Tumgik
#which came out six years ago and I have never felt serious emotion watching a film since
abhainnwhump · 1 year
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Watching/reading a Whumpee get shackled in a cage and tortured via beatings, eventually breaking under the torture: Mm-hm, very nice.
Watching/reading a dog get kicked once: You monster, you demon. I hope your name gets lost to history. You will lose everything and everyone you love until you are alone in your own regrets with no one to turn to.
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ahdriking · 2 years
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So, Blue Blood is finished. And,,,, I have a lot of feelings about it. 
Let me tell you a story! Six months ago, I decided to open up and engage with tumblr for the first time in almost three years. It was a random evening, I was bored and had nothing to do, so I decided to see what was going on in the world that had once consumed my life, but which had been absent from it for quite some time. Almost immediately (a testament to how well past me curated my blog) I came across a gifset from Kinnporsche. Can’t remember what it was of, but it appealed to me enough that I hunted the show down on a whim and put it on.
And then my entire life changed.
I’m not being dramatic, I’m genuinely serious. I used to waste my days playing phone games and watching TV because I had gotten out of using my computer and accessing fandom, but after I watched Kinnporsche, I literally put down my phone and forgot about it so hard I literally broke it accidentally and have gone without one for five months. I reactivated my tumblr from its longtime slumber, I created a twitter for the first time ever, I logged into ao3 for the first time in almost two years, and I stepped into fandom with the burning passion of a woman who’s entire life had been consumed. Because this show made me feel more than any show I have ever watched has made me feel, more than any other piece of media has ever made me feel. I have never been so emotionally enraptured by a fictional relationship, one which was enriched by the most sensual and stimulating sex scenes I’ve ever seen captured on film, one which played into all of my interests like it had been tailor made for me. I have never been so intrigued by the potential of a plot or world. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. I could never ever in a million years have prepared myself for it; to hope for something even close to a pale shade of what we got would have felt unreasonable before. And yet, Kinnporsche exists. Despite all reason, logic and odds, Kinn and Porsche exist. And I found it, while it was still airing at that, and got to participate in one of the most exciting and enrapturing tv show experiences I’ll probably ever have in my life.
Maybe it was in part due to the euphoria of the impossible happening, or maybe it was simply the novelty of experiencing passion for a creative IP for the first time in years, or maybe it was the enthusiasm of the community I found and the ability to connect with people again, but something fundamentally shifted in me because of this show, and not just in what I did in my spare time. A creative spirit I had not felt in years came roaring to life in me with an unholy vengeance the likes of which I have truly never experienced before. My generally poor mental health, which had numbed me for so long, was drowned out for days at a time by the most intense and compelling feelings of excitement and anticipation and adoration and obsession and fixation I’ve felt probably ever felt, a literally perfect cocktail of emotions that reactivated something long dormant in my mind. It left me inspired, more than I have ever been in my life– my ao3 can serve as proof! My greatest achievement before had been writing 50,000 words in a single year. I wrote that much within the first month and a half of watching the show. I went from averaging 12,000 words over 3 years to 200,000 in 6 months.
My point is, Kinnporsche was entirely unprecedented in my life, and it changed me down to my marrow. It made me capable of writing in a way I have never, ever been able to before. And that was why I found myself in the position of entertaining the idea of a longfic for the first time in *years*.
Some important context: I have never finished anything. I’ve been writing creatively since I was old enough to hold a pencil, dreaming about the stories I would one day tell, but the idea of ever being able to actually finish one? That sort of achievement felt out of reach all of my life. I just wasn’t good enough, and I was certain that I never would be. So thinking about writing a longfic so soon after taking up writing again really felt like a risky, no good idea. I promised myself I wouldn’t, not unless the idea was so good it just HAD to be attempted. Something genuinely exceptional.
It was a series of cascading coincidences that led me to Blue Blood. First, a particular photo of Apo with eyeliner. Then, a series of meta posts investigating the potential darkness of Kinn’s character. Finally, joining a discord server of people who were excited by and receptive of the initial ideas that intrigued me: fighter!porsche and dark mafia!Kinn. It was a perfect storm. And fuck me if it didn’t make me feel really, really excited by it. So I did the improbable: I started to plan.
One of my problems has always been that I start something without knowing how to finish it. I set off before I have the destination in mind, hoping to somehow figure it out along the way, but inevitably run out of steam and, without an ending in sight, the process feels hopeless. But I was determined not to do this for Blue Blood. So I comprehensively planned out the entire arc of the fic, and gave myself as much structure as I could (as I’ve told a few people, Blue Blood boils down to a 5+1 fic in structure. It’s 5 fights plus the final boss showdown(altho I only had to write 5 total cos I did a cheeky). And I really, really fucking liked it. It felt really fucking tangible. Writing the first chapter, after that, was the easiest thing in the world. Genuinely, chapter one was one of the most fun writing experiences I’ve ever had, it just fucking poured out of me. And the reception to it was amazing; the number of people who took a chance on the first chapter of a WIP, on a dark fic one at that, truly thrilled and excited me. So we were off to a good start.
But Blue Blood wouldn’t remain mine alone.
I picked up @kissporsche sometime after the first chapter, but before the second. We had exchanged a few random messages on tumblr, and they seemed like a really cool person, so when I wanted someone to take a look at my work I thought of them. All I wanted, initially, was someone to beta what I’d written and maybe give me a few encouraging comments. I sent her the doc, and waited to hear back. And what I got blew me the fuck away. I’ve had beta’s before, but never one who so comprehensively attacked the editing process, in such a way that I genuinely felt was perfectly targeted to identifying my weaknesses and expanding on my strengths. And not just that, but she was excited to just *talk* to me about it, she was excited for me to bounce ideas off of her and explore difficulties with her and just generally bitch about whatever with her. And she was more than open to the idea of working on the next chapter. And maybe the one after that.
Before I knew it my usually solitary and isolated experience writing fic was just a thing of the past. I suddenly had someone who would not only listen to my every random thought or concern I had, but who would genuinely encourage them and do the same right back at me. It was fucking INCREDIBLE. As a person who lives for feedback, I found myself writing things just to be able to send them to kissporsche for her edits and reactions. I found myself driven, almost supernaturally, to produce content just so we could pour over it together and explore it. It changed everything. It *was* everything.
Kissporsche is responsible for so many, many parts of this fic. From being instrumental in determining key plot factors, to being the reason for the switching POV’s, to being the saving grace of Porsche’s characterisation, to instigating and perpetuating the presence of Vegaspete, to fixing up my many grammatical errors and word repetitions, to encouraging me through hard times, to cheering for me through easy times, to being a voice of reason during the dark times. For being a friend when I needed one, a voice of love and support, one that cut through and silenced the worst of my insecurities. For being someone I could turn to for whatever I needed, for being someone who made me feel competent and capable, for being someone who I could rely on. For being someone who opened up to me and let me in and gave me nothing but love and acceptance and validation in return. There aren’t many people out there in the world like you, and I want you to know that I appreciate that fact. I know how lucky I am.
There were times when it was fucking hard and I struggled, and I thought very bleakly about the future of this fic. But never once, not even for a second, did I truly feel that I was going to abandon it. I couldn’t. I had someone waiting for me, with genuine and loud excitement, to carry on. And so I did. I carried on and I carried on and I carried on and then, all of a sudden, it was almost over. And I had nearly done it. *We* had nearly done it.
These last few weeks have been truly fucking insane. We’ve spent a lot of time losing our shit over the fact that it’s getting closer and closer to it being over. To it being finished. And now we’re finally here, we’re actually fucking finally here, at the final page. At the end. And it just feels surreal! It feels like a dream. It’s finished. 
Blue Blood is finished.
I’m proud of us! I’m proud of myself. I’m damn fucking proud of myself for writing this fic. I’m proud of the plot, I’m proud of the characters, I’m proud of the world, and I’m fucking proud of finishing it. I’ve proven to myself that it’s possible, that I’m capable, and it feels like an entire world of possibility has opened up as a result. Who knows what I might write next?
I know this was a lot, but it feels important to me to mark this event with such an introspective post, because I want to remember everything about this. I want to come back years from now and re-read this and remember exactly what it was like, exactly how it felt. And I want all of you to know what it meant. This fic has changed my life, as dramatic as that sounds. It has fundamentally changed me in more ways than I can really express. It will always be my first.
But not my last 😏
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Dancing
Detavot
Summary:
The devil did not always dance the Waltz.
Notes:
uhhhhhhhhhhhh it's actually not as serious as everything implies
Work Text:
Ciel Phantomhive was not known to have a forgiving personality, not even before his tenth birthday. Of course he never went after insignificant details--if he did, he would have needed to think of a much better deadline than the one he had presented Sebastian three years ago--though he was very, very petty when he felt the need to be so. It did not help that he had learned how to be petty by the ones who had made it into some sort of art. His brother had never quite recovered from when he had gotten angry about six years ago. He smirked at the memory. A nice, very noticeable and dark chocolate stain right in the middle of his butt in front of his fiancée-to-be.
Yes, he could be very petty.
It was not an easy feat to push his buttons. Though using his brother’s death as a trump card, constantly playing mind games in order to weaken his will, mocking him for showing the most human emotion he had shown in the past years, and then blaming him for getting sick when they both knew damn well who was the one to throw him into the Atlantic Ocean would most certainly get the job done.
Ciel had thought he and the demon could coexist without messing with one another, but it appeared to be wishful thinking on his part. If the filthy mutt wished to play, Ciel would provide him a game. That was the only hard part. He had to find out how he could get under Sebastian’s skin without causing himself or the household any harm. The answer came to him when he saw Finny running through the entire manor in a panic because he could not find any chairs and Tanaka had wanted to sit down. He chuckled when Tanaka waited even though Ciel, and Tanaka, knew for a fact there was a chair in the next room just to please the kind-hearted blond idiot.
That was the reason why he had currently gathered the servants in his room and banished Sebastian to his resting chambers.
“As you all know, the harms caused by the voyage through the Atlantic have only barely begun to heal,” Ciel stated in the most noble voice he could muster. He wanted to laugh out loud at what his next words were going to be, and what they would entail. His servants, bless their hearts, nodded in a manner which reflected his own tone. “Unfortunately, Sebastian has been neglecting his own well-being while he was taking care of the house and I. Now that I have been healed, I have been trying to convince Sebastian to take a break but he refuses to abandon his station.” The truth was that Ciel told him to go fuck himself, and Sebastian had asked if Ciel had any preferred way as to how Sebastian would go about it. But the household did not need to know that.
“Poor Mister Sebastian…” Finnian pouted. “He always tells us to watch out for our health, he always cares so much!” In truth, those were just polite ways of telling them to go away or, as he preferred, off themselves. Ciel was not going to tell that truth either.
“He takes his position very seriously, just like the rest of you. No one could convince him to rest.” Because he didn't need to and, even if he did, Ciel was not going to give it to him. “So I must ask of you a small favour from me: Please take care of him. His injuries are nothing to shrug off and they are slowing him down significantly. Act as if he’s an old man in need of assistance.”
“Yes, my Lord!”
Ciel smiled as innocently as he could and decided that the weather outside was far too beautiful to spend the day in his office. He also acted as if he didn't see Tanaka smirking at him from the corner of his eye. That old man was far too clever. “Dismissed.” With that, Ciel’s entertainment had begun.
“Mister Sebastian! Let me get that for y--oh, oh no!” Mey-Rin had been running towards the butler carrying two large wooden boxes. She had tripped on the rig beneath her feet, her arms were thrown in the air as she tried to regain her lost balance. The wooden boxes were thrown in the air in Sebastian’s attempt to stabilise her. Desperate to right herself, Mey-Rin grabbed onto the only thing she could reach: Sebastian’s trousers. A loud rip could be heard as Sebastian’s trousers went down alongside the maid and, in his shock, Sebastian as unable to catch the boxes and they tumbled to the floor, the muffled noise of fine china breaking filling the hall. All was quiet for a single moment in which Ciel fought to keep the laughter behind his sealed lips. Sebastian had not worn anything under the trousers.
Mey-Rin looked at the fabric first, but was unable to identify it. She then looked up at Sebastian. She began to scream. Ciel fled the scene before her eyes could find him as she tried to look anywhere but Sebastian.
The second scene was with Baldroy. Ciel was very much intrigued as to how this one would go, since Baldroy never interacted with Sebastian unless it was necessary.
“Hey, Sebastian,” Baldroy greeted as Sebastian rolled the dough for bread. Sebastian acknowledged the greeting with a little nod. Ciel contemplated if watching this was really necessary as the awkward air in the room intensified due to Baldroy’s hesitance. Baldroy pulled up a chair and put it behind Sebastian. Sebastian did not acknowledge it. Ciel felt second-hand embarrassment take hold of his insides. He left with a fond shake of his head. He should have known that the American would not know too much about what he could do in such a situation. He was the type of person who’d tell jokes to distract people from their pain since he didn’t know how to cure it.
Ciel was not there to see whatever Finnian had done, though he supposed he hadn’t needed to be there to know what the attempts entailed. The flower bed his father had planted for his mother as a gift for their anniversary was completely ruined. The trees decorating the garden and the entrance of the forest were ruined, their leaves and branches cut haphazardly. Some patches of the perfectly cut grass were withering away. Inside the manor most of the wooden ornaments had shoe polish on them, there were chairs everywhere, the dining table had broken china and glass on it. Snake’s little friends were slithering away everywhere, dead bugs and mice wrapped in their tails. Was Snake… delivering those to Sebastian to show how he was helping around the household? It was cute. Very gross, but cute.
Sebastian paid him a visit later in the evening. Ciel kept his attention on the paperwork he had for the day, though the work was nearing its end. “Has your work gone smoothly?” It was something Ciel asked on occasion, a habit carried over from their first year working together when Ciel had still been worried sick over the results.
Of course,” Sebastian replied with a threateningly innocent smile. Ciel made sure his face was blank. Sebastian knew that he was the one to blame for the servants’ actions, but it was not as if he had any solid evidence to properly accuse him. Ciel was going to get away with this. The thought made him giddy. Sebastian placed the little slice of cake and his tea on the table and bowed respectfully. Ciel was cautious as he preferred to take as little of a piece as possible from the cake, and only a shallow sip of the tea. Both were positively foul, though he forced himself to swallow. He raised a brow at Sebastian. “Ah, I apologise, Young Master. These old hands cannot measure the way they used to.”
The demon was just as petty as he was, it seemed.
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burnedbyshoto · 4 years
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the bodyguard
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— Kirishima gets assigned to be the bodyguard to one of the worlds greatest idols: you. —
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pairing: bodyguard!kirishima eijirou x idol!reader
warnings: nsfw, 18+, brat taming, authority kink, spanking, blowjob, slapping, choking, brat taming, brat!reader, modern!au, no quirks, bodyguard!kirishima, idol!reader, PTSD portrayal, anxiety, war flashbacks, implied minor character death, drugging, alcohol consumption, size difference: kirishima is 2 feet taller than you, regardless of the reader’s original height. If you’re 6 ft congrats he’s 8 ft.
word count: 20,500
a/n: this is for the bnharem collab.... im so sorry, it’s 4:30 am and I have a plane to catch in 2 hours to get back to school. thank you jo for proofreading this for me because lol I am a mess. if the paragraph spacing did not work as I wish it does, please let me know so I can go in and edit in visible paragraph spacers!
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“I’ll be okay.”
The smell of dirt, sweat, and blood clung to the air.
The sun was setting, its blood-red shine illuminating against the destroyed earth, making the already bloodied soil even bloodier. 
There was no telling if the land was quiet, if the reason why the world's silence was because the world just for this moment had gone silent, or if the earlier explosions were still ringing in his ears.
Kirishima sat wounded, his back pressed to the wall, his eyes wide, breathing erratic. He can’t move, can’t bother picking up the gun that lays abandoned by his knee as warm, sticky liquid spills onto his clothed knees and continues to soak the fabric of his jeans.
What had he done?
What in the fucking world had he done?!
BOOM!
Kirishima stills, his eyes stilling on the floor and looking at the clear moisture. He doesn’t need to touch his face to know it’s a combination of both sweat and tears. 
His ears sing with white noise, the erratic beat of his heart, and his pained breathing.
“I’ll be okay,” the ghost taunts his mind.
But I’m not okay, Kirishima tries to speak, but knows with how his tongue is sitting like a thick dried sponge in his mouth, he won’t be able to speak. Pushing off the cold floor, flops onto his back, his arm flinging over his closed, shaken eyes until the ringing in his ear disappears into his alarm clock. 
05:30.
Kirishima lays there for a bit more, his chest still heaving heavily with the weight of lead.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Better?
No, not yet.
Kirishima runs through breathing exercises, his chest never stopping in it’s hiccuped, broken pants as his memories continue to haunt his mind. If only he was smarter, more observant, better.
