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wonwoonlight · 3 years

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my daisy / chapter 4 | kim mingyu

➝ CEO!Mingyu x Secretary!Reader

➝ strangers to lovers // single dad!Mingyu // fluff // lighthearted // non idol!au // like pls dont expect any dramas here lol // tiny bit of angst ig

➝ series warning: mentions of sex, no smut but there’s implied sexual activities, insecurity (as always jshbdjhsfshbf am sorry), curses, food, let me know if theres more ^^

➝ word count: 5.1k

➝ A/N: aaand somehow we've come to the middle of the series alrd 👀 i hope you're enjoying this so far and, as always, don't hesitate to share ur thoughts w me!🥰💕

when your cousin asks you to be her substitute at SVT Inc. as she takes her maternity leave, you’re pretty sure this wasn’t what you signed up for.

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“Remember my words,” Seungkwan says in all seriousness, and you wonder if there’s any important information Seungkwan has just told you that you miss. At your confused face, the guy simply grins. “You can still shoot your shot.”

“Boo Seungkwan!” you quickly shush him, a scandalous expression on your face even though the both of you are in Mingyu’s office to make sure any needed documents and files for the day are complete. “I am not shooting my shot! I’m just doing my job!”

Seungkwan nods mockingly, though the teasing smile on his face doesn’t falter. “If you say so~”

You shake your head, cheeks heating up at whatever Seungkwan’s implying. When you’re both finished and you’re ready to go, Seungkwan pretends to be biting back a playful grin just to annoy you. Your glare doesn’t seem to affect him and you make a mental note not to ever introduce Seungkwan to Soonyoung if you don’t want to die of embarrassment.

Speaking of Soonyoung, it’s been quite some time since you have hung out with the guys since that get together. Between settling into your new job and dealing with your somewhat unprompted feelings towards your boss, you’ve only got to eat with some of them through the weekends because you’re still too tired to hang out with them after work. Seokmin would video call you from time to time, making sure you’re alive and eating well like the mommy bird that he is.

That said, Soonyoung has been demanding another night out with all of you present, and you would probably have to give in to his demand one of these days just so he won’t storm into your place, or worse, the SVT Inc.’s building to drag you out himself. Thank God you haven’t told any of them where your new workplace is just yet.

“We’re here, Miss,” Mr. Lee tells you as the car stops, bringing you back to reality. Right, Mingyu’s house. You exhale once before thanking him and step out of the car.

It's a pretty humble house, if you're being honest. A big one, for sure, but it's nothing like the houses of rich CEOs you'd see in dramas. There is no big front lawn or a fountain in front of the house, just a lot of potted plants that you're sure still cost more than your monthly salary.

It's still a beautiful two-story house, though, and you can tell that his garage is big enough to fit at least 4 cars, so there's that.

You're contemplating if you should knock (would anyone even hear? But the doorbell is in front of the gate and it's stupid if you go back there just to press it) or if you should just try to open the door because Mingyu knows you're coming anyway. But the door opens before you can decide, Jooyeon greeting you politely as she lets you in.

"Mingyu is in Gyuri's room," she tells you as you follow her steps, and you can't help but think there's something endearing about the way she just calls Mingyu by name instead of young master or anything of that sort. "You can wait here while I go get him. Please make yourself comfortable."

"That won't be necessary," another voice booms through the stairs, and you stare at Mingyu in his casual attire—a simple black pants with a plain white shirt that hugs his body perfectly. Has white shirt always been this good of a look?

"Hey," he greets you with a guilty smile. "I'm sorry, this is probably unprofessional of me, but I thought it'd be better if you're with me during the meeting even though it's online."

You barely stutter out a 'no', telling him all is fine and you understand. Though you really don't, to be honest, maybe he's afraid you'll mess up on your own albeit, as his secretary, all you'd have to do is type every detail down so your report wouldn't be askew. It's not like you're there to present something, so you have no idea why Mingyu thinks it'll be "better" to have you with him there.

Later, when Mingyu has changed into a formal dress shirt (no, he didn't change his pants and you're very glad to know even rich CEOs can't be bothered to change their pants into a formal one when only their upper body would be shown), ready for the meeting, you finally understand why.

Your boss looks at you with a sheepish smile, guilt clear in his eyes as he sets down his laptop on the desk in his bedroom. How on earth did you end up having to go to a meeting in his bedroom? Surely he has an office somewhere in the house?

Your cheeks warm at the weird intimacy of the whole thing even though you know this means nothing. This is just a room with a bed. That Mingyu sleeps on. But still, it's just a room and it's not like you'll be doing anything out of the ordinary. You try your best to suppress the memory of you and Mingyu sharing a bed all those nights ago, and you can only hope Mingyu wouldn’t notice your cheeks getting warm from embarrassment.

Gyuri tries to grin at you from the big bed, and you frown in concern at her red cheeks and the fever patch on her forehead. Mingyu shushes her back when she tries to sit up and greet you, so you stand near the bed to get closer even a little because sitting down on Mingyu's bed would not be good for your heart. She reaches up for your hand, and your heart melts at the weak smile on her face when you lean down and take her small hand.

"Sorry, my office's actually in the other room but I really can't let Gyuri out of my sight when she's sick. You know these meetings could go on for hours at time," he sighs and your eyes move to Gyuri who's been playing with your hand since earlier. "She has her room too, but her desk isn't enough for you and me. So I thought bringing her here would be the better choice; I can watch her while the meeting goes on."

You still don't get why you're needed here, but Mingyu seems to catch on even though you don't say anything about it.

"And umm… Jooyeon actually has family matters she needs to attend to and she's going to leave in a bit, which is why I can't leave Gyuri during the meeting."

"So I'm here as a spare babysitter?"

"What, no!" Mingyu quickly denies, worried that you might be offended; though you know even if it's not the whole truth, you're partly correct. "More like… uh, you might need to attend the meeting in my place if I need to attend Gyuri."

You blink slowly at his words, wondering if you hear him right. Meanwhile, Mingyu continues to speak in your silence.

"Technically, I am in the room and I can still listen to them, right? But you'll be there as my representative just in case. Uh, this sounds much better in my head."

This isn't the usual Kim Mingyu you see in the office, you conclude. And while you're not exactly close to him and you have no idea how he usually is, you can figure that he's pretty much disoriented because his daughter has suddenly fallen sick, to the point where he probably doesn't realize he's showing you the side of him he wouldn't have otherwise.

"Should I ask Seungkwan if he can attend the online meeting in my place, Sir?" You ask after a while. "I can just… take Gyuri back to her room and take care of her if… you want? I think it would be best if you can focus on your meeting, Sir. Jennie has told me JS Corp's side can be a bit… hard to deal with."

Mingyu seems to contemplate your option, and you wonder if he simply doesn't trust you with Gyuri or if he's not sure you really mean it.

"Would it really be okay if… you look after Gyuri?" He makes sure, and it finally clicks to you that he's hesitant because of your tone earlier. He probably thinks you're offended when you ask if you're here to be a babysitter when you’re just mainly dumbfounded.

"As long as you and Gyuri are okay with it," you reply with a tone that you hope to be calm and collected.

His gaze travels to his daughter, a little more and he's certain Gyuri will be pulling you to the bed if he lets her be. She's basically gripping your hand, and he knows enough from the first meeting that Gyuri more than simply likes you. How can he not know when she keeps on asking if she can see you again some time? When she keeps on telling him to bring you here if he’s not going to bring her to the office?

Mingyu has no idea how to tell Gyuri you’re not like Uncle Seungcheol or Wonwoo that he can just call over when they’re off work, and he has a hunch Gyuri would not care about that explanation either way.

“Lili wants to be with Miss,” Gyuri’s small voice followed by a small cough greets him before he can say anything. “Papa go meeting.”

He sends her a worried look, probably also guilty that he has to attend even one meeting when she’s sick. “You sure?”

“Yes, Lili with Miss,” she says again.

Her dad sighs before he finally agrees, carrying her back to her room as you trail behind him. He apologizes to you one more time for making you do this, and you reassure him all is fine and you joke about how you’d rather take care of Gyuri than sit through a meeting. Your boss chuckles at your comment, prompting your heart to speed up at the sound of it.

He tucks her into her blanket and tells you to be as comfortable as you want, and as if that’s not enough to make your heart burst, Mingyu just has to lean down and kiss Gyuri’s forehead before he leaves for the meeting. This image, burned fresh into your mind, would probably haunt you for a long time and you’re uncertain if it’s bad just yet.

You exhale a long, deep breath once Mingyu is out of the door, forcing out a smile to Gyuri when she calls for you.

“Hi, Lili,” you call her as you sit down on her bed. “How is Lili feeling?”

"Lili sick," she coughs as she says so, her pitiful gaze looking up at you. "But Miss is here so Lili okay."

You laugh at her words, wondering how a three years old could speak this well. Gyuri scoots closer to your side, practically hugging your lower arm as she struggles to stay awake. You use your other hand to stroke her head and Gyuri buries herself closer to you.

You can't help but wonder if Gyuri has always been touchy with everyone—even to people she has only just met once—or if it's because she's sick and she's delirious. Another thought crosses your mind, one that includes Gyuri needing a mother(or at least auntie)-like figure that isn't Jooyeon, but you quickly snap out of it before your mind wanders that way.

It strikes you once again how weirdly intimate this situation is. You're really in your boss's house, sitting on his daughter's bed as you try to lull her to sleep. You're pretty certain this wasn't on your job description when you applied here.

Not that you're complaining.

"Why don't you sleep, hm? You'll feel better when you wake up, you know," you softly say, trying to stop yourself from thinking too much. You're just doing him a favor, you try to get a grip. Plus, you're basically given time to rest instead of attending a meeting so this is the better choice for you, anyway.

"Want to play with Daisy," she says sleepily, her warm cheek pressed into the back of your hand.

"The duck?" You chuckle at her random words, eyes wandering around her room to see if there’s any Daisy Duck dolls; do kids these days still like Daisy Duck?

"No, you Daisy. I'm Lili. Like the flowers," she tries to explain. You have no idea how you've become Daisy out of nowhere, but you're not going to question a three-years old down with fever. "Lili likes Daisy."

You try your best to hold back a squeal as her eyes start to close little by little, the girl trying her best to stay awake.

"I like Lili too," you lower your voice like it’s a secret. Gyuri looks up excitedly through her sleepy gaze, whispering a 'really?' as if she doesn't believe you. "Yes. But I like it better when Lili isn't sick. We can play later if you sleep now, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Mingyu huffs the moment the meeting is over, quickly sitting up from his desk to make his way to Gyuri’s room. He stretches his neck from side to side, the meeting definitely did not need to go past two hours, but apparently JS Corp’s side wants to talk about another deal and Mingyu knows a good opportunity when he sees one.

When he quietly opens the door, your giggles mixed together with Gyuri’s fill his ears. You’re sitting on the bean bag in her room, the little girl comfortably sits on your lap as you pretend like the doll in your hand is attacking her with kisses. Gyuri laughs uncontrollably as the doll rubs against her stomach, leaning deeper into your embrace.

Mingyu continues to watch the scene in front of him in silence, wondering when will the both of you notice him by the door as he tries to remember if Gyuri has ever gotten comfortable with someone as quick as she does with you. He doesn’t know what could possibly happen between the two of you in the span of hours, but on top of Gyuri’s initial curiosity towards you, it seems like the girl has happily accepted your company to the point where she’s comfortably resting against your warmth.

“Oh, is the meeting done?” you eventually address him after some time, finally realizing Mingyu is by the door.

“Yeah, all is good. Might need to attend another meeting for another deal though,” he briefly explains as he walks inside. Gyuri immediately holds up her arms to him, and you instantly hold your breath when Mingyu doesn’t waste a second to lean down and take his daughter from your lap into his arms. It is a mere second, yet his smell immediately engulfs all of your senses and you have to calm yourself down before you face him again.

“You’re still warm, aren’t you?” Mingyu frowns as his palm meets her face and then her neck. At least the bloom on her cheeks have calmed down.

“Just a little?” she tries to bargain, as if afraid Mingyu would ask her to sleep again. “Lili already napped.”

“She has just woken up, actually,” you tell him as you stand up from your seat. “I promised to play with her if she napped, that’s why she’s out of bed.”

“It’s okay,” Mingyu turns to you, Gyuri snug in his neck. You have to keep up the calm façade from the sight in front of you, but your heart is beating like crazy that the sound is loud and clear in your ears. “She seems better too, and it’s about time she eats something.”

Gyuri perks up from the word, innocent eyes immediately piercing yours. “Daisy eat?”

You almost gulp at the question, unsure how to answer. Saying no to Gyuri seems a bit too much, but to join Mingyu and his kid for a meal is not a healthy choice for your heart.

“Daisy?” Mingyu raises his eyebrow, and Gyuri beats you to it before you can answer.

“She Daisy, I’m Lili. We are like flowers,” she nods proudly, and you have to bite down your lip when Mingyu bumps his nose into her cheek.

“You are Lili, not Lily, though?”

“Huh?”

Mingyu grins at her confused frown and you can’t help but think this is the most handsome you’ve ever seen of Mingyu; with a happy grin on his face and Gyuri in his arms. Maybe you should be glad your contract only lasts for 6 months, longer than that and you’re sure your feelings would grow like crazy than it already is.

“Daisy eat, Papa?” she asks again, pouting pitifully.

“Only if she wants to,” he decides to say before he sends you a guilty look. He knows it would probably be awkward for you, but he can’t really say no to Gyuri in general—even more when she’s sick—so he guesses giving the choice to you would be the better call.

“Oh? Umm…”

Gyuri seems to catch your hesitance, and she quickly turns to you with the pout never leaving her face. “Daisy, please?”

“Only if you promise you will eat well,” you give in at last, and Gyuri happily nods before she softly coughs from the cold. You smile weakly at Mingyu, but the guy seems to understand the effect his kid has on people. Plus, there’s no loss in treating you to a meal after taking care of his daughter in his stead for a few hours. Even though he’s still not as concentrated as he otherwise would be, it is true that his heart is a little at ease knowing someone is properly looking after Gyuri while he attends the meeting.

Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t know why he called you here in the first place. He must’ve been out of his mind this morning, too worried over Gyuri to realize this is definitely crossing the professional boundary. He tries to justify it in his mind: that at least Gyuri has taken a liking to you since the beginning, and you’ve been kind enough to accompany her when you don’t even know whose kid Gyuri was. Plus, if you’re recommended by Jennie then you must be trustworthy. That must be the reason… right?

Your phone suddenly rings, snapping him out of his thoughts. You excuse yourself to take the call, and he can tell that it’s a video call by the way you’re holding your phone as you walk away out of courtesy.

“Hi Soo,” he can still hear you faintly. “Oh. Hi Jen!”

“Huh? Why are you not in the office?” Jennie immediately intercepts as she scans your background even though she can barely see anything.

“Gyuri’s sick,” Mingyu joins in, saving you the trouble from answering because you have no idea what to say. You even considered lying for no reason at all for a split second there. Your eyes widen a little when you feel him behind you, so you hold the camera further to show him and Gyuri. “So I told her to deliver my documents here.”

Jennie’s silent for a few seconds, as if registering the whole situation while she stares at you from the screen. Meanwhile, it is Jisoo who immediately fills the silence.

“Hi Gyu!! My poor little Gyuri, should auntie send you food?”

Mingyu blinks at the unexpected person, were you referring to Seungcheol’s Kim Jisoo when you greeted her ‘Soo’ earlier? You quickly tell him that she’s a good friend when Gyuri takes over your phone, holding it much too close to her forehead, animatedly babbling to Jisoo who reacts to everything she says.

The call doesn’t last long after that, Jisoo is only calling to show you she meets Jennie by accident outside and decides to have dessert together. After a little more baby talk with Gyuri, Jennie promises to visit and buy her a cake once Gyuri’s all better. The girl holds up her pink in front of the phone, and you share a laugh with Mingyu at how serious Gyuri takes her words.

“Small world, eh?” he says the moment you put your phone back in your pocket. “Seungcheol is a very good friend of mine.”

You bite back the urge to tell him you already know, that Jisoo has shown you a picture of him, Seungcheol, andGyuri. So you settle for a fake ‘oh? really?’ as you proceed to tell him Jisoo’s one of your closest friends.

“I’m pretty close with Seungcheol too, but never really hang out with him if Jisoo’s not around,” you shrug.

Mingyu sets Gyuri down on her baby chair, telling you to sit down wherever you like on the dinner table. He then goes to heat up the soup on the stove; Jooyeon’s prepared everything, he has said, and refuses when you offer to help.

“You’re a guest now, it’s okay. Just sit there and play with Gyuri,” he gives you a small smile that gets your heart fluttering before turning away. So you do exactly what he says and sit down on the seat next to Gyuri’s.

Gyuri’s pretty calm for a child with fever, patiently waiting for her food as she silently plays with your fingers. You wonder if she’s always been this calm, or if the excitement because someone’s over to play with her wins above all. She whines every now and then, but never big enough that it turns into a tantrum.

You look up when Mingyu puts down the big bowl of soup on the table, so you stand up to help him with the side dishes from the fridge despite his refusal. It doesn’t really surprise him that you, much like Jennie, have the same tendency to be hard headed even with small things like this. When you’ve settled back down on the table, rice and everything ready, Gyuri is already whining because she’s hungry.

“Want Daisy feed me,” she closes her lips shut when Mingyu tries to feed her, a determined frown on her face. Mingyu sighs exasperatedly, about to convince her to let him do it when you shake your head and tell him it’s okay and you don’t mind.

Taking the child-sized spoon, Gyuri happily opens her mouth to you. As she takes her time to chew, you take a bite yourself, not noticing the way Mingyu’s been staring at you and Gyuri since earlier.

“A few hours with Daisy and you already prefer her over me, huh?” Mingyu narrows his eyes at her, a smile automatically blooming into your face at the adorable interaction. If anyone asks about your heart skipping a beat over the use of your new nickname, you’re going to lie and say no, your heart definitely didn’t skip a beat and your neck definitely didn’t get warm.

“Daisy very pretty.”

“And I’m not?”

Gyuri shakes her head innocently. “Papa only tall.”

Oh, if only this kid knows how many women are after her dad. Your eyes follow Mingyu as the guy pretends to be heartbroken in front of his three-years-old and your mind wanders to the missing figure of this already perfect family. You know it’s not your place to pry and you have no plan to do so either, but you can’t help but think why would anyone miss this out of choice.

You’re glad they seem very content with each other, though. Even if you’ve practically only seen them like this once, it is clear to you that Mingyu loves Gyuri very much and would probably do everything for her. Not that you blame him, you’ve only been with Gyuri for less than a day and the girl is already out to steal your heart.

“Maybe we should hang out sometimes,” Mingyu’s voice drags you out of your mind, startling you because of the sudden proposal. Mingyu coughs once he realizes he words it weirdly, and then waves his hand before you get the wrong idea. “With Jennie, Jisoo, and Seungcheol, I mean. It’s been a while since Gyuri meets them, too.”

“Have you ever met Jennie’s husband?” you ask out of nowhere and the conversation flows from there. Starting with Jennie, your most obvious common ground, until it somehow ends up with you both being regulars in the same chicken restaurant somewhere in Itaewon.

If you’re being honest, you never thought you'd have a lot to talk about with someone in such a high social standing as Kim Mingyu. This is the son of the owner (and founder, mind you) of SVT Inc., currently the CEO of the very same company, too. And even though you’ve said his house is not as big as you imagine a rich CEO’s house would be, you notice the pricey decorations and ornaments that adorn his house. If you somehow break one of them, you'd probably have to work for months and months to be able to pay him back.

Also, you’ve noticed just now that his backyard actually has a big-enough-but-not-over-the-top swimming pool.

Still, Mingyu is nothing but cocky. Playful, maybe, but never arrogant even though it’s clear to anyone that he has excellent posture and perfect manners that screams he’s not from an ordinary family.

“I usually just order them for takeout, though,” Mingyu says as he takes another spoonful. "I don't really like bringing Gyuri to crowded place."

You take the information in, wondering if there were ever a time where you two crossed each other without realizing. You feel like you’d recognize him nevertheless, as his presence is a force itself; you’re pretty sure Mingyu can simply be standing around and people would willingly watch him.

“Lili likes chicken too,” she chirps in, bored that the two adults have been talking to themselves.

“Should we order chicken once you’re all better?” he offers, his palm reaching out to ruffle her hair.

“With Daisy?” she asks hopefully.

Mingyu glances at you, and you answer before you melt into a puddle by the way he’s looking at you expectantly. What was he expecting, anyway? “With Auntie Soo and Auntie Nini?”

“Uncle Cherry?” she turns to her dad, recognizing the names.

“Sure, we’ll invite him too.”

"Promise?"

"You don't believe me?"

Gyuri shakes her head after taking a sip from her little mug. "Papa busy."

Mingyu's smile along with his shoulders visibly fall at the words, and for the first time since you've arrived here, you can't help but feel terribly out of place. Even your heart drops at it. Your eyes meet Mingyu, and you give him a small smile that would hopefully come off as encouraging.

"I'll do the promise then," you say before the silence gets heavier. Gyuri doesn't really understand what she's saying, you want to tell Mingyu; that she probably doesn't mean the way Mingyu thinks she does. It is a fact that Mingyu is busy and, even if you haven’t known him for long, you can tell that Mingyu tries his best to still be there in Gyuri's life nevertheless. "I am your dad's assistant, you know? I'll make sure he'll still play with Lili even though he's busy, okay?"

"It's okay," Gyuri happily swings her legs from her tall seat, a genuine grin gracing her face. "Papa still play with Lili. Lili just bored a lot."

Mingyu relaxes a little at that, and he leans forward to plant a soft kiss on top of her head before he stands up to put his empty dish in the sink. You smile at Lili as she takes her last bite, telling her she’s done a great job then quickly take yours so you can have an excuse to follow Mingyu after you pat Gyuri on the head.

“You know she doesn’t mean it that way, right?” you whisper, wishing you’re not overstepping any boundaries by trying to comfort him. But Mingyu just shrugs with a bitter smile, muttering something about Gyuri being right; he is busy.

You bite your lip as your mind goes through Mingyu’s schedule. Maybe you should free a little of his time on Friday so he can take a break during the weekend with Gyuri, he deserves it after all those meetings and proposals.

“Daisy, Lili wanna play,” Gyuri calls for you again, her shorts arms reaching out to you. You share a look with Mingyu, as if asking for permission to play with his daughter. But he misunderstands your silence as reluctance and instead takes her in his arms.

“Daisy has to go home,” he pokes her cheek softly. Her fever has died down a little, but her cheek still feels a bit warm and she seems a little sluggish despite her will to play with you. “Her work is done, flower.”

Gyuri blinks innocently, her head tilting to the side in question. “If work done, she can play with Lili?”

“No, baby. Daisy is busy and you need to rest,” he says gently, feeling a little guilty for putting you in an awkward situation. While you don’t seem to mind playing with the girl, Mingyu isn’t sure if it’s appropriate to ask you to spend more time with his child further when he’s promised you can go home after the meeting.

Gyuri pouts at this, though she leans further into her father’s touch and yawns, already sleepy again even though it’s only been about two hours since she woke up from her nap. You want to say you don’t mind, but there’s a chance that Mingyu is just too polite to say he can take care of things by himself and you’re free to go.

It’s a hard situation to be in when you’re not close enough with Mingyu to ask where his stand in this case is.

“We can play again some other day, okay?” you decide to say, not wanting to impose this family time longer. Perhaps Mingyu also wants to have Gyuri all to himself now that he has the day off. “But I have other works to do, and Lili needs to get better first before we meet again.”

Gyuri pouts as an answer, but she nods understandingly after she makes you pinky promise that you’ll see each other again. After making sure you have all the signed documents with you, you tell Mingyu you’re going back to the office and you’ve cleared all of his schedules for the day. He smiles gratefully, thanking you for the arrangement and for taking care of Gyuri when you really don’t have to.

“I’ve asked Mr. Lee to drive you to the office,” Mingyu says, and his pointed stare tells you that you don’t have any other choice but to comply. So you nod your head and thank him once again before getting into the vehicle, bidding goodbye to Gyuri who’s still perched in his arms.

