capture it before it spooks any more elephants!” Said Kalim.

“But how?” Ruggie asked. “It’s going to be hard for us to find a small little mouse in this situation.” Ruggie added. So, everyone was trying to come up with a plan to find you in an efficient way.

While doing so, Grim had caught something in the corner of his eye.

Something… (H/C) and small. The furball immediately turned his head to look at what had peeked his interest. It was you! Standing there on all fours, looking at the panicking elephants and students.

“Guys! There she is!” Grim shouted to the two first-years and three second-years.

“Wait, she?” Kalim asked.

“I’ll explain to you later, for now, let’s focus in catching her.” Ruggie replied to Kalim and everyone was rushing towards you.

You were still staring at the elephant as it scurried around here and there. You snapped back to your senses when it let out another blaring trumpet. And just in time too, as you saw a group of students coming after you from afar. You jumped a little before getting on all fours and running away.

“Why does she have to run away?!” Grim asked while panting.

“How would you feel if a group of giants suddenly started to chase you?” Ruggie asked the furball.

“Ahh… I see…” Grim said as he reminisced all the times he was chased by the students of Night Raven College.

Thanks to your small size, you were able to navigate your way through the stampede of elephants with ease. The boys however, had a hard time.

“Argh!! We’ll never catch her at this rate!” Ace yelled out as he saw you scurrying away. Kalim’s eyes darter around to see what could help them in this situation. His eyes landed on a nearby room. A plan hatched inside Scarabia’s Dorm Leader.

“Wait here everyone!” Kalim said and rushed into the room. Everyone was confused, what was Kalim doing? It took awhile before Jamil had taken a good look at the room that Kalim had went into. A small smile crept onto his face.

“Don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing.” Jamil assured the group. It didn’t take too long before Kalim emerged from the room riding a flying carpet.

“W-What?” Deuce asked.

“No time to talk, hop on!” And everyone was ushered on to the carpet.

With the extra altitude, everyone was able to see the ground more clearly. Ruggie had spotted you soon after and told Kalim to steer to your direction. You had no idea that there was a carpet on your tail as you were too preoccupied with not getting squished by a giant elephant. Once the carpet was close enough, Jamil had readied his magic pen and he casted a spell towards your small body.

You had been trapped, in a cage, made of magic. You squirmed around frantically, fearing for your life as the carpet settled down and the group of students began to walk over to you.

Everyone was so… Gigantic to you. Of course it would frighten little ol’ you. But your vision was suddenly blackened. It seemed like something was covering your cage.

“That should do it.” Ace said as he draped a coat over your cage.

“You should get (Y/N) to Professor Crewel. I’ll stay back and help Scarabia.” Ruggie said, slightly glaring at the two first-years. Their heads lowered.

“Yes, senpai.” And with that, Ace, Deuce and Grim scurried off to find the alchemy professor.

“What happened though?” Kalim asked Ruggie. The latter snickered.

“It’s a long story…” Ruggie started and proceeded to tell the tale of how you became a mouse whilst helping with the elephants.

After a scolding by professor Crewel and a 30-minute wait, Ace and Deuce had finally gotten their hands on an antidote and gave it to you. Within seconds you transformed back to your human body (fully-clothed mind you J ).

“What? Why am I here?” You asked your three best friends.

“No reason.” Ace smiled to you.

But, Deuce admitted the truth to you after five minutes of Ace trying to persuade you in thinking that your punch went wrong.

Cue Ace almost wanting to smack Deuce again.

You just gave them a smile when they apologized, however, you had made punch again the next day.

“If you want my forgiveness, drink the entire thing. Bye!” Were your words as you left with Grim to go to your next class.

The two Heartslabyul dorm members just stared at the punch before each taking a sip. Two shouts of ‘BLEUGH!’ can be heard in the cafeteria.

You see, you had made a special type of punch, cheese punch. How did you make it? I have no idea, you should also tell me the recipe too reader-san!

You also slightly punished Ruggie for stealing swapping the two first-year’s lunches. What did you make him do? Simple, you made him cook for you and Grim for a week.

And with that, everything is settled in your favor. 

Good for you :) 

[nikosasaki]

"I've never seen you smiling so big" + leo

"I've never seen you smiling so big"

leo clarke + jj maybank

warnings for drug use (as always with these two)

It had been a long time - far too long, if you were to ask JJ - since the Pogues had gotten some time to themselves. Luckily they had managed to find a pocket of time to relax on a particularly sunny afternoon. They had taken Leo's old boat out on the water, along with a cooler of beer and and enough food to last them until next week.

The six of them - JJ, Pope, Kie, Leo, John B, and Sarah - were spread out across the boat. Leo and Sarah were lounging out on the nose, equal parts sunbathing and watching their friends goof off. JJ and John B were daring each other to a backflip contest, and Pope and Kie were sharing a bag of chips and betting on which of the two boys would be the first to break their necks.

It was a good afternoon - a peaceful one. They hadn't realized it in that moment, but it had been months since all six of the teenagers hadn't felt hunted, scared, or threatened in some way or another. They hadn't gotten a break in so long, it was a miracle that they hadn't forgotten how to relax.

"Do you guys dare me to chug this beer?" JJ asked, staring at his friends.

"No," Pope responded.

"Not even a little," Leo agreed.

"Well," JJ shrugged. "I'm going to,"

He proceeded to dig a hole in the can, chugging down the entire thing in one go, and proudly looking from Pope to Leo as he finished. The other teens looked with various pained expressions, Kie simply shaking her head with a heavy sigh.

"Proud?" She asked JJ, taking careful note that he did not ditch the empty can in the water below.

"Very - bleugh!" he stopped himself mid-sentence to let out the loudest burp ever. It was a disgusting, loud, awful noise. It echoes across the water, and it sounded like it had rattled JJ's insides.

"Dude!"

"JJ! You're a pig!"

"Gross, man!"

It wasn't long after that the Pogues had decided to call it quits. It was well past dark, and Leo had promised them they could all sleep over at her place. Ever since the trouble they went through last years the five of them had a hard time being separated, so sleepovers had become something of a regular occurrence.

Once it was long past midnight, and their friends had fallen asleep in the living room, Leo found JJ sitting on her porch, thoughtfully staring at the black ocean ahead of him.

"Hey, J?"

The boy perked up at the sound of Leo's voice, smiling and making space on the wooden bench for her to sit down.

"Hey princess," he greeted, taking the opportunity to wrap an arm around her right when she sat down. "can't sleep?"

"Kinda. Why are you out here?"

"Kinda can't sleep either,"

Leo let herself be pulled against JJ, settling against his chest as she pulled up her knees. It was comfortable that way, a closeness that largely went unspoken.

"What's on your mind?"

JJ hummed out something of a laugh in response, shaking his head.

"I dunno. It's weird, right? Sitting here again, being all normal. Hell, don't you have work tomorrow?"

Leo agreed with a nod, unfurling herself from JJ's hold to face him.

"I just can't really wrap my head around everything that happened to us, I guess, or the fact that we just - we just went back to living our lives," JJ took a deep breath. "we just continued with our lives like nothing ever happened,"

"But they did," Leo responded in agreement. She was watching JJ attentively, almost afraid that he would be upset. He didn't, though, only nodding and turning his head to face Leo.

"Growing up is weird, huh," JJ mused. "one day you're smoking weed and stealing gold, and the next you're just... waiting tables and writing college essays,"

Leo laughed softly, moving to dig around in the pocket of her shorts. "J, who ever told you that you can't do both?" and out came the largest blunt JJ thought he'd ever seen.

"Lee," JJ gasped, hand slowly reaching out like he was about to be handed the holy grail. A smile spread across his face, reaching the corners of his eyes and creasing every muscle. "you beautiful woman, this is amazing,"

"I was saving her for a special occasion," Leo said with a chuckle. It was mostly true - it was an 'in case of emergency' blunt, and a contemplative JJ was enough of an emergency to her.

"This is going to kill us," JJ was breathless just at the idea. "it'll be worth it,"

Leo watched as JJ took the joint out of the capsule, still smiling incredulously as he lit it. He took a deep, deep breath, all but coughing up a lung as he breathed out - though the smile never left him.

"I've never seen you smiling this big," Leo told him, patting JJ on the back as he gathered himself for another drag. He looked up and leaned forward, kissing Leo on the cheek with a loud smack.

"You fix everything, princess,"

It wasn't exactly the love confession she had been waiting for, but for now Leo was content. JJ was happy, and that's all she really wanted anyway.

wanna send me a prompt from this list?

[taliaquinn]

Why Me!? Chapter 20

Authors Note:                                                                                                So hey guys!! A lot of you figured out my mini-Easter egg when I mentioned New York City. Kudos to you smarties. Let me tell you my tag list is open, because I adore you guys a lot.

“So where's Dick and Cass?” Marinette asked wondering where Dick disappeared off to. He was SUPPOSED to be there on the plane with them. However, once they arrived at the airfield Dick was nowhere to be found. 

Flinching Tim looked up from the business files in his hands. 

Hey while he was gonna be in New York City he may as well look into future business partners and get some more jobs in Gotham. 

“Well uh, Dick he uh decided to stay..home because….” side-eyeing Jason he quickly elbowed him.

Startled while reading his book he took a quick second to decide on a good cover story “because…his ribs still hurt and you know what Bruce is like all overprotective and stuff…so shes babysitting him....” Ugh Tim and Him were going to have to practice on coming up with good cover stories. The whole Keeping the family secret from the family was getting really annoying.

“That sucks, this is my first trip to New York City,” Oblivious to the awful cover stories Marinette continued sketching. She did plan for her class to have a field trip to New York City to tour around. But all those plans went down the drain once she left. Oh well, there loss.  “I'm even going to meet up with my friend Chloe at the hotel!!!” Marinette said excitedly. Chloe sent her an email a day ago about her vacation plans, (her revenge plans too). Marinette was over the moon when she found out that she was going to be there for the Stark Gala too!!!!

Mr.Wayne, her dad, even extended the trip a few days and got her a room, aka suite so Chloe could stay with Marinette more. 