“Time to get up, time to get up, time to get up,” his phone screams with his second alarm set at 06:45. The sound does what it’s intended, jolting Kirishima out of his own head. His labored breathing shallowing just enough for his lungs to finally grasp ahold of its required function.
Today was an important day for him; he needed to be on his tiptop game, according to what Toshinori said yesterday.
I’m okay, he convinced himself as he does every morning after having this dream. Kirishima flings his arm off his eyes, the morning purple sun shining softly through his blinds. I’m okay.
Date: 4/2 Time: 08:00 Location: UA Services
“And in other news, music industries princess Y/n has been attacked by yet another round of masked perpetrators. Fortunately for the music idol, she was left unhurt but was clearly rattled. This is but the fourth attack on Y/n since three weeks ago. It’s leaving many of us fans, spectators, and civilians wondering just what is being done to ensure her safety? Y/n is reported to not have a single bodyguard to her name, wanting to quote-on-quote ‘experience her fans to the fullest’, but with these recent attacks, we can’t help but hope something is done. At least until something is done about these attackers—”
Kirishima’s eyes tore away from the screen, his lips pressed into a deep frown as he took in the story. There was deep worry about it, not only because he hated the idea of people getting hurt, but because he was a big fan of yours.
Your debut album had come out during his training camp for the military. Not only was it an instant billboard smasher breaking every standing record, but his commanding officers were obsessed with the album and played it continuously until they graduated. Most of Kirishima’s comrades came to dislike your music solely because they remember throwing up, bleeding, and suffering while you sang about love and whatnot, but Kirishima? Kirishima fell in love.
It was a bright spot in his life, and he was grateful for your music, even if it has been ten years and six albums since the training camp.
“Yo, Kiri!” a voice cheered out happily as a hand clasped onto his shoulder from behind. Kirishima held the flinch that threatened to rip through his bones. Kirishima turned to find Kaminari grinning up at him, a cup of steaming tea in one hand as he grinned brightly at his coworker. “I heard you’re finally getting a good case today!”
Kirishima found himself relaxing at the sight of his rather spontaneous friend, a warm smile easing onto his face as he raised his fist for a greeting fist bump.
“We’ll see, I know Toshi’ said it was going to be important, but he also said escorting the paranoid old lady was important,” Kirishima sighed, his smile softening a bit.
Kaminari laughed, his arm slinging around Kirishima’s shoulders as he remembered that.
The little old lady was sure that the government was out to kill her and wanted protection until her son returned from his vacation. Needless to say, Kirishima had thoroughly enjoyed his time with her, even if she was a bit scary. It was a low-risk job, and he only was paranoid by her cane, which she used to thwack his back many times as she talked about how plums extended your life.
“God, I remember subbing in for you for one hour because of your family emergency, and she was so scary! She still haunts my nightmares!” Kaminari shudders, placing the cup of his tea to his lip and taking a long, slow drink. His eyes shift over to the TV, which is still broadcasting the story of your attack. “What a bunch of bastards,” he growls, eyebrows scrunching as the news reporter ends the segment. “Thinking they can go after such a beautiful and talented idol… I’ll kill them.”
Kirishima was more than well aware of Kaminari’s plentiful budding romances. The blond man fell in love with just about any smiling woman who happened to waltz in front of him. Still, unlike most times, he found himself agreeing with him.
“It sounds really serious. I hope that she really considers some type of security team,” Kirishima inputs too, taking the teacup in his fingers with a nod of thanks. “There’re too many weirdos in Japan and in the world, I wouldn’t want to hear the news the day something bad happens.”
Kaminari hums, his face nearing Kirishima’s as he takes a small sip of the apparently black tea. His eyes scrunch, and Kirishima smiles awkwardly as the blond studies him intently.
“W-Wha—”
“You like Y/n!” Kaminari exclaims (accuses, maybe?), his arm leaving Kirishima’s shoulders as he points a finger accusingly at him. “I thought I was the only one in this department who did!”
“Don’t be an idiot, Denki,” the familiar voice of Sero responds for Kirishima. “Everyone in the world is in love with Y/n; she was voted the favorite artist of the year in our company. Everyone but Bakugou voted for her if I remember correctly.”
Kirishima looks over at his black-haired friend who is rummaging through his locker, his mouth curved into an easy, teasing smile as he looks between the bashful Kaminari and sneering Bakugou, who also seemed to just walk in.
“Her shit is basic and overrated,” Bakugou defended himself. “Nothing special and bad for your brain and ears.”
“Your go-to music playlist is fifty percent death metal and alt. rock. I don’t think you have ground to say that it’s bad for your brain and ears,” Midoriya’s snicker sounded from behind Kirishima, and he looked around to see the freckled man grinning at the snarling ash blond.
“And how does your stalker ass know that, shitnerd?!”
“‘Cause I’m a stalker, duh.”
“Oh, Bakugou-kun, Midoriya-kun! You’re both here! Todoroki-kun is looking for you!”
“I’m just saying that Y/n’s dates to all the award shows and premieres have been blond. She’s into blonds, so she would totally be into me!”
“Deku, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you myself.”
“You wouldn’t even be able to protect Y/n, bro. The only thing you performed well on in the application process was the tasing part. You can’t even tase people repetitively! She’d be dead in a second.”
“Can you believe my client dropped me because I couldn’t cook a five-star meal correctly? Hello, I can make 7-11 into a five-star course; it’s not my fault they’re not refined.”
“Kirishima-kun, are you okay?”
“I deadass got into a dance competition on the way to work. That’s why I’m late, why would I lie? Of course, I had to compete; my reputation was on the line!”
“Kirishima-kun?”
“Yo, he’s not looking too hot?”
“Kirishima?!”
“Can you hear us?!”
Silence.
Kirishima found himself opening his eyes — when had he closed them? For a moment, the air turned coppery, his body feeling weak, and he thought he felt something heavy on his lap. But that wasn’t right; he was standing up, he wasn’t sitting down. Most importantly, he was in Tokyo, Japan. He was alright. He was safe.
The sweat that clung to the back of his neck was cold, clammy, and intrusive. His chest felt tight again, his hands shaking so harshly the tea's warm, dark liquid was sloshing onto the floor.
There were seven pairs of eyes on him, each a different color, each swimming with concern and other emotions. Kirishima knew his ears weren’t working right now, his face unable to meet his brain's screaming demands to smile, and he watched as their mouths moved as they questioned his sanity.
He was okay.
He was okay.
He was okay.
“Kirishima?”
Kirishima looked up, his neck craning to the side to see a tall, skinny man standing at the doorway. 
Toshinori Yagi was an esteemed bodyguard, one of the best in the industry, which was saying something considering that most bodyguards went unknown and unnamed. According to Google, Toshinori gained the nickname All Might after saving multiple political and celebrity lives when the government could not. It was long after his prime, and the man had retired but has since filled as the company’s head — thus why this job was near impossible to get.
Kirishima heaved a breath, realizing that he hadn’t taken a single breath when Toshinori’s bruised eyes narrowed in his concern.
“C-Coming,” Kirishima smiled, the blood rushing to his ears mostly ignorable now, but the scorching concerned gazes of his friends feel like cinders on his shoulder.
He straightens his tie, fingers curling when he feels the cold sweat penetrating through his clothes, but Kirishima doesn’t let it show. Smiling like he does, Kirishima pushed through his friends and followed Toshinori out the door.
They walked down towards the conference rooms, rooms that held their contractors, in complete silence.
“This is an important case,” Toshinori began, his voice gentle and poorly hiding his concern. “I chose you because you are a great asset to have, Kirishima. You are strong and smart, and most importantly, are personable.”
Kirishima looked at the man, his face contorting with his anxiety. He didn’t want to be treated like glass.
“Honestly, you being so personable is why I chose you for this assignment. Todoroki-shounen was a contender at first, but he’s not much of a talker; the same goes for Bakugou-shounen. Midoriya-shounen was probably the best choice, but there’s a new assignment that asked for three, so I gave up those three,” Toshinori explained the current assignments. It both delighted Kirishima to hear that he could keep up with arguably the three most qualified workers here as it did, at times, make him feel lesser. 
“Oh.”
But he was obviously not the first choice still.
“The only reason why you weren’t the first choice is because of what I walked into just now,” Toshinori interrupts Kirishima’s thoughts and words. Kirishima finds his eyes tearing away from the smooth, polished wood floor to see Toshinori stopping in front of Conference Room A, his gaze intense on him. “To be frank, I wasn’t too sure if we should have hired you all that time ago. You are excellent on the field, your skills are phenomenal. Something to be proud of, truly, but you are clearly not completely healed from your time on the force.”
“Toshinori—”
“Kirishima-shonen, I’m not saying that there’s shame in your current struggles,” Toshinori once again interrupts, his hand a soothing warmth on Kirishima’s shoulder. “I’m still not healed from my past injuries, and as many people have undoubtedly told you, it’s okay to not be okay. But you barely passed the psych evaluation and only passed your field training because you scored so phenomenally on the other things your lack of a shooting score passed you.”
Kirishima felt unable to look away from the piercing blue eyes, and the lump in his throat never tasted as bitter, as sad.
He had barely passed the admittance test.
“I just need to know, are you ready to take on this assignment?” Toshinori asks in complete seriousness. “It’s a high stake, big-name client. We do not expect anything untoward to happen, but we never know in these cases. I think highly of you, Kirishima-shonen, and if you are ready to take this on, I’ll believe you, but likewise, if you’re not, I will gladly give this to someone else.”
Kirishima swallowed, his dry tongue passing through his equally dry lips.
Without question, he was not okay, not when he nearly broke down twice in a matter of hours, but it was just a bad day. He wasn’t as shaken as he was two months ago; he was going to his mandated therapy, talking to people who could assist him. Kirishima just didn’t want to be treated like glass anymore; he wasn’t glass; he was an unbreakable force.
Steeling over his nerves and ignoring how his stomach twisted and turned, Kirishima raised his gaze to Toshinori.
“I can do it.”
A smile.
“Good.”
If Kirishima was sweating because he was on a mental slip earlier, he was now sweating because he was beyond petrified and embarrassed. His hands raised up to brush against his red spikey hair, praying to God that it didn’t look dumb. His legs bounced at a speed that was bordering insanity, but he could only hear the sound of his racing heart as he stared at your frowning form from across the table.
It was you — the Y/n, the world's biggest music idol, an absolute legend in the making.
“This is our very own Kirishima Eijirou, age twenty-eight. He has been with U.A.Services for approximately six months now and is without a doubt one of our most capable and well-serviced men,” Toshinori began the introduction to the three people on the other side of the table. Kirishima could feel a blush rising up his neck and settling into his cheeks as what he presumed to be you, your manager, and your lawyer shuffling through paperwork that was very thorough on his background. “He was enlisted in the military before joining our ranks and was honorably discharged at the age of twenty-six as First Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou due to extreme injury. He excels in negotiating, scouting, and is, as you know, a skilled close combatant and was skilled in handguns—”
“I don’t think he’ll need firearms,” you interrupt, a frown on your face in contrast to the bright smile Kirishima was so used to seeing on your face. He tensed in worry.
“Y/l/n!” your manager, Sato Kimiko, scolded.
“What? It’s true! We’ll be around my fans for the majority, if not all the time! How is that right? For him to have a firearm around defenseless, and may I add, harmless individuals?!” you argued, your eyebrows scrunching in your fury.
Kirishima felt frozen in his chair, his eyes seeking Toshinori for guidance, but found himself unable to look away from you. He knew nearly everything about you, he could admit with a proud grin that he was a super mega fan of you, and he might have, at one point, looked your height up to imagine how you would appear beside him. Kirishima had known this entire time that you were two feet shorter than him, but it hadn’t hit what that meant until he was shaking your hand when he first entered.
You were tiny.
His dick and mind really liked that, and seeing your own passion spilling out for your fans was making him fall deeper into this hole he had for you.
“You don’t have a say anymore? Do you understand? You were nearly assaulted yesterday, and we are all done waiting around for something serious to happen!” Kimiko yelled, her face contorted into a look of both frustration and fear. “Either you take this, or we all leave you. I won’t have you murdered in front of me! You’re twenty-six now, stop acting like a damn brat and grow the hell up!”
The words scorched the table, blistering heat filling the conference room as you met Kimiko’s glare.
Kirishima watched with a dropped jaw as your nostrils flared, your lips pursing, and your eyebrows furrowing with unspoken distaste and anger.
“Six months tops.”
“Uh, yes,” Toshinori interjected. “Our contracts only last up to six months for new clients, but if you find yourself wanting to extend your contract after those six months, we are very much open to negotiations.”
You nodded your head, your eyes falling back onto the booklet in your hands that exposed all the information available on Kirishima. From his likes, dislikes, to his allergies and the reason why he was discharged. Each in disturbingly deep detail to make sure all things were up on the table.
“So, you can’t shoot your gun, Kirishima-san?” you speak, your voice tight, a pleased, almost taunting tone.
Kirishima stills, embarrassment bubbling in his chest as you drop the booklet onto the table, exposing his military history to him and you. 
“...no,” Kirishima answers truthfully.
The lawyer shifts from the other side of you, his eyebrows scrunching as he too comes across that piece of information. 
“He won’t use firearms?” the lawyer scoffs, his semi-permanent frown deepening. “How will we know that he will keep Y/n completely safe from any sort of danger that may come her way? We’ll be paying six months for a glorified security guard? We want a bodyguard.”
“And we clearly have one,” you snap back, your eyes narrowing. “If my bodyguard isn’t Kirishima-san, I’m not getting one. I mean, isn’t that what you said earlier?”
“When we were assuming that the person Toshinori was assigning to your case was a well-rounded bodyguard. Not one that was still clearly haunted by his past.”
Fuck, that one hurt.
You scowled, your head tilting as you bared your teeth slightly, “And what? He managed to get into the best agency in all of Japan in spite of that. Sounds like he’s competent. I already told you I won’t take on a team, just one individual. I trust in Toshinori-san’s guidance and his choice in picking Kirishima-san. If you disagree, that’s too bad for you.”
“Y/n! Please stop this! You’re being ridiculous!” Kimiko huffed, slamming her own booklet down, her eyes drowning with her exhaustion. “I’m so sorry, Toshinori-san, Kirishima-san.”
“H-Hey, it’s okay!” Kirishima immediately imputed, his hands raising in a sign of retreat. “I know that Y/n has always enjoyed her independence as a solo star, and how me being involved now is imposing, especially after multiple attacks.”
Kirishima felt that his smile was a bit strained, a bit too forced, especially as your eyes hawked onto him. He felt like you were examining him, like a lab rat going through its initial trial and not knowing just what was to be expected.
“Six months?” you spoke, your gaze not leaving Kirishima’s own.
“Six months,” Kirishima agreed.
You hum, your head nodding. “Fine, six months tops unless the Lieutenant Colonel can apprehend these assholes faster.”
It had been ages since Kirishima had been called by his title, and for some reason, he found himself blushing. His mouth, for the first time this entire meeting, curled into a wolfish grin.
“You got it.”
The lawyer groaned, entirely aggravated and insulted. He stood up, “You’re asking to be murdered, Y/n. Don’t come haunting me when you end up dead and mutilated. You deserve all the shit you’re getting.”
Kirishima watched with his lips parted in a bewildered expression as the lawyer walked out of the room with a loud slam of the door.
You were unfazed, and Kimiko groaned, exhausted and embarrassed as she mumbled a weak, sullen, “I am so, so sorry, Toshinori-kun.”
“Ah, Kimiko-chan, it’s okay!” Toshinori shook his head and smiled knowingly. It wasn’t as if the long time famous bodyguard hadn’t seen his fair share of childish fights between clients. “Thank you for coming as always, and we’ll do our best to make sure that Y/n is in the best of hands.”
“Thank you… and so, the rest of the contract?”
“Ah, yes, let’s continue.”
So, the contract was discussed to full detail.
For six months, Kirishima would be attached to your side. He must always remain at most three meters away from you when there is no one around, and during fan interactions no more than one meter. He had a full say about your safety. If things got rough, you were to follow his every command. Your agency would pay for his room and lodging. He was to wear black pants and a black long-sleeved cotton tee. He would be working with every venue, every hotel, every conventions security team. He would lead them and never leave your side. He was to be awake an hour before you, rest when you were asleep so long as it was safe to do so. He was your guardian angel of sorts, and you would do nothing but adhere to him. 
Most importantly, according to Kimiko, there was one thing they were hoping for: Kirishima's help and discretion. For the next six months, they would be relying on Kirishima’s support to figure out who the group behind the assault was and who the mastermind was behind it all is.
Or so the contract said.
“Y/n!” Kirishima called when the papers were signed, and the day he was set to start was printed. He will begin tomorrow. “Wait!”
You stopped at the door, Kimiko and Toshinori chatting merrily between them as they exited the conference room, Toshinori’s booming voice asking if it was true that Kimiko was attending to a near forty clients to which she bashfully admitted to. You were dressed in a creme knit long-sleeved shirt, faded ripped jeans, and a pair of nude heels. The heels were big, undoubtedly giving you inches, but you still barely got to his shoulder.