As the car starts and the sight of Gyuri and Mingyu disappears, you can’t help but inwardly groan.

You’re so screwed.

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A/N: am sorry but some accs can't be mentioned for some reason D:

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cinnamonest · 3 years

Note

Under the Lanterns

Notes:Ahahaha excuse me for spamming in your inbox again, but Genshin lantern rite had made me a bit nostalgic, so my brain just went straight to creepy hours to cope. Too lazy to write fics and just want to spam Lena’s inbox with creep ideas? More than likely!

Tw Childe being a jerk, implied minor character death i guess?? Just to be on the safe side.

You are a clerk at the Liyue branch of the Northland bank. Secretly you even hate the fact that you are working for their cause since you are not from Snezhnaya, but this job pays well and you need the mora. You did swear an oath to the Tsarista, but that is about it, you are not some loyal follower of the archon who would go out of your way just to please her. Therefore you do not regard the harbingers as national heroes like most of your colleagues.

Then there’s Master Tartaglia, whenever he comes by the northland bank he would always have the ladie’s attention. As someone so handsome and powerful that is to be expected, what can Childe say he is just too good. And then there’s you, a Liyue girl who treats him like any other. Sure he is your supervisor you would fetch him files per request, but never fangirling over him like the others.

How you kept a monotone voice and took his flirtatious words in stride makes him...baffled, and interested, to say the least. Your colleges are somewhat jealous that master Tartaglia seems to always make sure to give you some extra attention every visit, but you couldn’t care less and just identified that as a flirt being a flirt.

He thought it was just a harmless little fling too. How does one get you to open up?

Then, one day he got curious about the lantern festival. How you seem to be looking forward to it, judging by how you would take a different route on your way home to look at the lanterns.

“Master Childe. How can I help you today?” You smiled at him, a professional one though, that would need to be changed.

“Since you are local here, how about you enlighten me on this lantern festival?”

Speaking of something you have been anticipating is definitely a way to get you to drop that cold act. Your eyes lit up, just like the lanterns in recent evenings when you start to explain how you would eat special dishes, make lanterns, and guess the riddles in the lanterns. Childe might have just asked just to loosen you up, but when he learns how it used to be considered as one of the two days Liyue maidens is free to roam the streets and would usually confess their love. (considering Liyue is a lot less restrictive to Women compared to real medieval China, I’ll say it was more of a tradition)

Well, that sounds sparked Childe’s interest. You seem to be looking forward to it, do you have someone in mind already?

“You want me to accompany you to the rite Sir? I must apologize, but I have plans for that night already. One of my coworkers would love to be of service, I’m sure.”

After bidding him good day, you just went back to your duties thinking nothing of that exchange. Everything seems to be normal, you got dressed up and went on a search for the one you love. You know what they like, and you want to run into them without prior arrangement.

“Master Childe! Enjoying yourself?”

“The warm lights remind me of a festival in my country. Maybe you’ll like to see it sometimes?”

Gosh, does he ever stop with the suggestive words? You laughed it off, not wanting to think deeply into those things.

You continue to search for your love, but you cannot even catch a glimpse of them beside their favorite food stall. And with Childe trailing behind you like a lost puppy, insisting that you be his guide, you are growing more and more frustrated every minute.

“You got anything to say to me tonight, (y/n)? You said you have plans, but I see no date.”

“The one I’m looking for seems to have gone MIA.” Could it be possible that they had noticed your intentions and decided to stay in?

Oh, of course they have. Or he’ll have to punish his subordinates for being inefficient, right?

It was when he pushed you against a pillar against a pillar,just when you wanted to slip into the crowd to get away, Childe whisper to you how he got a confession for you tonight. He knows you are just working for the Fatui for the mora, and he can offer you so much more than that clerk salary.

“How about you come and work for me? Not as one of my soldiers of course, you won’t have to fight.” Of course, that tough attitude has to be replaced by a softer, more submissive one. But the two of you can work on that later.

You look so cute in this dress, how it puts your jewels on display. It’s a shame the one you like cannot bask in your beauty. But hey, that’s not his problem.

“Or you would like to be discharged from the Fatui?”

(Hhhh this is such a mess I’m trying destroy writer’s block with a claymore😅😅😅)

NEVER APOLOGIZE BB I love dis

!!!!!!

He's such a manipulative egotistical bastard and how dare he use that to make me attracted to him

#q #lena's asks #childe thirst #mutuals love <3

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zelenacat · 3 years

Text

Chapter 3- When We Were Young- An Obitine Story

“We weren’t expecting two.” Satine stated plainly.

They had made it up to the Duchess’ quarters, Khaami had held the babies while Fesma supported Satine up the stairs, it had been grueling, but necessary.

Tyra wailed.

“At this hour,” Khaami observed, “only the guards are awake.”

“Still,” Fesma countered, “what if they heard?”

“What are we going to do?” Satine corrected.

“We could,” Khaami paused, “claim your bastard brother had twins.”

“We could-”

“Satine?”

The Duchess looked up from where she was seated on her bed. Fesma, who was holding Tyra, had her eyes on the girls’ outstretched hand. She was flexing it, and the bed curtains were moving with her motions.

“Could,” Khaami gasped, “could she have inherited-”

“No.” the Duchess said sternly.

“Satine-”

Her chest rose with emotion, “She will remind me of him everyday.”

“Satine,” Fesma began firmly, “perhaps it’s best if Tyra is given to the Jedi Temple.”

Maybe it was the hormones, but the Duchess began to sob uncontrollably, the twins shifted, uncomfortable with their mothers’ tears.

“Satine,” Khaami sat next to her lady, holding Korkie in her arms, “your children will always be a part of you, but they are their own people.”

The Duchess sniffled, “It’s too early to let her go.”

“There’s no way we can keep her,” Fesma sighed, “a Mandalorian Jedi, she’s a juxtaposition, an enigma.”

Satine wiped her eyes.

“It makes sense,” she agreed, “but this is my daughter we’re talking about, my child.”

“She will be well cared for at the temple,” Khaami reasoned, “I’ve never heard tales of the Jedi being unkind.”

“That is true,” agreed Fesma, “and she will never have to hide who she is.”

Satine steeled herself, she was the Duchess of Mandalore, and despite all the odds she had decided to bear her children, Obi-Wan’s children, and she was going to make sure they lived good lives.

“Whatever is best for her.” the Duchess decided.

Fesma handed Satine baby Tyra, “I’m going to contact our less than savory friends about fake birth certificates and DNA tests.”

“Thank you,” Satine nodded before turning to Khaami, “and I suggest you go get some rest, I can watch the twins.”

Korkie gurgled.

“Are you sure, Satine?” Khaami asked.

“Yes,” the Duchess answered, “and once you’re done, Fesma, I suggest you rest as well.”

Fesma cracked a smile, “It has been a long night.”

After her ladies left, Satine draped a sheet in front of the balcony exit and over the entrance to her parlor room. Then climbed into the bed and held the babies to her chest.

“You’re both so special to me,” she whispered, “do you know that.”

The twins breathed in response, Satine was in awe of how the simple action fascinated her.

“I love you, Korkyrach, and you, Tyra Satine,” the Duchess smiled, “you are both so dear to me.”

Satine didn’t get much sleep that night, as the twins woke up every few hours, but in the morning, when Khaami and Fesma returned to her bedroom, the Duchess had a plan.

“I think we should pay someone to sneak her into the Jedi Temple.”

Khaami blinked.

“That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” Fesma stated.

“I agree.”

“But-”

“Satine,” Fesma frowned, “do you know how heavily guarded the Jedi temple is?”

“Yes, but-”

“Satine,” Khaami’s eyes widened, “whoever sneaked in the temple would likely be killed.”

“Maybe,” Fesma began after a short silence, “you could talk to Tyra’s father-”

“Out of the question,” Satine snapped, “I love him for who he is, not what he was, if I told him about the twins he would become someone new and hate himself!”

Khaami jumped backward.

Satine lowered her eyes, “I can’t have that.”

“Perhaps, then,” Fesma shifted, “Master, what was his name, Qui-”

“Qui-Gon,” Satine tried to clap, but then she remembered the twins, “he will most definitely help me!”

“Are you sure?” Khaami asked, taking Tyra in her arms.

“It is risky.” Fesma added, taking Korkie.

“I know we can trust him,” the Duchess said firmly, “he was like a second father to me.”

Khaami nodded.

“In other news,” Fesma jumped in, “I contacted the forgers last night, but they’re asking a high price, especially for the DNA test.”

“It’s no wonder,” Satine sighed, “we need it to fool everyone.”

“How will we pay them?” Khaami worried aloud.

“Did they specify what they wanted?” the Duchess questioned.

Fesma shook her head, “Unfortunately, no, although I don’t think we have enough jewels to pay them this time.”

“Is there anything in the palace we can use without drawing attention?” Khaami asked.

“Maybe old relics,” Satine suggested, “candelabras and curtains that historians would die for.”

“That's a start,” Fesma stated, “perhaps some straight cash might help ease the bargain.”

“I’ll take it out of my salary.” the Duchess decided.

Korkie began to cry, then, so did Tyra.

“They must be hungry.” Fesma observed.

Satine held out her arms, “I’ll try feeding them.”

Khaami and Fesma shared a look.

“Are you sure, Satine?”

“I’ll start,” the Duchess assured, “and Fesma can bring up extra milk for my tea.”

Wordlessly, Fesma handed Satine her son and left. It was a struggle, Satine had no idea how to feed a baby. Khaami was trying to be helpful, but really, Satine was losing her patience.

“We have a problem.” Fesma announced, setting down a tray of milk and tea bags, “many guards heard a baby crying last night.”

Satine took a spoon and quietly began feeding Korkie, her mind whirling.

“We’ll have to speed things up, then.” she said finally.

“I agree.”

“Fesma, look for nice vases, candelabras, and maybe even old Mandalorian stays,” Satine instructed, “take notes of where and how prominently featured they are.”

“Of course.”

While Khaami burped Korkie and began laying out clothes for her lady, Satine picked up an old comm device and called Master Qui-Gon Jinn, while caring for Tyra.

“Satine?”

“I’m sorry to disturb your meditation, Qui-Gon-”

Over the comm Satine heard the Jedi Master stand, “Is there an emergency?”

“Not an imminent one.”

“Do explain.” Qui-Gon goaded.

“I’ve given birth to twins.”

Besides a sharp intake of breath, there was nothing but silence.

“Tyra Satine, my second born, is force sensitive.”

Master Qui-Gon sighed.

“Can you bring her to the temple?”

“Satine,” the Jedi Master began, “why not just-”

“My consort can’t have anything to do with the Jedi,” Satine interrupted, “and I can’t raise them as my own, Mandalore is too unstable.”

“Your political enemies would also be overjoyed.” Qui-Gon stated.

“Yes,” Satinie’s voice quivered as Tyra burped, “and I need my children to be safe.”

“I ask the council for a few hours of quiet retreat,” the Jedi Master told her, “I’ll be there at two o’clock today.”

Satine sighed, “Thank you, Master Qui-Gon.”

“Should I tell Obi-Wan?”

The Duchess’ breath caught, on her shoulder, Tyra sighed.

“No,” Satine said cooly, “I fell in love with Obi-Wan for what he is, a Jedi, telling him would cause a recalculation of his morals and values.”

Qui-Gon was silent for some time before speaking, “Alright, Satine.”

Satine dressed herself that morning while Khaami watched the babies. Fesma returned soon after Satine had finished brushing her hair.

“The council is expecting you,” she announced, lowering her voice, “and I have the list.”

“Thank you,” Satine smiled, “at Master Qui-Gon is coming today at two.”

Fesma nodded, “Good, I’ll start preparing our bounty.”

The Duchess turned to Khaami, “Watch the twins, will you?”

The lady lit up, “Of course, Satine.”

In the council chamber, the meeting went on as scheduled. The Duchess did her best to pay attention, but at the end of two hours, she was done.

“That will be all, Your Grace.”

Satine straightened, “Thank you, Prime Minister.”

Pushing her chair back, Satine wandered down to the kitchens remembering she hadn’t eaten breakfast yet today. Unfortunately, the Duchess rounded a corner and walked straight into a gaggle of maids.

“Oh,” one gasped, “forgive us, Your Grace.”

“It’s no worries,” Satine said, rubbing her head, “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Oh no, Your Grace,” a second maid assured, “it was us who wasn’t paying attention.”

The third maid frowned, “Are you well, Your Grace?”

“Why, yes,” Satine nodded, “though a little tired I suppose.”

The first maid gave the third one a harsh look.

“Please excuse us, Your Grace.” the second maid curtsied.

That first encounter didn’t leave her suspicious, but after Satine caught two waiters gossiping about what the guards had heard, and the cooks discussing the Duchess’ eating habits and weight, Satine realized she was the victim of rumors.

Upstairs in her bedroom, the Duchess was shocked to find Fesma and Khaami pulling down her curtains.

“Where-”

“They’re on the bed.” Fesma answered.

Satine ran to the twins, they were wearing cloth diapers and rolling around on the mattress. She could tell which one was which because Tyra, who had been born with some hair, had a blonde cowlick sticking up towards the ceiling.

“Hello, darlings,” Satine kissed her children’s heads, “now, will you tell me what mother’s ladies are doing?”

“These curtains are made from horse hair.” Fesma replied.

The Duchess gaped.

“I know,” Khaami agreed, seeing Satine’s look, “the species that went extinct three hundred years ago.”

Peaking through the side door, Satine noticed that on her parlor floor sat a whole pile of treasures. Marbled silk scarves, gold-plated vases, candelabras from the dark era, and soon, curtains made from horse hair.

“Yes!” Khaami cried.

Returning her attention to the maids, Satine grinned as the curtains fell on top of her ladies.

“Khaami, I told you to catch it.”

“Well how can I catch it if I can’t see anything!”

The babies giggled. Satine helped Fesma out of the wreckage.

“How are we going to get all this stuff to the forgers?” Khaami asked, throwing the curtains to the side.

“I’ve contacted them about that,” Fesma answered, “they will send agents in as maids to help collect the stuff.”

“Even the vases?” questioned Satine.

“Even those.”

Khaami crossed her arms, “When are they coming?”

“They will all be here by breakfast tomorrow morning,” Fesma sighed, “they gave us a code phrase and everything.”

“Staggered entry,” the Duchess mused, “these forgers are quite clever.”

Khaami frowned, “They’re criminals, Satine.”

“Still, they’re helping me save my children.” the Duchess countered.

There came a knock on the door, and everyone froze.

“The crow flies at midnight.”

Satine raised her eyebrows at Fesma.

“Come in.”

The little “maid” who came in was short with raven hair, her eyes lingered on the Duchess, then fell to the twins on the bed.

“Through here,” Satine motioned, “please follow me.”

The imposter maid’s eyes widened at the loot. Then she took out two pieces of paper.

“The DNA tests you requested, Your Grace.”

Satine looked at the tests, then smiled, “Thank you.”

“I’ll start with the scarves,” the imposter maid smiled, showing teeth, “they have to be cleaned after all.”

An hour later, while Satine was preparing Tyra for her journey, another knock pounded on the door.

“The crow flies at midnight.” two male voices harmonized.

“Come in.”

The men who came in were dressed as painters.

“You asked us to restore your vases, Your Grace.” one of them bowed.

“Yes,” Satine pointed, “through there.”

While the criminal painter who spoke to her went to the other room, his accomplice pulled out two pieces of paper.

“The birth certificates you requested, Your Grace.”

Looking at the certificates, Satine tried not to marvel at their authenticity, “Thank you.”

Once the men left, carrying two heavy vases, Khaami returned from changing the twins’ diapers.

“They're gone?” she asked.

“Yes,” Fesma smiled, arranging the papers, “and now I suggest you bring us some lunch.”

Khaami smiled at the babies, “I’ll be back.”

Satine took the twins from her and climbed onto the bed.

“My beautiful little prince and princess.” she cooed.

Tyra, as if knowing her fate, began to sniffle.

“Oh,” Satine frowned, “it’s alright my love, you’re going to be safe with your Uncle Qui-Gon.”

Tyra moaned.

“I would like to give her something,” the Duchess said, looking up, “do you think it would be too dangerous?”

“It might be,” Fesma frowned, “but maybe a necklace, though it can’t be too obviously from the Kryze Clan.”

Satine ran through a mental list of the family jewelry.

“My mother was fond of a warrior’s eye pendant,” the Duchess smiled at the memory, “perhaps I’ll give my daughter that.”

“It would be poetic.” agreed Fesma.

When Khaami returned, Satine sent Fesma to go get her mother’s necklace. She could’ve easily done it herself, but the Duchess wanted to spend as much time with her daughter as she could.

“The crow flies at midnight.”

Satine stood, handing Tyra to Khaami.

“Come in.”

Two older women dressed as seamstresses entered the room. Satine handed them each a curtain.

“Here are the hospital records, Your Grace.” said the first one.

“Thank you.”

The second maid held out her hand, “These are the connected bills, they’re completed.”

“Thank you.” Satine repeated.

The imposter seamstresses left.

“You’re amazing.” Khaami whispered.

“Really?”

“Giving birth to twins in secret,” Khaami stated, “giving them good lives, making sure they’re safe.”

Satine smiled sadly, “It’s what any good mother would do.”

“And you’re a great one.” Khaami agreed.

The Duchess felt unsure at that remark and took Tyra in her arms, preparing to burp her.

“We’ll have to get a nursery set up for Korkie.” observed Khaami.

“True,” Satine smiled wearily, “at least he gets to be near me, even if I can’t acknowledge him as my son.”

“But,” Fesma interjected, closing the door behind her, “when Queen Mara only had an illegitimate son, the court named him her heir.”

“That was a different time,” Satine frowned, “everyone was desperate for a male heir, and Mara refused to marry.”

“But that’s good,” Khaami smiled, “it could mean that your children could be considered legitimate.”

“It is a precedent.” Fesma agreed.

Satine sighed, staring at Tyra in her arms, “Unfortunately Mandalore is still too unstable.”

Once the babies were burped, Satine and her ladies ate lunch. Finally, a fourth imposter, a server, holding brass polish, came and took the candelabras.

He handed Satine a credit receipt, “The transaction is complete.”

“Thank you.”

When he left, Satine realized she had to hide this somewhere secret. Her ladies seemed to reach the same conclusion, as they both averted their eyes. For now, Satine left it in her sock drawer.

“Let’s get the papers ready,” Satine turned to Fesma, who was holding Tyra, “and make sure she’s warm, Master Qui-Gon will be here soon.”

On the night the twins were born, Fesma went out and bought a bag of diapers and two onesies, one purple and one blue. Tyra was dressed in the purple one with her grandmother’s necklace around her throat. Korkie was put in blue.

“Here are the papers,” Fesma said, holding out a paper clipped pile, “the Jedi will need these.”

Satine nodded, Khaami’s comm beeped.

“My lady, a Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn claimed the Duchess is expecting him, is that true?”

“Yes,” Khaami answered, “Her Grace is most looking forward to his arrival.”

For the last time, Satine held both her daughter and son in her arms, kissing both of them sweetly.

“Say goodbye to your sister, Korkie.”

Korkie cooed.

“Tell your brother you love him, Tyra.”

Tyra giggled.

Satine handed Korkie to Fesma, “Stay here with my son, Khaami will accompany me to the landing pad.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” the lady responded, sensing the solemnity of the moment.

Walking down to the landing pad was the hardest thing Satine ever had to do. She clutched Tyra’s forged papers to her chest and made sure Khaami’s cloak covered the baby, then, she stepped out the door.

Master Qui-Gon disembarked just as Satine stepped out onto the landing pad, and in a burst of emotion, she ran to him in tears.

“Hush now, Satine,” the Jedi Master stroked the Duchess’ head, “it’s all going to be okay.”

“My son, Korkie, is upstairs,” Satine pulled away, wiping her eyes, “but Tyra is here for you.”

Khaami walked forward.

Qui-Gon cleared his throat, speaking loudly, “I’m afraid I only have a short while, Duchess, perhaps a walk around the gardens?”

“Of course,” Satine gestured for Khaami to follow, “let us go.”

It took a few sharp turns to lose the guards, but when they did, Satine handed her friend the forged papers.

“Everything you should need is here,” she whispered, “I’ve given Tyra a necklace, make sure she keeps it.”

“Of course.” the Jedi Master said earnestly.

Khaami came forward and held out her arms.

“This is the Princess Tyra Satine.” she stated.

Qui-Gon smiled warmly and with a gentle touch, took the baby in his arms.

“Hello, Tyra Satine.”

The Duchess steeled herself not to cry as Master Qui-Gon’s ship took off, but when she made it back to her room, Satine burst into tears.

“Oh, Fesma, Khaami, what have I done!”

“What is right,” Fesma said, leaning in front of her with Korkie in her arms, “this is what is best for your daughter.”

“She knows you love her,” Khaami assured, “she will always know.”

Satine swallowed, she would get through this.

“What are we going to do about Korkie? Fesma asked.

The baby gurgled.

Satine straightened, “Try to act surprised when I announce my nephew this evening.”

Clinking her glass, Satine stood, foreboding herself from shaking.

“There is an important family matter that must be shared with this court.”

The room went silent.

Satine tried to act emotional, which wasn’t hard, “I had a brother, he died in the war.”

Whispers sprung up around the table, spreading like wildfire on dry grass.

“My brother had a son, his name is Korkyrach,” Satine tightened her fingers around her glass, “and I have decided to raise him.”

More whispers.

“Your Grace-”

“Thank you for your input, Prime Minister,” Satine sat down, “but I have made up my mind.”

Within the week, the entire Mandalore system knew about Korkie, and Satine was free to love her son in peace. A nursery was set up across the hall from her room and a nanny was hired. What Satine wasn’t expecting, however, was the return of her sister Bo-Katan.

Naturally, her sister had to be dramatic, and had the announcer shout her arrival from the steps before the door opened. Her council gasped, but Satine wasn't surprised to see her sister in Mandalorian armor, it was practically all she wore.

“Bo-”

“I have come to meet my nephew.” Bo-Katan said grandly.

Satine looked to her council, “We will resume in an hour, dismissed.”

Bo-Katan was silent on the way up to the nursery, but Satine couldn’t stop talking. She hadn’t seen her sister since the day their parents were killed and she was whisked away by the former prime minister into Jedi care.

“I’m good, Satine.” Bo-Katan said finally.

The Duchess nodded and led her sister into the nursery.

Bo-Katan smiled when she saw him, “Korkyrach, huh?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know Dad, I mean-”

“Yeah.”

Her father had been an honorable man, and she hated disgracing his legacy this way. Despite their disagreements on the future of Mandalore, she had loved him, and she’d wept when he died.

“He’s got red hair,” Bo-Katan observed, “like me.”

“Mm hm.”

“Satine,” Bo-Katan turned to her sister suddenly, “where did he really come from?”

The Duchess gaped and looked around the room, the nanny was politely waiting outside.

“Bo,” Satine managed to get out, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Her sister’s eyes narrowed and her voice lowered.

“Satine, I know you published the hospital records-”

“And his birth certificate and DNA test.” interjected the Duchess.

Bo-Katan leveled Satine a glare, “But the hospital staff has no recollection or record of the woman who was Korkie’s mother.”

“That's strange,” Satine agreed, “although many records were burned during the war.”

“God fucking dammit, Satine,” Bo-Katan blurted, “our father would never do that!”

“Bo-”

“Is he yours?” Bo-Katan asked pointedly.

“What-”

“Is he yours?”

Satine blinked, she steeled her nerves.

“Bo, I’m not married.”

Bo-Katan crossed her arms, “That didn’t answer my question.”

“Look, who I get with is my own business,” Satine swallowed, thinking of Obi-Wan, “but I could never be so careless to, to-”

“Alright,” Bo-Katan held up her hands, “I guess I just don’t want to believe it.”