Chloe of course was curious as to who exactly these relatives were. I mean come on they booked a suite at a five-star hotel, in New York City, for Marinette and a Friend.

 Marinette promised to explain everything to her when they were together. 

“She's….the Mayor's daughter right???” Jason asked, trying to change the topic.

Unbeknownst to Marinette, Jason and Dick, before Bruce and Dick fought anyways, convinced Bruce to get Marinette her own suite, so she could do the babysitting job without distractions. It was pretty easy to guilt-trip Bruce once they pulled the “Daughter who you never knew about” card. Guilt-tripping works.

At Marinette's excited nod he added “She’s frikin loaded right?”

“Jason, you realize we’re on a private jet, on our way to New York City, to stay in a five star hotel, to attend the Stark Gala?” Tim teased, flipping through business papers. Bleugh Lex Corp that's a definite pass on that business offer.

“ Yeah right, you guys are attending the Gala” Jason rebutted “I have my own stuff to do Timmers”.  

“Stuff” meaning a top-secret joint mission with Captain Rogers and Black Widow. Working together to take down a drug trafficking ring located in the heart of the city. Working with the Avengers every now and then exhilarating for Jason. Sure the Avengers worked more closely with the Government but they didn't have a universal; “No-Kill” rule.

Which was why Bruce hated joint-missions with the Avengers.

Extra icing on the cake for Jason.

“Excuses” Tim mumbled, upset that Bruce was forcing him to sit the mission out. Something about him being “overworked” pfft. He wasn't drinking coffee that much.

“Speaking of the gala, Marinette you have your dress ready?” He asked. Knowing that Marinette decided to make her own dress for the gala. 

“Yep finished the detailing last night, and have my jewelry and shoes ready,'' Marinette said, patting her suitcase. Mr.Wayne was nice enough to buy her a bunch of fabric and also gifted her a necklace and bracelet to match. He also gave her earrings but she opted out of them since she learned her lesson about taking off her Miraculous. Thank you very much.

“What's with the armbands?” Jason asked, seeing Marinette pack them earlier. He assumed they had something to do with her “babysitting” job. 

“Oh they were Alexei’s, they match with that I'm wearing”

“Your biological mom?”

“Yep, gotta ask Mr. Wayne more about her, I was only barely able to pry so much from my mom” Her mom would get too emotional sometimes when Marinette asked too many questions.  Eventually, she just gave up asking.

“Ha Mr. Wayne, you do know that annoys Bruce to no end right?” Tim joked, seeing Bruce's face of frustration every time Marinette refers to him as Mr. Wayne.

“I do, it's just…” she was still struggling with her Biological parents and having a bunch of siblings suddenly “Too awkward for me to call him anything else”

“Jesus you sound like Peter” he scoffed. 

“Who's Peter?” She asked with a slight scrunch of her eyes. That oddly reminded both Tim and Jason about Bruce. Bruce would scrunch his eyes whenever asking a question sometimes.

“Oh trust me you'll meet him soon” Jason answered going back to his book.

Dick was right the whole Wayne vs. Stark rivalry would be a perfect distraction. Oh if only Tim had his Camera.

......……

They finally landed, and soon Bruce was helping everyone off and into a car and heading towards their hotel. Once at their hotel, Bruce checked their bags in. Jason stayed behind to “rest” while everyone went to Stark Tower.

“Wait so Tony Stark is the one who is Throwing the Gala?” Marinette asked curiously inside the car.

 “Yep he’s throwing the gala to raise funds for hospitals and clinics all located around the world” Rolling his eyes Tim continued “Well that's the official reason anyway, right now he wants to out-do Bruce's Charity Gala from a few months ago” 

“As if that will ever happen” Bruce added. Ha, Stark wished he could outmatch his Galas.

“Talk about rich people's problems” she sighed.

“You're not wrong, One more thing, watch out Tony might try to take you as his own”

“What!?” Marinette squeaked out

Soon they arrived and made their way towards the suites. The elevators swished open to a smiling Pepper Potts and pouting Tony Stark.

“Pep, you see this? Bruce managed to get another one, you know what's the score now? 7-4” Tony complained once he saw Marinette. Bruce only glared back.

Ignoring them Tim stepped off and made a beeline towards Pepper and hugged her careful to squeeze her too tight

“Congratulations Pepper,” Tim said.

“Oh Thank you, Tim. It's great to see you after so long” Pepper said, hugging him back. She glanced around and noticed that a certain Red Hood was missing

“Where's Jason?” she asked frowning

“Unfortunately he stayed behind at the hotel to rest” he answered rolling his eyes. “But I brought someone better,” he said, reaching and pulling a startled Marinette forward.

“Meet Marinette Dupain Cheng,”

“Eeeep, uh Hi, I'm uh Mari-Marinette, but youalreadyknewthat, uh Hi” Marinette stuttered out. 

Completely starstruck at meeting The Pepper Potts. CEO of Stark Industries and Style Icon. Oh god, she wished she brought her sketchbook. Maybe she can do a quick sketch on a napkin

Pepper couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the Stuttering French girl, reminded of another awkward teenager. Hopefully, Tony doesn't try and claim this one. She was pretty sure that Bruce wouldn’t appreciate that at all, judging by the way Bruce was eyeing Tony.

“Brucie dear you adopted another one!?’ Tony teased Bruce swinging his arm around his shoulder

“She's my daughter Stark,” Bruce responded, glaring at Stark  “also what are you pouting about?  I hear you're going to have a baby soon congratulations Pepper by the way”.

“Brucie, you have your gaggle of children. I deserve one too!!” Tony complained, wrapping his arm around his Pregnant Wife's shoulder. Trying, yet failing, to conceal his excitement at getting another kid.

He turned to greet Marinette when suddenly his eyes went wide. Marinette only stared back.  A sudden staring match between her and Mr.Stark was happening apparently. What was Marinette's life? She remembered once being a normal girl. Maybe she should just blink.

“Wait HOLD UP!!!” Tony exclaimed suddenly ending the staring match, looking back and forth between Bruce and Marinette squinting.  “Are you sure this adorable child is your child?” 

“Oh for the love of go- yes I’m sure Stark” Bruce sighed exasperatedly. “Why does everyone ask me that”

“Cause she's adorable, sweet, and all Sunshiney, and well you’re….you” Tim answered. 

“Bingo, Don't worry Bruce I got a Sunshiney child too, matter of fact here he comes now” Tony comforted.

“OhmygoshMr.StarkI’msosorry” a soot-covered Peter apologized running up to him. 

“There was a fire in the lab,dummytriedtoextinguishitbutthemhesprayedhimself,

“Kid, Bruce Wayne is he-” Tony tried to cut in

“soIhadtoputoutthefireandcleanDummyUp”

Rolling his eyes he grabbed Peter's shoulders and twisted him towards everyone else

“Oh...uh Hi?” Peter squeaked out looking like a deer caught in headlights at seeing the three guests

“Hiya Peter,” Tim chirped excitedly standing next to Marinette who was awkwardly waving hello.

“Hi, Tim” Peter answered relieved. Thank god Tim, fellow tech geek, was here. He doubted he could handle Bruce Wayne on his own.

‘Anyways Brucie you remember my sunshiney kid, Peter, right?” gripping Peter's shoulders from walking towards Wayne. Nu-uh he wasn't going to risk losing Peter to Wayne.

“Mr. Stark I'm not your kid, I still live with Aunt May. I'm your inte-”

“Hush kid“ Tony ordered covering Peter's Mouth.

Marinette sent a silent prayer.  Bruce now had his hands protectively on her and Tims shoulders while Mr. Stark was doing the same to Peter. She would need a miracle to be able to survive this trip.

College Francis Dupont                                                                            Paris, France                                                                                                      2 p.m

“NINO!!!”  Nino couldn’t help but flinch, he’s been trying his best to avoid Alya all day. 

Luckily the breakup happened on Friday so he had the weekend to put himself together thanks to friends and icecream, lots of ice cream.

Surprisingly Chloe was the first to approach him after the breakup. After her, Aurore and Kagami came over to comfort him. They brought him some chocolate filled pastries. After a few hours of comfort, he received a phone call from an unknown number. When he picked up it was the voice of the sweetest girl on earth that greeted him.

“Hey Nino”

“Marinette,” Nino breathed out left speechless “Why, why are you even calling me?” 

“Don't be ridiculous Nino, I still consider you my friend, and right now my friend just got out of a toxic relationship” Marinette answered, yep she was happy for Nino when she heard that he broke up with Alya. Finally. “How are you”

“Who even told you?” he asked, still trying to get over the shock.

Releasing a slight giggle she replied “Chloe”

Nino couldn’t help but laugh through slightly watering eyes “Of Course”

At the reminder of Marinette, Nino mustered up the courage necessary and turned to face his ex.

Be brave Be Brave Be Brave B-

“Nino wanna explain to me why you’ve been ignoring me and Adrien since last week!!??” Alya yelled.

Channel your inner Chloe Bourgeois, he reminded himself. “We broke up, remember? I didn't want to hear your excuses”. That was all Alya ever did, make excuses. 

“Excuses?” screeching Alya took a step forward closer to Nino, instead of staying there took a step back trying to keep his distance away from him “Yes, excuses you always try to act like you never did anything wrong, or not even bother to apologize” “No I don’t” 

“You're doing it right now, jeez why do I even bother Marinette warned me” 

“Marinette” she spat out. Of course. She’s the entire reason why she lost Nino. Well, she wasn't going to let her win. She was determined to get Nino Back.

Oblivious to her anger, Nino explained. “Marinette warned me, as your ex-best friend she became well-acquainted with your “apologies”” 

“I don’t owe you an apology, you just overreacted” Adrien called her, and told her how Nino refused to talk to him and was instead talking to the class traitors “Matter of fact I’m here to give you a second chance, we can go and be a couple again and be happy”

“Yeah, sorry no dice,” He started to walk away doing his best to block out her screams. 

“NINO, DONT DO THIS!!!” 