“I-I’m looking forward to looking — I mean working with you!”
You looked at him closely, your eyes dragging to the top of his toes to the tallest spike in his hair before your lips pulled into a contemplative pout. You looked back to his eyes, and you steeled over, your head tilting to the side.
“I mean no offense, Sergeant, I thank you for doing your job, but I have no intention of looking forward to working with you. I don’t want you here, so do your best to ignore the contract and realize that I am the most important person, so you will follow my demands.”
Kirishima can do nothing but stare as you turn on your heel and leave.
Well, so much for a good case.
Date: 5/2 Time: 14:00 Location: Tokyo Music Stadium
If you would have told Kirishima Eijirou that he had been working for the grand, the perfect, the fantastic music idol Y/n for a month now, two months ago, he would have laughed so hard he’d cry. Not only would he have not believed it, but he would only think of a million and two scenarios where he would go the entire day flirting.
Now a month into knowing you, of being your bodyguard on a contract for six months, Kirishima could say that of that entire thought, the only thing he had been right about was that he was, in fact, crying. Not only has he never managed to speak an entire conversation with you despite being attached to your hip seven days a week, but despite your much shorter stature, you had managed to get away from him.
You always managed to sneak away from him.
Kirishima could admit that the no more than five meters rule had been wholly and utterly demolished.
And now, Kirishima was crying, not out of joy, but of pure manly fear as he raced through the backstages of the stadium, desperate to find your short-ass anywhere.
“Go, Kirishima!” someone yelled as Kirishima whizzed past him, “Find Y/n!”
“T-Thank you!” Kirishima screamed as he continued onward, the yellow-lit concrete hallway seemingly haunting the further he went into it. The earpiece in his left ear shrilled, the telling sign he was getting a call. Putting a finger to the circle in his ear, he answered the car. “Hello?!”
“Ah, Kirishima-san!” Kimiko’s voice chirped on the other side of the line. “Wonderful to hear your voice again! I’m calling to let you know that the tour bus is parked outside of the venue now. The concert was a smashing success, and she’s come out unharmed for the past month! To make matters even better, since your arrival, there have been no more assault attempts! Oh, um, sorry, where are you guys?”
“We’re just, um!” Kirishima tried not to pant into the microphone; he was still racing ahead, his head peeking into every door and room he passed. “Y/n needed to use the restroom?!”
“Oh, wonderful. Okay! Let me know when you two are on your way over!”
“Ya, okay, bye!”
“By—”
Kirishima hung up as he crashed through the doors at the end of the hallway.
It was night out right now, the full moon reflecting down on the dirty concrete with the same intensity as the streetlamps overhead. And in the middle of a crowd of around twenty people was the person Kirishima was trying to find: you.
You were still dressed in the final costume change of your concert. Even from a distance, Kirishima could see the glitter and highlight on the tip of your nose and the curve of your cheekbones. The crowd around you was clearly not hostile. Each face was bright with broad smiles and sparkling with fresh tears, each voice high and pitchy as if they were talking with some goddess and not you. 
There was a slight longing in Kirishima’s chest at the sight of you interacting with your fans, your smile was so beautiful, and he wished just for a moment that he was the one that it was directed towards. If he had met you as a fan, and only a fan, he wonders if you would look at him as you did the others. Would he see the pure joy in the depths in your eyes, the love, wonder, and pride as they asked you questions and answered your own?
He wanted to be just a fan.
“Y/n, the tour bus is here,” Kirishima finally found his voice, the tenor of his voice spreading through the narrow alleyway. “Say your goodbyes.”
He had to ignore the way you stiffened immediately, the unsolicited joy in your face breaking and becoming bleak as you met his gaze. Kirishima absolutely did not feel pressure behind his eyes when you rolled your eyes and began to say your goodbyes; he did not!
The group of fans waved goodbye as you walked backward toward Kirishima; you didn’t stop waving and continuing your parting conversations with the group until the metal doors of the stadium doors closed behind the two of you. Kirishima let out a sigh, his eyes closing for a brief moment before looking down at you. You were expressionless, eyes cold as you looked dead ahead.
“You’re not supposed to run away like that.”
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t tell me what to do, Sergeant.”
“You know I can’t do that it’s not—”
“Part of your contract. Yeah, I know, but that’s your contract, not mine.”
“Oh, okay. Um, Kimiko? ...yeah, we’re heading out now. Five minutes, till.”
And then there’s only silence.
Neither Kirishima nor you bother talking the entire walk towards the tour bus, and you ignore Kimiko’s call that your lawyer would be meeting briefly before tomorrow's fan signing event. You walk into the bus and go directly to the beds, throwing yourself into the terribly padded bunk and passing out without so much as a sound.
Kirishima sinks into his own bed, it’s too small for him, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Sleep overcomes him easily these days; he’s always way too exhausted in chasing you down like some spoiled toddler you’re behaving like to dream. But that’s okay, he thinks as the comfort of sleep begins to dig its skeleton fingers into his side, at least the exhaustion stops the night terrors.
Date: 5/3 Time: 10:00 Location: Tokyo Music Tower
Now, Kirishima knew that it was a common belief and a nearly proven theory that when you met your idols, you should never ever have your expectations high on who they are as a person. Celebrities were out of touch, cruel, rude, nearly jaded. They weren’t exactly the common folk. With people willing to forget things like them being human beings themselves or the common thread of celebrities being too rich to care, any type of famous person was cold, rude, and ruthless.
He knew that.
He also knew that you weren’t like the nearly proven theory.
You were kind, sweet, a practical angel to anyone who dared to approach you. You were the exception to the rule, an outlier to them all. You spoke politely to all your fans, domestic and foreign, and you treated each fan like the most special person in the world.
You were a good person.
But Kirishima knew, just as you reacted to any cruel person you encountered, you had an edge. Your words were as vicious as your name was known. He genuinely enjoyed watching you put assholes into place, but he sulked, knowing he was always at the receiving end of the sharp, bitter tongue of yours.
For a month and a day now, he had been the number target of your bitter words and scorching hate, but he admitted that he enjoyed it when it wasn’t directed at him, if but a little bit.
“I’m not renegotiating my contract!” you groan, your palms slamming into the depths of your eyes. “I already told you that I don’t need all that money!”
“And I’m telling you that you need to increase the wages that you pay the rest of your team instead of all those charities or else people will begin dropping you!” the lawyer countered with similar fire, his scowl angry enough that Kirishima felt like he had to tear his gaze away from this horrible battle. “You won’t be the best of the best forever, y/n, get over your stupid savior act and look over the changes!”
Kirishima looked over at you, his eyebrows pinching as he watched you fold your arms, your cheeks pushed out to a puff as you looked at the stack of papers with the title page fully covered with the word Contract of Y/n and Co. on it. Well, it seemed that the rumor of you spending your paycheck on things that weren’t you was right, how entirely manly.
“Oh fuck off,” you growl, pushing out of the chair and storming away.
Kirishima glanced over at Kimiko, who was looking pale and exhausted, undoubtedly exhausted from the past thirty-minute battle between the lawyer and the idol that neither made a single step forward nor a step back. How you had the energy to fight so passionately was beyond him. Kimiko nodded minimally, her lips parting in a sigh as Kirishima stood up and followed after her.
“The only way that brat is going to listen is by force,” the lawyer sneered, his voice fading into the room that Kirishima exited. “If that’s how she wants to play, so be it.”
Fortunately for Kirishima, he catches up to you. There are tears of fury dripping down your cheeks, and he feels unable to speak as he discovers a new layer to you.
...how interesting.
“It’s my money,” you speak, but Kirishima is unsure if those words are meant for him or for the void, the earth that you would much rather converse with than him. “I already pay them all a much greater paycheck than they should be getting considering their client pool. Why do I have to bend to their stupid will when I’m the one making the money.”
Kirishima blinks, wondering just what people might want to raise with their contracts. But, he knew you were right. By her account, Kimiko had a client list of many successful individuals, and he may not know anything about the lawyer, but if he worked with Y/n, his name must be good. Guess they weren’t like you.
“People are selfish assholes,” was the only thing that Kirishima could think of, and was something he spoke before he could stop himself.
But you stop in your storm, the anger that clouded you somewhat dissipating, clearing just enough for you to turn to him, your sharp, beautiful eyes for the first time filled with rage that was not pointed at him, and an emotion that made him think of… amusement?
“Yeah,” you agree, a half-smile cracking onto your face, and Kirishima feels his soul begin leaving his very body. “People are selfish assholes, huh?”
“Very much.”
There’s a calm, a snorted chuckle, and Kirishima finds himself stumbling further into the abyss of his feelings for you.
The next ten hours seem to pass in a blur, Kirishima feeling like he was on Cloud Nine as he stood behind you, three meters as he watched fan after fan approach you. Signatures were made, pictures were taken, and Kirishima found that he never once had to approach.
Maybe, he thinks, just perhaps, the two of you can overcome this.
Ten minutes after the official signing is done, Kirishima can’t find you, and he curses loudly into the echoing floor.
So much for change.
Date: 5/17 Time: 23:00 Location: The Parking Lot - Mt. Lady Studios
Kirishima was, for the lack of better words, completely fucking done with you.
Don’t get it wrong, he still was a complete and massive fan of yours. He would never once betray his loyalty to you and your musical career, but he was slowly starting to realize just why the lawyer was set to dying of a heart attack any time soon. Despite your early entrance to stardom and the stuff of legends, you had kept your fiery, stubborn individualism.
Kirishima thought it was absolutely hot and sexy at times, especially the times where you strut around in revealing clothes because ‘this is your body,’ or the lingerie campaign you completed two days ago as part of some fundraising event. There were significant perks to your strong handle and claim to keeping your indestructible personality, but it came back to rub them all back in the worst of ways when once again, you escaped from Kirishima’s side.
To be fair, most of the time, Kirishima was a very level headed individual; he was near impossible to rile up despite popular initial belief. I mean, he was good friends with Bakugou Katsuki, who riled up just about anyone he talked to! He needed to have steel calm emotions, or at the very least portray that he does. But even the unbreakable after tireless attempts can, at times, be broken.
It had been a hard morning.
Kirishima had woken up in a panic, the sweat of his night terror soaking through the sheets of his bed, and his head felt like lead. They had been in the tour bus for the entire day because you were going from the tip of Japan to the bottom of it, thus meaning that you couldn’t run away from him, concluding that when he went to bed that night, he was merely tired, not exhausted.
“K...Kiri...shima?” the voice whispered in his ears when he bolted from his bed and tumbled to the ground, his chest heaving in his panic as he cried.
He only slept for four hours that night, the ghost of his comrade haunting him too much for him to ever drift back to sleep. The only thing he was grateful for when he stumbled down to the hotel lobby for breakfast was that he had an attack while in his own room and not in a tour bus with ten others.
But the lack of sleep and the twisting of his guts from his still unburied memories meant that his exhaustion was dialed up larger than he thought was capable. Today was an interview day plus a miniconcert at said interview.
That meant that for an hour before your interview and two hours afterward, Kirishima lost you and had to hunt you down. You weren’t making it easy on him and had started moving with the crowd you gathered to evade him.
But today, Kirishima was exhausted.
Today, Kirishima wanted to sleep.
Today… Kirishima broke.
“Let’s go,” Kirishima spoke in a low, commanding voice. His eyes were hooded as he looked down at you, the crowd of fans parting like the red sea as he stands behind you, larger than life, imposing.
You ignore him.
“We’re leaving, now.”
“Aw, did you make that just for me?! This beading is gorgeous!”
To be fair, Kirishima isn’t really sure if he’s crying right now or if steam is protruding from his ears like some stupid cartoon. The only thing he knows is that it's been a bit longer than a month, and his client is the most perfect person in the world except to him and some lawyer. All he knows is that he has been continuously mocked, shamed, and disrespected by his client, and at this moment, with his mind and body aching with the memories of the morning, he can no longer stop the tsunami of emotions and thoughts that shove out of him.
He grabs your wrist and begins pulling you away.
“We’re leaving now, sorry to disrupt your time. Come see Y/n another day.”
Kirishima isn’t even aware of your screams, the banging of your small fist against his back as his hand encompasses your bicep easily. He walks and walks and walks until he stops, his mind slightly put back into place.
“—FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?! LET GO OF ME, SERGEANT!”
Oh, right.
He lets go of you immediately and nearly snorts at how you stumble into his back. So small, so delicate, and so completely weak.
“You want to know my problem, y/l/n?” he asks, voice eerily calm, much calmer than he actually is. “My fucking problem is that I signed onto this case with a single rule: keep you in sight and protect you. It’s simple, almost too easy, isn’t it? But easy and simple is everything that this assignment is!”
Your face contorted into a flash of anger and embarrassment, your nose scrunching as you found your footing, “And I told you that I don’t give a crap about that contract! I didn’t want it in the first place, but no one listens to me!”
Kirishima snorts, his body shifting so that he can look at you properly; your face is seething, your teeth bared and eyes wild, but Kirishima has faced worse.
“It’s not in my contract to listen to you, unfortunately,” Kirishima points out, his eyes narrowing. “I would have a better time listening to you, trying to find an agreement that worked if you used that brain of yours and figured out a way to compromise with me.”
“Compromises aren’t—”
“You think I wouldn’t?” Kirishima almost whines, his voice tight with emotions, fingers fisting in his hair, “You really fucking think that after a month and how many days of me spending stupid hours trying to find your ass, most of the time never knowing if you’re dead or not, I wouldn’t want a better solution?!”
“Like hell they’ll kill me! And if they do, I don’t fucking care!” you stubbornly insist, finger buried against the swell of your chest.
“Oh my god,” Kirishima can’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping, “you’re ridiculous.”
“I’m ridiculous?! I’m not the ridiculous one here!” you cry, your eyes bursting with unshed, bitter tears. “So what that I run away from you? Can you imagine living the past ten years of your life trying to be something that the media wants you to be? No! You can’t, Sergeant! Those times where I’m running away isn’t to be some dick, but to give me time to be me!”
“You’re a goddamn idiot!” Kirishima barks, his anger curdling in his chest like a raging fire. “If you had looked at my damn file correctly, instead of focusing on the stupid shit like me not being able to fire my gun correctly, you would be more than aware of the fact that you are one of my favorite artists!”
“Wh-”
“I am one of the best in my company! I am easy to get along with, personal, manageable, flexible even, but from the very first moment you laid eyes on me, you’ve hated me! You talk down on me, you shit on me, my job, the reason I’m here! Listen, I would fucking love to be anywhere but here right now. I have literally never hated my job before, but you just made that a reality. But the worst part of this all is the fact that you seem to think I would have kept you away, prohibited you from doing things that I already know you love! You stand there and tell me that I would try to force you to do shit you don’t want when I have merely been asking for you to take me there with you! I don’t care if I have to stand away and watch, but I want to be there! I’m supposed to be protecting you, but you’re being nothing more than a stubborn brat who refuses to see the efforts I’m trying to make, and frankly, I’m done.”
Kirishima’s chest is burning with the lack of oxygen, his eyes narrowed and filled with raging fire as he stares down at you, his neck craned so that he could be closer, more daunting, intimidating.
“Fuck o-off,” you snap suddenly, a lone tear, your voice tight and shoulders tense as you storm off.
“So predictable,” Kirishima calls after you, but it’s not filled with the previous anger he had but the sinking misery and regret.
And for a moment, it’s quiet.
Until a single name is screamed.
“SERGEANT!”
And then the all too familiar sound of a fist colliding with skin.
The anger in Kirishima’s blood evaporates immediately, and horror sinks in as he turns towards where you had stormed off. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
The parking lot is filled with an ugly yellow light that seems to set the stage for what was to come down. His footsteps crashing down against the black pavement were mute in his ears, and his eyes were focused on your limp body slung over somebody's shoulder. There was one person behind him, the other one already hopping into a van; Kirishima was the devil on their heels.
“Come on! Let’s go!” the one in the van screamed, his voice full of gruff apprehension and fear.
The van turns on.
Kirishima grunts, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he sidesteps the man who was lingering behind the one carrying you and quickly slams his shoulder into the man's sternum, knocking him out the moment he collapses onto the ground. 
He lets out a roar of such, his eyes glowing with anger and a single mind track to take down the person who held you, ready to throw your unconscious body into the back of the van.
Kirishima doesn’t even know when he manages to get to the man's side, one hand on his shoulder, the other on you, and with the strength and anger of a million fighting warriors, he ripped you from his hold and sent him stumbling into the trunk. Your shallow breathing brushes against his neck, and Kirishima is hyper-aware of the cursing men who chose to abandon their unconscious comrade on the floor. 
With his arms filled by your unconscious body, Kirishima can only watch the van scurry out of the lot, the license plate immediately burning into his mind.