#duchess satine #satine kryze #satine x obiwan #fanfic #korkie kryze #korkie kenobi #obi wan kenobi #obitine #obiwan

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greenygreenland · 4 years

Text

Liar: Lloyd Garmadon & Sister! Reader

-you're the elder sister of the one and only Lloyd Garmadon

-tell me if you want a pt 2

Summary:

You're Lloyd's sister and would do anything to keep an eye on him, even if it's sneaking into the darkest, most evilest school for boys.

(Y/n) heard terrible stories of the school down the lane. From teachers murdering their students if they weren't up to their expectations to students locking their teachers in their own classrooms and torturing them until they begged for mercy.

Kids were said to grow up to be the worst of the worst, but never would (Y/n) have guessed the people there to look so...normal. Some students dressed incredibly well with uniforms complete with suits and ties while others slipped on sweatshirts and sweatpants instead.

The school had the classic tiled roof of any old building in Ninjago complete with various sparkling windows, stories, and creaky doors. From the outside, the school actually looked peaceful.

The garden out front gave off a feeling of freshness as she passed by with the vibrantly coloured petals swaying in the gentle breeze. The grass tickled (Y/n)'s ankles as she heaved out a deep breath she didn't know she held.

It's not too late to turn back, she told herself.

"No." she interjected. "I have to take care of Lloyd." At the mere mention of taking care of her brother, memories bombarded her like an air strike from above.

The soft, caring smile of her mother. Her warm hands holding her tight. Her words of comfort in her ear.

"I'm so sorry my daughter."

(Y/n) imagined her mother's arms wrapped tightly around her.

"Lloyd has a destiny laid out before him I can't allow."

"What kind of destiny?"

All those years ago, her mother had smiled again with those sad eyes of hers.

"He is destined to be the Green Ninja. He will bring balance, peace. But in order to do so, he must fight and defeat your father."

(Y/n) recalled the feeling of helplessness settling in her gut that day. Her father may have been evil, but he loved (Y/n) and Lloyd more than anything in the world. They could have been a happy family, but he was banished to the Underworld.

"No. He--he can't. Not father, not Lloyd. They can't fight!"

Her mother had frowned with tears in her eyes.

"That is why I must leave."

"Why can't I come with you?"

"Because it's too dangerous. While I'm gone, all I ask of you is to take care of each other. Can you promise me that?"

"Yes, mum. I promise."

(Y/n) shook away the memories with a frown. She was only about eight at the time. Now, she was in her teens. She couldn't back down, not after she dyed her blonde hair black and cut it short like a boy's. Not after she promised her mother to take care of Lloyd, and not after she had done all the paperwork herself.

(Y/n) stared at the documents in her hand with a shake of her head. They were forged at the local library and looked rather professional, but how far would looks go? "This is never going to work." she grumbled to herself.

---

"I can't believe that worked." (Y/n) whispered as she closed the principal's office door. She stuffed her school schedule into her green hoodie and made her way into the first class. She paused when her fingers latched onto the doorknob.

If this were a school for bad boys, then wouldn't that mean she could do whatever the heck she wanted? She could skip class! She wouldn't have to do her homework! She could actually talk back to people!

No.

(Y/n) couldn't do that. She'd willingly brainwash herself into being the villain the staff wanted her and so many others to be. She'd be just as much of a sheep as the children around her.

Like Lloyd.

Her mother said keeping him here would protect him and help avert the prophecy, but (Y/n) didn't understand that. Darkley's was a terrible place to grow up in because of the competitive and dark environment. People weren't nice here (she could tell that much), and it effected even the nicest kids.

(Y/n) released the doorknob and made her way down the hall. When lunch came, he decided to skip and hang out in one of the quieter halls. She didn't have much of an appetite after seeing a group of kids throw bags of fire ants down each other's shirts.

"First Spinjitzu Master is this place insane." she grumbled. A familiar chuckle caught her ears and she jumped to her feet so fast that a book almost fell out of her open bag. A cloaked boy smirked at her as if he told the world's best joke. "Tell me about it." he admitted. "Say, you're the new kid right?"

(Y/n) inwardly smiled. What a wonderful coincidence. "What about it, kid?"

"You may be older, but you're new. You need someone to show you the ropes. What do you say we team up together?" (Y/n) crossed her arms and stared her baby brother down with a firm look. "What's the catch?"

"'Catch'? Uh..."

(Y/n) almost smiled. If Lloyd were one of the other kids, then he would have thought up something to benefit himself on the other end. But he wasn't. He was Lloyd Garmadon, the destined Green Ninja, so of course he wasn't as evil as the other kids. He was an angel in disguise.

"You don't sound so evil, kid." she suddenly said. The confidence on Lloyd's face simmered into a deep frown. "That's what everyone says. The teachers told me they're thinking of kicking me out soon...but I'll show them! I'm Lloyd Garmadon, bringer of evil and son of Lord Garmadon!" As if to prove his point, he let out an 'evil' laugh.

(Y/n) cringed a little. "Great," she said through her teeth, "that's wonderful Lloyd. Now, why don't you show me the 'ropes' of this place?"

"Sure, uh..."

"Jason." she replied. "Jason Le."

True to his word, he showed (Y/n) all the ins and outs of Darkley's, as well as the basics of being 'bad'. She skipped classes with him, ran through the halls, and pickpocketed coins out of her peers' pockets. But along the way, (Y/n)'s morals kicked in and she felt bad about all the stuff she did.

ONE MONTH LATER

The sun slowly sunk over the horizon, casting the empty classroom in a hue of oranges and reds. Lloyd laid flat on a set of desks, arms behind his head with a satisfied smirk. "You're not so bad at this Jason. Maybe one day, you'll be as good as me."

(Y/n) rolled her eyes. "I'm sure I will be, Lloyd." There was a moment of silence before he sat up on the desks. "You know, you remind me of someone." (Y/n) shifted in her chair with a nervous chuckle. "Is that so...?"

"Yeah. My sister. But she'd never do anything as evil as us. She couldn't pick up twenty dollars off the street even if it stared her in the face!" He sighed to himself. "Goody two shoes."

(Y/n) snorted. "What's your sister like?"

He shrugged. "She's a liar who pretends to be nice. We were supposed to meet at Buddy's Pizza, but I haven't heard a word from her in four weeks! What a snake." (Y/n) winced, but Lloyd didn't seem to notice.

"Not only that, but she's a total two-face!"

(Y/n) winced again.

"One second she's nice and the next she's gone like my parents! I thought she cared about me, but apparantly not."

Lloyd's words piecered (Y/n)'s heart like a knife.

Two-faced.

Liar.

Snake.

Was that really what her baby brother thought of her? After all she sacrificed for him? All the times she showed up to hang out with Lloyd, the day before she'd scrap by to earn enough money to buy him lunch. All the times she brought him to the arcade? She used all the allowance in her pockets.

There was a weird burning sensation in her chest. "What if," she quickly said, "your sister was just busy? What if your sister was going through something she didn't tell you?" Lloyd placed a hand on his chin. "I didn't really think about that."

"Maybe you should, because no family should leave each other behind." (Y/n) abruptly stood. "It's getting late, we should head to the dorms."

The walk to the dormitories was silent. Lloyd could tell just by the crinkle in (Y/n)'s brow that she was angry, or at least annoyed with him. He wasn't sure how he knew just by a single glance, but the tension was beginning to freak him out a little. "Did I...say something?" he muttered. (Y/n) frowned a little. "No."

"Then why do you look so..."

"So what?"

Lloyd shrugged. "I don't know...annoyed?"

(Y/n) froze in her steps, and it was so quiet that Lloyd heard every squeak her shoes made. The rays of sun shone on her pale face, illuminating her bright eyes and silky hair. From her hair part, Lloyd noticed a few golden strands peeking out.

Wait a minute.

Gold? Since when did Jason have golden hair?

Lloyd could have sworn this guy looked familiar. The almond-y round eyes, the sparkle that never seemed to dim, the hair like liquid gold that could only be possible if he were related to his grandfather. This wasn't a boy standing before him. No, no, it was....

"(Y/n)?"

The name slid off his tongue before he could stop himself. (Y/n) tiredly sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She knew he would have figured it out eventually, he was smart like that. "The dye must have been cheaper than I thought," she quietly mumbled.

"Dye?"

"I spent the last of my monthly salary on the cheapest hair dye I could find."

"You've been here the entire time and I didn't even notice?!" exclaimed Lloyd. (Y/n) nodded. "Yes, I have." Lloyd squinted at her tired eyes with an angry frown. "But--but why?"

(Y/n) laughed so coldly that Lloyd shivered. "Why else? You're my baby brother. You've been stuck at Darkley's, and I haven't been able to keep an eye on you. When I heard you might be kicked out, I wanted to make sure I wouldn't lose you for good."

Lloyd was speechless.

I spent the last of my monthly salary on the cheapest hair dye I could find.

He had just bad-mouthed his elder sister.

You're my baby brother.

How dishonourable of him.

I wanted to make sure I wouldn't lose you for good.

A wave of guilt hit Lloyd like a tsunami. He ran at (Y/n) like a bolt of lightning and jumped straight into her arms. How could he have thought such terrible things about her? She would never abandon him because she was the best person he had ever met in all of Ninjago even if he were too blind to see it.

She cared about him more than she cared for herself, and now Lloyd understood. All those times she showed up late to pick him up on the front lawn of Darkley's. All those times she let Lloyd eat whatever he wanted while she sat at the table with only a glass of water. All those times she snuck in to hide handmade cards or gifts under his pillows. That wasn't her pretending to act nice or being two-faced, that was her sacrificing all she could to be the best sister in all of Ninjago.

Lloyd almost cried then and there out of guilt. "I'm sorry I called you two-faced." he croaked out. "And I'm sorry for calling you a snake and saying you were fake to me. I didn't mean that, I promise. I just--I didn't know." (Y/n) wrapped her arms around Lloyd's tiny body with a sigh far beyond her years. "I know you're sorry, I forgive you." Lloyd let go of (Y/n) with a sad frown. "I really don't deserve you."

(Y/n) mimicked his sad frown. "Maybe...maybe it was destiny that knew you needed someone like me in your life. You need a guide to keep you on the right track, and that's what I am." Lloyd smiled a little. "You're more than that." He hugged (Y/n) again. "You're the best sister in the world."

#ninjago lloyd #ninjago masters of spinjitzu #ninjago #lego #lego ninjago #ninjago x reader #reader insert

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years

Text

Matching Heartbeats: Sokkla Saturdays 2020

Day 3: Arranged marriage - Touch

On FF.net//On AO3

Dimly lit streets in the dark of the night made for a strange place to meet someone for the first time. Thus, when a young man had appeared suddenly at the carriage stop, the lone young woman waiting there shot him a warning glare immediately: if he dared make a single move out of place, she'd make short work of him immediately.

Yet he appeared to be as anxious as she felt – though she was better at concealing it than he could ever be. He glanced about himself warily before sitting at a fair distance from her, swallowing hard before glancing in her direction. In the cover of darkness, it was hard to make out his finer features, but she had the distinct feeling his skin was darker than hers.

"Hey, uh… this is the carriage stop, right?" he asked, warily. She frowned but nodded slowly. "Oh. Good, then. Uh… do you happen to know how long it takes for a new one to arrive? I mean, just how long do we have to wait here for…?"

"No clue," she said, bluntly. She wasn't interested in holding a conversation… and truthfully, no one had ever heard of common transportation of any sort working on a reliable schedule, to begin with. Odd that this guy seemed to not know that…

"Great," he sighed, but he fell silent then. He made no suspicious moves, said nothing worrisome after that, and so, despite her better judgment, she relaxed a little. Perhaps he truly meant no harm.

Ten minutes of silence later, a slow carriage wheeled into the stop at last. He sighed in relief but then smiled at her, politely.

"Hope you have a nice trip," he said. She raised an eyebrow but nodded in acknowledgement as she stood up…

And just as the carriage's moose lions halted outright, the driver called out:

"Final carriage of the day!"

"E-eh…? Oh, no," she heard the young man say behind her, just as she reached for the carriage's door.

She expected a fight, a forceful demand to be allowed to ride with her… but neither thing arrived. Instead, the young man rose to his feet, casting uncertain glances about himself, as though wondering what other getaway vehicle he might be lucky enough to find at night, if he tried hard enough. She frowned.

"You… you look like you're running," she said, suddenly. He froze in place.

"I'm… not. There's nothing to run from," he blurted out, unable to mask his nervousness. Her analytical frown was trained on his scared visage.

"No?" she said. "So… if I, say, decided to be generous and offered to share the ride with you, you wouldn't accept it because you have nothing to run from?"

"Oh? Y-you'd do that?" he asked, and now his nervousness was accompanied by hopefulness. "Gee, that's… that'd be great. Thanks!"

"I didn't say I was offering it yet," she said, with a teasing smirk. The young man froze in place, blinking blankly.

"You… okay, so you're just messing with me?" he asked, grimacing now.

"I'm still weighing whether you're worth traveling with, for however short a time it might be," she said, raising her eyebrows. He grimaced.

"Well, I'm sure I will be a most forgettable traveling buddy, I promise you won't even remember I'm on the same carriage as you," he said, nodding pompously. "So… please? I do have to get away, you weren't wrong about that…"

"Honesty is a good policy. I wouldn't say the best one, but it's good to know at least one thing about you before letting you share my carriage," she smirked.

"Oi, you two! Are you climbing aboard or not?" asked the driver, glancing back at them with unrestrained irritation.

The young woman sighed and glanced at the stranger before gesturing at the vehicle with her head. He grinned brightly at her… and for a fleeting, strange instant, she couldn't help but think no one had ever smiled at her with such innocence before. Whatever doubts lingered on her mind, that was already one new experience… one thing she might have never had, if not for the freedom she was currently fighting for.

She hoped the softening of her eyes wasn't apparent in the darkness of the night, however. She climbed aboard the carriage and the young man followed, closing the door behind himself. They settled on the same side of the carriage, despite still retaining some distance from each other.

"Where to, then?" the carriage driver asked.

"The bay," she said, not expecting that her companion would speak at the same time as she had:

"The port."

They glanced at each other in astonishment by then, and the carriage driver snorted over the strange coincidence before spurring his moose lions to start their regular trotting.

"You're… heading to the port too?" he asked, dubiously. "Or just to the bay area in general? Weird coincidence, huh? For the two of us to head the same way…"

"You really are running from something, aren't you?" she said. He bit his lip before shooting a wary glance at her.

"And that doesn't seem to bother you in the least. Which makes me wonder if you're running from something too," he said. She blinked blankly before nodding in acknowledgement.

"I guess you can think for yourself just fine, huh?" she said. "Though I'd surmise it's easier to run away when you know the land you're running around like the back of your hand… whereas you, I suspect, have no idea where you are or how anything works. Thus… you're not from around here, are you? You're a foreigner?"

"Uh… sure. And you are from around here," he replied, biting his lip. "Which makes me wonder why you want to run away…"

"Like no one has ever tried to escape from home in the history of mankind," she replied, rolling her eyes, and he chuckled.

"Fair enough," he said. "I guess it sounds pretty stupid to run away when you have no idea where you're going… well, no serious idea, anyway. I've been in the Fire Nation before, don't get me wrong, but not in the mainland. I, uh, had a master in one of the outer islands…"

"A master? Of what?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Swordsmanship," he replied. Her eyes widened.

"Wait… Master Piandao?" she asked. "He agreed to train you?"

"Yeah, believe it or not," he said, grinning. "So, you know, give me a sword and I can be your bodyguard, if you need one. Come to think of it, I could use the coin from a job like that…"

"Fun as the idea may be, I don't exactly have a ton of money on me right now so I couldn't quite afford your salary," she said. "I have enough to pay for this ride, and then…"

"Then?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Then I'll have to save up," she said, simply. "Once I move on further."

"So… do you want to take a ship ride, huh? Is that why you're going to the bay?" he said, with a bright grin. He took her silence as a positive answer. "Great. Maybe we can find a ride together too! I have no idea where to go, so I can tag along with you for as long as you'll have me. Once I reach the Earth Kingdom I'll figure out my bearings properly…"

"Ah?" she watched him intently now, as he offered her a tight-lipped grin. "You're off to the Earth Kingdom, then?"

"For now, yeah. It's just a temporary plan… until I can find someplace else to stay safely," he said, shrugging.

"And you know the Earth Kingdom better than the Fire Nation?" she asked. He smiled and shook his head.

"Nah, not really. I've seen even less of it so far, but with how big it is, tracking someone down over there must be real tough," he said. "I'd say I have a good shot at shaking off pursuit by then."

"You're so set on running… did you kill someone, perhaps?" she asked, smirking. He snorted and shook his head.

"No, no, definitely not," he said. She huffed.

"Heh. That's boring. I'd have rather traveled with a murderous swordsman rather than a plain swordsman…"

"Why?" he exclaimed, still amused. "How is that any better?"

"It's more threatening, is all," she smiled. "Well, either way… I'm thinking we could help each other, to a fault. I know my way through the Fire Nation, I know exactly which ships to stow away on, which islands to stop at…"

"Stow away?" he repeated, blinking blankly.

"Didn't you hear I don't have that much money?" she said.

"Well, yeah… heh. Makes sense," he snickered. "Then we're going to be stowaways?"

"If you truly intend to come with me, yes," she smiled. "Then we can travel together in the Earth Kingdom for as long as it's convenient. If the time comes when our arrangement stops working, we go our separate ways. Easy, right?"

"Sure," he said, grinning. "Though… you really must be running away from something weird too, if you'd rather travel with a murderer who can intimidate people successfully."

"Eh… it just comes in handy, is all," she said. He smiled and shrugged.

"Alright. No need to share anything personal if you don't want to," he said. "Though… we could learn each other's names, right? If nothing else? We'll be traveling together for a while, from the sound of it…"

No, they certainly could not share that. She was fine with traveling with a stranger if that was what she had to do… but not quite as fine with revealing something as damning as her very name. For if he was a foreigner in the Fire Nation, just when a certain diplomatic delegation had traveled there from the Southern Water Tribe, then chances were he was part of that diplomatic delegation… and that'd mean he'd know exactly who she was, as soon as she spoke her name aloud.

The only way out was to lie, of course. And while it was clear he was no good at it, she certainly was far more skilled at that particular art than he was.

"I'm Ming Wei," she said, blurting out the name of one of her school classmates from ages ago. She caught the small twitch of his eyebrows, and she stared at him intently: "You?"

"Uh… Yuro," he said, knowing his hesitation would do nothing to afford believability to his claims. Then again, he had been able to tell her name was a lie, too: she had given it too readily, with a hint of defiance that didn't seem all that necessary when merely giving away a name. Just so, it was obvious she could tell that wasn't his name either.

"Yuro?" she repeated. He grinned and nodded. "Huh. Sounds like the name of a Water Tribe person. You're part of their delegation, then?"

"Uh… yeah. I am," he admitted, averting her gaze. Damn it. Yet he had already admitted he barely knew the Earth Kingdom, feigning to be a citizen of the large continent would've been an even more obvious lie than his fake name already was.

"And you're… running?" she asked.

"Well… yeah. Because you see…" he started, biting his lip before deciding it was all or nothing, at this stage. He had to go all out… otherwise his companion might see through him, turn the carriage around and toss him right back at the Fire Nation Palace's doorstep. "I've been the Southern Water Tribe Prince's bodyguard for ages. That's why I learned with Master Piandao, you see? But he is… an arrogant, annoying, lazy brat I can't stand, you know? I don't want to work for him anymore. So, you know, I thought if I ran away right now, no one would really notice or care: he's got all the Fire Nation's guards now, doesn't he? And he'll probably be able to take some of them back home with him if he wants, once his marriage is finalized…"

"Then… you were just waiting for the chance to get away?" she asked. He nodded promptly: something with that story didn't sit right, but just hearing the Prince was an arrogant, annoying and lazy man had been enough to put a stop to her rational thinking. Oh, she already hadn't wanted her whole life to be chosen for her, those words had merely cemented that belief further.

"Yup. I'm tired of living my life doing what everyone expects of me," he said. "It was as good a chance as any to get away. Maybe my only chance ever."

And perhaps she was too emotionally compromised at this point, for she had sensed no dishonesty in those last words. If anything, all she felt now was empathy… which was rare. She didn't often feel empathetic towards anyone. But that strange swordsman's struggles were far too similar to her own… perhaps too much, but she didn't seem to think of that just yet. It was all too easy to understand chasing for freedom they had been deprived from throughout all their lives…

"And you knew about the delegation, then?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "Was it made common knowledge, or…?"

"Well, in high circles, yes," she said, biting her lip. Ugh, why had she gone and said that for? Now he'd assume she was noble… which she was. But the idea was to throw him off… yet, busy as she had been daydreaming about freedom and about having found a kindred spirit, she hadn't focused enough on lying successfully anymore.

"So, you're… highborn? Or you work for them, too?" he guessed. She nodded.

"Work for them, yes. I… was the princess's maid," she whispered. He gasped.

"Oh? You were? Then… you're running for the same reasons I am?" he asked, his voice dubious.

"Something like that," she said, biting her lip. "I just… took advantage of the chaos. Getting away while everyone was riled up over the foreigners was the best chance I was likely to get."

"I see…"

They glanced at each other warily for a moment, suspicion crossing both their eyes… but again, they said nothing. The dim light filtering through the carriage's curtains wasn't enough for them to see each other better, and even if they could, their physical appearances weren't going to suffice in determining whether the other was lying in the exact same way they were…

If that were the case, though… the thought crossed both their minds, and anxiety surged inside them. Wouldn't it be outrageous that they'd run away together if they were, perhaps, running away from each other?

But no, they weren't truly running away from each other. They wanted to run away from letting their families make their choices for them. They were running away from a life of submission and abiding by tradition, from a life of arranged marriages that were only focused on the political advancement of their respective nations… and not in the least on the happiness they might find with their significant other.

So, whoever he was, or whoever she was, they were stuck on the same boat… the same carriage, at the moment, but soon enough it'd be a boat for real. This wasn't about affronting each other, it was about finding freedom, and if they were to find it together, at least they wouldn't have to face their upcoming hardships alone.

"Well… nice traveling with you, Ming Wei," he said, with a friendly smile. Despite everything, she smiled back and nodded.

"And with you, Yuro," she whispered.

The night covered their escape once they reached their destination: they paid the carriage driver quickly and then dashed away through the streets of the bay. He tagged along behind her, shooting wary glances all around them to make sure no one could see them as she determined which cargo ship was the best one to stow away on for their grand escape. Finally, she narrowed down one that appeared safe… and they climbed aboard at haste, hiding amongst crates below deck while waiting for morning to come, and for the ship to start moving.

As much adrenaline as they had at first, it decreased steadily while they waited: morning found them dozing off together in the ship's cargo deck, her head on his shoulder, and his against hers. Even after she woke up anew, she didn't dare move right away: why was his presence, his warmth, so comforting? Was it because he was the first man, outside her relatives, that she had ever allowed herself to touch so carelessly? Naturally, that only made her extra nervous – and then, curiously, he was just as nervous as her when he woke up too, blushing and apologizing profusely for getting closer to her while unconscious. She wondered, briefly, if he was just as sheltered, just as unexperienced with anything outside his family, as she was.

… And again, the likelihood of him being who she thought he was surged. It really might be him. He really might be running away from the same thing she was…

The cargo ship was slow and made several stops through the day: she had chosen one specialized in food trade, however, so they didn't lack for nourishment while they traveled through the Fire Nation's waters, stealing food occasionally from the crates whenever it was safe to do so. Still, whenever the ship stopped, the sailors would enter the lower deck to collect crates and deposit new ones: one time she had clasped her hand over his mouth to silence him as he was in the middle of reciting his favorite types of noodles when she heard the first footsteps coming closer, another time he had to lunge for her, pinning her down on the wooden floorboards just as she was in plain view, ransacking another crate in search of food, just as the sailors brought in a new haul of items. In every case, they knew they should have been affronted by the casual, careless touching between them… and yet their bodies' reactions were as distant from affront and discomfort as could be.

They fielded off each of the sailors' incursions successfully… until the ship stopped for what seemed to be the sixth time of the day. There weren't as many crates left anymore, so the sailors started to look deeper through the cellar… it was obvious this time that no matter how they held their breath or remained perfectly still, they would certainly get caught.