A purple butterfly soon emerged from nowhere. Nino watched as it made its way towards Alya. Only one thought ran through his mind as he witnessed the butterfly merge with Alyas glasses and purple bubbles engulf Alya. 

Run.

Authors Message:                                                                                        Hope you guys enjoyed this extra long chapter. I can’t wait till I post the next chapter. Also I’m gonna start writing a series that focuses on Dick Grayson soon.  

I have part two of the Hamilton AU written out I just have to do this annoying thing called editing. Keep an eye out for that soon.

As Always stay Safe and Healthy Loves.

Taglist: (Still Open)

@purplesundaze @silvergold-swirl @k-poplunardreams @pepelachanel @laurcad123 @maribat-is-lifeblood @kass-is-weird @another-fan-of-anotherplan @damianette-is-life @amayakans @parallelparabox @miukiiu @valeks-princess @toodaloo-kangaroo @vixen-uchiha @thezestywalru @dreamykitty25 @pirats-pizzacanninibles @mochinek0 @shamefullove @mochegato @souleateralicestein @thestressmademedoit @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @aestheticnpoetic @flufflepuffle296@mysupporthyperfixations @itsmeevie01 @jeminiikrystal @iglowinggemma28 @whydoexamsexist @kuroko26 @animalgirl05 @susiej1118 @damianthebratboy @ccwkm6967 @valyui901601 @wannajointhecrabcult @thornalchemist23 @tazanna-blythe @rebecarojas07 @moonlightstar64 @chylou34

[whaleiumsharkspeare]

SWEEEEET THANKS SO MUCH AWESOME EEEEKKKK!😁😁😁👍👍👍!!!

Okay here’s my quick little ending that I scrabbled together. When I said “brief” I meant “brief by Whaley’s standards” so it’s actually a bit long, but, you seemed interested so I hope it’s to your liking. I wrote this in one sitting so I don’t expect it to be especially amazing

Varian bluebird comic- part 2

Rapunzel walked around the center of the kingdom with her new bird friend on her shoulder. He didn’t seem to like flying, so she wasn’t worried about him flying away, but she thought he might like some fresh air since all he seemed to do inside was chirp and chirp and chirp. But not even coming outside seemed to help, because he kept on chirping away. She was drawing attention from other people as she walked around, and it wasn’t for the usual reasons. Her constantly chittering bird sent a lot of stares her way, and she waved and smiled nervously at the people she saw.

“I wish I knew what you were so upset about,” she said out loud to the bird. “Are you hungry maybe?” But the bird just kept on chirping.

“Hey, Rapunzel,” said Shorty as he passed by the princess in the center of town. “That’s quite a noisy pet you’ve got there. I thought your frog was quieter than that. And a different color too.”

“Oh, this isn’t Pascal. This is a bird. And I don’t know what his problem is,” Rapunzel sighed.

“It’s not called Pascal, it says its name is Varian,” said Shorty.

“What are you talking about, Shorty?”

“The bird keeps on saying ‘I’m Varian’, but that can’t be right. I’m Shorty.”

“Varian? But he’s not a bird, he’s a-“

At this, the bird hopped up and down on Rapunzel’s shoulder and ruffled its feathers, chirping some more.

“He says, ‘yes! I’m Varian! Will you please help me?’” said Shorty.

“Wait, you can understand birds?” Rapunzel asked in surprise.

“Oh, yeah. I used to have a pet bird. It made for great conversation,” Shorty slurred.

“Wait.” Rapunzel took the bird off her shoulder and held it in her hands in front of her. “Varian? Is that really you?”

The bird chirped excitedly and nodded its head.

“Oh! I should’ve known! You have that streak in your hair, er, feathers, even as a bird,” the princess said brightly. Varian tilted his head. “How did this happen to you?”

Varian chirped again and Shorty translated.

“It was an alchemy accident. There was a mixup with my vials.”

“Of course,” said Rapunzel. Varian shrugged his wings as if he was shrugging his shoulders and tried his best to smile awkwardly without his teeth.

“Well, how can we change you back?”

“He says ‘I have some notes in my lab about my different experiments. I should have a way to reverse it if we look through those notes.’”

“Well, come on! Let’s go to Old Corona!” said Rapunzel. She led the way to the royal stables and she, Shorty, and the bird Varian got on horses and rode out to the village. Rapunzel was riding on Maximus and Varian sat on the horse’s head, his little feet clinging to his mane.

“Why don’t you fly ahead, Varian?” asked Rapunzel. “It might be quicker.”

Varian chirped, and Shorty, who was riding on his horse facing backwards next to Maximus, translated again.

“He says he’s afraid of heights.”

“Oh,” said Rapunzel gently, looking down at her even littler than usual friend. “That’s right. I forgot, sorry.” Varian shrugged again. Finally they arrived in Old Corona. Rapunzel picked Varian up and held him in her hands and got off of Maximus. Shorty slid off his horse and the three of them went inside Varian’s house and to his lab. Once inside, Rapunzel set Varian down on a table.

“Okay, so what are we looking for?”

Varian hopped across the table to a notebook that was lying on it and then hopped on top, chirping.

“He says ‘the antidote should be in my notebook. You just have to look through it and find the vial that matches the description.’”

“Okay, Varian, I’ll try,” said the princess. Varian got off the notebook and Rapunzel picked it up and flipped through it. After a while she found the description of the antidote and then searched through Varian’s vials until she found the right one.

“Is this it?” She held up a purplish-red colored vial of liquid in front of him. Varian nodded and chirped happily.

“Great!” said Rapunzel. She started to take the cork out of the top but before she could finish, Varian chirped again.

“Wait! I need you to get a blanket first,” Shorty translated.

“Why?”

Varian shifted his eyes awkwardly and looked at the floor. His cheeks filled with something kind of like a blush. After a moment, he chirped again.

“He says that when he transformed, his clothes didn’t.”

Rapunzel followed bird-Varian’s gaze to the floor where she saw the pieces of his outfit strewn about.

“He says he needs you to get a blanket and drape it around him so that when he transforms back-“

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” said Rapunzel, shaking her hand to stop Shorty. She left the lab for a moment and came back with a light blue blanket in her hands that she’d taken from Varian’s living room. She picked Varian up and set him on the floor. She placed the blanket around his shoulders? wings, and then she uncorked the vial.

“Here you go,” she said, bending down to give it to him. He took a sip of it with his beak. After a moment, his body started to glow and then he grew much bigger, changing back to his normal height and shape. The light subsided, and Varian stood up off the ground, holding the edges of the blanket closed together with one hand. He was back to normal. He spit out a couple blue feathers and shook his head.

“Bleugh! Oh, that was so weird.” He smiled as he wiggles his fingers on his free hand. “But thank goodness, I’m back to normal! Thank you, Rapunzel!”

“Good to see you again, Varian,” she smiled.

“Thanks. Now, uh, could you do me a favor and please get out of my lab? I need to get dressed.”

“Oh! Y-yeah, yeah. Sorry,” she said awkwardly and turned to leave, ushering Shorty out ahead of her. They waited in Varian’s living room. After a few minutes, Varian came out to meet them, looking more like his usual self.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back to normal, Varian!” said Rapunzel, giving him a hug.

“Yeah, me too,” Varian replied, letting out a little awkward laugh. Rapunzel picked a few blue feathers out of his hair.

“How did that even happen anyway?”

“It’s a long story,” said Varian, rubbing the back of his head. “But the moral of it is don’t leave out any alchemical solutions where your raccoon can easily hit them with his tail and knock them into your cocoa when you’re not looking.”

“Oh!” Rapunzel laughed. After a moment, Varian burst into laughter too, and they laughed together for a while over the absurdity of the situation.

“You know, I turned into a bird once, too!” Rapunzel said in between bouts of laughter. Varian’s laughing suddenly cut out and he looked at Rapunzel with confusion.

“You what?”

“That’s a long story, too,” Rapunzel smiled.

“I’ve got time,” Varian said softly. Rapunzel looked at him brightly and the three of them went back outside to head back to the kingdom. Shorty climbed back onto his horse backwards and Rapunzel helped Varian onto Maximus with her. He didn’t need to go to the kingdom, but he was interested to hear Rapunzel’s story, so she told him all about it while the three of them rode back to the kingdom together.

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

tagged by @brynnmck​ and @twelvemonkeyswere​, thank you!!

What is the colour of your hairbrush? just plain black

Name a food you never eat: Quite a few because I have weird tastebuds, but mushrooms for the texture, and any kind of peppers basically taste like poison to me, bleugh

Are you typically too warm or too cold? always too cold until it gets humid, and then I basically cease to function

What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Zoom yin yoga :) Although, admittedly I took ten minutes out halfway through because my sister did a video chat so we could see my niece dancing...

What’s your favourite candy bar? I don’t tend to buy candy bars as such any more, but probably Snickers or a Mars Bar? 

Have you ever been to a professional sports game? I’ve spent my entire life avoiding being dragged into any of my dad’s many sports obsessions, so nope. Although I’ve ended up at point to point racing a couple of times, does that count? And then there was a very fun rodeo when we were in Montana.. I mean, define sports?

What was the last thing you said out loud? Probably thank you to my yoga teacher over zoom (it always feels weird doing Ommmms and namaste when you’re in a room by yourself before that, but that’s yoga for ya)

What is your favourite ice cream? Haagen Dazs Pralines & Cream, but it’s never ever on sale so I always end up with their salted caramel instead.  I used to have an obsession with Ben & Jerry’s Totally Nuts but you can never find it anywhere these days...

What was the last thing you had to drink? Coke I think? Or tea? I forget to eat or drink a lot when I’m working from home

Do you like your wallet? I do! My mama bought it for me years ago and it’s got cute different coloured leather linings (except we call it a purse over here lol!)

What was the last thing you ate? Clam chowder soup and crackers I think? I was in a random soup buying phase in Waitrose last week apparently...

Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? I haven’t bought any clothes since March, because of the obvious.. I do keep finding bags of clothes I misplaced during the move last year, so honestly I don’t need anything. I just like buying stuff!