T082-23
When the man on the floor finally wakes up, he’s in police custody, and you’re just waking up. There's a bruise on your cheek, and you begin crying immediately.
Kirishima watches from the distance, his heart aching and guilt climbing up his throat as he watches Kimiko hold you close, her arms warm and tight.
Well, shit.
So much for the month of no attacks.
Kirishima sits in a waiting room, his head relaxed against the wall as he waits for your discharge from the hospital. They suspect a concussion, and they’re running some tests right now. The police are there too, trying to get information from you on the failed kidnapping attempt as well as beginning the initial trials of interrogation of the abandoned kidnapper with a broken sternum, ruptured spleen, and three cracked ribs.
He was not surprised when the police officers came to talk to him, and he gave them the license plate.
But they also gave him an essential piece of information.
(“Well, when we asked for a motive, it seemed that it wasn’t his idea,” the detective admitted, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “His boss said that, and I quote, Y/n will end up dead and mutilated as is deserved. She deserves all the shit she has coming her way, end quote. Any ideas of who it could be”
Kirishima rubbed a hand across his face, the words striking a bit too familiarly to him, but from where. He shook his head, his eyes focusing on his bouncing knee.
“Thank you,” Kirishima said, his tone pointed in a clear indicator that this conversation was now over. The detective nodded, his frown slight as he left. The moment he was gone, Kirishima pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Kimiko? Yeah, I think we might have our first suspect.”)
For now, he was waiting for you.
An hour passed before you shuffled into the waiting room. There was a bandage on your swollen cheek, but besides the obvious attack, your eyes looked strong, and it seemed like there was no concussion.
“I should be fine,” you speak first, your jaw tensing as if it physically pained you to speak (whether it was because you hated talking to him or because of the injury, Kirishima had no idea). “I will be fine; I just need some sleep.”
Kirishima nodded, his body completely exhausted, and his mind filled with nothing but regrets on how he handled his anger earlier. He needed to apologize. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but he had definitely crossed a few too many lines.
“Should we go?”
You chewed on your lip, your eyes looking down at the white tiled floors of the hospital — so bleak, so anxiety driving.
“I actually wanted to talk before we left.”
Oh?
“Of what, if I may ask?”
Your eyes raise back up before looking away again, “the contract.”
Kirishima finds himself nodding, his hand gesturing towards the empty seat in front of him.
“Sure.”
And with a heaving sigh that sounds like you were on the verge of tears, you sit before him.
The contract was then discussed.
It was decided that you could continue to interact with fans as you wish, so long as you took Kirishima with you. He didn’t care about the long hours, the manic fans, or the impending doom of a group of people who meant business. He needed to be there.
Everything else stayed the same, but Kirishima looked at you one last time that night in the hospital, his body leaning towards you as he did his best to keep his face void of emotion and any lingering teasing.
“I’ll only accept this new negotiation on one term.”
“W-What?!” you pause, thinking. “Fine, say it.”
“From here on out, I think we should be friends, yeah? I’m on your side, after all, it’s a bit weird if we stay just acquaintances.”
The tension and horror leave your body, and Kirishima, for the first time ever, bears witness to the most relaxed, meaningful smile he has ever seen you give. It had been one hell of a shitty night, but at that very moment when the seventh turned into the eighth, Kirishima felt a new warmth flood through his chest, his heart racing at the sight of your glorious smile.
“Of course, Kirishima.”
“Oh, and y/n?” 
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about all that I said. It was unmanly of me and out of line.”
“It’s okay. To be fair, I was a bit of a self-absorbed brat, too.”
The next day, a picture of Kirishima holding you bridal style is trending.
Date: 6/12 Time: 19:00 Location: Hime Onsen
An Interview with Y/n | Vogue Japan 4.5 million views • Premiered 2 hours ago 874k [liked this] 12.3k [disliked this] Timestamp: 05:32 / 10:33
[Interviewer]: Now, Y/n, we must congratulate you on your latest achievement! Your latest self-titled album, ‘Y/N,’ has been nominated for a record high of twelve awards for the upcoming Japan Record Awards, which will be coming up in about a month! Tell us how you feel about this?
[You]: It was quite a surprise actually! I didn’t realize that it would have done so well in the critic's eyes to get this type of award. I am proud of myself and am excited to see all the other amazing artists and musicians who were nominated as well.
[Interviewer]: Now, your album is all about staying true to yourself, whether that be in love or war. It depicts your own highs and lows while also highlighting beautifully universal things many of us face. Without question, you have always been adamant on staying connected with your fans and keeping a simple rule: no bodyguards.
[Y/n]: Oh, (laughs) yes! That is definitely a new thing, huh?
[Interviewer]: A new thing and a beautiful thing at that, too! Look here!
[captioner notes: interviewer displays many photos of Y/n’s bodyguard, including the most famous one where he’s holding y/n after the failed kidnapped attempt]
[Interviewer]: This is a beautiful — don’t giggle! — a beautiful man, Y/n! What do you have to say for yourself?! Did you finally succumb to keeping untrue to yourself for this beautiful man?! If so, it is perfectly acceptable. By chance, is your contract with him done? I would personally love to have this man on my team.
[Y/n]: (laughing) By all means, take him! (Y/n looks behind her, her bodyguard is there) I’m kidding, I’m kidding! (pauses) No, actually, sorry. Kirishima is an outstanding bodyguard, and I have no intentions of leaving him so soon. Uh, while I did say I had no wish or intentions to have a bodyguard, obviously that was not the best solution, so I hired Kirishima. He is a wonderful addition to my team and still allows me to be authentically me, so it’s still all good.
[Interviewer]: Ah, okay, well, Kirishima-kun, if you ever need a new client, call me. But moving on, yes! Would you like to discuss the series of increasingly concerning attacks?
Kirishima stood in the softly lit hallways of a sauna.
Today was one of the last remaining days you had off, and in celebration of your upcoming award season, you had decided that it was mandatory to visit the hot springs. Everyone on your team — the backup dancers, band, and hair and makeup — were ecstatic to learn that they were being involved with it too.
This high-end resort had accommodated your entire team to receive their own private spring with an all-inclusive menu too. 
It was thanks from the owner for the free PR and, of course, because they were some of your biggest fans. So, in thanks, everyone got to enjoy the springs.
Well, everyone but Kirishima, that was.
As of the past month, things between Kirishima and you had improved a lot.
With Kirishima no longer needing to run a marathon daily to find where you were, he would find himself walking at your side. He no longer felt like you hated him. There was respect and actual friendship between the two of you. You joked with him, showed him memes and TikTok, sent him snapchat streaks, and invited him to watch weird shows with you. You even complained to him about the things that annoyed you, namely Kimiko’s attention being stolen by other clients and the rude conversations you would have with the lawyer.
It made Kirishima’s chest warm up knowing that you were friends now.
A stressful month had passed into a friendlier one.
But there were some things that Kirishima would not have expected to… arise.
Namely you growing to be comfortable enough to walk around with nothing but a thin pair of panties and a large shirt. You curling into his side whenever you watched a show together in the bus, the way your lips brushed against his neck when he leaned down to hug you, or the very so not obvious teasing you would do when you changed in front of him. It was as if you were watching his every reaction, enjoying the way that his eyes horribly tore away, or the silent hitch in his throat whenever you speed his heart up.
The biggest surprise arose the night after the failed kidnapping attempt:
You had come to his room, hours after you were supposed to have fallen asleep.
Your eyes were sunken, still a bit tired, and the bruise on your cheek was looking bad. In your arms was a white binder undoubtedly filled with the introductory packet you had received at your initial meeting. Kirishima had opened the door in his sleepy state in nothing but gym shorts. He had barely started dozing off, his mind wouldn’t stop thinking of what could have happened if you hadn’t managed to scream, and so he kept tossing and turning.
Seeing you outside of his room, his head dropped down to look at you properly, and his fist rubbing at his eye fell, “Y/n?”
“Did I wake you?” you asked, your face filled with a shocked, near uncomfortable, and embarrassed expression he doesn’t recall ever seeing on you. “I’m so sorry! I’ll wait until—”
“No,” Kirishima grunts while he shakes his head, his voice raspy and dry from his lack of use. “I’ve been tossing and turning, um, what is it? Do you want to come in?”
“I-If that’s okay?”
Kirishima breathes out a bit, his shoulders relaxing as he smiles softly, “Come on, let’s talk about what’s on your mind.”
The door clicked behind your tentative steps with an echo, and Kirishima watched as you walked into the hotel room with wariness and caution.
“Would you like some tea?” Kirishima offered, picking up a shirt from his dresser and pulling it over his body. The fabric was tight against his chest and shoulders, but felt more appropriate to wear around you.
“No, I’m okay,” you politely decline.
You stood in the center of the room, unsure of where to sit, stand, or lay.
“Go ahead and make the bed,” Kirishima offered, taking the chair by the desk. “I promise it’s still clean.”
You laugh slightly, smile strained but grateful as you sit at the edge of the bed, binder resting on your lap.
“Thanks, I wouldn’t want to sit on a dirty bed,” you joke, but it sounds weak to Kirishima’s ears.
“So, what questions do you have?”
“Hm?”
“You have my portfolio,” he shrugs, leaning forward so that his forearms rest on his knees. “I have a feeling you have some questions.”
“Oh, right,” you whisper, your eyebrows scrunching as you open the binder to the first page, but your eyes are focused on the desk. “What’s the medication for?”
Kirishima turns his head to follow your gaze and comes across the yellow tinted medicine containers.
“My PTSD,” Kirishima answers honestly, his voice soft with emotion, but there was no shame in it. “My service had a difficult end.”
“That’s actually… that’s what I came to talk about,” you rush, your hands slamming the binder closed. “If you don’t want to talk about it, obviously I won’t push it! God, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay,” Kirishima interrupted, his smile sad, but he stood up, his body a tower in front of yours as he urged you to sit back down. “It’s okay; I don’t mind talking about it.”
“B-But what if I say something that makes it all worse?”
A pause.
“Then I’ll tell you that it’s too much.”
A nod.
“Are you… are you still experiencing a lot of symptoms?” you ask, your fingers tightening and untightening around the binder.
“Some days are worse than others,” Kirishima admits, his shoulders shrugging. “I don’t experience much anxiety while in crowds anymore; I don’t have many flashbacks to those days anymore, not since February at least. I do still get… I still get night terrors and dream of that day. It’s nowhere near as bad as the first few months after the accident, but it’s still here.”
“What happened?” you asked after a bit, morbidly curious.
The file had all the details that proved Kirishima to be a master of firearms during his entire time on the force. He was a powerful combatist, and his ranking was a clear indicator of the respect and skills he had. Still, it was the quick honorable discharge, the near year-long hospitalization, and the current inability to use a firearm that concerned you.
What had happened?
“I was involved in a grenade explosion on my last day on tour. I was the only one who managed to survive the blast,” Kirishima easily stated, his voice quiet.
“Oh my god, I… holy shit, I’m so sorry.”
“Nah, it’s all good. There were only two others around, and one of them was already dead.”
“Was that um, Major—”
“We called him Crimson Riot, actually,” Kirishima smiled, a chuckle light on his tongue as he leaned back onto the chair, nodding. “Yeah, that was him.”
“Crimson Riot,” you repeat, nodding. “Did you watch him… watch him die?”
Kirishima presses his lips tightly together, and for a moment, you’re unsure if he’s going to cry, answer you, or tell you to leave. There’s a whirlwind of emotions on your optimistic and typically jubilant bodyguard despite your asshole tendencies that make your stomach twist.
“Yes,” Kirishima finally answers, and you nod.
It’s hours into the morning before you finally depart back to your room, the horrors of Kirishima’s past still pounding into your ears. Kirishima wouldn’t notice, and neither would you, but on his shirt and yours, there’s a few drops of tears the both of you shed when you said goodnight.
Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou, while on an active warzone, had accidentally struck and killed his superior officer, his friend, his role model Crimson Riot, thinking that he was nothing more than an enemy target as he sat wounded behind a wall. He died on his lap, and as someone came to help, a grenade landed two meters away before detonating.
“K...Kiri...shima?” Crimson Riot had whispered as he fell to his knees, blood gushing and seeping through his clothes, spilling onto Kirishima’s lap. “I’ll be okay.”
For whatever reason, since that night, Kirishima felt something in him shift. He still took his medication, still had his virtual therapy sessions when he could fit them in, and even had painful night terrors of that moment, but it was becoming less frequent.
He wasn’t made of glass.
There had been more instances after the kidnapping attempt, but unlike the last times, Kirishima was prepared. He had stopped each one, keeping you safe and sound. As of one week ago, he had officially been given a firearm to keep strapped to his thigh at all times now.
It was an unfamiliar weight, one that still twisted his stomach and made him nervous, but he knew the reason why it was needed. Since the gun had been added to his gear, the attacks stopped. He was definitely not ready to be firing it anytime soon, but it had deterred the attackers for the time being.
Kirishima paused when he heard his earpiece ring, and he dropped his phone where he had been watching your interview despite being there himself.
“Talk to me,” Kirishima answered, his finger pressing the accept button.
“Kirishima!” came the distressed voice of Kimiko, “We just got a tip!”
Kirishima stilled, his eyes scanning the empty hallways that stretched throughout the private hot springs.
“I don’t know, but a person with connections with this mastermind said something about how there were two more events he was staging. Today is one of them!”
Kirishima’s eyes widened, his lips parting to answer Kimiko when instead there was a large, loud crash in the water from inside your room. He assumed the worst.
“Y/n!” Kirishima shouted, hands throwing open the sliding door and racing through the storage room, the shower, and exited out into the hot spring.
Steam curled through the wind, the white wisps of steam feeling warm and light against Kirishima’s skin, and Kirishima panicked when he couldn’t see your shadow or figure in the hot springs.
“Where is she?! Is she alright?!” Kimiko panicked, her voice panicking already. “I’ll call the—”
Kirishima turned on his heel, ready to complete a full sweep of the outdoor hot spring when he crashed into something smaller than he was… smaller, softer, and definitely the shape of a woman. Kirishima felt his entire body stiffen when his rough palms felt the undeniable feeling of wet, warm skin.
“Oh my god,” he heard you shriek. “KIRISHIMA!”
“She’s all good, Kimiko,” Kirishima stifled out, his voice tight, his head slamming backward so that his eyes were concentrated on the starry night sky.
“...sorry… uh aha! Another client of mine is calling, goodbye!” Kimiko’s apology was meek and small before she hung up.
Kirishima’s mind was racing a mile a minute, but his body was frozen, unmoving like a rock when he realized that pressing to his stomach was, without a doubt, your breasts.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What are you doing in here, pervert?!” you splutter, your hands pressing to his stomach as you step away. “Are you a pervert or something?!”
“I, no! No! Of course not! Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry! I’ll go! There was a tip that something was going to happen right now, and there was a crash and—”
“What are you looking at?” you exclaim, squeaky frustration heavy on your tongue. “There’s nothing wrong with the sky! Look me in the eyes? Have you never been to a co-ed hot spring before?!”
“Y-Yes, sorry!” Kirishima apologized, bowing slightly in apology before he peered down. Still, his face bursted in a flame as he watched the way your jaw dropped in disbelief, the dewy wetness of the hot spring clinging to your body. You were, obviously, soaked, and Kirishima bit his tongue as hard as he could to keep the whimper from expelling past his lips when he saw the light gleaming off your breasts. But he watched your face shift between a million emotions, each one appearing too fast for him to read, too fast to register, but he saw the way a single-arm wrap around your breast and the other shoving into his stomach.
“PERVERT!”
“What?!”
“That was a test! This is my private room! I have the right to not be willing to be looked at right now!” you shrieked as Kirishima spun around, allowing you the complete privacy of his gaze.
“You told me to look at you!” he squawked. “Y-You told me, and I listened because of our contract!”
Kirishima could feel his body trembling, his mind reeling in disbelief that he definitely saw you in your entire nakedness, and if the swirling heat in his stomach had anything to say about it, he liked it. Fuck.
There was a soft laugh and the sound of sloshing water as you probably (he wouldn’t know because he wasn’t looking) reentered the spring.
“I know, I was teasing,” you sing, and he can tell the water is gliding around your body. “Turn around, Kiri, let’s talk.”
“Haha, um, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Kirishima admits, although sitting in this steam-filled space with just you sounds so very nice. 
“Why not?” you asked, voice sounding a bit upset.
“I’m supposed to be outside, doing my job?”
“Augh, but these private springs are so boring alone,” your voice whines; the water sloshes, and Kirishima winces at the slight throb on his tongue as he continues to look at not your direction. “Turn around, Kiri.”
Not too long ago, you had taken to calling him Kiri, a subtle change, a not unusual nickname people gave him. But just because it was you, his stomach flipped and twisted, and now with the image of your tits in mind, his dick throbbed. 