"Check the crates at the far end, Zan. It's gotta be there," said one of the sailors.

He tensed up beside her: they were near the crates they were hiding at. Oh, if that Zan guy caught them, he might turn them in to the authorities if he recognized either of them, and all their intentions of running away would prove futile…

He glanced at her with uncertainty, and she glanced right back, defiantly: she conveyed silently that he should follow her lead. He wasn't sure what that meant until the man was closer yet, enough that his unkempt, sweaty body odor reached them… and then her hands fisted around her traveling companion's shirt, pulling him in for a surprising, ferocious kiss.

And inexperienced, too. Which was fine, for he was just as inexperienced at it, going by how awkwardly his lips shifted against hers, not knowing what he was doing but following fit with her silent demand, as requested.

It was strange at first, but smoother moments later: she wrapped her arms around his neck, hoping to afford further believability to the story she hoped to feed the sailors once they caught them, and to her surprise, he embraced her waist too… even going so far as leaning down on her, pressing her to the floorboards as he grew to understand what he was supposed to do, gradually.

She had been focusing so much on selling their pretense that she had barely noticed it wasn't quite so much of a pretense anymore: this guy was seriously learning how to kiss by kissing her. And she was letting him. In fact, she was learning a thing or two as well.

Her right hand cupped his face, keeping him in place as she wondered if she ought to go further… and then it was his tongue poking her lips softly, so she of course rose up to the occasion. Oh, that wasn't fair, deepening their kiss had only made it even more pleasant… his tongue toyed with hers, swirling with it, rubbing against every place inside her mouth he might be able to reach. Well, damn, if she had thought this would feel so good, she would've likely started doing this with him from the moment they climbed aboard the same carriage…

"Oi! W-what're you two doing down there?!"

Ah. There it was.

Naturally, they were ejected from the ship, and they were left to watch it sail away as dusk settled over their current location. He was aghast over the fluke of their plan, having hoped that playing the eloping lovers convincingly might elicit sympathy from the sailors, but there was none to be found. She told him, however, that he shouldn't worry: it was a perfect opportunity to further mislead anyone who might be pursuing them, she told him as they walked together over the dock, still holding hands to continue furthering the pretense that they were but a couple of young adults who were so enthralled with each other they couldn't stop doing inappropriate things together… a perfect pretense indeed, for this way no one would suspect the truth behind why they were stowing away on ships in the first place. Yet after that kiss, she wasn't all that sure it was only a pretense anymore…

"So… where did they ditch us?" he asked, casting glances at the beautiful island warily. "This looks pretty, but…"

"It's pretty, yes. Ember Island," she said, simply. He raised his eyebrows.

"Do you know this place? Do you have friends here we can stay with, or do you think there are any other ships we can stow away on…?"

"Maybe we should wait a little longer," she said. "We could use a break… and I know how to sneak into the Royal Family's vacation house. We can spend the night there, and if there happens to be any coin stashed away in there, we can actually pay for our passage to the Earth Kingdom, no need to stow away anymore."

"Isn't that risky too, though? If we travel legally and someone links us to the royal families, they could give us away and send us back…" he mumbled with uncertainty. She smirked.

"Not necessarily. They won't really have reason to suspect it in the first place, right, boyfriend?" she said, tugging at his hand. His cheeks heated up and he smiled weakly at her. "We'll try to find casual clothes in the villa, so we look even less suspicious… and then we'll find a small boat, probably manned by commoners with no likely connections to the Fire Nation Royal Family. That way no one will ever guess who we are."

"Sounds fair," he smiled. "Also… we, uh, should practice our cover story some more. Just saying…"

"Should we?" she smirked.

"I have spent all my life devoted to the way of the warrior," he said, playfully pompous. She snickered at his words. "So, uh, I'm not exactly experienced at this sort of thing…?"

"And I've spent my whole life waiting on a pampered princess," she said, raising her eyebrows. "Hence, I'm not experienced either…"

"See? It's only natural that we'd need more practice. It's just to make sure we're perfectly believable," he assured her. She laughed and shook her head.

"As you wish," she said. Truthfully, she wanted to kiss him again. She had never expected that sensation to be addictive… but it truly was.

She led him to the Royal Family's villa, guiding him towards the back of it just as he suggested he could climb the front gates to prove just how strong and manly he was, in order to impress his new "girlfriend". Once she found the secret backdoor, and they were safely inside the house's premises, she suggested he could do it anyway, if he truly had wanted to impress her.

All such playful banter and teasing continued through the evening, and neither one was sure why or how it was so easy to play with each other in this way. They found more than enough money, stashed away in a vault that she opened suspiciously easily, to afford passage to the Earth Kingdom, and they even used some of it to buy some food in the town, eating it together in one of the most lavish rooms within the villa, a comfortable lounge furnished with crimson cushions and couches, so comfortable he seemed tempted to fall asleep on one of them, right then and there.

"You know… for a maid, you have really smooth and pretty hands," he teased her, watching her as he rested on one of the couches. She was fluffing a cushion, which she tossed at him playfully, prompting him to laugh as he caught it in midair.

"I'll have you know, taking care of my appearance and my skin doesn't make me any less hardworking than some fancy warrior boy who took lessons from the most pretentious sword master in the nation," she said, approaching him and pushing the cushion into his chest. He only laughed at her response, reaching out to clasp her shoulders with his hands.

"The most pretentious, you say?" he smirked. "How so? He was always pretty cool…"

"The swords he crafts are the most expensive in the Fire Nation, period," she replied. "Not to mention he has always been known for being awfully picky about his students, choosing only the worthy… and how does he know who's worthy, huh?"

"He's wise and clever, that's how," he grinned. "And see, him being picky is exactly why his swords are that expensive. He had to to live off something other than teaching, don't you think?"

"And what do you think you'll live off of, then, in the Earth Kingdom?" she asked, leaning over his body, with the cushion still between them. "You'll be a sellsword of some sort? A mercenary?"

"Sounds fun," he smirked. "Want to join in? I could teach you to use a sword of your own, if you want to… heck, we should ransack this place for swords, too. I didn't bring one with me when I ran away, but the sooner I get one…"

"I don't think there's weapons in this place," she smiled. "This is, after all, a vacationing spot."

"How careless of the Fire Nation Royal Family to assume they're not going to need swords in their vacationing spot," he declared, smirking haughtily. She snorted and laughed, pressing her face to the cushion. "What if a door lock gets jammed? If you have a sword you can press it right between the wall and the door, and then you're free! See, we all need a sword once in a while…"

"Why didn't you bring one of yours on your trip, then?" she asked. He bit his lip.

"Uuuuh…" he averted his gaze from hers, and she snorted again.

"You can be quite smart sometimes. But then you also stop being all that smart moments later," she grinned. "Strangely… I like it."

"You do, huh? Means you can make fun of me pretty easily," he smirked. "Say, I am enjoying your weight atop me, lady maid, but, um, I just remembered we agreed on practicing our pretense relationship some more…? You know, so it's more believable tomorrow…"

"More believable, huh?" she said, raising her eyebrows. He grinned giddily. "Is that really what this is about? Aren't you just desperate to kiss a woman, now that you had your first taste of it?"

"Well… yes, that's also true," he admitted, shamelessly. She laughed and shook her head.

"At least you're cute. For a Water Tribe guy," she said, haughtily.

"You're cute too. For a Fire Nation girl," he smirked.

She bit her lip before leaning in… and he leaned too, catching her lips with his own. Something told her he had a whole strategy planned, regarding how to kiss her, how to touch her, how to keep her on her toes and overcome her sensually…

And as reckless as it was, she let him.

For he was charming in his own way, why lie? He had already been a remarkably skilled kisser, one who had taken to discovering how to improve his technique to perfection… the expected behavior of a talented swordsman. Everything that might come next should be, she hoped, just as amazing and fun as the heated kissing was, going by how his hands trailed over her hips, tugging at her sash shyly despite his lips were as savage as they dared be…

If she did it, she'd definitely close the door on the future she had been forced into. Oh, perhaps he was indeed who she had grown to suspect he was, and that would be its own kind of trouble… but if he wasn't, this would change her future for good. No more lying about, waiting to be of use for an uncle who thought little of her, Fire Lord as he was. No more spats with a mother who constantly assured her she only wanted what was best to her, and that traditions were what was best, somehow, even traditions she couldn't seem to explain with any reasonable arguments. No more butting heads with a brother who, for all his faults, was still the assigned heir for their father. No more waiting for the perfect opportunity to prove her worth with a father who could only see her as a child to protect. And no more pitying a cousin, heir to the Fire Lord, who had everything he could ever want, except for the one thing she was currently chasing after: the chance to choose for himself who he wanted to be.

For if she was caught with this guy, whoever he was, she would be disowned, tossed aside… and while the loneliness could be hard to bear with, it wouldn't be quite so bad if she was with him. He wanted to go all the way to the Earth Kingdom, didn't he? Why not go with him, to the very ends of the earth if he wished, if it'd mean he'd kiss her just as delectably and deeply, if it'd mean he'd laugh with her as he had so far, if it meant he'd touch her boldly once she tugged her own sash loose, offering him permission to continue onwards, his hand trailing over her abdomen…

It was madness, of course it was. She barely knew him, she was certain she didn't know his real name, and she had no idea if he was actually a dreadful guy who couldn't even clean up after himself, or do menial chores – because, to be fair, neither could she. But something felt so right as she bared herself before him, and as he did the same before her. Something worked, clicked, even if it might have been merely caused by the unabashed enthusiasm of two young people finding and making love for the first time.

Oh, it was so reckless. It was such a bad idea. And yet they went all the way, kissing and holding each other intimately through the night, thrusting away in a wild celebration of freedom, of having chosen for themselves, of having done what they pleased, all consequences be damned…

Such consequences couldn't be all so easily dismissed, of course, when they were startled by strange noises in the Ember Island villa by morning. She rose first, her lower body sore in a strangely pleasant way, and she cast a wary glance in the direction of the door before clasping her companion's bare shoulder.

"Hey. Hey, I think we're not alone anymore," she said. He groaned and blinked himself awake.

"Hmm… you're so pretty…" he smiled groggily. Her cheeks flushed: well, that was a nice enough compliment to wake to, considering it was the first time he'd seen her in proper daylight so far, but she wasn't sure it was the time for it anyway.

"Thanks. Now… we should get dressed," she said, raising her eyebrows. He hummed before he frowned. "There's people nearby. We need to get going, right now."

"Uh… oh damn," he said, biting his lip and sitting up. His hair had been tied in what she had interpreted as a top-knot before… now she could tell, as he pulled it up hastily, that it was actually a wolf's tail. A classic Water Tribe hairstyle… that she had never thought she'd find all that appealing until she saw it in him. Curses, he was far better-looking than she expected him to be, too.

They climbed off the couch, hastily cladding themselves in their traveling clothes. Caught up in their night of passion, she had forgotten her intent to search for casual clothes in the villa's closets, anything they could wear, as long as moths hadn't eaten them away since the family's last visit…

"What do we do?" he said, pulling up his trousers: his bare chest was a delight to gaze upon, too. To think she'd slept with her head perfectly rested on those strong pecs… ugh, whatever came next, whether they were caught or not, she'd find a way to run off with him again. She needed more of him, one night definitely hadn't been enough. "Who do you think is out there…? Does the Royal Family have, uh, hired help that works tending to the house while they're not vacationing? Or…?"

"No, they don't," she answered, coming back to her senses upon hearing his rational words. She had to get dressed fast too, to pull up her hair, and to remember every single hidden passageway within the villa that they might be able to escape through… "I have a plan. It'll be confusing, but you have to follow me."

"No problem. I'll go wherever you take me," he said, winking at her. He ought to stop that, or she'd pin him down and kiss him all over again…

"Well, then…" she said, lowering her voice as she slid her feet into her light shoes…

And then a loud knock on their lounge's door. They both froze in place.

"Are you in there?! Open up, now!"

The voice was familiar, and dread rose inside her gut upon hearing it. Oh, no. Of all people, it was her father who had found her. Curse everything…

"W-what do we do? Are there any ways out of here without going through the door, or…?" her companion asked nervously. She shook her head.

"My plan… we had to go to the corridor to reach the passageway I had in mind. I mean, unless you want us to jump out the window…?" she suggested. He frowned but nodded.

"Cool. It's just a second floor anyway, and if I land right, I won't break a bone. Hopefully. I can catch you down there, once you jump too," he decided, breathing out and stepping towards the window.

But before he could reach it, a clicking sound revealed the locked door had been opened, and the sound of another voice froze him on his tracks, next:

"You'd better not be in there, son, because if I get my hands on you after what you've pulled…!"

Oh, hell. Oh, hell by the thousands. This wasn't good.

The two runaways froze where they were, meeting the glares of the two men who barged into the lounge without missing a beat. A group of soldiers stood in the corridor, and the Fire Nation nobleman who had made his way inside the room ordered them to wait outside: the Water Tribe man beside him, clad in regal clothes, could only be, of course, Chief Hakoda. And the Fire Nation man was none other than the Fire Lord's brother, Prince Ozai.

"Well, well. This is just as bad as we suspected, huh, Ozai?" said the Chief, shaking his head as he glared at the young man by the window, who had lowered his gaze shamefully.

"You… you are in a lot of trouble, young lady," Ozai hissed, pointing at the young woman, who shrank in place. Well, that was a first. She had certainly never made him that angry ever before…

"U-uh, it was my idea!" the young man exclaimed, rushing back to stand before her, gazing pleadingly at the two newcomers. "I bumped into her, in the Palace, and then I asked her to run away with me, and…!"

"And she was stupid enough to go for it?" Ozai growled, still glaring at her. "You disappoint me, child. Is this what I raised you for?"

His words slammed into the young man with the truth he hadn't quite wanted to acknowledge, despite he had known, deep down, that it was the truth indeed.

"Or what I raised you for, Prince Sokka?" Chief Hakoda growled, and this time it was the young woman who shuddered upon hearing those words.

Oh, Prince Sokka. She had sworn herself that she would hate him on sight, and she would've done it for the sake of rebelling, no other reason: she had been against their arranged marriage from the start, appalled by the idea of not being free to make a single important choice in her life… and yet now that she had made that choice, the choice of running away and then giving herself to a stranger, she found she had played into fate's hand with each decision she had made. Curses, but that was embarrassing…

"You two are utterly ridiculous," growled Ozai, shaking his head. "The whole city is a pandemonium, looking for you both! Had Chief Hakoda not offered to search nearby islands, in case you had escaped by sea, you would have caused an even bigger ruckus than you did, Azula! Your uncle is up in arms about this, and you know it!"

"He can be up in arms about whatever he wants. If he wanted an alliance with the Water Tribe that badly, he could've looked for an old maid to marry himself…" she growled, though her words were half-hearted by now. Ozai scoffed.

"You forget your place, Azula," he growled.

"Uh… really, don't blame her, please…" Sokka continued, still trying to spare her of the worst consequences, only for Ozai to turn his wrathful glare on him.

"And you? You decided to seduce your future wife and run away with her, is that what you're trying to convince me of?" Ozai hissed. Sokka gulped and lowered his head. "How much sense does it make?! At the very least you could've found other people to run away with, it's completely absurd that you'd choose to run off with each other!"

"Uh, well, we didn't really know who the other was, so…"

"WHAT?!"

Both fathers shouted at the same time, and Sokka grimaced as he stood between them and Azula. It was bad enough that they hadn't bothered confirming the other's identities, no matter how they suspected them… it was even worse that their fathers would react to it as explosively as they did now.

"Oh, goodness… oh, you know what, Ozai? This… it'll be a funny story to share with everyone else once a few years have come and gone," Hakoda said, patting his shoulder. "Let's just look at it this way, shall we?"

"Only if these two fools go back to the Palace and marry each other as they were meant to. Curses, couldn't you wait one week? One week?" he hissed. "It's not much to ask, or were you truly that keen on getting in each other's pants?"

"N-no! Seriously, we didn't know who the other was!" Sokka said, blushing.

"Speak for yourself. I had the feeling it was you all along," Azula sighed. Sokka huffed, turning to pout at her.

"Well, I had the feeling it was you too, but I couldn't know for sure and neither could you!" he squeaked. "Though, I mean… we were running away from each other and ended up running together? I guess? Though, in a sense, we kind of, somewhat, did choose each other, in the end…?"

Well, that couldn't be denied. None of what she'd done since she had met him, two nights ago, had been forced on either of them. They had chosen it all, jumping headfirst into their adventure, wondering just how far they could go together until their respective families caught with them. And while she didn't look forward to moving to the South Pole, to live her life alongside the Chief's heir and spend her days amongst them as a reminder of the alliance between their people and hers, the knowledge that she had found him appealing, interesting and worth running away with before confirming who he was proved to be enough to make the situation slightly less unpleasant… at least, for now.

If things took a turn for the worse, she could always run away, too. But as she gazed at the young man before her, she had the feeling she'd be running with him, wherever she went next.

And that idea didn't bother her in the least, truthfully.

"I guess so," she said, breathing out slowly. "I certainly could do worse, husband-wise…"

"Heh. I'd definitely do worse, wife-wise, if I picked anyone else," Sokka smirked, and she smiled right back.

"Ew," Ozai said, blinking blankly as he averted his gaze from his daughter and her finally accepted destiny.

"Oh, I know she's your daughter, and you didn't want to give her away to anyone, Ozai…" Hakoda laughed, patting his back. "But hey, looks like they gave up! I thought they never would."

"We're going back to the Palace now. And the two of you are going to spend the night in different rooms until your ceremony is done. That's final," Ozai huffed. "Whatever you do after you're married… is your business."

He still shuddered after saying those words, no doubt unwilling to picture whatever two young adults, who were boldly flirt in front of their fathers, might get up to behind closed doors. He had no delusions regarding what had surely transpired in this very room merely a few hours ago…

"Get ready, then. You have five minutes to pick up whatever you've left lying about," Hakoda said. "And don't even think about doing anything crazy, now! There are soldiers all over this property, so you'd better not even consider running away again."

"Say, how did you find us so fast?" Azula asked him. Hakoda grinned and shrugged.

"Water Tribe longboats: not quite as sturdy as your nation's steel ships, but a thousand times faster, I'd say," he snickered. Ozai shot him a disbelieving glare. "By which I mean… I sent all my available ships out to look for you in every nearby island. Your mothers went to Fire Fountain City, Prince Lu Ten accompanied my advisor Bato to Shu Jing…"

"So, it's basically chance that you two decided to come to Ember Island?" Sokka groaned.

"Something like that," Hakoda grinned. "Truthfully, Ozai had a feeling you might have wound up here. He says this has always been a happy place for your family, after all."

He glanced at Azula as he spoke, offering her another proud grin before turning around, clasping Ozai's shoulder and dragging him out of the room. Despite Hakoda's grip was strong, Ozai's head poked through the doorway one more time.

"You have five minutes! Don't you dare do anything further to despoil my daughter's dignity, Prince Sokka!"

"I wouldn't, I wouldn't!" Sokka squeaked nervously, before Hakoda successfully dragged Ozai away.

Sokka sighed, slumping in place before rising back to his full height, smiling awkwardly at Azula. She bit her lip as she gazed at him: he was tall, well-built, and indeed, ridiculously handsome. He was fun to talk to, and he seemed to enjoy kissing her just as much as she had enjoyed kissing him. It was all far too perfect… and who was she to reject perfection when it fell upon her lap as it had this time?

"Is… is your hometown a good place?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow. "It's only… well, I'm a firebender. I don't really know if I'd deal with the cold well. And I know there's been a lot of conflict between our nations, back from the times of the war…"

"That's all water under the bridge at this point," Sokka grinned, "People down there have taken quite the liking to your dad, you know? Because he helped stop the war. I guess that's why I wasn't completely sure about running away, but… it didn't feel right to marry my dad's best friend's daughter just because they felt like setting us up together to strengthen the ties between our nations. I did want to have a chance to choose for myself… otherwise, it feels like they won the war for nothing, to a fault? They set the Avatar free from the iceberg and beat your grandfather, yet the next generation is still expected to do whatever's convenient for political alliances? Granted, things have gotten better for the common folk… but I don't see why people like you or me should be forced to do anything we don't want to."

"Do you still not want it?" she asked. It was his turn to bite his lip before shaking his head.

"I… may have had a change of mind. Though, you know, I would've liked to woo you properly. You know, taking you out on a date, introducing you to my family, like normal people do…"

"I think the last two days could count as a date," Azula smirked. "And… I just met your dad. So I'd hope that counts, to a fault."

Sokka laughed and shrugged, stepping closer to her and placing his hands on her shoulders. Her smile softened as she gazed into those handsome features… oh, she was lucky. She couldn't believe it, but she was absolutely, truly, lucky.

"Do you want to marry me, then?" he asked, his voice small. "I doubt I'm the greatest guy there is, but… I'll be the best husband I can be. If you'll have me."

"I'm not the greatest girl there is either, I literally took you on a trip as stowaways and we stole quite a bit of food from their crates, too. I've turned us both into criminals, haven't I?" she smiled. Sokka chuckled, pressing his forehead to hers. "But… I'll be the best wife I can be, too. Even if an icy pole isn't fun to live in."

"We can take trips to warmer places whenever the cold becomes too much to take," he suggested. "Though there's a few things we can do to warm you up while we're there, too…"

"Oh? Like what?" she asked, teasingly.

Sokka chuckled and leaned in, kissing her again, and once more it was delightful, as jolts of electricity seemed to flow between them. Well, they had resisted the match at first, but it seemed their parents had made the right choice after all. They had been ready to run off together, to live together, to fight together… and now they could do all those things, without having to run away at all. It was the perfect arrangement. Too perfect, perhaps. But who were they to turn down perfection?

Hakoda had to yank Ozai back once they returned to the lounge to find their children locked in a slightly intimate embrace, once the five minutes were done. Of course, the firebender would see red upon witnessing his favorite child, the daughter he treasured, exchanging saliva quite so enthusiastically with his future son-in-law…

"Come on, we knew this would happen, we did. That's the entire reason we let them run off, damn you, stop acting like an angry rhino-bull," Hakoda said, clasping Ozai's shirt's collar and dragging him away from the lounge. Ozai huffed, shaking his head.

"I told you it was a bad idea. I did! Leaving them unguarded so they'd run off together…?" he growled.

"And paying a carriage driver to pick them up after the last carriage was long gone, too," Hakoda grinned. "It was the perfect strategy."

"Up until the point where you didn't have any means to track them down after they stowed away as they did!" Ozai hissed. Hakoda grimaced.

"Well, that was a minor detail, but you figured out this was where they'd head, so no need to make a fuss about my oversight, right?"

"You haven't changed in the least since the war, Hakoda. Not even a little bit. Always with the outlandish plans and ridiculous ideas…"

"Heeeey! Those plans saved our asses, and Aang's, a thousand times! As did my jokes, I'll add…"

"Your jokes? Perhaps it's you who are a joke, Chief Hakoda, altogether…"

"Well now, I'm the joke? Say, who's the one who can't stop throwing hissy fits about his daughter making out with her future husband, huh?"

Ozai growled, covering his face in his hands as the image returned to his mind. Hakoda beamed brightly upon silencing his friend successfully: he had maintained correspondence with Ozai long after the war had ended, they had met up on occasion since then, too. When Fire Lord Iroh, advised by Avatar Aang, had determined that preserving balance ought to be aided by crafting alliances between nations, he had wondered if perhaps a convenient marriage between his son and Ozai's daughter would do the trick. They were both clever since childhood, talented fighters, prone to witty banter that their respective siblings couldn't keep up with… it was, as far as Hakoda could tell, an ideal match. But how to convince them of it?

The idea of allowing their strong-willed children to escape, while subtly directing them towards each other, had come to mind three nights before the Water Tribe delegation arrived in the Fire Nation Capital. Ozai had been horrified by the idea… and more horrified upon realizing Hakoda had set everything in motion long before he could do anything about it. In the end, they had no choice but to wait and hope that Hakoda's insight would have been accurate, and that their children wouldn't despise each other instead of falling in love, as he had hoped they would.