What’s the last sporting event you watched? Yesterday I sat through highlights of... four different 2015 F1 races but I kept falling asleep. I definitely saw Austen and Japan and then Sochi because I yelled at @ajoblotofjunk​ about the hats. And about Putin showing up...

What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? sweet and salt mixed!

Who is the last person you sent a text message to? an actual text message rather than what’s app... My dad, to tell him someone we knew had died...!

Ever go camping? Ha! So very many times. I HATE IT. I HATE IT SO MUCH. I am the worst camper in the history of the world and I have been forced to camp so many times and it’s always been an unmitigated disaster. The only way we could afford to do our six week road trip across the US in 2010 was to camp for a lot of it, and I basically drove 200 miles a day and didn’t sleep for weeks on end. Rednecks, stray dogs, bear country, hailstorms in Montana (when we ended up stranded in a laundry room for most of the night with more rednecks (they wore tshirts saying they were rednecks, so, whatever - they were very nice and very confused by us), sprinklers, noisy roads, food poisoning, impromptu hippy guitar parties at the next tent over, a weird dude who joined us at our campfire in Klamath and proceeded to tell really tall tales about 9/11 for so long we missed going orca spotting (oh and the fact the Klamath site was washed away by a tsunami in the 50s and I got paranoid about that happening again. Did I mention I was very tired?)

Do you take vitamins? All of them in great quantities... well, a general supplement with mega doses of B complex and iron and starflower oil and D3 (and then I top that up with a D3 mouthspray because it’s more easily absorbed and virtually impossible to overdose on, and I have barely seen the sun for weeks). The gelatin capsule also does wonders for your fingernails...

Do you go to church every Sunday? Nope, which isn’t really unusual for the UK to be fair. Having said that, I live in a town full of churches that’s also named after the 13th century church down the road from me, and has a lot of active church communities. Just not my thing.

Do you have a tan? I am the factor 30 every single day girl, I kinda hate the sun. Having said that, after we did six weeks driving California, NV, Utah, Arizona and NM... I was definitely looking very freckled and slightly less the colour of milk?

Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? Pizza. I need to go buy some pizza shortly (and eat it in the bath, which is my current lockdown friday night routine)

Do you drink your soda through a straw? I probably should do that more because my teeth are falling to bits and my dentist yells at me, but usually only if it’s served in a takeaway cup with a straw

What colour socks do you usually wear? Black as much as possible (although I have bed socks in all kinds of freaky colours)

Do you ever drive above the speed limit? I mean? I don’t drive so much these days, but I am terribly impatient and driving fast is more fun (if you can do it safely). I used to happily hit 100mph on the regular when I had a more powerful car and was commuting back to university twenty years ago. I’m not gonna jinx anything by saying I have always been lucky to drive safely, but I’ve only been stopped once for speeding in two decades, and I got out of that without a ticket (it was 5am on an empty dry road and I asked nicely).

What terrifies you? So very many things, I’d rather not dwell on them? Losing my job (and therefore everything propping up my life) in the current climate. Spiders. Tsunamis. Claustrophia is a BIG thing for me.

Look to your left. What do you see? The abstract painting one of my very talented friends did, and the very pretty pink fake orchid one of my other lovely friends gave me as a housewarming present.

What chore do you hate most? All of them? Washing dishes SO MUCH.

What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Depends on the context? The Aussie guys I work with (who are a nightmare to schedule meetings around because Sydney is So Far Away), whichever former Aussie soap star popped up recently (Jason Donovan is doing a new Cadbury’s advert and it’s super weird), my family in Perth my mum was talking about calling today...

What’s your favourite soda? it’s almost impossible to get decent soda in the UK any more since the sugar tax kicked in, so Cherry Coke, but I have to go to great efforts to hunt it down these days.

Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru?  I’m currently minus a car (but also minus any fast food places being open lol!). Mostly go in...

What’s your favourite number? 42 (and not for Douglas Adams related reasons, weirdly enough)

Who’s the last person you talked to? My sisters and my 18 month old niece, we did a videochat when I was supposed to be in my yoga class!

Favourite cut of beef? Filet, cooked properly (i.e, still mooing)... Having said that, I’ll happily eat steak tartare if it’s on offer

Last song you listened to? I’ve just listened to Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley on a loop for twenty minutes (mostly because I was checking my AO3 stats and I have a fic named for one of the lines in that). Also notable for being the first song played in the first ever ep of Gray’s Anatomy... 😂😂

Last book you read? Probably the very battered Tennyson poetry looking sad next to me on the couch

Favourite day of the week? Saturday

Can you say the alphabet backwards? I... probably? why you’d want to, I’m not entirely sure?

How do you like your coffee? I loathe coffee, weird tastebuds lol!!

Favourite pair of shoes? I have a pair of black jeweled embroidered mary janes with heels that I bought for a Christmas party when I was 19, and I still wear them now two decades later. It’s gonna break my heart when they finally die...

Time you normally get up? Ugh. I have not been sleeping well and it’s all over the place. I haven’t been in the office properly for six months now, so 7ish if it’s a good day. I used to set my alarm for 6am when I was commuting, but I also went through a phase of waking up at 5am every morning Just Because. I’ll still probably wake up by 7am if I got to bed at 3am, my body clock is not doing well these days.

Sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets! If I’m looking out at a sunrise, something is seriously wrong lol!!

How many blankets are on your bed? The duvet and... two blankets? And two blankets on the couch downstairs for when I end up sleeping there..!

Describe your kitchen plates. Still the crappy white Ikea plates I bought when I moved out to live on my own three years ago. Two of them are seriously starting to crack and at some point I have to be a goddamn adult and buy a dinner service.

Describe your kitchen at the moment. Stuff EVERYWHERE. Only one of the orchids is living there at the moment so I remember to mist it regularly. But my brain basically has no object permanence, so unless stuff lives on the kitchen counters, I tend to forget it exists (or to eat it)

Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? Innis & Gunn beer (brewed in whisky barrels) and First Cape Merlot (and god I love dessert wines and PX sherry but they make me so sick)

Do you play cards? Nope, I hate games of all descriptions :)

What colour is your car? Currently non-existent. Need to buy one when this current madness eases up...

Do you know how to change a tire? Nope, honestly, what’s the point when you pay so much for a breakdown service to do it for you.

Your favourite state? Oh god... Oregon? Maine? Bits of California? Vermont? Tennessee? North Carolina? I couldn’t live in the US in a million years but I’ve been there an awful lot.

Favourite job you’ve had? I don’t know that any of my jobs have been a favourite as such - I’ve worked with people I liked and done some interesting stuff. My current job pays enough I can afford rent and has some fantastic health cover (they have to, mostly because the work causes so many nervous breakdowns, idk?)

How did you get your biggest scar? I lost most of the skin on one knee after running for a train and tripping up, and then not getting it cleaned properly and basically I had gravel emerging for months on end.. it was not nice. I’ve got worse and more annoying scars from being bitten but they’re definitely not as big.

Tagging, if you want to do it: @beesreadbooks @djeli-beybi @serhumfreysbrokencollarbone @couragethecowardlygirl @unadulteratedkr @tawktomahawk and anyone else who feels like doing this! :)

[dkronpa]

Chapter 3: Journey to Despair, Grave Secrets, Grave Lies ~Post-Trial~

//And the end of chapter 3 is finally upon us! I hope you all enjoy I’ll start working on chapter 4 immediately, hope you all enjoy!

“Wowee! Three for three! You got it right once again, the one who punched a bunch of holes in Toson Shinko was none other than the Ultimate Thanatologist, Tsukiko Ishikawa!” Monokuma announced.

 “Please refrain from describing it in such a grotesque way.” Ishikawa-san said.

 Sly-san looked at Kurosaki-san, “You were right, huh? What the hell?”

 “What can I say? It’s just what happens.” Kurosaki-san shrugged nonchalantly. Whatever happened with Kurosaki-san’s plan is definitely suspicious, but for now…

 “I…just can’t really believe it…Ishikawa-san’s always been such a big help during the investigations and has helped everyone by supporting them, so…I don’t understand why. Why, of all people, did you end up killing someone?” Kurohiko-san asked.

 “The motive, obviously. Tsukiko-chan must have had a list of really important people in her life that she couldn’t afford to pick any of them.” Amaterasu-san said.

 “…I’m afraid that’s not my reasoning at all.” She admitted.

 “Huh?” Amaterasu-san cocked an eyebrow. Ishikawa-san’s shoulders slumped as she took a breath.

 “I’m afraid I did not have much time left with all of you. My body was destined to give out on me soon during our imprisonment here.” She said.

 “Wh…what the hell does that mean?” Okanaya-kun asked.

 “I am a corpse. My body is decaying. I am slowly returning to my eternal slumber. Why, only a few days ago, I found my hair falling out in clumps during a shower. I fear that if I stepped back into water, I would waste away…”

 “Now that I think about it, I suggested we all go to the pool after the motive reveal, but you seemed really against that idea…was that because…?”

 “I’m sorry, Kirishima-sama. I did not mean to hurt your feelings but snapping at you back then. At this point it matters not. My body shall be thrown away no matter what happens from here on. What a dreadfully awful result I’ve ended up in.” Ishikawa-san laughed to herself.

 “Why Herr Shinko…?” Kurosaki-san asked. Ishikawa-san stopped laughing almost immediately, “for all the time I sat and thought, I couldn’t come up with a reason as to why you decided he should die. I know you two didn’t get along, but was that really enough for someone like you…?”

 Ishikawa-san’s expression turning thoughtful for a moment before answering. “Shinko-sama was not…respectable. Unlike the rest of our group, Shinko-sama refused to ever reveal who he was to us. I loathe ingenuine people. If it were to be anyone, it would have to have been him. Life is a sacred thing, you see. Everyone in this room values life and lives their lives as well as they can. As someone who was lucky enough to be given a second chance, anyone who has no care for life infuriates me.”

 “I don’t get what you mean at all.” Kurohiko-san admitted.

 “Shinko-sama had no value for his life. Or anyone else’s. It was not a thing of importance in his eyes, that is what I mean to say.” Ishikawa-san clarified.