Gulping, Kirishima turned, his gaze bashfully looking down at you before glancing away. You were chest-deep in the hot springs, tendrils of your wet hair sticking to your neck. Was he dead? Maybe dreaming?
No, his dreams were never like this.
“Do you want to come in?” you continued to ask, your body moving towards him in the water until you reached the edge of the pool, arms testing into the black rocks. “You’re the only one not in one, and since I hate being in these alone, I figured you’d like to join.”
Kirishima wanted to join. More than anything, he wanted to take his clothes off and jump into the springs with you, for you, but that would be unprofessional. Entirely and utterly unprofessional.
“Please?” you ask softly, pleadingly, and Kirishima makes the mistake of locking his gaze with yours. 
“...fine, but I’ll be on the other side of the spring,” he concedes, his steps near clumsy and oafish as he stumbles backward to the shower and closet.
“Such a gentleman pervert,” you tease, fingers curling as you wave at him until Kirishima finally closes the door behind him.
The empty room is nearly deafening in its silence and the future as Kirishima slumps against the sliding door, excited apprehension rippling through every cell of his skin as a smile spreads across his face. He walks to the storage room, and despite it being a private room, there were two closets. The closet not already occupying your clothes had the things needed for him, and thankfully, it fit. 
He undressed slowly, folding his clothes and placing them into the cubbies. Fully naked, he approached the showers, and under the lukewarm showerhead, he cleaned his body of any grime, dirt, and sweat. 
Feeling refreshed and clean, Kirishima began his descent to the hot spring, his heart hammering when his fingers grabbed the handle of the door.
“I’m coming in,” he announced, a healthy amount of fear, excitement, and heat drumming through him.
“I’ll keep my virgin eyes away from your body, don’t worry,” came your slow tease, and Kirishima snorted softly.
Kirishima stepped back out to the hot spring.
Just like the first time, the entrance to the spring was warm, the steam seeming thicker than last time, clouding the outdoor room and his sight. You were at the furthest out part of the pool, your back towards them as you worked your fingers through your scalp.
Discarding his slippers at the edge, Kirishima climbed into the pool.
The pool only went as far as his thigh, and he sank into the warm water. It felt wonderful on his body, relaxing his muscles just enough for him to wonder when was the last time he had managed to visit a hot spring.
“I’m in,” Kirishima said, his arms rising up out of the water, resting onto the black stone. “You can turn around now.”
“God, took you long enough,” you tease, your body twisting so that you were facing him again.
To Kirishima’s complete and utter surprise, you stilled, eyes dragging up and down his exposed chest, eyes locked on the series of tattoos all over his right pectoral, and trailed down his right arm. His lips felt dry as your eyes shifted back to his face, to his arm, and back to him. The smile on your face felt weak, but it sent a spiral of dizzying heat through Kirishima when he noticed the hushed lust.
For a while, the two of you remained at opposite ends of the hot spring. Eyes closed, hummed melodies passing through the song. You asked Kirishima about how he felt, if his medication was due for refills, if therapy was okay (he was doing better, a refill was due in two weeks, and therapy was going the same). He asked you about your relationship with Kimiko, with the lawyer, and if you had any real friends within the music industry (Kimiko was like an older cousin to you, the lawyer was a pain to deal with at times, and surprisingly, you did meet some genuine friends). You questioned how his friends were doing, if he had any contact with them despite their busy schedules. 
So Kirishima found himself retelling stories of his coworkers turned close friends. Each story he told left both of you with sore stomachs from laughter, and tears at the corner of your eyes from laughing too hard. 
“Was the tip story true?” you asked once the quiet overcame and grew old. You shift through the water, getting a bit closer to Kirishima.
Kirishima coughed, suddenly feeling a tad bit shy about his posture, but decided to keep from moving.
“You honestly think I would have barged into here just because I wanted to see you?”
Truthfully, had Kirishima been a man without morals, chivalry, or disrespect for you, he would have. Definitely would have.
“Let a girl dream,” you smile, like a luring siren as you wander closer by just a step. “It would go against everything I know about you, but it’s fun to tease.”
“You’re a bigger brat than I thought you would be,” Kirishima smiles back, trying his best to not show the way goosebumps were bursting against his skin, his eyes locked on yours, trying to not get distracted by the way your wet skin made his mind spin.
“I don’t think I’m a brat,” you counter, getting close enough that he could feel the currents of the water with your movement. But you were far enough that Kirishima felt like pointing out the fact you disregarded his keep apart rule would be a mistake. “How am I a brat?”
The sound of the water rippling through the springs along with the growing noises of the bugs began a melody around the two of you, and all Kirishima could do was stare at the way you blinked your eyes slowly — like a feline stalking a prey.
“A lot of ways, really,” Kirishima breathes, his heart rising up to his throat as he felt your hands gingerly place themselves on his knees.
“Yeah?” you ask, parting through his naked legs, and Kirishima felt his breathing stop when your exposed chest pressed against his. Your lips were ghosting so far from his but tantalizingly close enough that he felt drunk off your sweet breath. “And what are you going to do about it?”
Kirishima sucked in air, his arms resisting movement, and his eyes glanced down at the way your mouth was millimeters from his. His dick was very much interested in what he could do about it, and when your hands grazed up his thigh and onto his chest, Kirishima could feel something rumble in his chest.
He moved to eliminate the space, but there was a crash in the following spring, pushing you away from him long before he could claim your mouth.
“FUCK!” the person in the opposite spring screamed, and Kirishima’s eyes closed in his muted annoyance as you sighed.
His eyes dropped to the water, giving you the privacy to rise out of the water and make your way over to the wall.
“Jenny, are you okay?” you called.
“Give me a warning the next time you try fucking your hot bodyguard in the middle of a private onsen!”
“We weren’t fucking you prude!”
And with that, Kirishima took this as his embarrassed cue to leave.
He stood at the entrance of your private spring for about twenty minutes, entirely uncomfortable with the still hard dick in his pants, rubbing and chaffing against his jeans as he stood there. Eventually, you exited the hot spring, face glowing from the steam and eyes avoiding his gaze as you walked back to your room. Your robe was tight on your body, the hair on the nape of your neck pressed to your skin.
Kirishima sighed as he watched you enter your room, your smile short as you nodded a simple goodnight before letting the door slam shut behind you.
Rubbing his face, Kirishima listened to the voices in his intercom talk about how nothing had happened tonight. An attempted unwelcome visitor tried to get into your room, but they had stopped him. They didn’t fight, but they had run away the moment they caught on to the fact that they weren’t exactly authentic.
Kirishima sighed as he slumped into his room, collapsing on the too small bed as he found himself looking at the ceiling in deep concentration.
What was he going to do now?
That was undeniably sexual, his still semi-hard dick damning evidence to the known fact that he wanted you. By god did he want you. Wanted you beneath him, over him, splitting yourself down onto his cock while you gripped your arms and legs around him, fucking down onto his driving cock. 
Kirishima groaned low in his chest, guilt blooming in the back of his throat as his palm rubbed his pulsing cock.
Bad, Kirishima, bad.
“Kirishima-san?” a voice broke through his earpiece, and Kirishima nearly jumped out of his skin. “Are you there?”
“Hi Kimiko,” Kirishima sighed, his dick deflating instantly. “Everything all right?”
“Ah, yes! Sorry about earlier, the false tip and the sudden abandonment!” Kimiko embarrassingly apologized. “My client was ringing for the fourth time, and while I care deeply for y/n, I had to take it!”
“Mm, no worries, Kimiko,” Kirishima smiled politely despite the lack of visual contact. “How can I help you?”
“Ah, yes,” Kimiko asserted, her tone changing from apology to one of formality. “So, about the visitor incident I’m sure you were brought attention to, it seems that the vehicle they came in was with the driver's plate: T082-23. Does that sound familiar?”
“Not currently,” Kirishima sighed, his body stretching into a sitting up position. “Does it to you?”
“No…” Kimiko admitted, and Kirishima could feel the worried frown on her face. “Well, I just wanted to call and give you that information. It was passed along to me, and they mentioned they hadn’t told you. And since I was going to give you the schedule for the upcoming JRA’s award day, I figured I’d let you know!”
“No problem! Let’s go over the schedule now?”
“Yes! I have a client meeting in America right after this! Can you believe it? An American celebrity wants my help?!”
“That sounds amazing, Kimiko!”
“Okay, so this is how the day’s going to go!”
Date: 7/10 Time: 18:00 Location: Tokyo Hotel Room 101
Kirishima watched as an entire team was getting you dressed up.
Two people were doing your hair, three people doing your nails, one person doing your makeup, and five getting one of your three outfits for the night ready.
According to you, as you had strutted around in these outfits nearly two weeks ago were your red carpet and beginning of the award show outfit, your performance outfit, and of course, the after-party outfit. Each one was different, yet when adorned on your body was a perfect replica of who you were.
Most importantly, the two of you had decided to ignore every single instance of tremendous sexual energy and desire that basically leaked from both of your pores. It was for the best to ignore it. There was no point in pursuing it, especially when there was a known hunt for you, and Kirishima was the last line of defense between you and whoever it was.
Whoever it was, pfft.
Kirishima was willing to bet on who it was already.
Since the night of the initial kidnapping that finally closed the gap between you and Kirishima, there was something that the caught criminal said that stuck with him.
Everything you had coming your way, you deserved, he had said in bitter spite.
The interesting thing was that it was the lawyer who had said that, multiple times at that. The lawyer seemed to have everything to fuel him to rage against you. Everything you said or tried, the lawyer was on your heel, barking at you that it was wrong. Kirishima had also seen the contracts between you and the lawyer, and the amount that he was paid to be your attorney was not large at all.
The mass majority of the funds you earned were always funneled towards charities and organizations you trusted to help people in need — in fact, it was almost 80% of your total earnings. A meek, barely larger than 20% was split between you, your lawyer, Kimiko, your music crew, and any other unforeseen expenses. The lawyer was also in a situation where he was not in demand with clients, and if you weren’t heeding his expensive tag, he needed a new contract with you.
A contract he was always demanding to discuss with you that you denied to change.
Attacks tended to happen days after you and the lawyer tumbled, not enough to rouse suspicion if you weren’t looking, but Kirishima was. He just needed damning evidence now.
Something.
Anything.
And for some reason, his gut was screaming at him that something big was going to happen tonight, that tonight was going to be the last attack—the one to end everything.
So he had told everyone about it. Kimiko, the security at the JRA’s, even you. It made him nervous.
It made his hand sweat, the gun strapped to his thigh feeling like hot iron as he stood about as you laughed with your makeup crew.
Kirishima swore, promised, and vowed he would protect you.
He was going to.
And when the gold dress was tied to your body, fitting you beautifully, Kirishima found himself unable to look away like strands of your hair framed your temples.
“What do you think, Kiri? Will I be on the Best Dressed List?” you asked, tearing Kirishima’s attention away from the bodice and skirt of the dress. Your eyes were bright, hopeful, yearning for a positive reaction from him.
“How could you not be?” Kirishima admitted, his grin toothy, and he shifted against the wall.
“You’ll make me blush,” you grin back, eyes batting just a bit as you clasp your hands together. It takes everything in Kirishima to keep from striding across the space between the two of you and kissing you silly. “Are we ready to go?”
Kirishima wet his lips, unwillingly tearing his gaze from you, and whispers into the intercom.
“Ready to move out?”
“We’re all clear.”
Straightening back up, Kirishima smiled at you, his head motioning towards the door.
“Alright, y/n, let’s see you make some history?”
“Damn right I will.”
Kirishima smiled as he exited first, carving the path for you. 
Paparazzi were on you immediately, the lights flashing and terribly bright as he helped you through the throngs of them. His hand pressed to your back as they screamed demands, most of which you complied with until Kirishima stated that you would be late. You, unfortunately, couldn’t be late to the awards show.
Ushering you into the limousine, Kirishima follows in shortly after you, scrunching up in his seat as he sits opposite of you. However, your typical light and bright demeanor are gone; instead, you seem almost anxious as you open your handbag.
“You okay there?” Kirishima asks as he realizes you pulled out a distinctly obvious metal flask.
“Awards make me nervous,” you painfully admit; you're weakly smiling as you knock back a shot of the drink. “I hate winning and losing; the alcohol makes me less… of a wreck. Do you want some? I think it’s apple soju, I don’t know, a good luck gift from Kimiko.”
Kirishima grins, his eyes rolling as he decides to decline the drink. “Sorry, love, I think that I need to be completely sober for today.”
You scrunch your nose, obviously displeased, “Lame, who shows up to these awards sober?”
“Me,” Kirishima laughed, his head tilting back and scraping against the ceiling of the limousine. 
“Such a prude, sober, pervert,” you sigh, taking yet another swig before putting the flask back into your bag. 
“Such a brat.”
Just like every previous instance, your eyes seem to glow in glee at that name, your lips curling into a pleased smirk as you shrug. It's a sight that makes Kirishima’s mouth dry and heart racing. Fuck, he should not be thinking about fucking you in the limousine right now.
But before the heat in the limousine could simmer to one of undeniable boiling, you had arrived.
Kirishima cleared his throat, sending a quick wink your way as he exited the car first. The first stop was for him to join the lineup to guide you through all the different photo and interview sessions. No one wanted pictures of him emerging from the limo after all. 
There's a moment where after Kirishima closes the door, your eyes filled with worry and excitement as he winked goodbye, that things changed. He stood up, his eyes already scanning the area for anything suspicious, when he saw the all too familiar van.
T082-23.
His eyes widened, his head looking around for anyone else, but there was no one to help. No one could do anything as the car continued to drive away, disappearing from Kirishima’s line of sight. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hands instinctively went to his thigh. He had his firearm… he had it.
With nothing but a quick report to the head of security via his com, Kirishima pushed on ahead, waiting for your descent down the red carpet.
When you eventually emerged from the limousine, Kirishima found that at this moment, the entire world faded away as a gloved hand assisted you out of the vehicle. You were elegant, stunning, a realistic vibrant portrait within his world of greys. As you took photos for the cameras, he was by your side a few strides away as you talked to reporters.
You really came to life right now.
You were beautiful.
“For all the pain in the world that she is, she’s quite charming from a distance, huh?” a voice spoke to his side, and Kirishima froze. His eyes widened completely when he noticed that standing beside him was none other than the lawyer.
The lawyer was dressed in a nice suit, glasses perched on his nose, and for the first time Kirishima had seen, the scowl was not quite so hard.
He was here.
Every warning bell sounded in Kirishima’s head.
This was the man he was so sure was the reason behind your every attack. A man fueled by insufficient funding, a need for a new contract that would never be approved without your signature.
“What are you doing here?” Kirishima asked, subtlety never being something he was ever good with. “I’ve never seen you anywhere except to argue with Y/n about contracts. This doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to be discussing it.”
“Kimiko wanted me to give her a new contract proposal to give to y/n. However, to be fair, it’s quite easy for anything to come down to an argument with y/n,” he shrugs, and Kirishima watches a cloud of emotions pass between the man’s eyes. “At least between her and me, we’ve never gotten along, but I suppose that’s how it is for any type of family who works together.”
Wait.
“What?! Family member?!”
“Yes, I know it’s strange to believe. I am quite ugly, and she is not, but we’re family.”
Kirishima’s mind was racing now. It didn’t make sense. If he was family, why would he be in such pursuit of potentially murdering you? If you were family, he was sure that you would help out? If he needed a raise like he thought, wouldn’t you have helped?
There was no way you wouldn’t.
Was he wrong?
Who was it?
“Kiri!” your voice broke into his mind and tore him back to reality. You waved at him, then passed a stuck-out tongue to the lawyer in a teasing fashion. “Let’s go in?”
Kirishima looked over at the lawyer who greeted a woman, who was also walking down the red carpet, a celebrity he could name no less, with a warm kiss. 
Oh fuck.
He needed to call Kimiko; he was so very wrong.
You had won two awards so far, and at this very moment, Kirishima was being ushered back to his seat in the audience as you were being escorted to the main stage to perform your latest song. You had removed your gold dress for a black, sleek gown. Your lipstick changed to a dark red, and your hands trembled in the white lace gloves you wore.
“Oh, Kiri,” you wheezed almost, your hands shaking as the announcers on stage were announcing the last awards before your performance. “I’m getting nervous. What if I mess up or sing off-key? I’d be the laughing stock!”
Kirishima laughed gently, his hands easily encompassing your waist as he stilled your frantic moves. “Y/l/n y/n, if there is anything I know for sure about you is that you are one hell of a singer and a performer. The awards you’re nominated for tonight speak for themselves! You never fail at your performances, and even if you somehow manage to sing off-key, I’m sure that no one would notice! Your biggest fan in the world won’t notice, at least.”
Not more than seven days ago, when you had cried about the impending nerves of being an artist, Kirishima had come to claim the title of being your biggest fan in the world. It had made you chuckle through your tears before coming near a hysterical laugh as the two of you held each other close.