And by now, while walking away from the room where the two soon-to-be spouses continued to profess their growing affections for each other, Hakoda could only grin proudly: Ozai's bad mood notwithstanding, his plan had been an absolute success.

#sokkla #sokkla saturdays #sokklasaturday #sokka #azula #ozai #hakoda #the AU I'll never write in full #but it's fun to play in it once in a while #hope you guys enjoy it!

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atmilliways · 3 years

Note

And if you'd like another one, Charles & Melmord - 22(drunk) !

Okie, here it is. Warnings for, let’s see... Mature rating, Questionable employer/employee relationship, references to extensive scarring, and a Pity Handjob.

At the first opportunity after he’d been weaned off the pain medication and was no longer under quite so much surveillance, Melmord tracked down some booze and got drunk. He hadn’t found much, but after an interminable stay in the hospital, living on IVs and hospital food, it didn’t take much either and hit him a lot harder and a lot faster than he’d expected.

How Charles knew to find him in the communal employee kitchen—one of hundreds, probably, but the closest to his new, starkly furnished room—he would never know. By that point he was already swaying in his chair and didn’t think to ask.

“Having a, ah, little nightcap there, hm?” the man said as he took a seat directly across the table.

“Fuck you,” Melmord muttered into his bottle.

Charles shrugged, blank expression unchanging. “Suit yourself. But if you end up putting yourself back in urgent care with alcohol poisoning, any time off is coming directly out of your salary.”

“You don’ give a shit.”

“Not really, no. But you’re an investment of Dethklok Inc. now, and it’s my job to protect the band’s assets.”

Melmord took another drink, trying to forget all the stupid choices he’d made to end up here . . . up to and including everything that had happened on that rooftop. Signing that contract didn’t even make the list; by the time it came to that, his course had already been irrevocably locked in. He hadn’t bothered to read the fine print. Hell, fuck reading—on the first attempt he’d signed the bit of bare hospital tray next to it. But it was a contract drawn up by Charles Offdensen, the man who had stabbed him and thrown him off a roof mid-blowjob, and that didn’t bode well.

He found that he didn’t much care. The booze was definitely helping with that, so he downed another mouthful. As numb as he was becoming, it still burned pleasantly on the way down.

“Why’re you here?” he mumbled, and heard that his voice was tougher than usual from the drink and whatever emotions his body was going through that he was too drunk to feel. The disconnect reminded him of being in the hospital.

Instead of answering, Charles just shrugged. Melmord stared at his blank face and wondered if he even fucking knew. If anyone fucking knew anything. Of course they didn’t—life was one big hustle and the universe was in charge of the game, which was always fixed.

“Why’re you here,” Melmord mumbled again, more to himself this time. The next swig from his bottle missed his mouth and slopped down his chin, leaving him staring stupidly down and wondering how his shirt had gotten so wet. He pawed at it, then rose swaying to his feet. “I gotta . . . go laundry. Go do laundry. Only have the one shirt.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been issued a week’s worth of work shirts, Fjordslorn.”

“They ain’t mine,” Melmord spat back. His hands latched onto the back of the chair he’d just vacated—probably that chair. He didn’t know anymore. He wasn’t sure where his room was anymore or how to get back to it. All the hallways looked the same; all of Mordhaus was a fucking murder labyrinth, the innards of a beast that had swallowed him whole and now had only to sit back and digest.

He let do of the chair and took a first wobbly step, only to stumble and fall into a very solid chest. Blinking, trying to focus, a suit and bright red tie swam into his field of vision.

“It’s this way,” Charles said in his usual, flat, carefully removed voice. Not trying to blunt the edges of anything. (Good, Melmord thought. Maybe by falling on those edges he could kill himself for good this time, and not have to come back to all this.) The man seemed to have a knack for guiding drunkards though, because they were in his room with minimal delays or arguments in no time.

Melmord started haphazardly undoing his shirt buttons as soon as they stepped inside, not wanting to spend another second than necessary in his wet, wasted smelling only real shirt. Charles continued holding him upright while he did so, without comment.

But halfway through unbuttoning, a thought hit Melmord like a bolt of lightning. He paused and asked, “You wanna fuck me?”

“Not particularly,” Charles replied dryly.

“Why not? Y’already fucked me over, why not get your rocks off too. Inn’t that my job now?” Melmord gave up on the shirt buttons and started pawing to get his own pants open.

When he succeeded, all he got was another raised eyebrow. “You’re freeballing?”

“What can I say, I live as I died,” Melmord declared, shoving his pants down towards his ankles. It was difficult; they kept wanting to bunch up around his knees, and pulling the top of the pants down over the bunched up material wasn’t helping. He tried to stand on one foot and tug everything off, but all it did was unbalance and pitch him against Offdensen’s chest again.

“You’ve still got your shoes on,” Charles observed with a sigh. “Just get on the bed.”

Next thing he knew, Melmord was on his bed staring up at the ceiling while his mortal enemy and boss got his shoes and pants off. Right, he thought, I did offer. Might as well get ready. He palmed himself clumsily, trying to see if his cock was too drunk to wake up.

“Stop that,” Charles told him firmly. “I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Why fuck not?” Melmord rasped, incredulous. “That’s the job, isn’t it? That’s. What I said I’d do. Isn’t that in my contract?”

Charles rolled his eyes and started working on undoing the buttons of Melmord’s shirt. “I’m not in the habit of fucking people who are about thirty seconds away from being unconscious.”

“How long did it take me to fall off the roof?” Melmord shot back. He heard the whine in his voice—fuck it, he didn’t care. Of all the things he wanted, Charles fucking Offdensen definitely wasn’t one of them, but everything had felt wrong ever since he’d woken up at the hospital and wasn’t allowed booze, weed, or to look under his bandages (which he’d done anyway and ended up screaming until they’d sedated him), and the room was spinning like a broken compass, and he needed something to get the needle to settle. Even if ‘something’ ended up being a smack across the face.

From the tightening of Charles’ mouth and the deep lines around it, that was probably a definite possibility. And then—

Charles’ hand closed around his mostly limp cock, the other pushing the now opened shirt aside as his eyes fixed on the network of scar tissue that was Melmord’s upper body. “You have five minutes.”

Melmord grunted and closed his eyes, not wanting to look at himself. Not yet. Too new. “Gimme an even seven, man, I’m not a fucking teenager.”

“If it’s an even number you want, then six,” Charles retorted with a warning squeeze, making him groan. “And you don’t finish, before then, do it on your own time.”

It was the most clinically expert handjob Melmord had ever experienced, and he already knew that he was way too fucked up to get even a weak orgasm out of this. Charles was completely in control of the situation the entire time regardless of who was getting jacked off. Melmord felt like a kite on a string, and Charles was flying him . . . except not quite.

No, he decided hazily, it felt like he was a puppet and Charles his master, and there wasn’t one string but many. Charles pulled at them all, even the ones that made his lungs draw in and expel air, even the ones that made his muscles twitch around the metal ‘bones’ in his right shoulder and ribcage and parts of his spine. The very fact that he was alive and the very fact that he shouldn’t be were both in the puppet master’s grasp.

He kept his eyes squeezed closed, but he could feel the scars. Felt Charles’ free hand running over them, tracing, exploring the topography like a dedicated map maker. Felt drunken tears dribbling out from between his own eyelids and down the sides of his face because fuck, fuck, he’d screwed up so badly and now this was going to be the rest of his life: just another cog in the machine, with the occasional pity handjob thrown his way the same as one might toss scraps to a dog. That Charles was showing him some amount of charity here was irrelevant; it was a calculated mercy.

Even through all that, Melmord arched his back and laughed. Despite the fact that Charles had undoubtedly won, they were still sparring. Back and forth, push pull, verbal blow for verbal blow, and now this—it was funny.

It was like Charles didn’t know how to stop fighting, and Melmord, to his credit, at least knew the same about himself. They would continue scrapping like this forever, and that—even as his consciousness did indeed begin to fade into a deep, dark blackout—almost gave continuing to live some sort of meaning.

#metalocalypse #metalocalypse fanfic #my fanfiction #charles/melmord #melmord fjordslorn #charles foster offdensen

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myheartrevealedocs · 4 years

Text

Untouchable- Ch 2: The Offer

Summary: A Spencer Reid x OC fanfic that retells select episodes, starting in season 1, from the point of view of Lydia Ambers, a forensic scientist.

Warnings: swearing, discussion about death and illegal activity (but like, at half the normal Criminal Minds level)

Ch 1 | Ch 3 | About Lydia

~ ~ ~

“You got it all sorted out?” Gideon asked Hotch as he walked into his office. It had been a month since their case in Santa Cruz and Gideon had been on Hotch’s ass about this since they got back.

“It’s… not a job…” Hotch started. “I talked to Strauss and she said that there was no proof that a forensic scientist would be of any benefit to the team. Police departments provide them and local forensic scientists have access to scenes sooner.”

“Police departments can also have media liaisons and tech analysts, but we bring in our own,” he argued. “I spoke to some of Lydia’s old professors and they said that she’s not only a good crime scene investigator, but her major was chemistry and she’s fit to get a job in DNA analysis or toxicology.”

“Gideon, what did I say about not getting involved? Strauss needs proof that she is an asset to the team before paying her a salary. So, I got her to agree to let Lydia work here as an intern under your supervision.”

“Done,” Gideon said. “By the end of the month, she’ll have proven worthy of a spot on this team.”

“No, there’s more,” Hotch told him, frustrated. “She only gets to work jobs that we clearly need her on and she gets no more than two cases every 50 days.”

“Fine, fine,” Gideon replied, which did nothing to ease Hotch’s worry. He, too, had been impressed by Lydia during the Jonathan Carrey case, but there were parameters on hiring people into the FBI and Gideon acted like those meant nothing.

He’d been the same way about Reid after he first spoke to him, but Reid was cut out to be a profiler from day one and they had an opening for him. Gideon wanted Hotch to simply create a brand new job title and salary for Lydia and he couldn’t do that.

“Should I call her and tell her to pack up her things and move to DC?”

Hotch blinked. “You haven’t already told her about the possibility of a job, have you?”

“No,” Gideon laughed. “I can’t promise her a job when I don't have the jurisdiction to hire anybody.”

That was a relief, but Hotch was still afraid Gideon had let on too much. He had just admitted to calling her professors to learn more about her abilities. So, he replied, “You can tell her that we have an internship position that she might be interested in and ask her about her ability to leave California. That is all.”

~ ~ ~

“Agent Hotchner. Agent Gideon,” Lydia greeted as she entered the BAU. It was crazy enough to be in Virginia, seeing as she’d never left California, but FBI headquarters?

She shuffled around nervously and adjusted her glasses numerous times despite the fact they were already as far up her nose as they could go.

“Lydia,” Gideon greeted, warmly. “How was your flight?”

“It was alright. Exciting. I’ve never been on an airplane before.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. No one should have to go through airport security for their first time alone,” Hotch said. “Why don’t we step into my office?”

He and Gideon led the way into the bullpen and around to his office. Lydia’s eyes darted around, seeing Morgan, Elle, and Reid at their desks, engrossed in their work. She wondered if any of them would even recognize her if she caught their eye. She was surprised enough when Gideon called.

“I assume you’ve been considering my offer?” Gideon asked, closing the door behind her.

“Considering, yes. But it would be… difficult, to say the least. I’d love to hear it from your mouths… the offer, that is.”

Hotch sat down at his desk and gestured for her to do the same.

“Agent Gideon and I would like to offer you an internship here at the BAU as a forensic science technician. When we took you on as a consultant in Santa Cruz, you proved to have inspiring potential. You would only be called out for occasional cases, once every month or so. Agent Gideon would be your supervisor.”

“And this would mean moving to DC?”

“Eventually, yes. We can’t exactly fly you out to every new scene from California. It would be easier to have you here, getting briefed with us, taking the jet, etcetera. You’ll also need to go through a training period here and likely will be asked to work in the office, even when you aren’t on a case. How big of a problem would that be? Do you have a lot of family there?”

“No, not family. I mean, it’s just me and my sister and she’s been doing just fine on her own while I’ve been at college, so we’ll manage the distance. The issue is I’m set to start a masters program next semester. I’m just… unsure how I feel about dropping out of school. I know this is a crazy opportunity, but it’s not a full-time job. And if I don’t do well and you guys decide not to keep me, I’m poor and stuck in DC.”

Gideon, who’d been hovering in the back of the room stepped forward. “If we fire you for some reason, I promise to personally pay for your flight back to California.” It was a joke, but in all seriousness, a flight wasn’t even half of it.

“You wouldn’t have to drop out,” Hotch added. “Many schools nearby would be happy to have you and the Bureau rarely has problems with schools refusing to work around our interns schedules. And even if that’s too difficult, this experience will likely open up many opportunities in the future. I’d be happy to write you a million letters of recommendation should you decide to find work elsewhere.”

“I, uh-”

“Hey Hotch?” A familiar voice called, knocking on the door.

He apologized to her momentarily, before saying, “Come in, Reid.”

The door swung open and the boy looked right over Lydia’s head to his boss. “JJ wanted me to tell you that she…”

He trailed off as he felt more pairs of eyes on him. He glanced at Gideon before finally landing on Lydia.

She decided to make the first move, seeing as he was stunned into silence. “Dr. Reid, how nice to see you again.” She stood up to greet him, a smile gracing her features.

“Lydia, I uh… Sorry, to interrupt I really had no- Oh! And it’s nice to see you, too,” he fumbled. “I’ll… I can talk to Hotch later. Sorry, again for interrupting.” And with that he shut the door and was gone.

“Sorry about that. I figured it might have been important, that’s why I invited him in. What were you going to say?”

Lydia froze, her mind drifting elsewhere. “Does the team know? That you are offering an internship into the team?”

Hotch shook his head. “We aren’t offering an internship into the team. We’re offering you an internship into the team. We were waiting to see if you agreed to it.”

“Well, I don’t want to force them to work with someone super under experienced. They aren’t paid to be teachers.”

“The only one who’s going to be teaching you anything is me,” Gideon reassured her. “You are more than capable of holding your own with them. I trust you.”

Lydia felt her throat close up. It was all set up. A job she couldn’t even dream of and here they were, offering it up on a silver platter. “So, this is all… serious. I move to DC and just… work for the FBI all of a sudden?”

“If that’s what you want, then yes. That’s our offer.”

Lydia looked Hotch over, as if trying to profile whether or not he was lying. And finally, she said, “I would like that. Thank you.”

~ ~ ~

“You’ll need to fill out some legal release forms, medical history forms, and I’ll get to work on setting you up for your training period and psychological assessment,” a charming girl named Penelope Garcia explained. Gideon had introduced her as the BAU’s technical analyst.

Her office was brightly decorated and she handed Lydia all the information she needed with a huge smile.

“I’m going to be asked to do a thorough background check on you, as well. But that information goes straight to Hotch and Gideon, no one else.”

Lydia chuckled slightly. “I don��t think I have any secrets, but thanks for the warning.”

“Of course!” she replied.

“No secrets?” Gideon asked. “If I remember correctly, you refused to explain anything about yourself that didn’t pertain to the case when I first met you.”

Lydia hesitated slightly. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“What were you trying to hide?” he countered. “If you’re such an open book, you can tell me.”

“I was just angry!” she argued. “It isn’t about hiding, it’s just that after my mom died, I really believed that I was explosive and so I avoid any topics that bring out my stronger emotions. And you were trying to push all my buttons. I was stressed!”

She wasn't sure if Gideon was just an attentive listener or if he was simply interested in her background, but his eyes longed for her to go on. “Explosive?”

“That’s how I got this limp.”

Normally, nothing anyone could say would prompt her to give away more information than necessary. She always tried to excuse it as ‘no one asked’ rather than blatantly avoiding certain topics, but it was pretty obvious to just about anyone she’d met that Lydia was not proud of her past. So whatever it was about Gideon that convinced her to add that comment was something pretty special.

“How?” It was Garcia this time.

The young girl laughed. “When I was 16, I was having some issues and one day I was trying to calm myself down… I often did this by physically getting my energy out so I was punching pillows and throwing things and I kicked something that was heavier than I expected and broke my foot.” She nodded, like she was remembering it fondly, but the other two could tell that it was a cover for her uncomfort. “And then, I was mad because I hadn’t solved my problem and I’d rendered myself useless, so I started walking on it before it was healed. I did dumb shit. I felt like I deserved the pain for being so uncontained and brash. And then the arch of my foot healed wrong and I had to live with a more… permanent reminder of my attitude.”

“Sixteen,” Gideon mumbled. “Is that when your father died?”

Garcia looked shocked that her superior would even say such a thing but Lydia was just intrigued, “What makes you say that?”

He shrugged. “You said that your only family is your sister. So, I figure both your parents are far out of the picture. You said your mom died when you were little, which triggered your outbursts. So, I figured that perhaps you lost your dad as well and if you were having major anger issues at 16, could be due to the loss of your second parent. Brings up old scars.”

She paused, a somewhat sad smirk gracing her face. “My dad’s not dead, but you’re pretty close. When I was 16, my father was sent to prison.”

Garcia and Gideon’s faces read with immediate regret. So, Lydia played it off quickly.

“Don’t stress about it. He’s not a murderer or anything and it’s not… important.”

She hesitated to explain what he did. She figured they were bound to find out soon enough and she really would rather not say it outloud, so she changed the subject.

“Hey Garcia? Do you think you could help me work on transferring schools? Agent Gideon suggested that I apply for online courses rather than continuing to learn on campus and I’m still not sure if I can reapply for everything so late. And I know your job isn’t navigating college websites or anything, but you are good at tech and I’d love some help.”

She brightened almost immediately. “Sure, sweetheart!”

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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White Noise (What an Awful Sound), Ch. 1 (Crystal/Gigi) - Meta

A/N: Ahh this is the first drag race fic I’ve ever written, so please leave some feedback! I would love to know your opinions.

Gigi Goode loved her life in LA, she was quiet, popular, and rich. That was until her dad lost his job, forcing them to move to Springfield, Missouri, the only place he could find another job with a substantial enough salary. Gigi didn’t expect to like Missouri, actually she definitely knew she would hate it, but then she meets her loud, talkative neighbor Crystal and suddenly Gigi doesn’t think Missouri will be that bad.

Gigi watched as the trees passed by the window of the moving truck. They had been driving for fifteen hours and twenty-three minutes already. Counting as the minutes ticked away was the only thing Gigi could focus on doing, beyond sleeping. Her mother had graciously allowed her the window seat in the truck. Squeezing herself in between Gigi and her father, that way they could have a conversation without having to talk over her. It’s not like it would’ve mattered, Gigi had put her airpods in the second she buckled her seat belt, not hearing a single word her parents had said apart from asking her every few hours if she needed to pee or wanted to get out and stretch her legs. Her parents didn’t try to engage her with conversation, they knew Gigi didn’t like to talk. She was content just sitting in silence and often answered questions with just a nod and smile or a one word response.

Gigi had no idea how much time had passed since they last stopped to grab snacks but she could just make out the large “Welcome to Missouri” sign in the distance. “More like misery.” She mumbled, rolling her eyes at the “I” dotted with a sun. Gigi’s mom pretended not to hear her.

“Well Gigi, are you excited about your new school?” Her dad tried.

“Oh totally. Who wouldn’t love to start at a new school right at the end of a semester.” Gigi responded with a tight, pained smile. Her mom reached over and rubbed her shoulder.

“Oh honey, I know it’s gonna be hard at first but you had lots of friends back in LA. I am sure you’ll make loads of new ones here in Springfield.” Gigi scoffed.

“I don’t want to make new friends here, I want to be back with my old friends.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, realizing just how much of a cliche she sounded.

“Honey I know you do but I got a very good job opportunity here and we couldn’t pass it up.” Her dad added reaching over to pat Gigi’s knee. She found herself rolling her eyes again.

“It’s fine. I’ll be just fine.” Gigi said, turning back to the window. Her mom sighed but didn’t push any further. This was the most emotion they had gotten from Gigi since they told her about the move.

Shortly after, the truck pulled into the driveway of a small blue house. It was quite adorable, Gigi had to admit. Her parents did a good job picking it out. She unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out of the moving truck almost immediately, walking around and doing a couple squats just to make sure she still had function in her legs after sitting for so long.

“Alright babe, I think it’s time miss Gigi Goode got a tour of her new house, don’t you?” Her dad asked as he slammed the car door shut.

“Why absolutely. Come of hon, I’ll show you your room!” Gigi’s mom grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the porch before pulling out her keys and unlocking the door for the first time, “After you madame.”

As soon as Gigi stepped through the doorway she was hit with the smell of fresh paint. They’d had painters come in yesterday and paint the whole house a cool gray except for Gigi’s room, which was a pale yellow, and the master bedroom which was painted a very pretty sage green.

“So Gi, our bedroom is here, right around that corner. Dad’s office is right next to it.” Her mom explained. She was walking Gigi through all the rooms and showing her everything they had changed before moving in. All small cosmetic things, fixing all small blemishes that made the house less than perfect.

“Wait, where is my room then?” Gigi asked, there didn’t appear to be any other rooms.

“Well hon, we thought you’d appreciate some privacy,” Her mom led her to a staircase that was nicely hidden behind a wall. “So, we decided that your room would be the upstairs loft area.” She said, giving Gigi a small nudge for her to go up.

Gigi was overwhelmed, standing in the middle of her new room, the reality of her situation finally hit her. She was never going back to LA, this is where she lived now. The worst part was, she actually kind of liked her new room and she enjoyed how excited her mom was while showing her around. “Genevieve Goode, you’re gonna suck it up and make the most out of living in Springfield, Misery.” What? She didn’t say she would start right away.

Gigi made her way back downstairs to help her parents start moving their things. She slowed her pace when she noticed someone standing there talking to her mom. A woman, probably a couple years older than her dad, with long, curly hair pulled into a ponytail. She was wearing terrible mom jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Great, she was already a victim of horrendous fashion. Nothing could have prepared her for probably the ugliest shirt she had ever seen coming around the truck. It was loud and pink, and orange, there was definitely some yellow and blue in there as well. Gigi blinked as the shirt moved closer to her, finally registering the person wearing it. A teenage girl with round glasses and wild curly hair. She was holding a box and nodded as Gigi’s mom told her to just set in down in the kitchen.

“Hi, I’m Crystal!” The girl beamed as she made her way back out of the house. She stuck her hand out for Gigi to shake.

“Oh uh, hey. Gi-Gigi.” She said. Gigi grabbed Crystal’s hand suddenly when she’d realized she left the girl hanging.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Gigi.” She repeated the taller girl’s name carefully. Gigi just smiled and mumbled a small ‘you too’ before turning and joining her dad at the back of the truck. As she helped pull boxes from the back of the truck she could hear Crystal talking to her mother.

“I really love what you’ve done with the house Mrs. Goode! My old best friend, Aiden, used to live here and phew, her family really did not have the interior design touch.” Gigi chuckled to herself listening to Crystal ramble.

“Good god I think that girl has said more in the fifteen minutes we’ve known her, than you have your whole life.” Gigi’s dad said.

“Ha ha.” Gigi rolled her eyes. She picked up a box labeled “Gigi’s Crap”, courtesy of her father. “Holy shit.” She said dropping the box. Jeez, did she pack every single item in her room into one box? She bent down to pick it back up.

“Here let me get that one.” Crystal was right there squatting down to pick up the box. Gigi looked up into her eyes and, damn. How did she not notice how nice Crystal’s skin was or how great her eyebrows were. Plus my god her tan…

“O-oh yeah, sure totally.” Gigi said letting go of the box. She took a step back and just watched as Crystal made her toward the house again.

“Here champ,” Gigi’s dad said, handing her another box. “Don’t worry, it’s just pillows. Hope you can handle it.”

“Ya know, I’m not sure I can, old man.” She said, struggling to pick up the light box.

Gigi picked up the box and followed Crystal into the house. They made their way up the stairs and into Gigi’s bedroom. Crystal sat the box down on the window seat before sitting down next to it.

“I wish my room had a window seat.” She said. Gigi watched as she swung her legs back and forth. Her very tan, toned legs.

“Oh yeah it’s..great.” Gigi swallowed hard.