 “No, on a fundamental level I can get what you’re saying, but…I refuse to believe Shinko-kun was like that. Sure, he was abrasive and rude and a little selfish, but to suggest he had no care for his or anyone’s lives?! Isn’t that going too far?!”

 “Did any of us really know him though?” Graves-san suddenly spoke, “I mean…put your hand up if you would have said you and Toson were close.” Nobody moved, “so, none of us can really say Tsukiko is wrong about him. For all we know, he could have been selfish enough to not value our lives. Maybe he was getting ready to kill while he was hiding in his room all that time.”

 “There was no evidence of such a thing.” Asano-san argued.

 “So? You need hard evidence? What if he was calculating enough to do it all in his head? He’s a director, after all, it could have played out in his head like a movie.”

 “Graves-san…!” Asano-san’s fists balled up.

 “To think…it wasn’t even Monokuma’s motive that got you to kill someone. It’s so stupid, I could cry out of pity.” Graves-san laughed a little. What the hell? I’d never seen this side of her before. “Hey, Tsukiko…I’ve got to wonder about you and your little ‘zombie’ theory.”

 “I am not a zombie.” Ishikawa-san said.

 “Yeah, I know. Let me ask though, what do you think will happen to you next…? I mean, you already see yourself as dead. Don’t you? So, what does an execution mean for a walking corpse?”

 “Well, it means…that is…” Ishikawa-san stopped and frowned.

 “I mean, if you’re a conscious dead person, does that mean even if Monokuma crushes your body into paste, you’ll still be conscious? What are the rules for someone that’s been reanimated? Tell me. Tell me, please.”

 “Stop this, please.” Ishikawa-san shifted uncomfortably.

 “Tell me tell me tellmetellmetellme-“

 “STOP!!” Ishikawa-san suddenly shouted, “I…d-don’t you understand?! That’s why I had to get out! We…we don’t know how long we have been trapped in here, but I didn’t think much about that at the start! Th-then…my hair started falling out, it felt like my skin was becoming thin, like if I rubbed it, it would tear apart…it could only have been a matter of time before I was left as nothing, and then what would happen to my body?! I…I couldn’t waste away in here!”

 “Ah…hey, Nagata. Remember what Kirishima’s first motive said? The thing about the 8 days ending today? You don’t think…?”

 “It was your card, Ishikawa-san. Kirishima-san’s card was a time limit for how long you thought you had left before your body would waste away into nothing.” I concluded.

 “…so, that was my first motive…? My unfinished business? I didn’t even think of it. I just…wished to see the outside world one last time before my final departure…” Ishikawa-san clasped her hands together, a tear falling from one of her eyes.

 “I see, I see…well, even corpses gotta get their comeuppance, right?! Just cause you’re dead, doesn’t mean you’re exempt from consequences!” Monokuma suddenly chimed in.

 “It can’t be time already?!” Ishikawa-san gasped.

 “Now, let’s get to the main event! I’ve prepared a very special punishment for the Ultimate Thanatologist, Tsukiko Ishikawa!”

 She took a breath to calm herself. An expression of acceptance appearing on her face. “…I do hope to pass on properly this time, I suppose. Please do not allow me to linger or revive again, I do not deserve another chance.” Ishikawa-san sighed, bringing her hands close to her chest, “I’ll offer up a final prayer. For Shinko-sama’s soul…and hopefully my own.”

 “Let’s give it everything we’ve got! Iiiiiit’s PUNISHMENT TIME!!!”

 “…Memento Mori…”

 -Game Over- -Tsukiko Ishikawa has been found Guilty!- -Commencing Execution-

 The monitor turned on after Ishikawa-san had been dragged away in the same manner Kibe-san and Hachi-san had been and displayed Ishikawa-san laying down in a black coffin holding a bouquet of white flowers. A headstone sitting right behind the coffin.

 -Tsukiko Ishikawa's execution: Black Thread Hell-

 Monokuma appears next to the open casket with a black marker and proceeds to wildly scribble black lines across Ishikawa-san’s body, arms, and legs, along with a moustache and glasses on her face, before slamming it shut. From inside the coffin a large rumbling noise can be heard, Ishikawa-san waits until the rumbling dies down before trying to move. She wipes away the marker on her face and opens up the coffin, only to find herself in a hell-like place with huge jagged mountains and trees.

 As she looks around, a huge Asura-looking creature approaches her from behind, armed with swords and axes. She climbs out and runs, with the Asura swinging at her, but always seeming to miss. She runs through black trees and thorn bushes, and jumps a jagged rock, where it looks like she's safe. However, as she takes a step forward, she realizes her leg is bleeding along one of the black lines. As she reaches down to examine it, one of her fingers fall off.

 In a moment of confusion, terror and elation, Tsukiko looks down to see blood seeping out of all the lines. Her left hand drops off at the wrist, then her right arm midway down, then all of it above the elbow. As she tries to take another step forward, her lower leg drops off at the knee. She collapses into a pile of meat slices, organs, and blood.

-

“Uuuu….urrrgg…bleugh!” Kirishima-san collapsed in the corner; the sound of her vomiting made my stomach turn. Ishikawa-san…there’s no way she deserved to go so brutally. Kibe-san and Hachi-san weren’t exactly executed tamely, but this felt on a whole other level…

 “G-good god…” Yokozawa-san covered his mouth, his face earning a green tint. It seems most of us were feeling the same way. This was too much.

 “Monokuma. What the hell was that? Even for you, that seemed graphic.” Sly-san demanded.

 “Hmm? I dunno what you mean. If anything, I think it’s pretty in-line with what she did to Shinko, don’t you? I mean, those other two just stabbed and bashed but this girl threw him in an iron maiden! That’s some real crazy stuff there! It’s only fitting an execution be just as horrifying as the murder, right?!”

 “This really is just a joke to you, isn’t it?!” Okanaya-kun spat.

 “No way. I’m taking this seriously. I’m taking this more seriously than anyone else.” Monokuma said.

 “Eheheh…hahahah…” Graves-san covered her mouth trying to laugh, “geez. This really is a far cry from Maemi getting stabbed in the back- literally. Now people are getting sliced into piles of mush, piece by piece…I don’t wanna end up like that. I don’t wanna end up like that at all.”

 “Graves-san…”

 “Ah, Junpei, don’t worry. I won’t kill you. You and I are friends! You’re pretty much the only person I have a little trust left in at this point. Even then it’s thin. Saori showed us you can’t trust the quiet ones, Tomoe showed you can’t trust your friends, Tsukiko just showed you can’t even trust those who try to be helpful. Anyone could stab us in the back at any moment.” Graves-san smirked. “Scaaaaary.”

 “This is an unexpected change in your behaviour. Is this your survival instincts kicking in, I wonder?” Kurosaki-san said.

 “Ah, who know? If anything, you’re the one I trust the least. What was it Sly was saying earlier about you, huh? That you just seemed to know things…what was that all about? Are you some secret psychic?” Graves-san got closer to Kurosaki-san until they were staring at each other, faces inches apart. “I wanna learn all your secrets. Will you give me the chance?”

 “Knock yourself out. But I’d rather die than let you learn anything about me.” Kurosaki-san smiled.

 “Careful what you wish for~” Graves-san half-cheered, “Ah! But I’m suuuuper tired! Hey, Monokuma is it okay to leave now that the execution is done? I gotta get some serious Z’s for tomorrow! I wonder what’ll happen?”

 “Hmm? Oh, yeah. You guys are dismissed. I gotta go find a mop and bucket.” Monokuma waved goodbye as he headed down the hall to the execution room.

 “Oh, Junpei! We gotta grab breakfast tomorrow so I’ll meet with you a little after the morning announcement. Cool?”

 “Y-yeah…cool.” Yokozawa-san nodded nervously. Graves-san flashed a bright, almost innocent smile and skipped to the elevator, taking the ride back up alone.

 “She’s dangerous.” Amaterasu-san said almost immediately.

 “Hey now…” Yokozawa-san tried.

 “W-we should tie her up, just in case! I’m worried about her after she said all that. Should we even trust somebody that’s got a talent like Ultimate Secret Agent…? She’s definitely gonna be able to kill without hesitation.” Kurohiko-san said.

 “You’re saying that as if the Ultimate Assassin isn’t in the room.” Yokozawa-san argued.

 “You ever seen Sly genuinely threaten someone so happily like that?! That bitch is off her fuckin’ nut!” Okanaya-kun shot back.

 “Shut up! You were the one that threatened everybody in the early days, and now you have the nerve to judge someone else?! None of you even know her! She’s probably just as scared as everybody else but you just wanna all focus your own fear on an easy target!” Yokozawa-san snapped.

 “H-hey now…”

 “You’re the worst for it, Nagata-kun. Y-you…you never do anything to help out, but as soon as a murder happens, you’re some big hero?! Don’t screw with me! Why…why do you get to be a hero when you don’t even have a talent…?”

 “The fuck’re you talkin’ about?! Nagata’s the Ultimate Lucky Student!” Okanaya-kun argued.

 “He doesn’t seem very lucky to me. Then again, didn’t you say your talent affects the people around you…? So, answer me this then. Why the fuck are we all stuck in here if you’re so goddamn lucky? Why have we had to watch people die over and over and over again if you’re supposed to bring us all good fortune…?” Yokozawa-san’s hands were balled up into trembling fists. “I…w-wanna go home already…! Just let me go home now…!”

 “I…I don’t know…I don’t know why this keeps happening.” I admitted. He’s right. What good is my talent if we’re in this situation. How can I even call myself the Ultimate Lucky Student?

 “Of course you don’t. God, if you died at least the situation would make a little more sense-“

 WHAP!

 We all stood stunned. Yokozawa-san stumbled back, holding onto his cheek where Kirishima-san had hit. Her eyes were welling up, her hand, the palm slightly red, was shaking so violently she had to hold it with her other hand.