“You’re a nut, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, hands resting on his lower ribs, but your smile was bright, warm. You paused a bit, fingers pulling at the fabric of his shirt. “I’ll sing just for you then, but I think I should take another swig of that soju.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Could you tell that Takeyama is completely drunk off her ass?”
“...she’s drunk?!”
“Exactly, I’ll be fine,” you breathe, taking a new smaller flask from the purse Kirishima was holding for you and taking the final swig. Your face contorts at the bitter liquid. “Ew, Kimiko really fucked me over with this one. Why is it blue?! Have you ever seen blue apple soju?!”
“No?” Kirishima startled, his eyes looking at the indeed splash of blue liquid tainting a small part of your gloves. “Who gave you that one? What happened with the other flask of yours?”
“Oh, Kimiko sent it along after I lost my other one; it’s her own flask,” you said before the backstage crew whisked you away to begin your set, and without you, Kirishima was sent to the audience.
Kirishima felt trapped as he was ushered into his seat, his eyes scanning the entire audience for something suspicious, a familiar face perhaps. His broad shoulders continued to bump into his neighbors, their disgruntled noises doing nothing to stop his worry.
“And now, Y/n,” came the strong voice of the male announcer, and the light dimmed.
Kirishima watched as the spotlight came down upon you, a golden halo of colors against your darkened gown as the instrumentals began to play in the background. And he saw you take a step forward, the building motifs suddenly silencing when you finally sang the first note.
Despite the panic arising in Kirishima, the unknown of who was behind it all, what was going to happen, he stilled at the unmatched strength and ambiance of your voice.
You sang as you did at every stage, to every audience.
There was a reason why you were considered a legend.
And then, with one last sound, one last melody, and your hand holding your microphone dropped. Your chest heaving, tears falling down your face, and the roar of the audience was silent. You looked through the audience, unable to see, but for some reason, you just knew where Kirishima was.
You smile.
But as the looming sounds begin to fill your ear again, you find that the world is hazy.
You swallow, eyes unfocused as you bowed, hurrying to leave the stage.
Kirishima watched as you took a final stumbling step off the stage, something he felt was going to be written off as you stepped on your dress. But his mind whirled.
The lawyer felt like a setup; the contracts made no sense, the blue soju.
How were they related?
What connected them?
“Oh, fuck,” Kirishima whispered, horrified, and immediately his finger pressed to his earpiece. “Find Y/n! Now!”
Kirishima was racing through the back of the venue, the announcers' voices still ringing through the dirty, bleak hallways. You had just won but was written off as being somewhere backstage; after all, the show must go on.
Voices screamed in his earpiece, each declining to have found you. No one had seen you after you stepped off the stage. No one knew who had taken you.
Kirishima noticed the doors closing at the end of the hallway, and with a dreading sense of doom, Kirishima removed the gun from his harness. And with the devil on his heels, he ran.
Kirishima panted as he looked before him.
You were passed out, draped limp, confused, and woozy against Kimiko’s body, and two men knocked unconscious beside them. To anyone else, it looked as if Kimiko had saved you, some guardian angel within this world, but if Kirishima’s gut meant anything, he knew better.
“Kirishima-san!’ Kimiko squeaked as Kirishima raised his gun, his body tense, unwilling to take a chance on her. “I don’t know what those two were doing! I was saving her, I swear!”
“Don’t do this, Kimiko,” Kirishima whispered, his head shaking. “I figured it out.”
There was a shift in Kimiko’s face at that; the scared unknowing hero melted into one of anger, resentment, one of someone who knew they had been outed.
“So, you figured it out,” she bitterly spoke, her arms that were supporting you from behind revealing to be a firearm of your own. “I didn’t expect you to.”
“I can’t say I figured out your reasoning; honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I felt like it was you,” Kirishima carefully states, his heart roaring at the implied danger of the firearm against your chin. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kimiko.”
Kimiko stares, her lips forming a small o before changing into one of a large, near unattached grin.
“Anything stupid? If anyone is doing anything stupid, it's this selfish prick!” Kimiko spits, her arms tightening around you, making you whimper ever so gently in pain. “She thinks she’s so great, so rich, so smart! Just because she wastes most of her money on stupid shit like charity! Everyone thinks working for her is a dream, but they’re all blind idiots!”
Kirishima’s eyes widen as he notices the glazed, unfocused of your eyes as you shift your attention over to him. Were you listening?
“What’s wrong with the contract?” he asks, a small attempt to diffuse the situation.
“The fact she pays me next to nothing, and yet she works me half to death!”
“You have multiple clients, don’t you?” Kirishima splutters, unsure as to what was wrong. “Why is this one contract so important you wanted to frame her lawyer?!”
Kimiko laughs; it’s pitchy, almost hysterical as she bends over, your body slumping further onto the floor. “That was a lie! All a fucking lie! Do you know that I knew no one when I first started? Y/n is a name everyone wants. I don’t need to do anything to get her things! The world wants her! But the other clients? None of them stayed, none of them wanted me past a month! The salary was okay when she was a snot-nosed brat, but ten years later?! NO! She won’t fucking listen. She never fucking listens to anything but herself! So she has the option to give me the eighty percent, or fucking die here!”
Suddenly the gun in Kirishima’s hand feels like a ton, the skin on the back of his neck crawling and slicking with sweat.
“You know how much those charities mean to her,” Kirishima whispers. “She won’t do it.”
Kimiko trembles for a second, her arm holding the firearm lowering as she looks at the wall, shaking.
“Oh my god… you’re right,” Kimiko realizes, horror and uncertainty flashing across her face. “I guess… she has to die, oh my god, she has to die.”
At that moment, the world slowed down, and Kirishima swore he could see the atoms, the electricity flowing through the space between them. Kimiko’s arm holding the gun raising back up to your temple, her smile detached, horrific yet gleeful.
His body trembled as he doubted himself, his mind unsure if the finger on the trigger was going to be strong enough to fire away. Could he do it?
Was he ready?
Actually ready?
Save her, his past whispered.
Save her, his nightmares screamed.
Save her, his heart yelled.
Kirishima raised his arm, his focus blaring, his past just for a moment, forgotten.
BANG!
“The effects of the rohypnol have already worn out. Thankfully she wasn’t given a whole pill. If she experiences any nausea or throws up, please bring her back, should anything else happen, she’ll be okay.”
The words of the doctor rang in Kirishima’s ears. For tonight, they were going to be discharging you to him. Thankfully, it was all happening in Tokyo, so Kirishima’s apartment was near, and if Bakugou was true to his word, it was clean.
With the help of hospital security, he had managed to get your tuxedo concealed body into a car, and the two of you rode off to his apartment. You’ve been silent the entire time, eyes downcasted as you sit pressed to his side, feeling like a small child compared to him. You knew that he was much larger than you, a near two feet taller, but this felt unmatched. 
Kirishima’s jacket was warm around you, it’s sheer largeness another dress on your body, and despite the horrific turn of events, you were feeling warm. You couldn’t remember much of what transpired after stumbling off stage, but you did remember Kirishima bursting through the doors, a look of anger and fear blistering off his person in such a way that made you whimper when you remembered.
You remembered the onsen basically every night, cursing your stupid makeup team for interrupting a night that definitely would have ended with you fucking Kirishima. You cursed yourself for being a coward and not just saying fuck it and fucking him afterward despite the brief awkwardness.
He wanted you, it was clear as day, and you wanted him as well.
Tonight.
“Sorry about how small my apartment is, or if it’s messy, I don’t actually know if my friends have been keeping up with it,” Kirishima apologized, guiding you into the apartment by the small of your back. “You’ll be safe here tonight, and I promise we can get back to your own place tomorrow!”
“Oh, don’t apologize, it’s okay,” you smile, feeling flushed as you cross the entryway to the apartment. His apartment, despite not being home in so long, is clean. The halls aren’t messy, and a hint of lavender is saturated to the air. The dim hallway lights were barely bright enough to cause you to squint as it was dark out. “Thank you for having me tonight, especially after everything.”
At the hospital, you had been given a pair of sweats and a cotton t-shirt. The change in outfit from your event dress was definitely needed, and even though you were sure your makeup was streaked down your face, you felt good hidden in the depths of Kirishima’s jacket.
“Are you hungry?” Kirishima asked, handing over his guest slippers, which you gratefully accepted. “I might have some microwaveable food leftover.”
“Ramen doesn’t sound too bad,” you admit as Kirishima unbuttons the first few buttons on his white dress shirt. You were instantly captivated by the movement, your eyes shifting back to his face when he began to walk off towards the kitchen.
Kirishima talked warmly, keeping the conversation going merrily and bright throughout the entire time in the kitchen. He undoubtedly knew you weren’t entirely okay, and at moments like this, you were entirely grateful for his sweet personality. 
To be fair, you knew that you had been quite unfair to Kirishima in the beginning. Looking back at the first entire month of knowing him, you were horrified and impressed that Kirishima didn’t demand to be dropped. You had been selfish, stubborn, a bottom line brat, and he took it day after day. It wasn’t that you disliked him back then; hell, you had been in a near state of delirium when he entered the door during your first meeting because you had no idea such huge men existed to the caliber of his hotness.
But you resisted and might have been harsher than needed.
It was okay now; after all, if he was genuinely bitter about that entire month still, the onsen said otherwise.
It didn’t take long for your stomach to be filled with warm broth, soft boiled eggs, and ramen noodles. Kirishima did, in fact, have ramen, fresh eggs, and some vegetables. In a grand act of preparing you the most sufficient dinner he could, Kirishima presented this under budget ramen and laughed when you said it was terrific.
But it was growing late.
The two of you still sat at his table that was full of a card game, your empty ramen bowls, and cups of water. The clock on the oven read 23:38, and the city lights were slowly dying.
“Are you ready for bed?” Kirishima eventually asked you. 
You looked up from your joined hands; your fingers had been playing with his thick and long fingers for some time now. The apartment grew steadily quieter as you studied and attempted to memorize each callous and scar on his hands. They were definitely marked and nicked, the sign of the warrior he once was.
“Depends on the bed,” you tease, lips rising into a small smile as you compare your much tinier hands than his. Your fingertips barely passed the edge of his palm. “What does a big guy like you sleep in? A twin? Tatami mat?”
Kirishima laughed, his hands twisting in yours, wrapping it around so that he raised your hands up to press a kiss to the center of your palms. 
“A futon, brat,” Kirishima explained, his smile small but sharp with his humor. “Let’s get you to bed?”
You frown. 
“Where will you be sleeping then?”
“My couch is just fine.”
“I’m sure your stuffing in a trash bag had holes in it.”
“That’s okay,” Kirishima laughed, standing up and quickly taking you to your feet as well. “It’s just for a night, I’ll live.”
Your face warmed immediately as he guided you down the hallway of his apartment before finally coming into what was definitely his room.
Kirishima’s scent was faint in this room, cinnamon, wood, and warm spices. It made your eyes flutter as you observed his room from the entryway as he began to set up the room. 
His eye for interior decoration was quite… different. You smiled brightly as you glanced around; the diverse and rather boyish decorations around the room warmed your heart. It seemed exactly like what you would think of for Kirishima. 
“Well, that’s all!” Kirishima exclaimed, his hands landing on his hips in triumph as he looked around. “The bathroom is the next door over, and I’ll leave a toothbrush out for you. I also left out a new t-shirt of mine if you want to change!”
You nod some more, watching as Kirishima seems unsure of what to do next. He looks around, coughs a bit before nodding.
“Okay, I’ll be leaving—”
“Um, can we talk?” you interrupt, arms wrapping around your body. “I have some things I want to say.”
“Oh, sure!”
“You can sit,” you say, motioning toward the bed. “I have a few things to get off my chest.”
Kirishima pauses for a bit, his eyes looking you over before he eventually nods, and he sits down. The bed slightly creaks under his weight, and you feel your body warm-up at the sound. You want to hear the bed creak more, to rock under the weight of you and him pressed against the sheets as you cried his name.
“What is it?” he asks gently, observing you.
“I just…” you huff, words failing you, your tongue feeling heavy. “I wanted to say thank you for saving me.”
“It was my job to do that,” Kirishima smiled warmly, his arms crossing again.
He was relaxed.
“I mean, I can’t even begin to believe that it was Kimiko who was behind all that, even though we know it was… I know it was,” you trail off, shivering slightly as you remember your ex-managers demented laugh in your ear. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
“Nothing would’ve happened to you,” Kirishima spoke with finality. “I promised to myself at the first meeting I was going to protect you, hell the entire world would. You’re not going to be taken down by pathetic people like that, not you.”
“Really?”
“One hundred percent.”
“I feel like I should repay you in some way, though,” you rub the back of your neck, eyes fluttering just the slightest bit flirtatious. Kirishima looked at you with full mooned eyes, his arms unfolding and his palms resting onto the bedspread.
“You repay me plenty already,” came his whispered answer, so quiet, so pure you almost smiled. “You don’t have to do anything.”
Your tongue pushes past your lip, wetting the drying skin as you take a step toward him. The shoulders of the jacket slowly fall from your own shoulders, pooling just above your elbows as you stop before him, hands resting daintily on his broad shoulders.
“And what if I want something?” you ask, finding yourself stemming with energy as his legs part, allowing you closer access to him. 
You step in closer and closer until your outer thighs are ghosting against the inner part of his.
“I think it’s in our contract for me to do everything that you request if I remember correctly,” Kirishima whispers, his bright clear red eyes turning a burnt shade: dark and ever consuming. 
“And if I want you to finish what you started over at the onsen?” you press, fingers curling against the muscles of his shoulders before locking behind his neck.
His nose was brushing against yours, cold yet burning against your own skin.
“I’ll gladly show you what I wanted to do that night,” he grunts, eyes deadly, and for the first time, his hands held your waist.
You took a second to recover, your skin sparking with the electricity of his touch, and you suppressed a shiver as you opened your eyes.
“Do it,” you cement your fates, “coward.”
And just like that, in a movement so euphoric, Kirishima’s mouth crashed against yours.
His mouth was hot, dangerous against yours -- a live wire sparking with uncontrollable energy and heat as your mouths danced. Hot puffs of air were passed between your mouths, your fingers shaking with an undeniable release of tension and want. 
The kiss was sloppy, desperate, so needy with unspoken frantic determination to fuck each other until the other could no longer move. 
Kirishima’s hand removed the jacket from your arms, letting the expensive material fall onto the floor with a heavy thud. Despite the lack of warmth the clothing provided, the feeling of Kirishima’s hands rubbing against your bare arms sent your mind spiraling.
“Get on the bed,” Kirishima commands against your mouth. “Let me fuck you.”
The words were nearly embarrassingly desperate, but the tone of his voice spoke of the absolute domination he wished to assert on you. He wanted you in one exact way, and you had a feeling you knew what it was. But if he had been paying attention, Kirishima should already know that getting you to listen was not easy.
“No,” you grin against his mouth.
Kirishima pulls away instantly, his lips red and swollen as he replays your word in his head. He looks frazzled, absolutely delirious already at the simple, passion-filled makeout. As soon as his eyes clear away the fog, your grin drops, and instead, you look at him with fierce determination and defiance. 
“No?” he repeats.
“No,” you confirm.
Your chest feels light, your head spinning as the hands on your waist tighten, and his eyes flash dangerously. The tip of his tongue pushes past his lips before quickly disappearing again. 
“Of course, you’re a brat in bed too, such a fucking princess,” Kirishima shakes his head, but his mouth curving into a shark-like grin. 
Menacing, promising, sending chilling shivers down your spine.
The world spins faster than you can keep up, your mouth opening to shriek as Kirishima easily lifts you up, and has you lying against his lap. 
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, princess,” Kirishima begins, his large fingers hooking into the waistband of the sweats you have on and the panties you’re wearing. “My princess gets rewards for being good. If she can behave properly, she gets to be fucked with dick, her pussy gets to be fucked just the way she pleases.”
You can’t help but stifle a moan that threatens to spill out with his words and the way his hands move down the curve of your ass, exposing the naked skin to him. The waistband of both your panties and sweats stay high up your thighs, and it’s almost embarrassing to know you’re still so clothed despite what’s to come.
“And just what does the Sergeant do to bad girls?” you ask, unable to keep your tongue down, your hips rolling against his lap in undeserved friction.
Unexpectedly, abruptly, a hand comes down harshly onto your bare ass.
The contact is rough, stinging against your ass as you cry out in slight pain.
The hand not currently rubbing a warning circle into your ass twists the hair at the top of your head, lifting your head up so that your ear could near his mouth.
“Bad girls get punishments. They get what I want to give them. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Holy shit,” you whimper, heat flaring between your thighs at the thought of Kirishima doing anything to you regardless of if you were good or bad. You rut your ass back against his hand, longing for a heavier touch, a plea for something more.
“What does the princess want?”
“Nothing,” you bite, and the crashing smack of another spank has you moaning loudly at the stinging pleasure-filled pain. 