“S-so uh, where are you all from?” Crystal asked, still smiling. My god had she stopped smiling at all since she introduced herself?

“California.”

“Wow, I’ve never even been out of Springfield. Don’t worry I won’t ask if you miss it. Like that’s kinda obvious.” Crystal rolled her eyes. Gigi just nodded in response, she had no idea what to say. Standing in her room, alone with Crystal, she was becoming increasingly self-aware. Gigi felt disgusting, she just spent 24 hours in a dingy moving truck and the night in a shady motel. She shifted uncomfortably, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Um, okay. So I think I’m gonna go back downstairs and uh see if your parents need more help.” Crystal ran her hand through her hair awkwardly before standing up and walking past Gigi.

Gigi followed Crystal downstairs, kicking herself for not being able to speak to the girl beyond a couple of words. Now she was gonna go back to her own house and never speak to Gigi again.

“Oh great, the girls are back.” Crystal’s mom pointed to the teens as they made their way down the porch stairs, “Honey, we’re gonna have the Goode’s over for dinner tomorrow. You girls can get to know each other better before school on Monday huh?”

“Yeah totally, it’ll be fun.” Crystal said, looking over Gigi. She tried to avoid eye contact, not wanting Crystal to know she had been looking at her the whole time. Just wow, who let her be that pretty? Shouldn’t that be illegal or something.

“Okay, well thank you so much ladies for helping us with these boxes. I think we can finish the rest ourselves. I wouldn’t want to impose on the rest of your evening.” Gigi’s dad said.

“Oh no, you’re no imposition at all. But I do think we should get going, Crystal’s dad will be home soon and I should get started on dinner.” Crystal waved goodbye to Gigi before turning around and walking back to her home.

Once they finished moving everything off the truck, Gigi excused herself for the rest of the night. She unpacked a couple boxes and most of her clothes. Occasionally she would look out her window at Crystal’s house, secretly hoping to see her in one of the windows. She never did though. After around nine o’clock all the lights in the big, yellow house turned off and Gigi decided to just give up and go to bed. She fell asleep almost instantly, exhausted from moving.

#rpdr fanfiction #crystal methyd #gigi goode #crygi #high school au #lesbian au #white noise (what an awful sound)#meta #concrit welcome #s12

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greyias · 4 years

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FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 17

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Crossposted to AO3

As soon as he was inside the door of his apartment, Theron had the chip out of his pocket and inserted it into his datapad. The first file on it wasn’t any official SIS document at all but apparently a note, written especially for him:

So here I am, minding my own business, when this intel request comes across my desk from none other than your old buddy, Rian Darok. I pulled it, but then I asked myself, what does a SpecOps officer need with this information? From what I can tell, cracking down on cargo smuggling isn’t the highest of priorities for him and his team. I pulled a copy for you too, since you’re so interested in “oddities” right now. I don’t know what you think is going on, but you know this guy has clout right? And not just in SpecOps. Watch yourself. — JB

Theron tried not to roll his eyes as he paged to the next file on the chip. Jonas was a good man to have along on a mission, but sometimes he could get hung up on something. Apparently in this case it was the havoc that Rian Darok could cause for an unsuspecting SIS Agent. Which wouldn’t be a problem, because Theron was suspecting everything right now. Which was probably good for his survival chances in the short term, but would probably give him hypertension if he ever lived long enough to see old age.

He scanned over the pulled file, but as Jonas said it was… just odd.

"Known Smugglers: Inner Rim" was just what it said. A giant list of cargo smugglers that operated in the Inner Rim. And by giant, he meant several thousands names. It would take far too long for him to cross-reference every name by hand. He was going to need to get creative on this.

He sat down at the terminal in his apartment, and began to start typing. The programming required to cross-reference the names against what he knew about the Korriban and Tython ops was complex, and he had to be very careful to hide his trail in case it dinged anything classified. The SIS didn’t keep it’s data on the HoloNet, but it definitely had its own hooks into the system. If he needed to do a deeper search on any of the names of the list, he could do that manually, but he needed to narrow this down to something manageable, otherwise he could be chasing a dead lead for months.

The chronometer had already ticked well past midnight, and he was nearing the end of his coding efforts when his implants alerted him to a new message in his inbox. He finished his train of thought, then pulled away from the data terminal, feeling his muscles protest at the motion after being hunched into one position for so long. Scooping up his forgotten datapad, he opened up his inbox to see who had written.

To: Theron Shan From: Greyias Highwind Subject: Late Reply

I must apologize for the delayed reply. Our latest mission hit a slight snag, and I only now have had time to catch up on my correspondence. Barnaba is a very lovely travel spot, as long as you don’t mind the occasional internal spat between royal houses. Kira wants to buy a timeshare here. She says that it would be a fun vacation spot. I tried to remind her we don’t collect a salary (as you accurately pointed out), but Doc nixed the idea before I could, saying this visit gave him too much work already and doesn’t want any more gray hairs. He can be a bit vain at times but is probably right in this case.

It sounds like you have been keeping yourself busy as well, even if it was perhaps less exciting work. Did you ever find what you were looking for in all of that data? I don’t know if it helps, but in a letter about the ongoing reconstruction efforts at the temple, the Grand Master mentioned a missing Rakata artifact. I unfortunately didn’t have much time to spend in the archives during our initial reconstruction efforts, but I didn’t see any artifacts tucked under anyone’s arm while they were leaving. Perhaps it was extracted during the original raid? I must confess, if the Council was hiding a piece of Rakata technology, then they did not want it falling into the wrong hands. In my own experience it is rarely used for benevolent purposes.

If the artifact was included in the SIS’s reports, I wonder if it is mentioned there the exact nature of the device. I could enquire further with Master Satele regarding it, but I am afraid I am not very good at concealing the truth from her in matters such as these. It is probably best if I don’t attempt it unless you think it’s necessary.

I think I hear my self-appointed keeper returning. I must wrap this up before he confiscates this datapad as well. I will continue to wait to see if you discover anything considered “noteworthy”.

I have a feeling you will know exactly where to find me.

As he finished the letter, Theron couldn’t help the frown. A missing piece of Rakata tech definitely could have been among the missing items. He’d have to check into the official report, but it would take a few extra steps to keep his name from showing up on the logs since they’d closed out the investigation. Surely the Empire wouldn’t have conducted an entire raid in the heart of the Republic for just one artifact. Surely their resources would have been better directed elsewhere. The more he tried to fit the pieces of all of this together, the less this made sense. There was something else going on here, he just wasn’t connecting the right dots.

He glanced back at the data terminal, his back screaming in protest at the thought of returning to the hunched over position so soon. He began to perform a series of exercises to try and stretch out the kinks, carefully balancing the datapad so he could re-read the contents of the letter again as if it might magically answer any of the questions it raised. As he focused on the details to see if he missed anything regarding the artifact, the reason for the delay in reply started to prickle at him. The letter had definitely been written with far more reserve than the previous ones.

As he finally worked free the knot in his lower back, he pulled up the HoloNet and ran a search on news articles for the Tapani sector. He didn’t need to look far to find the buzz about a daring rescue of an entire orphanage from the nefarious plot of a rogue minor house trying to curry favor with the losing house in the Barnabas succession. They apparently took the building as a hideout concealing a hidden stash of weapons and had planted dentonite around the perimeter. All orphans had safely been pulled from the exploding building and while the article didn’t say there was going to be a statue erected in a certain Jedi’s honor, Theron half expected it to. He was already scrubbing a hand across his face by the time he got to the end. Beyond being possibly the most disgustingly cliched do-gooder he’d ever met, the woman was a giant flashing neon sign that attracted attention wherever she went. What the hell had he been thinking bringing her in on this? There was no way they were going to remain under the radar if she stopped what she was doing every five seconds to rescue kath pups and nexu kittens.

He opened up a new message, and stared at it for a few moments before he began writing out his reply:

To: Greyias Highwind From: Theron Shan Subject: Interesting

I’m sure the life of a Jedi Knight is very busy, especially one that seems to wind up on the top of the HoloNet News feed as often as you do. It’s understandable that you can’t always reply to every piece of mail you get right away. Although I do admit I was thinking I’d hear back sooner than a week.

But your reply, even delayed, is appreciated. I hadn’t gotten far sifting through the data, but I’m going to double-check the report when I get in tomorrow to see if I can find the piece of tech you mentioned in the log. If the Council had it locked up, I doubt they were willing to share with the SIS the exact nature of the device. But hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and everyone will have been in a sharing mood. Hope springs eternal right?

Speaking of the Council, I think you’re right in that we should probably not share anything with the Grand Master right now. All I have right now are threads and suspicions, but nothing concrete. We need to figure out what’s going on before anyone’s going to take us seriously. I’m getting there, but it’s slow going. I’ve gotten some leads on Darok, but they’re just… odd. He’s started requesting intel, like on the weaponization of the Iso-5 on Tython. That makes sense. My other lead is just confusing, and I’ve got no idea what it means. I was actually working on it when your message came. If anything comes from it, I’ll let you know.

Theron stared at the blinking cursor, trying decide if he should end it there, but something was still nagging at him. Rescued orphans aside, there was nothing in the report that indicated why it took her an entire week to check her inbox, seeing as that incident had occurred almost five days ago. It was none of his damn business and he didn’t care. He really didn’t. Not beyond keeping an eye on a potentially valuable asset for his operation. Still, it felt as if he didn’t quite have control over his fingers typing out the last portion of his reply.

Now, it’s not my business or anything, but in my line of work I’m used to reading between the lines. I couldn’t help but notice you mentioning everything but exactly what delayed your reply. If I do find something, are you going to be up to joining my investigation? Or do I need to write your medic for permission first? Hopefully you managed to hide that datapad from him successfully enough so you don’t have to smuggle another one just to check your mail.

I’ve got to finish running down this other lead before I call it a night. If I find anything new, I’ll be in touch. Try not to blow yourself up rescuing another orphanage in the meantime.

#swtor fanfiction #theron shan x jedi knight #Theron Shan #Female Jedi Knight/Hero of Tython #oc: greyias highwind #otp: adorkable #smoke and mirrors #SoR Fic O Doom #swtor #fanfic #greyfic

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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Boys & Girls (Sriracha, Part 40.)

Series description: A problematic college student gets the worst summer job of the ‘83 - Jim Hopper, the Chief of police in your hometown will have you as his secretary since his old lady Flo has two months lasting holiday. It was agreed so Hopper could let you far away from all the trouble.

Part Summary: Family life suited you both and what was better, this time it was going to work out for real.

A/N: And we are officially back in business with ma boi Jim. Also, greatly inspired by Jim Croce since Hopper really loved his music.

Warnings: Weepnig and whining messes on the end of the chapter.

Word count: 4K

Tagging: @nemodoren @missdictatorme @ysljordy @creedslove @hopperlover

Series master list: H E R E

GIF SOURCE

Even if the things were slowly settling down, with you and Jim being definitely in the honeymoon phase again and not being engaged for some unknown reason, it still took some to make all the things right again. You needed to help Jim with making a new ID, you had quite a long scrum with the bank and authorities to even believe that Jim is really and Jim just for him to get a hold on his former conto with the money you both saved over the time. You didn't have access to the money since James was the account holder - but at the end of February, you finally were allowed to use the money and you started to look for a new home - it was incredibly awkward that you both had to live at your parents’ house no matter how many times your ma told you it’s fine.

Jim started to visit a therapist and group therapy sessions in a nearby town and so far, it was doing him justice. He felt better to know some more Vietnam veterans who've been through the same thing he was through - these men had gone through. He called his former colleague Rosario Delgado to ask her about her well being - it was almost ten years since the New York incident and she stopped sending him Christmas postcards. James was trying to get his life together; he wanted to sort everything out after almost twenty years. And he was doing good.

You proceeded to study at the university, still having your old part-time job at the bistro, being there at least three days a week. Jim’s salary of a police officer wasnt bad, not at all, but it still was a downgrade from his Chief salary. It wasn’t that you suddenly were on the edge of poverty, especially with your savings, but you felt the missing money - especially when you were looking for a flat in the downtown. But in the end, you hadn't settled down on a flat; you chose a small house which was still significantly closer to the downtown than the suburban houses.

It was nice - this wasn’t his trail or his cabin where he had already been moved in; this was the first time when you chose, paid, and started to live on a place together. This was the fresh start drawing a flat line behind the Hawkins Lab incident, behind Russia, behind both Vietnam and New York - with endless love, Jim was leaving Sara and Diane behind.

The first few weeks in the house were the best - you hadn't got any TV, any couch, not even a bed or a wardrobe. You had only one mattress on the floor where you were sleeping, a few kitchen appliances, boxed with all of your stuff, and an old gramophone. You couldn't count the running shower which was already there. When you weren't at work or school, you were painting the walls on your own since you didn't exactly have the money to pay a professional painter.

"This is supposed to be a pomelo orange? Are you sure about that? Haven't you took a different bucket on accident?" - Jim yelled at you while you were swabbing a room you decided to have a living room in. You stopped your work and swiped the sweat off your forehead, listening to Jim Croce’s Operator. You unpacked each of James’ Jim Croce vinyl records and moved it into your new place as well, usually listening to Croce while you were working.

James was looking healthier and healthier with each passing month - he gained a few pounds, you couldn't see his ribs anymore, he let his hair grow and his significant ’83 beard was back again. He was looking hot, especially in an unbuttoned shirt and a new Jim Croce shirt you ordered him for his name day - which was more than three months away, but you loved it so much that you couldn't stop yourself.

He was standing there looking at the wall, the orange paint was all over his body, but not on his shirt as he held the paint roller in his palm. Yeah, you could see what he was talking about - it was more peachy than a pomelo, but you liked it nonetheless. - "Maybe it’ll be looking better once it dries up, hm?" - You whispered and hugged him from behind slowly. You were still careful with the touches and freaking him out, but it was undeniable that it got better. Gently, you kissed his shoulder and smiled at the work he had done.

"It looks great Hopper." - You nodded with a grin. He circled his palms around yours and swayed his hips in the rhythm of the song. You did so as well. Slowly, he turned around to face you, smiling down on you. You smiled back, expecting a kiss - only to have the paint rolled all over your face. You closed your eyes and grunted angrily.

"Oh yea, I can see the pomelo color now. I think you were rite. Why don't you have more clothes in this color? It suits you." - Jim grinned before he pressed his face to yours so some of the paint pressed on his skin too.

"This was unnecessary - so now, I will angrily continue the things I was up to before you called out." - You said with fake drama in your voice, being the drama queen you always were. You had already put your arms from his hips, pulling away, when he leaned in for a kiss. You felt the paint on your tongue, which was indeed disgusting.

"It was completely necessary, in my defense, miss Y/L/N." - James yelled at you after a while. You chuckled, yelling back at him why he thinks so, continuing with cleaning up the room. - "Isn't that obvious? My girlfriend now has to take a shower before the paint settles down in her hair and since I have it on my face too, you know that does that mean." - Jim suddenly stood up the doorframe, watching you on the floor trying to clean up the fucking wooden floor.

A burst of unbelieving laughter came out of your lips as you watched him. - "This is a genius move for a dumbass like you, Hopper, I gotta say. But you'll have to play Speedball Tucker if you want to see me undressing." - You stood up and bit your lip, having Jim already walking to the gramophone.

"Why is it that this song does things to you?" - Jim asked and stopped the music to put in Life & Times by Croce. You shrugged your shoulders with a nasty smile, already unbuttoning the first buttons.

"I don't know. Maybe it’s because you hum it all the time? But play me You Don't Mess Around With Jim in the bed and I'll show you things you haven't seen yet." - Your short snort resonated through the living room as you turned around to walk to the bathroom. - "You sure will." - Jim snorted back, already throwing his shirt on the floor.

Eleven was over her heels when she came to visit Hawkins on spring break with Joyce. While Joyce was staying at your mum’s, her sons were at Wheelers’, Eleven was staying at your place in her room - it was also the only room which was finished - she had a bed there, a bookshelf for schoolbooks and comic books, a large table you bought on a flea market with a chair in the pair and you told her that she can have some posters and as many photo frames as she wants to. It still needed small touches, but it also meant one thing. It was a silent promise that soon enough, you'll be a family again.

In the end, you decided to put up some of Sara's photos. You knew it was really important Jim, but you needed to talk him down into it. You loved one of the photos from her kindergarten which you put up in the kitchen. When Joyce saw that you hung the picture up, her eyes teared up as she smiled. It also sparkled a rather interesting conversation between you and James.

"How was it like?" - You asked when you were preparing dinner. Jim was sitting at the improvised table; you still had an empty living room, hall and the master bedroom was consisting of the mattress only. He looked up from a detective novel he was reading, looking up at you.

"What? You mean seducin' you? I'm a piece of cake so you gave in pretty easily." - He grinned, having a smile from ear to ear. It was around five p.m. and Eleven was soon about to come home. Tomorrow, you had a family dinner at Enzo's in the plan - Mike was supposed to come, Aiden and Lena drove from New Orleans in the evening.

"Hold your horses. A) you're wrong because I'm a sex bomb and you were all over the place from me and b) no, I don't mean this... I mean... How was it like to have such a small baby girl?" - You answered from concentrating on having the pepper perfectly cut. Hopper closed the book, holding the page with his fingers. His eyes widened and cheeks filled when he slowly inhaled some air.

"It's somethin' you can't even describe. It's fillin' up to the bottom of your soul, you more than love every second of it. When the child hugs you, you just feel sorta warm next to your heart. You only want them to be safe and happy every day, you'd do every little thin' just to see them smile." - Hopper got out with noticeable pauses - he wasn't good with his words, but you could hear that he means every letter of what he had said.

"That sounds just... Lovely." - You sighed and let's be honest, the smile on your face was freaking James out. He was watching you without looking away. - "What would you say..." - You bit your lip and looked Jim in the eyes. Hopper's eyes widened almost unnoticeable.

"If you'd have a chance to do it again?" - You whispered and at that moment, Eleven entered the house, so panicked Hopper didn't have a chance to answer. Playfully, you rose your eyebrows happily and turned back to the pepper. - "Just think about it, yeah?"

Of course, this was about to come. You were young, your thirties were almost six years away and one day, this question was about to come his way. Kids. You never talked about having kids - you already had one. But not about really settling down to have a real family life. With small kids.

Was James even ready to try it again? Or was he simply too old to raise a kid? Or two of them? Sure, you'll soon be done with university and your parents would help you with every little thing you'd ask them, yet James couldn't forget that this was Hawkins in Indiana. This place was dangerous. Especially for James Hopper.

But you said it out loud. That you want to have kids. Sure, El was your kid, your baby girl and you'd kick ass to anyone who'd try to harm her. But there was an itsy bitsy thing - you didn't give birth to her which could do a lot. You proclaimed her as your rightful kid, you were written down in her birth certificate.

James was out of the world for both the following evening and he was even more stressed out the other day when you were supposed to go to Enzo's.

Your question had pulled some damn switch inside of him; he wasn't able to properly fall asleep the whole night thinking about the kid thingy. The only thing James could say for sure was that if you'd have a girl, she would look like an angel; because you were one. But that wasnt all.

"Are you having nightmares or what's wrong with you?" - You mumbled from somewhere under your blanket. You mostly were doing that during winter and in the early spring - only your head could be seen because your whole body was curled up under the blanket to keep you warm. You moved around a bit before Jim could register your face.

"Should somethin’ be wrong with me?" - James hummed and brought you closer to warm you up. You were as cold as ice. Carefully, you wrapped your leg around his waist, leaving out a long sigh.

"You're turning around all the time and make the mattress move. Something on your mind, Hop?" - You yawned and put your temple on his shoulder, closing your eyes again. You were smiling without realizing; just smelling him and feeling him close was making you happy. And you fell asleep again almost immediately.

Jim wanted to ask you to marry him on the family, this time, he made sure he adhered to the traditions - first, earlier that day when he was dropping El at your parents’ house before she was supposed to see Mike, he talked with your father. Both he and Molly couldn't understand why did he cancel the engagement in the first place, just to ask them.

He did the best to tell them that he's now trying to turn his life around, starting from a literal zero - he contacted his old colleagues like Rosario and Vietnam comrades, he said goodbye to Sara, bought the house with you and renovated it. James just wanted a new life and he wanted to start it in the right way with you by his side. That was what made your dad give him his blessing.

On top of that, you were controlling how much did he smoke and how much Tuinal did he take - it wasn’t meant in a bad way and James knew that - he was just fucking grateful that you took the role of his guardian angel. You couldn't be described any other way than being a guardian angel.

But if he proposes to you, then marries you... Kids were just the next step, right? When Jim finally fell asleep, it was while he held your waist and tried to think about what would it look like. James was almost forty-four years old. He would be sixty when the kid would be sixteen, sixty-four when they would be twenty. Which was horrifying and more than that. He was thirty when Sara was born which was an ideal age in his opinion. He was thirty-seven when she died. Would he be even able to be a good dad? Jim thought that he was in a fairly good condition, thanks to his police work, but a kid...

The other evening, Jim put on his best shirt and tuxedo, looking at himself in the mirror as he was adjusting the small details - this tuxedo he had at the first family dinner in your house. Eleven peaked into the room before she entered.

She was a grown-up since the last time James had seen her - she had longer hair, she was more tanned, taller and even her face seemed to be more adult. James admired that Eleven was always an adult in some way. Ever since Jim met her, in some things, she was drastically more matured than kids her age - she knew things people her age didn't have a single idea about. Yet now it seemed that her personality had deepened even more than before.

Eleven had a nice dress on and you helped her put her hair in a messy bun. She smiled at James and checked that the door is closed.

"Are you okay?" - She asked excitedly. Right at the moment, you were in the living room with Mike and you two were chatting while drinking some lemonade you made. He was supposed to make you occupied while Eleven went to check up on Hopper.

"How can I be okay?" - Hopper said with an unnerved laugher and went to sit down on your bed. Eleven laughed as well and sat next to him; she hugged his shoulder and shook him a bit.

"Mom said yes before and she loves you. She will say yes again, I'm sure." - Eleven smiled and put her temple on Jim's shoulder, letting him kiss the back of her head. She could now speak as kids her age did. Eleven was talking fluently, without hesitation, but yes, sometimes she still thought about how to put a sentence in a certain way. - "Grandpa said yes too, he knows you two should be together."

"How did you come to that conclusion, kiddo? Hm?" - Jim chuckled at her words. He knew what Eleven was trying to tell him, but it was too adorable not to make fun of.

"I've heard that in a movie I was watching with Joyce and Will." - She smiled and at that moment, they both turned their heads to the door, hearing as you called out for them. It was time to go. Eleven got up first, giving her palm to Hopper to help him get up. - "You can do it. Its just one question."

"Geez, you're a smart one, kiddo." - Hopper chuckled, following her out of the room. You and Mike were waiting under the staircase. Even if Jim saw you before and he knew how would you look like, he was wonderstruck when he saw you in your blue dress with your hair styled masterfully.

"What were you two up to, huh?" - You asked both of them, tying up his tie again, properly this time. - "Are you having secrets again?" - You joked, making Eleven smile innocently as she stood up next to Mike and entwined her elbow with his. After taking too many photos and embarrassing the hell out of Mike, Jim laid in with his dad jokes that time, yo rode to the restaurant.

Mike on the backseat was visibly sweating. He always thought that Eleven has Hopper and you - he forgot that you have a brother and parents. If he was worried about something, it was that he won't make a good first impression. Which would embarrass him to death? Yet, you were telling the whole time that he's perfectly fine. It was strange to realize that Aiden was only six years older than them. That wasn’t too much. And you weren't much older either.

Seeing your family gather around one table was a thing that made you so happy, that smiled didn't leave your face the whole afternoon. Mike, in the end, was happy too - he and Eleven befriended your cousin Andrea who was at their age, so these three had so many to talk about and so did you, the adults sitting there. The food in Enzo’s was delicious and this time, you hadn't got any surprise which would make faint. Even the fine wine you loved so much was ordered and Jim offered that this time, he would drive home - which meant that you had nothing to be worried or angry about.

Everyone shut up when a man stood up from the chair he was sitting on and you were looking at him with awe. Your palm circled Jims as you watched your younger brother getting himself to propose to his girlfriend. Which was kinda scaring Jim, since that was his plan that evening?