 “Don’t say that, please…we shouldn’t be fighting like this…not after what just happened.” She pleaded. “It’s not Nagata-kun’s fault…it’s not Graves-san’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault except Monokuma’s! So we shouldn’t be standing here trying to pin the blame on anybody.”

 “R-Ram-san…”

 “It’s Kirishima.” She corrected, wiping the traces of tears. “Yokozawa-kun, please keep an eye on Graves-san for us. You’re the only one she’ll trust right now. We need to get our group back together. We need teamwork.”

 “She is right. The fighting and blaming will not improve our situation.” Asano-san agreed. “So…let us reconvene tomorrow, yes? There will most likely be a new building for us to search, so it will be the opportune time for us to rebuild our relationships. Even if it must be from scratch.”

 “Yeah…that’s fine.” I said, glancing at Yokozawa-san. He was refusing to even look in my direction. I’ll need to try and talk to him tomorrow.

 “Then…let us head back.” Asano-san said.

 -Chapter 2, Post Trial, Ryuu-

 I sat laid there and stared at my ceiling, going over Yokozawa-san’s words in my mind. I never thought about it now. Everyone without fail had been blessed by good luck when I was around them, so why not now…? Why was this the moment my talent was deciding to fail me? Can talents just stop?

 “Is something wrong with me?” I wondered aloud, sitting up in my bed. I didn’t feel any different. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the motive card. My motive. I just figured Monokuma would come and collect them himself after the motive was over, but I guess not. I shook my head, taking the motive card and throwing it in the trash.

 I never had to think of this awful motive again. I don’t have to think about what would’ve happened if Shinko-san wasn’t killed. Shinko-san was killed, so everyone on that card was safe.

 “Oh god…” I internally gasped, “why am I thinking like that…?” This game has really taken its toll. Or maybe… “Am I a bad person…?”

 -Chapter 2, Post Trial, Yuuki-

 “Ah…this is frustrating. I figured someone would break by this point, but for it to be Mademoiselle Graves is really…problematic.” Yuuki said. Sly tapped his foot annoyedly waiting for Yuuki to finish lamenting the situation. With a defeated huff, Yuuki crossed his arms and mimicked Sly’s standing position, slightly mockingly.

 “You said you would tell me the truth if I helped you out. Now, are you going to go through with that promise or not?” Sly asked.

 “You’re so impatient. You have no respect for suspense, or perhaps you just really hate spending time with me.”

 “Do you want me to answer that?”

 “Mean!” Yuuki pointed overdramatically. “If you’re gonna be so mean, I’ll never reveal anything to you!”

 “Oi…” Sly warned, a hand in his pocket.

 “Oh please, I know all you have is that dog tag.”

 “Then I’ll beat you up with my fists.” Sly cracked his knuckles, edging towards Yuuki.

 “Fine, fine.” Yuuki lifted up his shirt and pulled out a small journal with a leather cover that was tucked away on his waistline. “…I hope you realise the risks you’re taking by getting yourself involved with this.”

 “I am. You said we can end the killing game if we work together.”

 “Yes, that’s still my hypothesis. If you’re completely sure, then go ahead and read this journal. Read how the rest of this killing game goes…” Yuuki presented Sly with the journal.

 And Sly took it.

 -Chapter 3: Journey to Despair, Grave Secrets, Grave Lies END-

-10 Students Remain-

[talesfromthecycle]

Vengeful Chapter 3: “Outburst

Nessa jolted awake with the sound of metal clashing and echoing from beneath her in the tower’s floors below. With a glance over she saw that Mair’s bed was already empty and a clear mess had been made on the path to the stairs. Without a second thought, she leapt out of bed and rushed down the spiral stairs until the context of the situation revealed itself. 

Mair stood poorly fitted into a chestplate with a clutter of ornate decorative weapons strewn across the stone floor in front of him. He looked disheveled and energetic as he held a silver tipped pike in one hand while struggling to adjust the unfitted armor that he wore.

Nessa sighed both with relief and annoyance. She glanced out of an open slit in the tower wall to see the crystal lights of the city were still fairly dim, “What are you doing messing with all of this stuff so early in the morning?” Nessa lightly scolded through a yawn as she stepped down the stairs approaching her little brother.

“Sorry sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. You said we could go to the guild on your day off and I couldn’t sleep last night and-” Mair lit up with excitement, interrupting himself as he tripped over the clutter around him, undoing a majority of the straps on his chestplate.

“I know I know, we’re going. But we can’t just take anything from the manor. If someone recognizes anything from here, we can get in trouble. Besides, the guild will provide what we need for the exams.” Nessa calmly explained as she tied her long hair into a ponytail and proceeded to clean up the mass of decorative weapons that littered the floor.

Mair stood, eventually sitting down on the cold stone floor to undo the rest of the straps of the armor hanging off of him. Prying the plate of metal off his chest, he brought his knees up to his chest and studied the point of the pike. The carved designs have long since faded. The only discernible mark were a pair of initials carved in the elvish language, KM.

His sister looked up from the cleaning up to see him sulked upon the ground, she quietly released a sigh under her breath and stood over Mair nudging him on the shoulder, “You can bring the pike.” Her brother returned to his lit up expression which infectiously spread to Nessa, “Just don’t break it again, I’m going to start charging you for mending that thing back together.”

Mair leapt to his feet and gave Nessa a quick hug before rushing down the stairs, “Thanks sis! I’ll be careful this time!”

Nessa was left alone in the middle of the tower with the scattered armor and weapons still surrounding the floor. Mumbling to herself, she settled to deal with the mess later as she returned up the stairs to get ready to leave for the guild. Before she made it up the stairs, she noticed an armor stand that her brother had dragged in and knocked over. An idea popped into her head as she quickly gathered her tome and wand from her satchel and headed back down to the cluttered floor.

Deep breaths, in and out. Nessa flipped through the pages of her tome as she stumbled down the stairs above the room. She ended her search near the beginning of the tattered book and kept her finger locked to the page. She held the tome in one hand while the other guided her through the details of the spell, her wand forced to remain held in her teeth while she situated herself. Finally she grounded herself and held the tome open while her wand aimed to the knocked over armor stand.

Nessa’s gaze nervously shifted from her target to her tome until focus finally found her and her breathing slowed. A violet shine radiated from her wand and wrapped the magical apparatus and her wrist in a faint glow, wavering and encompassing like a bubble blown in a slight wind. The purple glow slowly crawled from the point of the wand through the air, approaching the armor stand like a snake to its prey. The glowing cloud of mana swallowed the wooden frame little by little until it too was encompassed by the faint fog.  

Her hands shook ever so slightly as she raised her tome hand in an arc, her breaths became more erratic as she made the motion. With her motion, the armor stand slowly picked itself up with a slight tremble. Nessa’s grip tightened over her wand as she noticed the slight trembling grow fiercer. Struggling to correct the situation as she failed to find breaths. Her focus was lost in an instant as the armor stand dropped back to the ground, with the violet mist fading away into the air.

Silence fell over the room, the page of the tome crinkled slightly and the grip on Nessa’s wand tightened to a near snapping point. In a lashing outburst, Nessa whipped her arm as a threat to throw her wand against the stone wall. In the same moment, a scarlet and violet flash of energy washed over her hand, the armor stand was thrown across the room at the wall.

Nessa jumped back as the wooden frame shattered against the wall. She briefly stood in confusion and awe at what she did before a stinging feeling stung at her wrist. A shallow scar started at the base of her palm and ran down her wrist with intense pain. With a swear mumbled under her breath, Nessa covered the strange scar and returned upstairs to prepare, silently vowing to clean up the mess later without a word to her brother.

In less than a half hour, Nessa stepped outside ready to join her brother on the short trek to the guild. She pulled back the long sleeve of her jacket and checked the scar on her wrist, it had faded surprisingly fast but a faint outline of it still remained. 

“Gods, what took you so long? I felt like I’ve been waiting forever.” Mair complained leaning onto the metal fence with the pike slung over his back. He opened the gate and kept the lead throughout their walk across the system of bridges to reach the heart of Eil’Drawwt.

“Quit your whining,” Nessa playfully shoved him forward and adjusted her newly repaired satchel, “I have much more to worry about than just lugging around metal on a stick.”

“Psh, Whatever.” Mair scoffed and rolled his eyes, but got distracted as they approached the first bridge. He sped ahead and leaned over the ledge to look at the guildhall down in the ravine. “I still can’t believe we’re gonna get an apprenticeship at the guild.” He remarked with giddy anticipation.

“You’re awfully confident, just do your best in whatever test they throw at you and it should work out just fine.” Nessa giggled and continued past her brother.

“You think they’ll actually extend the invitation for the both us, sis? I’d feel pretty bad if I just swooped in to take your chance.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry about that? Hell, I think you’d be lucky without me constantly fussing over you.” Nessa shifted to a babying voice to tease her younger brother.

“Bleugh, you’re right. You’re better off as a mom than an adventurer.” He teased back as they both laughed over the exchange. Playfully bickering as they made their light trek through the morning traffic of the city. 

In a matter of time they arrived at the main entrance of the guild hall. The bridge led forward through a path lit with mana fueled flames to an opened grand door made of an olive colored wood framed with silver edging. A flank of armed and helmed guards checked the emblems of each soul passing through. The traffic picked up to an extreme hustle as the hundreds of adventuring teams awoke to set upon what quests were laid before them for the next day, week, or even few months.

Nessa paused briefly which inclined her brother to stop and check as well, “Everything alright, sis?” He asked with a hint of concern.

“Yes yes, I’m alright.” Nessa laughed it off and continued forward towards the entrance, keeping a tight grip on her satchel as the guards took notice of the two visitors without emblems. 

The guards were lightly armored from the shoulders down, but the steel helms they wore formed the visage of a surface beast that gazed diligently as if prey stepped before them. The grip on their spears remained firm as one had approached to address the two strangers. “Hail, what business have you sought?”

Nessa froze for a moment, before finally clearing her throat and responding, “We were invited for an apprenticeship opportunity. Specifically by a demifai named Hela.”

Silence fell over the conversation for a mere moment, the guards looked to each other as if confused, “You said you were invited by Hela? As in the leader of the Crimson Shield?”