“You moaning like a whore at a simple spank says otherwise,” Kirishima chuckles darkly, his fingers pinching your stinging ass as your body bucks against him. He spanks you again, again, and again. Each slap is intentful, powerful, wanting to get you to admit what you want, and you cry against your hands each time, your eyes fluttering as the pain feels good. 
“Of course, a slut like you would be getting off on this,” Kirishima seems amused, his thick finger pressing to the slit of your cunt, spreading your dripping essence against your cunt. He presses against your entrance with just the tip of his finger, and you shriek in a sound for more, your hips jerking backward to get his finger into you, to fuck you with those thick fingers to do something about the growing desperate heat. 
“Kirishima!” you scream, your body sweating and twisting on his lap, desperate to find some way to get him to finger fuck you. 
“Ah, there we go,” he sighs in delight as his fingers swirl at your entrance, increasing the teasing and making your mind spin. “Tell me what you want, brat.”
“You!” you wail, two of his fingers carting between your wet, sloppy heated lips. They graze your clit, stimulating you further as you can do nothing but instinctively jerk against his hold, trying to get him to give you the needed pleasure to build up to an orgasm. “I want you to fuck me so good! Please, Sergeant, please, I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember anything but your name.”
“But you haven’t proven to be a good princess,” Kirishima tuts, his hands disappearing from your pussy despite your crying pleas. His hand grabs your ass, though, massaging the abused skin, grasping it tightly.
You moan, embarrassed at the sensation of his massive hand easily cupping your ass cheek, your fingers fisting into the fabric of his pants as you shake your head.
“Are you going to prove that you’re good?” he asks you, his tone like that of a parent chastising a child. “Gonna prove to me that you can be good?”
You shake pathetically against his legs, but you can’t keep yourself from shaking your head. You can’t prove to him that you would be.
“I can’t!” you whimper loudly, your body twisting on his lap to look up at him, your eyes filled with tears and pleading need. Kirishima looked down at you with lust filled eyes and an undeniable need to be followed.
“You can’t?” he repeats, his head tilting, eyes narrowing, and his fingers dug into your ass. “Or you won’t?”
You tremble on top of him, unable to answer because you weren’t ready to hand over the reins just yet. You didn’t want to submit so fast, you wanted to make his own head dizzy with need but the stubbornness to continue punishing you the way he was promising.
“I won’t,” you gasp, eyes fluttering at the way he finally drops your head.
You gasp loudly as you find him shoving you off his lap, and with your panties and sweats sitting so awkwardly high on your legs, you find yourself tumbling off his lap and onto the floor.
“Guess if you don’t want to behave, I’ll treat you like some fucking pussy pocket and dispose of you once I’m done,” Kirishima easily breathes, and you look up at the now standing man as he tears his shirt off.
Your mouth waters, your cunt throbbing at the sight of the rippling muscles and dark lines of his tattoos on his upper body. You watch fascinated, like one does to a masterpiece, as he undresses until he’s in nothing but his socks. And at the sight of his dick, you can feel at once all the blood in your flushed face drop directly into your throbbing cunt.
He was fucking enormous, his girth barely fitting into his hand, and the angry red head spilled its precum against his abs. A black happy trail connecting Kirishima’s abs to his vein throbbing cock.
Holy fuck, he could quickly kill you with that.
Kirishima doesn’t ask any questions as he watches your awkwardly dressed state of a body on the floor. His head is tilted upwards, a small pleased smile on his face as he looks down on you, his hand slowly, leisurely fisting his cock as you can do nothing but stare.
You make some insane noise at the back of your throat at this sight, your thighs trembling with need, and you're pushing off your side, your ass burning, and your balance off as you open your mouth, offering all you could to him.
And thankfully, Kirishima allows it.
He’s much too tall for you to suck him off on your knees, so he sits back down onto the bed, letting you scamper between his legs, mouth open wide like some needy pet.
“Such a good little slut,” Kirishima sighs, sinking his cock into your wet, hot mouth. “Such a fucking cockwhore, all it took was a single glance for you to lose your will.”
You whine against his dick, your jaw tight with the stretch, your tongue lapping so desperately around the cock that was no more than halfway in yet couldn’t go in any further.
“Suck me right, and I’ll reward you by fucking that pretty little pussy of yours,” Kirishima grunts, his fingers pressing into the side of your neck as he ruts his hips up into your mouth, shoving his cock even further into your mouth. “And don’t you dare look away from me while you suck me off.”
It feels like fire.
His cock driving down your throat hurts, the taste of his salty pre-cum slathering all over your tongue and dripping out of your mouth with the saliva you can’t control. His cock hits the back of your throat, and you continue to bob your head, continue to fuck him with your throat as animalistic, praiseworthy noises begin spilling from Kirishima’s mouth.
You whimper at the sight of his head dipping back, and you nearly whine when he shoves the fingers he had gathered your juices on into his mouth. He moans at the contact and with his pleasure with your actions so obvious as you choke against his girth. That was hot, holy fuck, you wanted him to fuck you, please fuck you. 
Your eyes close as he begins to fuck faster into your mouth, his delight in hearing you choke around him his driving force. Tears start pouring from your eyes despite your best efforts, your throat and inner thighs burning with lust and need as Kirishima groans, his cock twitching deep in your throat.
Slap!
“Hey!”
Slap!
You gag harshly as your cheeks sting with his heavy slap, your teeth grazing underneath his cock, right against a thick, twisting vein.
“Did I tell you to close your eyes?” Kirishima practically growls, his hands grasping the back of your neck, the other one slapping you across the face yet again. “No. I said… fuck… I said, keep your eyes on me!”
Tears weep down your face, your eyes struggling to keep focus on him as he continued to fuck deep and intensely into your mouth, shoving himself further into you until you could feel his thighs grazing your chin. Oxygen wasn’t flowing anymore; your gags and chokes the only time the burning element could manage to flow through you, but Kirishima doesn’t seem to care. He seems to delight in the way you are, despite it all, are moaning and looking at him in a pleading way for more.
More, you plead.
And he delivers. 
Kirishima pulls his still hard, not yet cummed, dick out of your mouth and stands. 
You splutter with the sudden intake of oxygen to your lungs, burning you from the inside out as you splutter on the ground.
“W-What’s going on?” you hoarsely stammer, your jaw and throat aching from its prolonged abuse. “E-Ei?”
However, Kirishima seems dead set on getting you naked, and you squeal in flustered excitement as he rips the shirt off of you and his mouth pressing against yours again. His mouth crashes against yours, and you moan into his mouth immediately.
His tongue curls into your mouth and your tongues press and rub against each other. Each passing second growing more desperate, needier, more intense as your clothes are ripped one by one off your body.
“Holy fuck, I’ve wanted you for so long,” Kirishima nearly whines, his mouth trailing down your neck, biting and sucking against every centimeter of skin he passed. “Wanted to fuck you against the wall, in my bed, and now I get to do that.”
“Please, please, fuck me, please,” you beg, your voice bordering a wail as your arms wrap around his neck, letting him lift you up off the floor. Despite you being so much smaller than him that when he held you to him, your cunt wasn’t pressed to his angry leaking cock, you continued to desperately roll your hips against his abs, the friction welcomed and easing the building pressure. It was an action conveying just what you wanted. “I need you in me, Sergeant!”
“Just cuz… holy fuck,” Kirishima breathes ragged, his body twisting around, and you cried when the cold sheets pressed into your back. “Imma fuck you, Imma… god, just fucking watch.”
Your head thrashed back onto the pillow as Kirishima’s teeth sunk into your collarbone, then captured your sensitive nipples, his fingers dancing against your clit and teasing your center. 
“Now!” you cry, fingers digging into his shoulder. “Put it in!”
This time, Kirishima didn’t need to be told twice.
His larger body was suddenly pressed entirely against yours, dwarfing you immediately as your arms wrapped around his back as his cock slammed into you. You screamed at the sudden intrusion, your pussy stretched beyond its typical limits by his girth, his size, his power.
Your cunt throbbed around him, your face buried within his pecs as you, despite the searing pain, shove your hips up towards him. Fucking into him, sucking him further into you.
“Holy shit,” Kirishima groans, “you’re amazing.”
“Talk less, fuck me more!” you screech, your body spasming, twitching so hard from the splitting pleasure and the lava pit in your stomach, and Kirishima does that exactly.
His hips begin to meet yours in equaled power, slamming into you so that the bed creaked beneath you. He fucked you until he had to hold a hand on your hip so you could stay there, and you kept a hand on the wall to continue to push yourself down onto his cock.
You screamed with pleasure, cried for more, Kirishima’s shark-like smirk getting bolder, darker, hotter with every slam of his hips until his tattooed right arm shot down. His hand wrapped around your throat, choking you.
“You’re so loud, princess,” Kirishima moans, clearly liking your loud noises, “but you’re going to wake everyone in Tokyo.”
His hand around your throat is enough to have your legs trembling around his waist, your choked and muffled moans and splutters drowning out even more as he pressed a kiss onto you. He kissed you, licking your mouth, and devouring your every word and thought. Your core twisted, tightened, and burned. It throbbed and clenched with it’s impending orgasm, and your body began to tense to the heavens as his cock throbbed deep within you.
“Who saved you?”
“E-Ei did,” you garble.
“Who’s fucking you?”
“E-Ei is!”
“Who’s going to fucking cum when I tell her to?”
“Me! Fuck, me!”
Kirishima laughs, his arms wrapping around your waist, and in one final, fleeting burst of strength, fucks into you with his own power, needs, and desire, and you can only take it. “Cum, princess,” he whispered almost sweetly against the top of your head, and it was all over. Your teeth sink into his chest as you scream, a blinding white light erupting through your vision as you cum around his cock.
Kirishima whimpers, his cock still pushing deep into your cunt, until you can feel the warm spill of his seed in your womb.
He collapses to the side of you, taking you with him so that you were resting on his sweaty chest.
“Holy shit,” Kirishima whispered after a bit, your body already warm and too lethargic to notice the star-like tone to his voice. “That was fucking… holy shit.”
“Does this mean you like me?” you half tease, half wonder.
There’s a pause, a silence, and you wonder if maybe he had fallen asleep.
But he didn’t.
“I’ve been in love with you for some time now, I think,” he admits, his hand beginning to rub small circles into your back.
You find that despite the exhaustion, warmth floods your cheeks.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to discuss a more… permanent and maybe different contract tomorrow morning, huh?”
Kirishima chuckles, and you find yourself smiling into his chest.
“I think we do.”
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ericspinkhair · 3 years
Text
dirty thoughts from a distance
pairing: dom!changmin x virgin!reader, best friends to lovers, college au!
synopsis: you masturbate while thinking of your best friend and he catches you moan out his name
word count: 3.8k
warnings: maybe slight angst, (getting caught) masturbating, mutual masturbation, sex in general ig
a/n: y'all are crazyy! it has barely been 19 days and I have already hit 100 followers🤧 thank you guys so much for your support and sending in requests!!! everytime I see leave me nice messages I feel so encouraged to keep on writing even though there is still a lot of room to improve and I am not always completely satisfied with what I create. I wish all of you a great day and hope that you stay happy and healthy!!
this chapter is especially dedicated to @bangcrispychannie​ and anon who requested this kind of scenario ❤️
masterlist + requests
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for three years you wondered why you hadn't lost your virginity yet. it's not like you didn't have enough opportunities since you had been in two relationships so far, both lasted about five to seven months.
the feelings in your first relationship were been mostly one-sided however.
when a guy in your biology class named Minho confessed his crush for you, you thought that the only logical next step was to become a couple. you were quite flattered that he had taken such an interest in you and believed and hoped you would eventually develop feelings for him as well. the problem was you didn't. after not being able to be emotionally let alone physically intimate with him for a few months into your relationship, he finally confronted you and you confessed that you just couldn't bring yourself to see him that way. your relationship came to an end just before becoming a senior in high school.
in your last year, you got close with Seonghwa. you were seat neighbors in your english class and you'd chat all the time. he was perfectly sweet, smart and funny and you instantly got along just fine. you developed an interest in him and he seemed to feel the same way. he asked you out with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some chocolate and you agreed to being his girlfriend without much thought. you caught yourself falling in love with this boy and didn't shy away from physical affection such as kissing and holding hands. you were convinced you were ready to give yourself to him during prom night but when it came to it you chickened out. a couple of hours before, you had found out that your best friend changmin had broken up with his girlfriend of six months.
for a long time you hadn't been able to decipher why you hadn't slept with Seonghwa then. as time passed, the unpleasant answer became clearer and clearer: you had brought up your hopes.
you had been best friends with changmin basically since you started elementary school. on the first day, he scared you with a stupid horror mask he had sneaked in from home and made you cry. he felt so guilty and was determined to make it up to you and to become friends. you had been inseparable ever since.
when he got his first girlfriend in junior year you were devastated. you convinced yourself that the reason for that was that you had been scared he was going to replace you as his best friend but in reality you had felt jealousy.
you were suppressing your feelings because if you confessed, things might become awkward. there was no way changmin could ever like you the same way.
all of this became more difficult as you moved in together for college. you were sharing an apartment now and every day, it became harder to avoid your growing and troublesome feelings. your heart would beat faster whenever he walked around shirtless (which was most of the time) and you decided to try to ignore him. this was especially difficult since you wanted to appreciate his physique. when had he become this handsome? changmin had been dancing all his life so he had always been fit but now that he was majoring in it and training most of the time, his body had developed and he had become super toned and his abs were more prominent.
he'd often make his way into your dreams and you'd let him do inappropriate things with you. you'd wake up wet and needy and even more confused. you were ashamed of seeing him this way. this was not how one normally thought about their best friend.
it was a wednesday morning and you were eating breakfast when changmin joined you in the kitchen. he flashed you a big smile, making his pretty dimples appear which you didn't see as you did not look at him.
'good morning, y/n!' he greeted you in a good mood. you just grunted in response, intensely staring at the cereal swimming in your bowl.
the fact that you couldn't even spare him a glance hurt changmin but he tried to not let it show. he wanted to get you to talk to him.
'do you want to watch a movie and play some board games today after class?' he proposed. you hadn't spent a lot of time together ever since you had become aware of your feelings.
'I have an essay due tomorrow,' you quickly made up as an excuse. the corners of changmin's mouth twitched but you didn't notice as you were too preoccupied with doing anything that didn't include looking at him.
'then maybe on the weekend. or next-' 'I'll be busy,' you interjected. 'I have lots to do.' you stressed the lots to emphasize there was absolutely no way you would be able to hang out with him any time soon.
'umm… okay. I'll be going to class.' he told you dejected. your heart sank but you didn't respond. he was wondering whether he had done anything to make you upset but he couldn't wrap his mind around it. this had been going on for a while and he was starting to become desperate.
when you first got the apartment you spent every free minute of the day together, happy that you finally moved out and could be with each other 24/7, but then you stopped talking to him completely out of nowhere. from one day to the other, you would avoid leaving your room when he was outside and barely talked to him anymore. at first, changmin thought you were just stressed and that you'd eventually warm up again when exam season came to an end but a few months had passed and, if anything, the situation was even worse than before.
you were watching the time and after ten minutes you decided to leave for classes as well. you had started doing this so you couldn't possibly catch up to him and risk having a conversation.
'hey, y/n, what's up!' your friend chanhee hugged you when you arrived on campus. you were both majoring in fashion design and were getting along on well since the beginning of the first semester.
you sighed exasperatedly. 'changmin's up.' you puffed your cheeks and pouted. chanhee nodded knowingly. he was the only person who was aware of your little secret and that was only because you had accidentally drunk confessed the whole story to him at your first college party.
'you know maybe you should tell him. this whole thing is clearly not making you happy and I saw changmin walk by a few minutes ago. if I had to guess I'd say he was in an even worse mood than you. someone accidentally ran into him and he pushed them hard and called them names. it's not like him to overreact like this. he's usually super collected. I think you finally managed to break his spirit,' chanhee reported to you.
this had never been what you intended. why did everything have to be so difficult? you didn't want to be the cause of your best friend's unhappiness.
'he must feel like I despise him. but I cannot confess to him, that would be the end of our friendship!' you were constantly torn apart by this dilemma.
'well, if you're not gonna act on your feelings, maybe try to move on? find something casual or serious with someone new? then you'd forget all about changmin and you'd be able to go back to acting normal around him' he suggested.
chanhee's advice didn't sound too bad. if you couldn't get with changmin then you had to de-crush yourself and find somebody different to focus your emotional energy on. but on who?
'is there anyone you could think of?' you ask chanhee. he had great taste in practically everything so you highly valued his opinion.
'hmm, you could potentially try younghoon hyung? I've seen him eyeing you for weeks now and he even told me thinks your gorgeous.' he wiggled his eyebrows teasingly.
younghoon was a pretty art student, whom chanhee knew from high school. you didn't talk to him often, mostly at parties and he wasn't exactly your type but you tried to remember shouldn't judge him by his first impression when you haven't even got to know him.
chanhee pulled out his phone and soon you felt yours vibrate in your back pocket. you looked at him questioningly.