The things Aiden told her were one of the sweetest you had ever head. With a contained smile, you leaned to James’ shoulder, watching Aiden getting on his knee with a face that was showing his emotions. He was lost over the heels for Lena, his heart was surely beating for her. You didn't notice your dad having intense eye contact with Jim since he was waiting for the older man to do the exact thing his son had just done.

And you asked what's wrong when Jim took a deep breath in, trying not to faint. He was stressed. He was facing stress. The last time he was doing this was behind a locked door to his office. Not in a restaurant, let alone your family being present.

"Jim, are you having a heart attack?" - You put your palms on his jaws, looking at his reddened cheeks and completely sweaty forehead. Hopper shook his head, having his eyes widening with each passing second. It was now or never situation. Naturally, everyone was extra-surprised when Hopper suddenly stood up as well and exhaled loudly.

It didn't take you too much time to figure out what's happening there. You had seen him this nervous once already and boy oh boy, here it was again. It was nice and you knew that most likely, he had encouraged himself for weeks before he was ready to get on that damn knee again.

"My dear Y/N." - He started, watching your father as if the man would tell him what should he say next - and the funniest part was that your father watched him as well in the same way. Then Jim’s palm took a hold on the back of your chair, the man leaning down a bit. The guests inside Enzo’s were nervous. One proposal was a classic, but two at once? That was extraordinary.

"I want... To... Tell you..." - Jim started slowly as he tried to get his self-confidence back. You nodded and caught his other palm to show him that he's fine. Nothing could ruin his moment. - "I love you. Very much. And that I know you hadn't got it exactly easy with me past couple of months. And neither of the people had it easy with us. It's just how it is, and I'm grateful for everything you've been willing to give me - family, a new home, the feeling of being safe, and useful. You made me see a million things I haven't seen before meeting you and I have to thank you and your family for that." - Jim looked around nervously, having you still smiling in front of him.

Joyce surely wrote this speech too. She was a mister of romantic words full of love, which wasn’t exactly Hopper’s area. He was more about showing love than telling the words yet you liked that about him. This was just Joyce’s work.

"And for that, I would be honored," - Was the part where he got on his knees finally and this time, it felt like a proposal for a wedding. Not some Hopper’s ’I would be up for marriage if you want to’. This looked like a real ’Do you want to spend the rest of your life by my side?’, which brought happy tears to your eyes. - "If you'd like to become my wife and have me by your side until the day we both get old and wrinkly."

That was maybe the best Hopper could get out of himself, but let's be honest, it left you a whining and nodding mess, since you couldn't say a single word at that moment. The last thing you remembered clearly from that evening was when Hopper gently picked you up from the ground when you had the ring on, weeping here and there as well.

#jim hopper x reader #jim hopper #jim hopper imagine #james jim hopper #stranger things #stranger things hopper #stranger things netflix #jim hopper stranger things #eleven hopper #jane hopper #jane ives #eleven ives #eleven stranger things #mike wheeleer #we stan the boi #he the boi

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revisionaryhistory · 4 years

Text

Three Days ~ 4

AO3

~*~Emma~*~

What in the hell is he doing with his tongue? He's licking his lips and flipping it around. Is he trying to drive me crazy? I'm not sure he even realizes what he's doing. Its like a nervous habit or he's thinking. Either option is sexy as fuck.

I'd wondered how and when the subject of him being The Winter Soldier would come up. It had to eventually. Like I'd said it's difficult to get to know him without hearing about his friends. It just so happens that his friends are famous people and super heroes.

I could make this easier. I could tell him a story to let him know I'm not starstruck or looking to attach myself to a celebrity. But that would open up a conversation I'm not ready to have and, frankly, he's not earned. Yet.

After I said to talk about his friends, Sebastian told me stories of dinners in Atlanta, nights out, and practical jokes galore. He used nicknames and told me about the people. I wasn't learning about a bunch of actors. I was learning about Evans, Mackie, Chace, Will, and Scarlett among others.

I must have had a look on my face because he stopped, "What?"

It took a second for me to track back to what I was thinking. "Just because I can match names with faces doesn't mean I know the people. Thank you for telling me about the people."

He smiled and his blue blue eyes lit up. It was like he was surprised he'd been talking so easily. He squeezed my hand and nodded once, "You're welcome."

Our dinner arrived and broke the moment. I'm glad. Like when the appetizer came and stopped the flirty comments. The interruptions kept us from going to far. A first date is like a dance. You flirt, you back away. You get into a deep conversation, then go back to a safer topic. Too much intensity and you run the risk of regretting what you shared in a moment. Out of control flirting just lands you in bed.

While we ate I took over telling stories about my friends. By the time they took our plates we'd built the foundation for future conversations about our days. I didn't doubt there would be those conversations.

We had to stop holding hands while we ate. Almost immediately I saw him shift and felt his leg brush mine and come to rest with his calf pressed against mine. With the plates gone, Sebastian reached across the table. I put my hand back in his and felt a frisson of energy travel up my arm. His hands made mine look tiny. Us holding hands wasn't a passive activity. We played with each other's fingers. Every so often we'd twine fingers and be still for a minute or two before the movement continued. Sebastian seemed especially fascinated by my finger nails. He’d run his fingers over the sides, push against the end, or almost pull on on them.

Another pair of beers arrived and conversation restarted. “You grew up in Georgia and now you're in New York. How'd that happen?”

I grimaced, “There's an ex in this story. You up for hearing the ex story?”

“If you're up to telling.”

“I went to the University of Georgia in Athens. About four hours away from home. First semester of my Junior year I took an elective in American Legal Foundations. Most of the class was taught by a second year law student named Jimmy.” I quirked an eyebrow to clue him in. He smiled. “He was handsome, smart, and very driven. We dated through graduation. Him law school and me undergrad. He got a job at a firm in New York City. I applied to NYU and started working on my Masters. You can work as a teacher in New York with your bachelors, but you have to have taken some prep classes, which I didn't have. So I worked as a server for the first year.”

Sebastian groaned, “I did too. I don't think I've ever been so tired in all my life. And is why I tip ridiculous amounts.”

I laughed, “I remember how bad my feet hurt.” He groaned with me. “It worked good with my school schedule. In the fall I got a job teaching Kindergarten. We had this one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I loved our neighborhood. There was always something going on. I got to be friends with this local musician and his wife. She taught first grade, which is how I learned I would prefer first grade. The next year I moved to first grade and we team taught. I thought I was set. A man I loved, job I loved, neighborhood I loved, friends I loved.” I paused to take a drink.

His thumb moving against my skin would have been soothing if I wasn't past all this. Still, it felt good. “This is where it falls apart.”

“Part of what I fell in love with was his drive. I didn't count on it turning on me. Somewhere he started to think I was less than him. He was better than me. His friends were better than mine. At his firm's Christmas party I noticed when he introduced me or if someone asked me about myself he would say “she's just a teacher”. We got into a huge fight that night. He hated my best friend and her wanna be rock star husband. My salary was always going to hold him back.” I smiled. “Hold him back. His phone rang and I saw the name of one of his coworkers. She was the one he'd been fucking for months.”

Sebastian hissed in a breath, “Ouch, sorry.”

“Ancient history now, but thanks. My parents wanted me to moved back. I just couldn't, but I couldn't afford our apartment either. I searched around and found a long term sub position near here for a teacher on maternity leave. They didn't have a spot for me the next year, but I found a first grade position in another school. I've been here three years now.”

“Very different from Brooklyn.”

I laughed, “Very. I loved the city. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. The energy is different there. You can walk around doing nothing and have the best time. I go back and visit friends, especially if Eli has a gig and I can see Angie. Most people come up here to get away from the city. I go to the city to get away from the peace and quiet. Where do you live?”

“Soho.” He looked uncomfortable. “When I first moved to the city I lived in the apartment with three other friends in a scary neighborhood right near the subway. Good times. Acting isn't a steady paycheck. I just bought a place last year. I put it off for a long time. Part of me kept expecting the work to dry up and be worried about making rent again. My manager had to practically forge my name on the mortgage. I shook for a good three days. Then it got fun. I liked decorating and picking out stuff. Everything was painted white when I moved in. I left most of it, but I painted a wall in my bedroom a blue gray. Evans told me I couldn't paint it black.” He shrugged, “I like black.”

“My kitchen is black.”

“Good girl.” He brought his beer to his lips and smiled, “So is mine.”

We talked about New York for a long time. Best places for people watching. Live music places. Hidden restaurants. Things we loved and things we hated. Somewhere in this I decided this was the best first date I'd ever had. Or maybe it was just him.

The place was crowded, noisy with conversation and the clinking of tableware. His attention was never pulled away from me. I felt like I was the only person in the place. If he had first date nerves they weren't showing. He seemed relaxed and natural, which made it easy for me to be relaxed and natural. Facial expressions showed interest and kept me talking. He became more animated as he told his own stories. It was like he focused all his energy on listening, but let it go when it was his turn. As we talked about New York we were talking over and around each other and reacting to things said. It didn't feel like a first date.

When that conversation died down he brought his other hand to the table and motioned for mine. He held both of mine and his face went serious. “Alright. You're stranded on an island.” I snorted a laugh. He shook his head and laughter filled his eyes, “Wait for it.” He huffed a breath and got back into character, “You're stranded on an island. All your needs are taken care of. There's shelter, food, water, indoor plumping. But . . . there's no internet. In the middle of main room, which has an amazing ocean view by the way, is a jukebox. It only has five songs. What are they and why?”

My eyes grew wide, “Only five!”

He sneered and nodded, “Only five. Better make them good ones. Who knows how long you’ll be there.”

“You're gonna tell me yours aren't you?”

“When you're done.” He stared at me while I was thinking. “Only five.”

“Shut up, I'm thinking.” The first three were easy. “Ok, first, foremost, and always is Black by Pearl Jam.”

He made a face, “Ooo, good choice.” He started singing. “I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a star. In somebody else's sky. Why oh why can't it be mine.”

I had joined in after the first line and could feel the smile on my face. “That's the reason. The feeling and rip your heart out emotion is those lines.” I closed my eyes and thought back, “Seeing that live the first time when I was sixteen was incredible. Watching Eddie on stage with his eyes closed, pouring out the pain. Then it switches to that Doodoo-doo-doo-doodoodoo over and over, almost like a mantra or sitting in the corner rocking back and forth to comfort yourself. Start a Fire, by Ryan Star. It's memories of falling in love or maybe falling in lust. It's got an intense part kind of like Black. Probably because he's a big Pearl Jam fan. It says things like taking chances in the back of your car, give in to the beat of your heart as my hand touches your skin, and wake up dreaming and lie here with me.” I was on a roll now and kept going. “Shatter Me. Lindsey Stirling is a violinist and the lead singer from Halestorm does vocals. It's about being afraid and wanting to feel alive again. Starts kinda soft with the soothing violin in the background then works up to a frenzy. The first line is “I piroutte in the dark” so as the music builds I just picture spinning faster and faster trying to break free from the fear. There's an old song by Jefferson Starship. At least I think they were still Jefferson Starship. Miracles. It's from the seventies and it's one the dirtiest song I've ever heard. Not in the filthy I wanna fuck you like an animal way, but sexy dirty. Have you heard it?”

He scrunched up his face while he thought, “I think so. Something about if only you believed in miracles so would I. Is that right?” I nodded. “I don't recall the dirty part.”

“There's a short version they play on the radio that doesn't have it. It's almost at the end and says I got a taste of the real world when I went down on you.”

I watched a slow smirk form and his eyebrow quirk. “The seventies had lots of secret dirty parts. Afternoon Delight. That song by Donna Summer full of sex noises. When I went down on you isn't really hidden.” He held up a finger. “One more.”

“This one is new and I'm currently obsessed. Chances by the Backstreet Boys.” He snickered. I rolled my eyes and ignored him. I sang the first line, “What if I wouldn't have asked for your name and time wouldn't have stopped when you said it to me.” He just stared and I switched back to speaking, “It’s a simple love song about fate. All the what ifs that have to happen for two people to fall in love.” I shrugged. “Your turn.”

He threw his hands in the air, “I can't compete with yours! You've got all these intense songs about heartbreak, fear, love, and lust. I've got, I've got Jessie's Girl.”

I laughed at the way he threw up his hands, made faces, and collapsed back into his chair. His over the top level of exasperation was funny. “I like things that make me feel.”

Sebastian clapped his hands then rubbed them together, “I'm going to have to up my game.” He took a drink of his beer, shook out his arms, cracked his knuckles, and finally reached out and took my hand again. “I'm going to stick with Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl as my number one. Playing air guitar and singing into a hairbrush. Good times. I love eighties music so I'll add INXS. Love lots of their music, but if I have to pick one and conserve my choices I'll go with Disappear. Love song about how the right person can make all the problems disappear. And it's got a great beat you can dance to like Molly Ringwald in Breakfast Club.”

“I'd pay money to see that.”

“The night is still young. Umm, number three. Sound of Silence. The Disturbed version. A classic made over. Could have been Careless Whisper, but they messed up the rhythm of the best part. I like it because it's familiar, but completely new. There's this group out of Vegas called Adelita's Way. Invincible is this high energy rock song. Never fails to get me up at the gym. Incidentally, it was also a WWE theme song and that was my fall back if acting didn't work out.” He hummed again and closed his eyes. A second later he was doing that thing with his tongue again. Must be him thinking. “And lastly, anything by Tool.”

I shook my head, “Nope.”

“I didn't think I'd get away with it. So I'll go for Puscifer and Rev 22:20.”

“Thought you said Tool.”

“Puscifer is one of Maynard's side gigs. It's got a line that say if I've got to sin to see her again then I'm gonna lie lie lie. Straight up sacrilegious filthy sex music. Intense too, so you might like it.”

“Your going to use that against me forever, aren't you?”

He nodded, “But you've got Jessie's Girl.”

#Sebastian Stan #fanfiction #fanfic #sebastian stan fanfiction

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kyogre-blue · 4 years

Text

Nanowrimo, day 18 (wc 1870)

(Notes: finally done with this interlude, next we’re back to actually advancing the story!)

Ever since he and Alibaba had come to a decision about their departure, Sinbad had been nearly vibrating with anticipation. Overflowing with energy, he had volunteered to take care of all the preparations for sailing to the extreme north -- insisted on it, really -- and he had been running around Balbadd in pursuit of just that for days.

They needed supplies, of course. Also, a map and any advice possible on the route. What landmarks were there along the very long coast? What bearings should they take and for how long? What was the weather like? Sinbad was confident in his sailing skills and intuition, but more information wouldn’t hurt.

Beyond that, they needed a ship. Large enough for two people and potentially large amounts of treasure, but also small and simple enough to be manned by just one, since Alibaba admitted to having no seagoing experience at all. Since he was like that and the weather would quite possibly be poor, it would be better to have at least a cabin he could hide in...

Sinbad’s head spun a little with all these considerations, but mostly he just felt an overwhelming surge of excitement.

This was it. This was what a real adventure felt like -- this was what he’d always dreamed of!

Sailing off to a faraway land of rumors, searching for a mystic treasure, gaining countless new experiences... It was all in his grasp now.

The day before their decided upon departure date -- which Alibaba had inexplicably moved a week prior -- Sinbad rushed home to declare the good news of his accomplishments. Conveniently, Alibaba had been waiting in the front hall. He jumped as the door was thrown open and his companion burst inside.

“Done! Everything is ready to go!” Sinbad declared.

“...Okay,” Alibaba agreed. He sighed, clutching some documents he’d been looking over to his chest. “Just… just come in and close the door.”

Sinbad’s mouth twitched. This guy had the soul of an old woman and he complained about as much too. “Come on, be a little come excited,” Sinbad urged him. “We have a ship! And a destination! An adventure!”

“Okay, okay,” Alibaba repeated. Waving to a servant who had peeked out from one of the inner rooms, he gestured for Sinbad to sit down next to him. “Tell me about it.”

Sinbad settled onto the couch, only to start fidgeting excitedly almost right away. Jumping to his feet again, he began to pace small circles in front of Alibaba. “We have a ship,” he explained, gesticulating broadly. “It’s nothing too big, but there’s a cabin and a sizeable hold, for anything we pick up. There’s plenty of supplies and…”

Alibaba nodded along, somewhat distractedly. He did know the basics of what was necessary for sea voyages, just like he seemed to know at least something about everything and never be entirely at a loss, so it shouldn’t have been that he didn’t understand what Sinbad was explaining. Was he really just that unexcited? It couldn’t be. What young man didn’t dream of adventure? They were only a few years apart! Did those few years really have the power to turn you this dull?

“...Are you listening?” Sinbad wondered, trailing off.

“Yes, of course,” Alibaba answered immediately.

“Then what did I just say?”

The two of them stared at each other. Sinbad turned away first, palming his face. He sounded just like his mom, he realized.

Before he could figure out how to react, Anise slipped into the front hall -- sending Alibaba scrambling to hide his face from her, as if he really thought she hadn’t already seen him around the house countless times. “Young Master,” she called out, making Sinbad squirm a little on reflex, “Madam is looking for you. If you would follow me…”

“Did anything happen?” Sinbad asked as they walked. “Is Mom…”

Anise smiled and held a finger to her lips.

A delicious, terribly familiar scent wafted over from the room they stopped in front of. “Madam, Young Master is here,” Anise announced and, with a quick bow to Sinbad, retreated.

He had to admit, his curiosity had been piqued. Based on the delicious aroma, he could guess the what -- it could only be Esra’s home cooking -- but he couldn’t imagine why all the secrecy and stalling. It wasn’t as if he and Esra didn’t eat together every evening. He’d always made sure to return from training or exploring or preparations early enough, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he departed for an unforeseeable length of time.

Was it because they were leaving tomorrow? Making this guess, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

As he had expected, a table full of numerous dishes had been set for two. The ingredients were somewhat different, but it was all clearly Partevian cuisine, something he had to admit he missed sometimes, no matter how he interesting he found the many dishes of varied origin available in Balbadd.

“Sinbad, welcome back,” Esra greeted him. “And, happy birthday.”

...Ah. “Heh,” Sinbad chuckled, “I forgot about that.”

Smiling, Esra waved him over. “I thought so,” she said. “The last few years, we couldn’t do anything at all. I guess it’s natural not to look forward to it... But this time, all of this is for you. I haven’t cooked for a while, so I hope the taste isn’t too bad. Don’t force yourself if I made a mistake, okay?”

Personally, Sinbad thought it was more because he wasn’t a kid anymore, to be counting every birthday. But looking at his mother’s smiling, almost glowing face, he could only smile back and readily start piling food onto his plate.

“‘s delicious!” he mumbled around a mouthful. Swallowing everything down and reaching for more, he added, “With a present like this, I’ll definitely look forward to birthdays more!”

Esra laughed and ruffled his hair. Sinbad endured it with good grace. “I’ll definitely be happy if you visit every year! But that’s not your real gift.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s more,” Esra agreed happily. “But first -- eat up, birthday boy!”

~.~

Tapping the neat rows of writing on a scroll, Alibaba asked, “Do you understand?”

“M-more or less...” Anise said. She didn’t sound or look very sure, with her brows furrowed deeply and biting her lip. “But, Sir Ali, I only learned a little writing at... my previous job... I don’t have any experience with this kind of matter.”

“Of course you do. You’ve kept track of how much money you receive and how much you spend, right? It’s the same principle,” Alibaba assured her. “The totals of what was loaned and how much they should pay back when are all written here. You just need to receive it when they pay back and confirm that it’s the right amount. All of the loans were confirmed with these banks, so if someone tries to refuse to pay, you can go directly to the bank and have them deal with it.”

As a merchant nation, Balbadd was very serious about matters of money, and Alibaba had gone the extra step of having all the contract signings observed and confirmed by a third party. If someone seriously tried to weasel out of paying, they could be reported to the authorities for their punishment, which would be anything for being temporarily blacklisted until they repaid what they owed to even a criminal sentence.

Slowly, Anise nodded.

“Don’t worry. I know you can do it,” Alibaba said with absolute certainty. He had explained entrusting the task of managing his investments to Anise as a necessity, given Esra’s weak health and the other servants’ lack of even Anise’s rudimentary reading ability. But the truth was that he would have always picked her first no matter what.

“If Sir Ali believes so, then I will do my best not to let you down,” Anise finally agreed.

“Great! Then, since you’ll be handling an additional responsibility, you can go ahead and add another twenty to your salary...” Alibaba started to say, pulling out the manor’s ledger.

“No, no! That’s not right!” Anise protested. “There’s no need! My salary is already too much for just a servant!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alibaba said, ignoring her protests and putting an additional mark next to her name. “This way, you can buy your son a present for his birthday. He’ll be four in a few days, right?”

Anise’s eyes widened in surprise. “Ah, Sir Ali... you know about that?” she said, her tone slightly strange.

The look she gave him was strange too. It seemed like she was overthinking a small detail he could have found out by accident in a number of ways, and not because he was a time traveler who knew his own birthday. Suddenly, Alibaba had the strong impression that she, like Sinbad and Esra, had come to her own conclusions about his background.

But that didn’t make any sense. If he considered how it looked from Sinbad’s perspective, Alibaba could vaguely guess what he and his mother were assuming -- between his resemblance to Anise and his own child self, Anise’s status as a single mother with no partner in sight, and Alibaba’s not entire subtle reactions to her.

Anise, however, knew very well her own family situation, or lack thereof. She couldn’t have possibly taken him for a brother, cousin, whatever like Sinbad and Esra seemed to have.

What in the world was she thinking?

“Sir Ali, just what is that you...” Anise started, only to trail off, pursing her lips. After a moment of deep internal conflict that flickered across her open, expressive face, she shook her head and smiled again. “I won’t let you down,” she repeated.

What Alibaba had overlooked was that he resembled both his parents. The truth was naturally too preposterous for Anise to guess, but when she looked at him, the face she thought of wasn’t her own. Rather, it was that of the 22nd king of Balbadd.

There were no immediate branches in the royal family, but that didn’t mean there were none at all.

Was it possible this was that man’s kindness...?

Sneaking another glance at ‘Sir Ali’, Anise chose to remain silent. At the palace, she had learned that there were some things better left unspoken.

Of course, there were also things that needed to be said, or they would remain an eternal regret.

~.~

“Oh, I forgot to ask,” Sinbad realized when they were two days out of Balbadd and had settled into smooth sailing across the smooth blue sea. “What about you? When is your birthday?”

Alibaba blinked and frowned thoughtfully. He ignored Sinbad’s raised eyebrows at the complicated thinking this seemingly simple question required.

When he went into Amon, it had been two months after his birthday, and he had just turned seventeen. When he came out, it was fourteen years in the past and also three months earlier. In a way, his birthday was tomorrow. But it wasn’t like he was actually turning eighteen. How to even count in a situation like that?

“Well... it’s not for a while,” Alibaba said finally, with an awkward smile.

In a way, it was true. Alibaba Saluja’s eighteenth’s birthday was not for a very long time yet.

#nanowrimo #My writing

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imaginetonyandbucky · 5 years

Text

Tony Stark’s Guide to Being a Functional Adult

Step 3: Get a Job (AO3)

The next morning Bucky came into the kitchen for breakfast and made a face at the funky smell. He found Tony was sitting at the table, determinedly eating his way through what looked and smelled like burnt, rubbery eggs.

“Breakfast mishap?” Bucky said, smothering a smile as he went to the pantry for cereal.

“Yeah,” Tony sighed, poking at the eggs.

“If you would like someone to show you around the kitchen, I can,” Bucky said as grabbed a bowl from the cabinets. “I used to make breakfast for my sister all the time.”

Tony washed down the eggs with a large swallow of coffee. “I used to sit with Jarvis in the kitchen while he cooked, so I thought I knew what I was doing. Turns out it’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“Try doing it one handed,” Bucky joked without thinking, and winced. He snuck a glance at Tony but Tony was just looking mournfully down at his plate. He’d been waiting for Tony to say something about his missing arm, to at least ask, and waiting for the inevitable awkward questions was making him anxious.