The elven half siblings’ hearts stopped at the same moment, they remained stunned until Nessa finally snapped back and responded through nervous stammering, “Uh, well yes. We met a few days back, and um, she failed to mention her status at the guild to be entirely honest.”

“Ah, right.” The guard remained stalwart but spoke with slight doubt in his voice, “Follow me and I’ll set you up to meet with Director Veridan to sort this all out. He handles the apprenticeship program.”

The guard waved the siblings forward and they both nervously nodded and followed several paces back.

“Are you serious Nessa?” Mair leaned in and whispered to his still panicked sister, “What could you have done to impress the highest ranked adventurer around these parts?” He pressed on with shock and denial with hidden fascination.

“I didn’t do anything I swear,” Nessa whispered back, matching her brother’s tone of bewilderment, “I didn’t even piece it together that she was from Team Crimson Shield, gods I had no idea. I should’ve seriously noticed.” 

The two continued to wrap their heads around the situation but Nessa’s attention is turned away as they traverse through the guild hall. The brick stone floors echoed with their footsteps as their paths were lit by sapphire flames from the torches on the marble walls and pillars. The duo made their first steps into the main hall which expanded to connect the entire guild. A spiral staircase led down through every floor of the fortress as the bustle of workers, guards, and guild members all worked to form the perfect image. Cogs in an efficient machine, the portrait that matched the wild expectations of the life of adventure Nessa had dreamed of since she was a little girl. She stood in the middle of it all, a moment she had dreamed but never expected.

“Hey, you good?” Mair had snapped her out of her daydream.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nessa smiled back to him and gestured to the scene around them, “It’s just a little surreal this whole situation is, I still can’t believe I’m standing here right now.” 

Before Mair could respond, the guard had stepped aside as he led the others to their destination. Standing confidently and with his hands delicately and politely held behind his back, a night elf man who looked to be in his 15th decade, yet still possessing of a fierce glare and fit form. The individual kept a stern stare focused on the two siblings as he took notice of them.

“I am ecstatic to hear of your enthusiasm over The Hidden Star guild,” His words were kind but they were spoken with a lack of intent and emotion that failed the impact of his greeting, “I hope you enjoyed your tour, unfortunately it appears there was a mistake. I’ve heard nothing from the Guildmaster or Lady Krisofft about such a circumstance. Go ahead, on your way now.”

“What!? My sister was invited by Hela to join the guild, you can’t just send us away without confirming anything!” Mair retorted back, upset by the older elf’s rude attitude.

“I have all the confirmation I need, every morsel of thought and information passes through me first you see,” The Director continued to talk down to Mair as Nessa stood in a nervous silence, “I hope this misunderstanding can be swept under the rug and forgotten, completely. Now shoo.”

“Please, sir,” Nessa spoke up but choked up slightly as the full attentive gaze of The Director shifted to her, “We’ll be willing to leave as you wish, but if you could give us any benefit of the doubt, we’d be immensely appreciative.” She concluded, waiting to be shut down when his response was cut off by a shout from across the grand room.

“Hey Saul!” A cheerful voice rang that turned the conversation in its direction. Hela had waved and greeted the group from afar and approached alongside a short and stout old dwarf dressed in a long coat and a braided black beard that reached down to his chest. “Oh cool, looks like you met Nessa already. And this must be her brother, now the both of you can join in. A pleasure to meet you dude.” She waved to Mair who stood starstruck but ended up nervously waving back to her.

The Director cleared his throat before addressing the intrusion, “Forgive me Ms. Krisofft, are you saying that you recognize these two?” He shifted to a much more polite tone as he spoke to Hela.

“Well duh, I already told Guildmaster everything.” She obliviously responded with a grin on her face while the dwarf next to her nodded.

“Guildmaster,” The director’s voice heightened in pitch with disbelief and annoyance over the situation, “Is it true you knew of this and did not inform your trusted advisor?”

The dwarf scratched at his head for a moment and pondered, “I think I might’ve forgotten to ol’ chap. No harm done in the end, start some trials for these youths,” The dwarf turned to face Nessa and Mair, “Hela here told me the two of you couldn’t make it to the last apprenticeship exams, the least I could do to alleviate the incredible debt we owe to her is to give that chance to you both.” The Guildmaster laughed heartily and offered a handshake to the two siblings, both accepted graciously. “Good luck on your trials, I’m afraid I have an unimaginable and taxing duty to attend to. Paperwork.” He laughed once more and left on his own path.

Director Veridan stood silently during the exchange. He sighed and addressed the siblings once more with a seemingly forced smile on his face. “It looks like there was a lack of communication in the end here, follow me to the guild’s training grounds. There we can test your mettle to see if you’re both a fit here at our guild as apprentices. I hope we can put this misunderstanding behind us.”  

Mair scoffed and rolled his eyes but Nessa accepted the apology with a smile and half bow. The director led the way through the winding halls of the guild as the siblings followed with Hela close behind to observe the trials for herself. Passing the personal quarters of the guild members and the multitude of facilities available, the group eventually reached an open aired battleground that led to a beautiful underview of the city built on the ravine. 

Several teams of adventurers gathered together there to spar and practice drills in the expansive space provided to them. Nessa observed in awe at the battles that raged on the field before her. The combatants for the most part fought with wooden training weapons except for a couple that caught Nessa’s eye. A demiserpus with a copper blade held in one hand while the other was held behind his back sparred and kept the defensive against a full blooded serpus, a scaled snake like man with a long tail, who pursued his target with a steel two handed axe. The two battled with ferocity and without fear of the sharpened weapons they lashed at each other while the group approached them. 

 “You two!” Director Veridan yelled over the commotion of the training grounds at the serpus and demiserpus. The two stopped their duel and as they paused, a green glow visibily radiated from their weapons. Nessa recognized the magical glow as a dulling enchantment that was customary for adventurers to use to spar or to spare their opponents. 

“What’s the deal, Director? I was just about to close that victory out.” The demiserpus snarkily complained while resting the copper sword on his shoulder casually. 

“A momentary interruption, I need one of you to spar this one here,” Veridan motioned to Mair who gripped at his pike ready to prove himself, Veridan’s hand waved over Mair and his weapon, the ring on The Director’s hand flashed with green sparks as the weapon was bathed in the same enchantment that the others possessed, “I’d prefer these makeshift trials are over quickly to not hinder my schedule. A short round of sparring will be enough for me to judge your potential.”

“You can do it, brother,” Nessa encouraged him before he stepped forward, “Do your best, and it’ll be enough. I’m sure of it.” Her brother gave a confident smile and nod in thanks as he stepped up to the snake-blooded duo. 

The demiserpus sheathed his sword and stepped away from the soon to be battlefield, “Sounds good, boss. Go ahead and make it quick, Kross.” The serpus nodded and held his axe up with a deep breath.

The director stood off to the side as judge to the battle, his hands rose and he called for the duel to begin. Despite the command given, both combatants remained still. The serpus observed Mair for an opening while Mair waited for his opponent to make the first move. In a spontaneous moment, Kross pounced with his axe held behind him ready to swipe at his target. Mair lunged in response and jabbed the pike into the serpus’ open chest. Both of their weapons connected with their targets with a field of verdant aura that halted the blades from striking at their skin. Yet the concussive force of their attacks knocked each other back to square one.

They traded blows, back and forth, avoiding the clashing of their blades in favor of landing the strike that would finish the battle without care of the damage and wounds that would follow onto them. A vicious offense against unfailing counterattacks as each warrior refused to fall until their target was already on the ground. 

“Gods, it’s like a wolf and its reflection. They keep going but just don’t make any progress but wear themselves out.” Nessa sighed and watched as the serpus and her brother both ended up going for an overhead strike, only to meet their blades and immediately disengage to go in with a new approach.

“That’s Kross for you,” Hela responded while keeping her gaze fixed on the battle, “He’s one of the apprentices that joined last year, he’s prone to going all in as you can probably tell.”

The fight approached its conclusion as Mair stumbled back with gasping breath. His grip loosened as he struggled to remain standing. Kross stood in a significantly better state and prepared to finish off the duel. He approached and reared back with his foot raised to kick Mair down. 

Mair saw his opening and reached for it, his grip on his pike was released completely as the kick struck directly into his gut. Just before Mair was sent collapsing to the ground, he grappled onto Kross’ leg and tripped him off of his balance. The two of them crashed onto their backs at the same time with a loud thud.

“An impressive display,” The Director interjected as the two struggled to rise to their feet, “Once your sister finishes her part, I’ll prepare the written segment for the both of you. As for you Kross, and by extension Rex,” Director Veridan addressed Kross and the demiserpus on the sidelines, “Keep up with your training, I haven’t forgotten your recent failures.”

“Come on boss. You can’t hold this against us, that was a total fluke.” The demiserpus named Rex rebutted through gritted fanged teeth. Kross simply kept silent with his head low and returned to his teammates side.  

“We’re not discussing this now.” Veridan dismissed the apprentices and led the group to an empty corner of the training grounds. “Now then, Nessa was it? I can sense the residue of mana on you, I can only assume you’re expecting a test of magic?” 

Nessa paused while Veridan continued walking and stopped several meters away from her, “Yes, what should I do sir?” She stuttered slightly in her question as she reached for her tome and wand in preparation. 

The Director raised his palm as a cyan bubble formed a shielding ward around him. The magic pulsed from the ring on his hand to form the abjuration in front of him, “I’ve created a weak shield around myself, cast against it from this distance to prove yourself.”

Nessa nodded and gazed at the target in front of her. She flipped through the pages of her tome and found a simple spell she could use to attack the ward The Director had put up. She raised her wand out in front of her to aim and focused to create a bolt of mana to fire off. Sparks and flashes of violet energy coalesced at the tip of Nessa’s wand to form an orb of erratic mana convulsing and ready to burst. With a deep breath and a moment of hesitation, the bolt of mana was loosed from her control and was flung at the ward. The bolt whizzed forward but lost its path and ended up careening into the air until an outside force suddenly paused its momentum completely. The bolt fizzled out in its paused state into nothing.

“Thank you Master Wright,” Veridan addressed someone near Hela and Mair that Nessa had not noticed. She turned back and saw standing close to Hela was a black coated human with curly scarlet hair and an eyepatch concealed over his right eye. The man said something to Hela but the words were blocked out as panic set in for Nessa. “Try one more time, Nessa.” Veridan waited for another attempt as Nessa’s hands began to shake. She struggled to find her rhythm as her wand rose once more and attempted to charge the bolt of mana. Nessa felt the whispering voices of those waiting for her to either pull through or fail miserably. Her heartbeat escalated to cloud her hearing as she felt the eyes of the entire training ground on her. Her focus was erratic and lost, the orb of mana she sent without consciously thinking had faltered in its path and hit Veridan’s ward with a pathetic gasp as it sizzled out of existence.  

In an attempt she made without realizing, Nessa had failed and watched as Veridan’s ward was cast down. He said something and shook his head disappointingly. Nessa could not hear over her heartbeat. She believed to have seen Hela and the stranger turn their attention elsewhere to ignore the scene and saw her brother’s admiration burn away. Yet her head was locked forward and her focus could not leave what was in front of her. The dreams and hopes she carried through her life shattered and fell away into the abyss of doubt and failure.

The eyes that stared and looked down upon her seared upon her skin as a surge of mana rushed through her arm. Only her body knew what to do as her wand was dropped and a continuous beam of scarlet and violet magic poured out from her hand and pulsed towards Veridan like a bout of raging flame.   

Veridan had barely noticed the beam approaching and recast the ward to shield himself. A flash and cloud of smoke enveloped the area. Nessa came back to her senses as the dust settled. She quickly pulled her now burnt sleeve up to reveal her scar had reformed and traced her veins all the way back to her upper arm. With quick movements she attempted to conceal the damage as she shifted her attention back to The Director. He stood shocked and yet wearing a smirk on his face. His ward was almost completely shattered from the devastating spell.

“Well done. You had me worried there for a moment, in more ways than one,” The ward dropped as he put his palm down, “Let’s move onto the written segment, afterwards I can show you to your new living quarters.” He added on confidently.

Nessa nodded and kept her arm pressed to her body hoping no one had noticed. Mair had rushed up to his sister with a tackling hug and lifted her up happily, “That was awesome, sis! I didn’t even know you could do something like that.”

“Yeah I have to say, I wasn’t expecting something like that at all,” Hela praised, “Even my teammate was surprised by that.” She attempted to refer to the man beside her, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “Huh, strange of him to disappear like that. Well good luck on the boring part of apprentice exams, I think I’d fall asleep if I tried to support you through that.” Hela giggled and waved goodbye to the siblings.

Nessa was put down by her brother and they both waved off Hela, “Thank you again for this opportunity.” Nessa showed her gratitude sincerely which warranted Hela’s fanged smile to shine through as she gave a wink of understanding before finally exiting.

The siblings proceeded to follow where Veridan had left off to but Mair suddenly paused in a panic, “Crap! I left the pike over on the battlefield, I’ll catch up just keep going!” He ran off which led Nessa to chuckle briefly as she left into the halls of the building.

Just as she was about to turn a corner, she felt a grip on her arm as her burnt sleeve fell to reveal her scarred arm. Nessa snapped to the assailant, the scarlet haired human who stood at Hela’s side. She jerked her arm away but the damage had already been done. The man with the eyepatch saw the strange scar in its entirety.

“Hey! What’s your problem?” Nessa attempted to hide the scar once more by crossing her arms and stepping away.

“Just confirming my suspicions,” The man who was called Wright answered, his voice was soft yet threatening as he brushed aside his blood red hair out of his good eye, “Don’t be so stupid in the future. What you pulled was no correct or effective way to cast. You could hurt yourself.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Nessa sarcastically dismissed the man and turned to walk away, she briefly looked back to find he had disappeared just as before. Nessa took one last look at the burning scar that traced her veins before finally leaving to follow The Director. The sting of the scar on her arm followed her throughout each step into her new life.

[gardeniaresilia-archive]

Thanks for the reply! I’m planning on studying art in college so I’ve been asking people about their experiences. Have you done many traditional art/graphic design classes yet? What kind of classes have you taken? Do you enjoy the way art classes are in college? Sorry if I’m bugging you or asking too many questions

No, no! You’re fine! I’m gonna put this under a read-more because this is super lengthy (don’t worry I put a TLDR at the end to spare you). And...my university is not an “Art School”, it’s a US State-Ordained-University with Liberal Education and all that shiny extra stuff that just happens to have a Bachelor-in-Fine-Arts program.

***I should start this by putting a disclaimer that these are just experiences I’ve had that are exclusive to me and my time at my specific school, and that this (hopefully) isn’t the experience around the globe.***

At my school, the Art program is super underfunded. In the entirety of the Bachelor of Fine-Arts (to be referred to as BFA) before being divided down into the emphasis studies, there’s 120 of us, and half of those students are pursuing Graphic Design, including myself. A measly 10 students of that 120 are pursuing Art Education.

To get in to the program at my uni, you need to finish some prerequisite courses then do the “Post-Foundation Portfolio Review”, where you submit twelve works, six of which were from these courses and six more that you’ve done during your time at college (high school work is not allowed), as well as a sketch book. You hang up the works on a wall, and you have a talk with two professors in the program about your work, what you wanna do with your time in the program you choose, your interests in the field, etc. Make sure to study some terms and be able to answer questions using art terms (you’re allowed cheat-sheet notecards and they have a pamphlet available beforehand so you’re prepared). I’ll leave this at this for now, but if you have deeper detail questions about my specific experience doing this feel free to ask!

To put it into perspective, we had two Graphic Design professors for 60 students, but one just took an Administrative position as of this past spring and can only do one class/semester starting this fall. However, between the two, a lot of people disliked him so it’s not a huge loss to the students in terms of personality. He was a stickler and it was his way or the highway in terms of grades so...nyeh. It’s just unfortunate because the other Professor is a kind soul who doesn’t deserve potentially putting on the full classloads every semester, and I don’t know if we’re getting another professor.

Anyway, my school has the following emphases/focuses under the BFA: Art Education, 2D Studio, 3D Studio, Graphic Design, and it used to have Interdisciplinary Arts (AKA “other”), but that didn’t have enough interest so that went away, but they still offer the oddball classes like Animation (which I’m taking this fall!!) and 3D-Printing.

To sum each Emphasis:

Art Ed is exactly how it sounds. Learn to be an Art Teacher, learn crafts to do with kids, learn how to make lesson plans.

2D Studio is your traditional media that includes Drawing (which charcoal... personally bleugh), Painting, Printmaking, Figure Drawing, etc.

3D Studio is the Pottery and...whatever else those funky 3D Studio people do. They’re all cool people though.

Graphic Design, my area of study, is things like Typography, Package Design, Logo Design, Photography, etc. That’s almost entirely on a computer and making a printed finished product.

As a BFA at my uni, you’re required to take some history classes, and if you’re not an Art History Major/Minor (which doesn’t fall under the BFA I think) you’d have to take classes from the other focuses to make you, and I quote “a more well-rounded student”. Which, for me I don’t mind. I like drawing, and I can get headaches from working on my devices all day. Therefor, staring at paper absentmindedly laying down hues and shades can be really cathartic and good rest from those harmful blue lights and whatever. I’m also not required to take a language because the BFA credit load is massive compared to a lot of the other non-fine-art or art-related Majors.

To get down into my studies even farther, we’re required to take classes around Typography and doing letterwork type things, as well as classes just titled “Graphic Design I/II/III” which is just doing random graphic projects. Some of these have included making paper booklets, posters, decorative-yet-working UPC/barcodes, etc., and I’m moving into the higher levels, which means I can kinda take what I want. In it’s higher levels, my university offers Package Design, Company Identity/Branding (IE creating your own brand 101), and a few other ones. 

Critiques I’ve had with my Graphic Design classes include putting up proofs on the wall to talk about, then open floor with the rest of the class and Professor to talk about and give advice. Then when the final is due, you generally mount it and submit your process book (a binder that you keep all semester with all your WIPS/proofs and studies and inspirations from all the projects), put it up on the wall again, talk about it sometimes, then turn the mounted project in and move on to the next thing. There isn’t much actual homework other than the projects themselves and the prep assigned with it, but some professors assign extra busywork, some don’t. Critiques aren’t also super formal either.

My traditional art classes range from working with charcoal to working with ink, paint, whatever else. You can either be working on a flat table at times or with an easel, and the projects can be either really specific or really random. I’ve really only taken drawing-oriented classes up until this point, and I have a love-hate relationship with most of my professors. They know what they like and know what they don’t, and they generally dislike the “anime” artstyle. I’ve developed a slightly more cartoony looking style for when I am allowed to not try to do realism. Realism and still-lives are going to be a prevalent thing. Especially in the lower level classes. From what I understand you can get jiggy with it in higher classes kind of, but I don’t know.

Critiques include putting up only the final, talking about the process and using art terms and trying to sound smart, and then open forum discussion about the piece. It’s not suuuper formal, but still.

Last but not least! Make friends! Because friends can help critique your work before formal critiques, help make your processes look good in the “formal” critiques by saying “yeah I watched them do this, it was super cool seeing it go from sketch to this!”, and plus you get into this hilarious relationship of going to art stores together and buying each other cute art supplies and paper for projects and it’s a good time.

TLDR; my school has my program severely underfunded, Professors are all generally also real artists pursuing jobs and freelancing outside of teaching, be ready to bow down to what your Professors want to get a good grade, and generally don’t draw in an anime-style. Also try to get good at faking being able to public speak because trust me, you’ll need it. And make friends, not enemies because these people will be your connections as well as people you’ll see a lot.

Aaaaaaaand yeah! Sorry this is super long! If you have any specific questions about experiences (I’ve had lots of good and bad times in my two years at uni so far) and stuff like that feel free to drop another ask!! I love asks!!!