“I couldn’t even crack the eggs right, I know you should be at least able to do that one handed.” Bucky looked in the trash can and sure enough, there were a handful of destroyed eggs along with a ridiculous amount of paper towels.

“You’ll get the hang of it.” He sat down at the table with his bowl and smiled at Tony’s downturned mouth as he gazed covetously at Bucky’s breakfast.

With a sigh, Tony managed to force down the last bite of eggs and pushed his plate away. “Speaking of fixing things,” he said, clearing his throat and fiddling with his fork. “I don’t suppose you need any help in your garage?”

“You got experience working on cars?” Bucky said in surprise. Nothing about Tony screamed “blue collar” much less “grease monkey,” but he should know better than to judge people by their looks.

“Not professionally, but I’ve been working on my dad’s cars for years.” Tony must have realized that he was fidgeting because he flattened his palms on the table and met Bucky’s eyes. “I know we just met, but I was thinking if you just let me show you what I can do…you know what, I’m sorry,” he said, pushing back from the table and standing. “It was a dumb idea, you’ve already helped me enough-”

“No, stop,” Bucky said, grabbing Tony’s hand before he could turn away. “It’s not a dumb idea. There are jobs that I can’t take because of, you know, my arm, so I could probably use another pair of hands. One whole pair of hands. You know what I mean.” He let go of Tony and ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Just come down whenever, or I can just get you when I have something for you to do.”

“Great!” Tony brightened like Bucky just made his day, and for some stupid reason Bucky felt himself blush so he turned back to his cereal and hoped Tony didn’t notice. “I’ll just grab my laptop and come downstairs in a little while.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Bucky said in what he hoped was an offhand manner and prayed that this wouldn’t turn out to be a really dumb idea.

(More after the break!)

Bucky’s business was not what you would call ‘booming’ these days; having to do everything one-handed made him slow and limited the types of repairs he could do, and most of the people in the neighborhood already knew that by now. He had one guy come by to change out his battery, which he suspected was more of a charity thing than anything else, and a couple of people came in for inspections. Bucky was about to apologize to Tony for wasting his day when a guy in a suit came striding up his driveway, shouting into his cell phone.

“Hold on a second,” he said to the person on the other line, and muted the call to speak to Bucky. “You’re a mechanic, right? My car started making this ticking sound on the highway and when I got off on the exit, it just shut off at the intersection.”

“What kind of car is it?” Bucky was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to help this guy because it sounded like a fuel pump problem, but it was worth a shot.

“It’s a 2016 Jaguar XJ,” the man said, and Bucky started to open his mouth and admit that he didn’t know anything about Jags when Tony jumped down off the work bench he’d been perched on.

“I might be able to help you,” he said. “How far away is it?”

“Just down the street.”

Tony gestured for him to lead the way and out of sheer curiosity, Bucky quickly locked up the shop and followed. The man returned to his phone call, apparently more than happy to ignore them both as Tony popped the hood and took a look.

“Do you have any idea what it might be?” Bucky said in a low voice as Tony leaned into the engine compartment.

“Yeah,” Tony answered absently. “People haven’t been buying Jags as much these days because of the economy, so in order to keep from having to raise prices too much or, god forbid, reduce the salaries of the senior employees, they’ve been getting cheap on the parts.” He reached down and started fiddling with something Bucky couldn’t see from his angle. “Will you grab some stuff from the shop?” Bucky nodded and Tony gave him a handful of things to bring back. When he returned it only took Tony about thirty minutes of fiddling in the engine while Bucky handed him tools before he took a step back and was closing the hood.

“Give it a try,” he said to the driver, who got behind the wheel. It cranked up with no problem and Tony smiled in satisfaction. “The fix will get you another couple hundred miles,” Tony said to the driver through the window, who seemed to be barely paying attention, still intent on his phone. “But you should take it to your dealer, it should still be under warranty.”

“How much do I owe you?” The man said, tossing the phone on the side seat as he reached for his wallet.

Tony looked to Bucky, who took a gamble and said, “Two hundred for an onsite service call, since we had to close the shop.” Bucky halfway expected him to protest because Tony only worked on the car for about thirty minutes, but the man pulled out four fifty dollar bills without protesting, which kinda made Bucky wish he’d asked for more.

“Good work,” Bucky said in surprise as they watched the Jag drive away, purring like it just came off the lot.

“Thanks. I used to tell my friends that I was good at three things: drinking, fucking, and fixing things,” Tony said, surprising a laugh out of Bucky.

“Drinking, fucking, and fixing things, huh?” Bucky said as he turned to go back to the garage. “Are you as good at fucking and drinking as you are at fixing things?”

“Better,” Tony said with a lewd wink as he flipped a wrench into the air. He tried to catch it and missed as it came down, wink turning into a wince as it clattered loudly on the sidewalk.

“Smooth,” Bucky said, smiling. He took one of the fifties that the man had given them for repairing his car and put the rest in the cash drawer. “Let’s knock off early and go get a drink.”

He led them to a tiny, hole in the wall bar called, somewhat ironically, The Yacht Club, that was only four blocks away. “This is my favorite place drink,” Bucky said. “Well,” he amended as he pulled the door open for Tony, “It's kind of my only place to drink. I don't tend to wander very far from home these days.” Going more than a mile from his house usually sparked a panic attack that only got worse the farther away he went, but he didn't want to sound like a nutcase so he kept that part to himself.

As they went to sit at a booth near the bar, Tony was acting like he never seen a place like this before, running a hand over the scarred wooden tables and picking at the cracking fake leather of the seats. In honor of the bar’s name, the décor was beach themed with pirate accents; Bucky looked around and saw it as Tony must be seeing it and realized that objectively speaking, it was probably a bit of a dump. But it was a dive bar, a locals bar, with great food and a beer tap that rotated just enough to say interesting without attracting too many of the hipsters that were invading the neighborhoods of New York.

“Bucky, you son of a bitch, I thought I told you never to come to this bar again.” Bucky was pulled from his thoughts as a man came up and threw an arm around him with affection.

“You told me to never come to this bar again unless I was bringing somebody who could actually drink,” Bucky corrected. Bucky was usually on a one or two drink limit because of his meds, and though Sam knew that he still liked to give him a hard time. “So that's what I did,” he said, gesturing to Tony.

“Oh yeah?” Sam looked at Tony with interest and Bucky noticed curiously that Tony seemed to tense but smiled politely anyway under his scrutiny. “I'm Sam, the main bartender here,” Sam said, holding out his hand.

Tony relaxed as he shook Sam’s hand. “I’m Tony.

“Tony is my new roommate and co-worker,” Bucky explained. “Today was his first day on the job so I brought him here to celebrate. The food here is amazing, if you are hungry,” he said to Tony.

“Yeah our cook is a visionary,” Sam added. “Not good with people but a magician in the kitchen.” Interest piqued, Tony reached for the menu. At this point anything would be better than more frozen dinners; they'd run out of Jarvis's meals last week. “I’ll give you a minute to decide,” Sam said, and gave Bucky one more clap on the back before he left. “Nice to meet you, Tony.”

“So I keep hearing that you are planning to go to school in the fall,” Bucky commented as Tony looked over the menu. “What are you going to study?”

“Mechanical engineering, hopefully,” Tony said. “I would like to go into clean energy, I think. Or robotics, I haven’t decided.”

“A Master’s?”

“Uh, well,” Tony cleared his throat. “A PhD, actually.”

“Oh, wow,” Bucky sat back with a smile. “Impressive.”

“It will be my second,” he admitted. “It’s why my dad kicked me out.”

“Really? For wanting another doctorate?”

“Yeah, he said I was just wasting time instead of helping with the family business.” Tony ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Which might be a little true, but not for the reason he thinks. He thinks I’m, I don’t know, lazy or something, but the truth is that I just don’t think our company is in the right business.”

Bucky waited for him to continue, but Tony just shrugged and smiled apologetically, clearly unable or unwilling to say more. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that about your dad, but the PhD thing does explain a lot, though,” Bucky said, waving for Sam to come back.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like why you don’t know how to cook but you can fix a Jag with some duct tape and a clothes hanger.” They placed their order, two loaded burgers with a couple of beers, and Sam wandered off again and came back after a moment with their drinks.

“Cheers to your first day of work,” Bucky said, tapping his glass against Tony’s.

“Cheers,” Tony repeated, taking a sip. "So, how about you? Have you thought about going back to school or are you happy with the mechanics shop?"

Bucky snorted. "Nah, I got my bachelors in history while I was in the Army because I was going to try to become an officer one day." He gestured wryly to his shoulder. "But things didn't really work out. Nowadays the thought of going back to school..." Bucky grimaced. Even if he got into a program, which would be difficult enough, he could imagine being in class with a bunch of people who were ostentatiously trying not to stare at him, or having to constantly find workarounds for only having one arm, or having to commute so far outside his comfort zone. Even the idea of dealing with papers and deadlines and presentations made him sweat just thinking about it. "Just sounds exhausting,” he finished.

"I can see that," Tony said, which Bucky thought was rich coming from a guy going for his second doctorate. Bucky's skepticism must have showed on his face because Tony protested. "Hey, I hated writing papers," he said. "All of the English and History prerequisites, even for a science degree, were horrible. My roommate Rhodey is the only reason why I passed those classes."

"If you say so." Bucky took a sip of his beer. “I liked writing essays. I wasn’t too shabby at math, but history was definitely one of my favorite subjects.” Bucky told Tony about this one essay he wrote on the impact of snipers in World War 2, and Tony shared some of his dad’s anecdotes from working with the military, and when Same brought their food over, he got drawn into the discussion from his experience with the Air Force. The bar was slow enough that Sam was able to sit down with them and talk, which was when Tony found out that Sam had a day job with the local Veteran’s Affairs center.

“But enough about me,” Sam said, leaning over the table to study Tony with a mischievous look in his eye. “Let’s talk about you.”

“Sam,” Bucky said warningly, apparently knowing what he was about to say, but Sam ignored him.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“Uh,” Tony glanced at Bucky in confusion, but he was hiding his face in his hand and was therefore no help. “No?”

“No?” Sam echoed, sounding pleased. “Hear that, Bucky? You know, Bucky here’s not seeing anyone either,” Sam said over Bucky’s embarrassed groan.

“Go away, Sam,” Bucky said, voice muffled by his hand. “You’re not helping.”

Bucky couldn’t see the slow grin of unholy amusement that came over Sam’s face at that, but Tony knew that Bucky had just fucked up. “Helping, huh,” he said, and Sam’s tone made Bucky’s eyes fly up in alarm.

“Sam-” he warned again, but Sam just talked right over him.

“Helping implies that there’s something to help,” Sam said musingly, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Then his eyes widened. “Oh my God, I’m crashing your date. This is your first date, isn’t it?” As Bucky started to protest, Sam slid out from the booth. “I’m so sorry, you guys get back to your awkward first date conversation.”

“This isn’t a date!” Bucky called out to his receding back.

“What was that?” Sam called back. “One slice of chocolate cake for the lovebirds? Ok, coming right up!”

Tony could see that Bucky’s face was getting red and knew he was blushing to match. “I’m so sorry,” Bucky said. “Sam likes to think he's funny."

“It’s fine,” Tony said. He wanted to say, I mean, it could be a date if you wanted it to be, but he didn’t know if that would make Bucky’s embarrassment worse, and anyway, they were living together and working together, so dating would be too much, right? He sighed internally and plastered on a reassuring grin. “My friends are the same way.” The silence between them was awkward for a minute then Tony said, “But we’re staying for the cake, right? That wasn’t just a joke?”

“Well, yeah we’re staying for the cake,” Bucky said as if that were obvious. “I mean, free cake.”

#winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #no powers au #prompts #dracusfyre

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fialleril · 6 years

Text

redcap3 replied to your post “Following this post (months later because this got buried in my drafts...”

...is it crazy I kinda want to see post-Vader Anakin being set up for a blind date?

The whole thing is Han’s idea.

When he first suggests it to Leia, he says he wants to do something nice for the old man, which as cover stories go is frankly terrible. Leia only raises an unimpressed eyebrow. It’s such a bad excuse it doesn’t even deserve a response.

Finally Han gives it up and admits that, okay, fine, he just can’t stand watching Rustbucket get flirted at every time they’re all dragged to some gala or top brass event. Anakin’s clueless act is just embarrassing, and worse, Chewie thinks it’s funny, that traitor.

Leia just goes on looking at him. Luke, though, says, “Uh, Han, I don’t think it’s an act.”

Han stares at him. “Oh come on, kid. No one is that clueless.” Then he stops to consider this, and who he’s talking to. Luke is a very friendly person, and very bad at recognizing the line between friendly and flirting. Half the Rebellion wants to date him and as near as Han can tell, he genuinely has no idea. But still... “Okay, fine, maybe some people are. But your old man was married. He managed to produce the two of you somehow. So he can’t be completely unaware of how these things go.”

Leia snickers at him. Han has the sinking feeling she knows something he doesn’t, but he knows better than to ask when she gets that look in her eye.

So he decides he’s gonna set Anakin up on a date, and Leia can laugh all she wants. He’ll be the one laughing when it works.

His first attempt is a guy named Rav who used to work maintenance in one of the hangars on Home One. These days he’s planetside on Coruscant. Nice guy, a few years older than Anakin, green eyes, a great ass. Han arranges the date at a bar so chill he frankly hates the place himself, but it seems like the kind of scene an older couple might enjoy. (Anakin’s only thirteen years older than you, a little voice in the back of his head says, but he ignores that. It’s too weird to let himself think about.) He tells Anakin that Rav wants to meet up and talk shuttle maintenance, which is such a damn obvious innuendo that he barely manages to restrain a cringe as he says it.

But hey, it works, and Anakin’s off to meet with Rav and Han congratulates himself on a job well done. Leia’s still smirking, but that’s just because she hasn’t yet learned what a great matchmaker he is.

Anakin swings back by Leia’s apartment about three hours later, early enough that Luke’s still there and Han is just a little worried. But it was only a first date, so...that doesn’t have to be bad, does it?

“How’d it go, Rustbucket?” he says.

Anakin shrugs easily and heads for the kitchen to start a pot of tzai. “Not bad. Rav’s got some great ideas for B- and Y-wing class fighters, but his views on TIEs are woefully misinformed.” He grumbles something under his breath. “I understand that there’s a need to bad mouth the enemy fighters in front of the troops, but you don’t need to buy into your own propaganda.”

Han blinks a little. Luke and Leia are snickering behind their hands, and for once, it’s real damn easy to see that they’re twins. He glares at them both.

“Well, all right, but...what about the, uh, social aspect?”

“Huh?” Anakin comes into the living room and sits in the chair across from Han and Leia’s couch. Han can never get over how the guy just...sprawls when he sits. It’s about the least Vader-like mannerism he can think of.

“Did you hit it off?” Han asks.

A brief frown crosses Anakin’s face. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind another chance to correct his opinions on TIEs.” Suddenly he brightens, “I did manage to get him the bartender’s number, though, and I’m pretty sure they’re going out this weekend, so I suppose that’s my good deed for the day.” He says this last very dryly. It’s something his therapist suggested, taking notice of his good deeds and letting himself be proud of them or something like that, and Anakin always snarks about it but Han is pretty sure he’s also following his therapist’s advice, so that’s something.

Anyway, that’s clearly not the important thing here. “Wait,” he sputters. “You...set Rav up on a date...with the bartender?”

Leia looks positively gleeful now and Han is pretty sure she didn’t plan this, but if it turned out she did he wouldn’t even be surprised.

Anakin, though, doesn’t seem to understand what’s got Han in such a fuss. “Sure,” he says with another shrug. “They made a cute couple.”

“I don’t believe this,” Han mutters. What kind of guy plays wingman for his own date? He scrapes a hand over his face and resolves to hold on to whatever dignity he can. “Okay, so Rav’s not your type, huh?”

Anakin only looks at him with an expression of such genuine confusion that Han can’t even convince himself the guy’s pretending. “My type of what?” he says.

A loud snort of laughter escapes Leia, and she tries to play it off as a sneeze. Han isn’t impressed.

“Never mind,” he mutters, and eventually the conversation moves on, but he knows Leia isn’t going to forget about this anytime soon.

So okay. Maybe he made a bad call with that first try. Maybe Anakin’s only interested in women? It’s a possibility. Fine. So this time Han will have to find the right woman.

He considers his options carefully. Luke and Leia’s mom was a politician and a founder of the Rebel alliance, smart as hell and also pretty damn stunning. (Leia definitely takes after her mother, he thinks, without the slightest hint of a goofy grin, no matter what Chewie says.) She must have had a terrible sense of humor though. Either that or she put up with Anakin’s awful jokes out of some never before heard of reservoir of patience and goodness. Actually, the way Anakin talks about her, that might be true.

So he’s looking for someone smart, driven, principled, but also somehow willing to endure endless terrible puns. That’s a tall order.

The first person he tries is Mon Mothma. It takes him a couple weeks to work up to asking her, because yeah, there’s nothing about this idea that isn’t awkward. But he’s got to admit, she does fit the profile.

So eventually he gets up the guts to suggest the idea of a date, and Mon Mothma laughs in his face.

Well, Han thinks, muttering to himself and wishing he could erase the last fifteen minutes of his life from existence. In hind sight, that was a pretty stupid idea. He’s never even heard of Mon Mothma going on a date.

“You’ve never heard of Dad going on a date either,” Luke says, smirking. Not for the first time, Han wonders what the hell he was thinking, making Luke his confidant in this. But he needed someone with more insight into Anakin, and he’d be damned if he’d ask Leia.

“That’s different, obviously,” Han says. “He spent twenty years inside a tin can.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “I just don’t understand why you won’t let this go,” he says.

“Because people are always flirting with him!” Han says. “And he’s always pretending not to notice. It’s infuriating.”

“It doesn’t happen that often,” Luke says, and okay, Han thinks, that’s actually true, but still. It happens often enough.

Luke sighs. “If you’re so stuck on that, why don’t you just ask one of the people who’s actually flirted with him?”

Huh. That’s not a bad idea, actually. Why didn’t he think of that.

It still takes him a while to plan his strategy, but eventually he manages to set Anakin up on a date with a woman named Meera Yasko. She’s Corellian, he’s pretty sure, but she’s also whip smart and pretty attractive. She’s some kind of attorney at a non-profit or something, and Han’s never been especially keen on people of the legal persuasion, but he figures Anakin might like that.

The old man takes a bit of convincing, but Han is a master of smooth talking (don’t laugh, Leia!) and eventually he gets them set up at a nice swank restaurant and even orders a bottle of wine for the table as a surprise.

Anakin comes back from this date a lot more excited, and Han experiences a fleeting moment of smug hope, only to have it crushed beneath Anakin’s heel when it turns out the man is excited for all the wrong reasons.

Apparently, Meera is the chief counsel at a non-profit involved in education for underprivileged youth, whatever the hell that means. They’re an interplanetary organization, too, but it’s not the organization itself that really interests Anakin. Meera has the legal background to cover all of the complicated bits about starting a foundation that Anakin doesn’t really understand (and Han understands even less, if he’s honest), and he thinks they might really be able to get this off the ground.

“Wait,” says Han. “This? What’s this?”

He expects a glare or an eyeroll from Leia and maybe Luke, but instead, they look as curious as he feels.

“Oh,” says Anakin, looking oddly shy. “Right. I haven’t told you yet. I’ve been thinking, well, they’re paying me all this money that I don’t need -” (here he raises a hand to forestall Leia’s usual protest) “- so I want to do something with it. And I thought... Tatooine’s free now, but there’s not exactly a uniform system of education, and many of the communities don’t have necessary supplies or access to training for teachers or -”

“Dad,” says Leia, “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

As it turns out, setting up an entire school system takes a lot of work. Who knew, right? It also takes a pretty shocking amount of money, much more than Anakin’s supposedly extravagant yearly salary. That’s not a problem, though, because Meera helps him set up a fundraising program that’s frankly terrifying in its efficiency.

They spend an awful lot of time together, but it’s mostly in her office or over working lunches. Still, Han holds onto hope for a while. After all, she at least was definitely interested. He knows that. But after several months, he finally has to admit defeat. Meera and Anakin have a pretty great working relationship, and Han would even venture to say they’ve become friends, but he still hasn’t seen any evidence that Anakin ever realized she was interested, and it’s pretty clear now that she’s not thinking about him that way any more.

Still. The Padme Naberrie Educational Foundation basically exists because of Han, so he’s counting this one a win.

He keeps trying.

There’s a woman named Jasta who likes to dance and, apparently, has terrible taste in art. Not his best choice, but hey, Anakin managed to set her up with a guy they ran into at the art museum, and he seems happy about that, at least.

There’s Varin, who’s an active duty lieutenant in the Republic navy and likes to spend her leave time volunteering with animals. Anakin introduces her to the recently defected Admiral Piett, and damn if the two of them aren’t getting married about five months later. So that worked out, Han thinks, rolling his eyes. But hey, Anakin got a cat out of the deal, which apparently his therapist thinks is great for him, so...there’s that.

There’s Piett himself, which Han still thinks made sense in theory, because Anakin is clearly fond of the guy. But, looking back, he can admit that it’s pretty likely even Piett didn’t know this one was meant to be a date, and Han suspects Anakin may have agreed to the whole thing as an excuse to set Piett up with Varin.

His last attempt is a Twi’lek woman named Dinsa Atray who’s frankly just a little bit terrifying, but then so is Anakin, so Han figures it’s a good match. They actually start meeting up pretty regularly, and Han is starting to feel pretty smug about it, even though Leia still isn’t convinced of his matchmaking skills. But his illusions are cruelly shattered a few weeks later, when dramatic and disturbingly well-documented accusations of sentient trafficking and money laundering bring about the abrupt end of Senator Orn Free Taa’s political career and, eventually, the beginning of his exciting new prison career.

(“Well this was fun,” Han overhears Dinsa tell Anakin. “Let me know if you ever want to destroy a man’s life and reputation again. I’m always game.” Yeah. Maybe more than a little terrifying.)

Three years into his self-appointed quest, and Han’s sitting at the dinner table staring at an invitation to the wedding of Mon Mothma and Meera Yasko. He has to admit, he didn’t see that coming. He wonders a bit sourly if Anakin introduced them, too. Honestly at this point he wouldn’t be surprised. The universe is trolling him, clearly.

“Hey, Rustbucket,” he says, because no one’s ever accused him of quitting while he’s ahead. “Who are you bringing as your plus one?”

Leia eyes him with fond derision, and Han gamely ignores her.

“Kadee, probably,” Anakin says. “She likes weddings. Why?”

“No reason,” Han mutters.

It’s three more months before he finally gives up. But he’s not going to admit that.

“You know,” he tells Leia, “I think I can declare this operation a resounding success.”

“Really,” says Leia with a smirk. “Because from where I’m standing it looks like you set my dad up on a dozen blind dates, and he still doesn’t even realize he’s been on one.”

Han waves a careless hand. “Well, from where I’m standing it looks like Operation Get Anakin Skywalker Some Friends was an unqualified success.”

Leia’s face softens and she leans up to give him a lingering kiss. “That’s sweet, Han,” she says, and when he grimaces she laughs. “But don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

#replies #redcap3 #i write things #double agent anakin #star wars #sorry han but anakin is super demi and padme was it for him #also yes he really is that oblivious #the only reason he noticed padme was into him was because he was already interested in her #and therefore had a reason to notice #i don't think it's ever occurred to him that people other than padme have ever been or could be attracted to him #but at the same time he's not oblivious to interest between other people #and is therefore a surprisingly good matchmaker himself #so han's attempts at matchmaking ended pretty happily for everyone involved #meanwhile if there's anyone more oblivious than anakin #it's definitely luke #luke almost certainly has multiple fanclubs dedicated to him #and he has no idea #if he found out he would just be embarrassed tho #so no one tells him because it would just be cruel #also now i'm imagining anakin and dinsa set up on a date and honestly that's both hilarious and terrifying #it was probably super awkward until they discovered their shared interest in destroying orn free taa's life #han solo #anakin skywalker #leia organa #luke skywalker #mon mothma #dinsa atray #and a bunch of ocs i made up for this post who will probably actually appear in a fic now #long post

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