'I sent you his number in case you're interested,' he explained proudly. he put his hand on your shoulder and you could see the concern in his eyes. 'you really need to get over changmin if don't want to confess,' he insisted firmly.
so you decided to text younghoon during class. he was very polite and you thought he was cute as he seemed excited to talk to you. you agreed to hang out sometime to get to know each other and decided to meet up friday for dinner.
after the end of your classes, you walked home to warm up yesterday's leftovers. to your dismay, changmin had also decided to come home for once. since you began acting all weird and refused to eat with him, he usually spent lunch time with his dance mates as they had practice after anyway. why had he decided to come here today? your question was answered when he ran up to you, smiling from ear to ear and you noticed he was hiding something behind his back.
'you know how there is a blackpink concert downtown on friday? guess what!' he held up two tickets. surely you would at least agree to spend time with him if it meant being able to see your favorite group, right?
he must have gone through so much trouble to get tickets for you and since blackpink were your favorite music artists you were actually contemplating on going but then you remembered you had made plans.
'I can't. I'm going out with younghoon friday night.'
'kim younghoon?' he raised an eyebrow skeptically.
'why would you to be spending time together? I didn't know he was even talking to you,' he questioned you. anger was boiling inside of you.
'maybe it's because you don't know everything about me,' you snapped at him. you were aware that you were being harsh but somehow his words hurt you. why did he doubt you? did he think you weren't able to get with someone as awesome and popular as younghoon? did he not consider you pretty enough?
the microwave beeped, indicating your food was ready, making you snap out of your thoughts.
'y/n, I swear, that's not what I meant.' he stepped directly in front of you so you were forced to look at him. you stared deep into his pleading eyes as you closed the microwave door, turned your back to him, stomped to your room and slammed the door shut, leaving changmin behind in the kitchen.
your whole body was tense as you listened closely to any sounds coming from outside and felt relieved when you heard the front door close. feeling sad and depressed always made you feel tired so you decided to take a nap to forget about all the negative feelings.
when you woke up you were horny af. you had a dream about changmin taking you on the kitchen counter and now your panties were completely soaked with your arousal.
desperate, you pulled them down and tossed them somewhere to the side. it didn't matter. you needed relief now.
you closed your eyes as you slowly started rubbing your clit, imagining it was changmin's slender fingers touching you instead. your imagination was running wild and you sped up the tempo.
eventually, you plunged your middle finger and then your index finger inside you, pretending that changmin was stretching your walls with his cock.
you moaned loudly and picked up the pace, chasing your high. oh, how much you wished he was the one making you come.
'yes?' you opened your eyes and gasped loudly as you saw changmin watching you from the doorway. you hecticly pulled up your blankets to your chest to cover your naked lower body. for how fucking long had he been standing there?
'oh fuck, changmin...' you cursed out loud.
to your surpise he laughed. 'oh, is this why you have been so distant? were you embarrassed about imagining doing dirty things with me?' your cheeks were burning red and you were unable to move a muscle.
'you know, if you had told me you were thinking of me while doing it then I could've helped you out already. that would have spared both of us a lot of frustration.' he stepped into the room and pulled the sheets away, his hungry eyes fixed on your desperately dripping pussy. you tried to hide it with your hands.
'n-no… what are you saying? aren't we best friends? ' you couldn't comprehend what was happening right now. the way he was acting was so unexpected that you didn't know how to react or what to say. he brushed his hand over your burning cheeks. his eyes were conveying disparity.
'but what if I told you I don't care? that I like you? that I see you as more than just my best friend?'
'wait, you like me?' you couldn't believe your ears. was he actually reciprocating your feelings?
he groaned in exasperation. 'y/n, why did you think I ended things with my ex out of the blue?' you shrugged your shoulders as you weren't sure. you had thought it was because she had lost interest in him, at least that's what changmin had told you back then.
'because I realized I was in love you, you dumbass. how could I be together with someone if I had feelings for someone else?'
'I actually ruined my chances of having sex with seonghwa for the first time for the same reason. it was just after I had found out about the breakup,' you confessed, relieved that you were finally beginning to make sense of everything.
he climbed onto the mattress and positioned his knees next to your closed legs, leaning his hands on the wall behind you so that he was hovering above you.
'I'm sorry that you lost that opportunity. let me make it up to you,' he whispered with his face mere inches from yours and then kissed you. losing all self-restraint, you immediately pulled his body closer so that he was straddling you. after all these months filled with sexual frustration and just frustration in general, you were desperate for his touch. your hands wandered under his dance shirt and you were finally able to touch those abs you had been secretly admiring for so long.
you broke the kiss to take off both of your shirts and changmin skillfully unclasped your bra.
while his tongue was exploring the insides of your mouth, his hands were kneading your breasts, occasionally rubbing and pinching your hardened nipples. you felt his hard dick press against your lower abdomen as he grinded himself into you to get friction.
after having dreamt about this moment for so long, you felt impatient. this was too good to be true and you were scared that if you didn't act quick, your bubble would bust.
without thinking twice about it, you pulled down the hem of his sweatpants and boxers just far enough so you could easily reach inside and whip out his dick. you stopped for a moment to admire his length. it looked even better than you had ever imagined in any of your wildest dreams.
he sat upright, leaning on the wall behind you, while you stroked his cock. he was sensitive to your touch and not shy to show you how well you were doing by responding with moans.
'fuck, y/n. you're doing amazing.' his praise made you eager to show him just how good you could make him feel. your lack of experience was barely noticeable as the adrenaline flowing through your veins was guiding you.
you tapped his thighs to signalize him to inch closer. that way your mouth had easier access to his dick. you hesitantly licked up his length and were fascinated by how he tasted. wanting to have more of it, you swirl your tongue around his pink tip. changmin eventually became impatient and forced more of his dick inside your mouth so you tried to take as much of him as you could but your gag reflex made it difficult for you. instead, you worked your hands where your mouth couldn't do its job.
not wanting you to feel neglected, changmin reached behind him to stimulate your clit. he skillfully started rubbing all the right places and you moaned around him, sending vibrations through his cock.
he couldn't take this stimulation for much longer before he had to force himself to pull out of your mouth.
'wow, you almost made me come there.' he panted heavily. 'but I want to be inside you first.' you got lost in his touch as he placed a long kiss on your lips but a sudden thought brought you back to reality.
'wait, I don't have a condom,' you informed him embarrassed. you hadn't planned to lose your virginity any time soon so you hadn't bought any. did that mean the end of this wonderful dream?
but changmin laughed light heartedly. 'no need to worry. hold up, let me get some from my room.' you relaxed again as he disappeared and came back shortly with a condom wrapper in his hand.
you were prepared for him to start right away and took a deep breath in preparation but he didn't do anything.
'I don't think it's a good idea to start yet since I haven't even prepared you. the last thing I would want to do is hurt you so just lay back.'
he positioned your legs over his shoulders so your hips were hovering in the air. you felt his warm breath against your vagina before he drove his tongue inside you, seeing for himself how wet he had made you and tasting your arousal. you clasped your hands over your mouth to stop yourself from releasing any sounds.
'don't do that. I want to hear how good I make you feel,' changmin complained.
when he slid two fingers inside you, you couldn't hold it in anymore and let out some kind of aroused squeal. you felt self-conscious but it seemed like changmin was only more eager to please you.
at the same time, his tongue was abusing your swollen clit and it was impossible for you to hold back the curses that were spilling out of your mouth. the pleasure he was making you feel was a whole different sensation from anything else you've experienced before.
'more please, changmin!' you begged. you wanted more. you needed more. you needed him.
he carefully lowered your hips back down. 'are you sure you want this?' he asked you, waiting for you to clearly consent to having sex with him.
'I want you. you, and only you,' you reassured him and brought his face closer to kiss him. changmin's typical bright smile formed and you felt the butterflies in your stomach go crazy.
he positioned himself at your entrance, swiping his dick between your folds like a credit card to coat it with your juices.
you gripped his arms tightly as he pushed in. he slowly continued until all of him was buried deep inside you before stopping. the feeling of a whole penis inside of you was very different from your or changmin's fingers. it filled you up to the brim and was rubbing all the good spots. while it initially caused you a bit of discomfort, it wasn't overwhelming and it also felt good in a weird way.
when your walls finished adjusting to his length, he began to steadily move his dick in and out.
changmin intensely studied your face. he couldn't believe that after all those years you were finally close to being his. he wanted to savor every single expression you made while he was inside you.
you wrapped your legs around his torso, trying to push him deeper. he slammed his cock back inside you.
'you are mine,' he declared and started going harder and faster.
'I am yours,' you confirmed and wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him in for a kiss.
because of the extensive foreplay and your own masturbation prior to this, it didn't take long until your walls were tightening around his dick and you felt an orgasm approaching.
driven wild by you clenching around his cock, he thrusted into you even faster. you rested your sweaty foreheads against each other as both of you almost came simultaneously.
changmin kissed the top of your head before he pulled out and threw away the used condom. you opened your arms and he let himself fall right into your embrace.
'I know this might be kind of weird to talk about right now but do you want to be my girlfriend?' Changmin asked you. he still wasn't too sure what all of this meant for your relationship and he desperately needed to know where your mind was at.
'after having liked you for all this time I'd be an idiot to say no.' 'you're an idiot anyway,' he teased. you slapped his arm.
'hey! I'm not the one who ignored you for a couple of months because my hormones are out of control.' you hid your face in the crook of his neck, too embarrassed face him.
'I'm really sorry for that. you just mean so much to me and I didn't want my feelings to get in the way of our friendship.' he stroked your hair.
'I do understand that. if I hadn't heard you moan my name today I wouldn't have acted on my feelings either. but all is good now, right?' 'right.' you smiled and placed a small kiss below his ear.
'there is still one thing you need to do,' changmin tried to remind you. you looked at him, puzzled.
'what do you mean?' 'younghoon,' he hinted. you immediately started looking for your phone. that date was definitely going to have to be cancelled. there was no need for you to find a distraction anymore since you had been granted your wish after all.
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ladyeliot · 4 years
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Are you happy? [2/2] +18
Part One
Pairing: Ex!Chris Evans x Fem!Reader
Summary: After almost two years without seeing each other, fate brings you together again, each of you has your own reason for the reunion, which brings your feelings to the surface again.
Warnings: Angst. Sentimental confusion. Infidelity. Unprotected sex.
Word count: 3975
A/N: Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.
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John Steinbeck once said 'One can find so many pains when the rain is falling', you had never understood that phrase, never until that very moment. The drops seemed to descend fiercely, crashing firmly against your face, you hardly realised at what point the intensity of the rain had become so extreme, as you continued to be completely blocked from contemplating the face before you, and time never stopped.
The red brick of the Victorian houses, decorated with colourful flower boxes, seemed to create an idyllic scene of which you two were the protagonists in that narrow alley, but neither of you noticed. Words that could not now be erased from your mind had come out of his mouth, a mouth that was at that moment half-open as if it wished to express something else, but did not. You had had to deal with enough events in your life to know how to deal with any new moment that came your way, at least you thought you had, but you would never have thought you would have to face this. A dilemma opened up in your mind, but also in your heart, you were sure that you loved Chris with all your heart, you had loved him for as long as you could remember, he was your childhood friend, you never knew when your feelings became romantic, he didn't know either, but you had your assumptions.
Anyway, that love had never gone away, and it was never going to go away, it was going to be there for the rest of your lives, but things were not as simple as they might seem. Your love might have worked during your adolescence, during your youth, but when things got serious, somehow or other the relationship didn't move forward. There were no third parties, no cheating on either side, just different paths. Each of you had your own dreams that pushed you further and further apart, so far apart that you decided to end the relationship, which was not in the most amicable way possible.
The last two years were difficult for you, your smile had vanished from your face, but Garret appeared to give it back to you. You believed again that love was possible, and of course, although you always used to keep Cjris in mind, for which you used to blame yourself all the time, life seemed to be much simpler. Partly because of that, and because you loved him, you had accepted Garret's hand a month ago, but unfortunately you couldn't help imagining Chris the moment you said 'yes, I want to marry you'. And now there he was, Chris, in front of you, telling you that he was still in love with you and you could barely say a word because you had no idea how you felt, you didn't want to hurt anyone, you didn't want to suffer or anyone else to suffer because of you, but apparently it was too late.
Raindrops slid down your face, wiping away tears that you barely realised were flowing from your eyes, which were staring into Chris's. The radiant rays of sunshine had disappeared, bringing gloom to an autumnal morning, only the sound of the thunderstorm could be heard. The radiant rays of sunshine had disappeared, offering the gloom of an autumnal morning, only the rumbling of the storm could be heard. Chris finally lowered his face, nodding to himself, as if he had assumed defeat by not saying anything in the situation.
"Alright," those words came from inside him with a sigh. "I guess there's not much more to say," there was a moment of silence, in which he offered you one last chance to speak, but you could not. "All the best Y/N."
The lump in his throat that had been present since Chris had left his feelings open was massified when you heard your name forming on his lips. Before he turned away and continued on his way through the alleyway, he returned his eyes to yours in the hope that you would take control of yourself and stop him, but again you didn't. So you stood there, letting the rain wash over every part of you. So you stood there, letting the rain wash over every part of your body, watching as his figure gradually disappeared until he turned the corner and you lost him, lost him completely.
You had lost track of time since you left that coffee shop, you were stopped in that place for minutes, until your lower limbs mechanically carried you back to the car, where you remained silent for fifteen minutes. Your senses didn't seem to react, perhaps because you didn't want to feel, because you knew that if you felt you would be capable of doing something crazy, which would surely hurt someone a lot and you didn't want that to happen. His words played over and over in your brain, you glimpsed the blue of his eyes, the smile as you entered the cafeteria, his scent flowing into your nostrils, and his touch as you snuggled into his arms. It was like an internal torture that you couldn't get rid of, that you didn't really want to get rid of. Because who would want to get rid of the love of their life?
It was when the moisture on your face dried up that you realised that the wateriness of your eyes was not because of the raindrops but because you were broken. That revealed a large part of your feelings, your true feelings, which you had kept hidden, you loved him, with all your heart, as you had never loved anyone else, you had loved him for as long as you could remember, how could you not continue to love him?
A click made you connect again and brought you back to the real world, maybe your emotions were running high, but for once in your life you decided to act in the moment, leaving rationality aside, which had not allowed you to act before. You started the engine of the car, you knew perfectly well which direction you were going to take, you had travelled that road so many times that you hardly had to think about how to get to his house, where you hoped he would be. Your heart was racing and your adrenaline was pumping, but your hands around the steering wheel reminded you of that engagement ring on your left ring finger, causing you to slow down and stare at it. What the hell were you doing? If you did what you had in your mind two options were open to you, one was to make the biggest mistake of your life, the other was to win back the love of your life by breaking Garret's heart. Whichever you chose, someone would lose out.
Cars overtook you on the left as you kept wondering what to do, while the sky was still overcast and the rain was pouring down. Time became your enemy again, causing you to arrive in front of Chris's house without clearing your mind. You felt like you were back in the coffee shop, wondering whether or not to go in, whether or not to confront Chris. You turned off the engine of the car and dropped your forehead on the steering wheel, you could hear the drops falling hard on the roof of the car, which seemed to help you relax, strangely. You turned your face, staring at the front door of the house through the window, completely wet. The cafeteria had been a neutral place, this house was not, too many memories enveloped those four walls to go inside and not be affected by it. You were lost if you went in there, you knew what was going to happen and that you were going to let your feelings take you.
As if you wanted to give it one last chance you looked at the engagement ring that Garret had given you a month ago, you hoped that something would tell you that the best thing to do was to start the engine of the car again and get away from there as soon as possible, but it didn't. So you played your last trick.  So you played your last trick, a very dangerous one, you asked yourself the same question that Chris had asked you and that you had answered systematically without thinking, were you happy, does Garret make you happy? Then you knew. The next thing you did, you did it with all the pain in your heart, but you needed to think about yourself, the future you wanted, who you wanted to spend it with and most importantly, you wanted to be happy, so there was only one possibility.
Looking at the ring you slowly pulled it off your finger, your eyes started to water, you wanted to do it differently, but Garret was thousands of miles away, so you did what you felt at that moment. Again the rain came down on you as you stepped out into the open, but you didn't care at all, your gaze was fixed on that white door that was going to open the way to your past. As you walked steadily you let the air invade your lungs giving you the strength to face what was about to come. A faint light came through the curtains of the window that overlooked the living room, that erased the doubts that invaded you in case he wasn't at home, and without knowing why your heart skipped a beat.
There you were, a metre between you and his door, a single gesture away from letting him know you were there, and you did it, your index finger approached the doorbell, a squeaky melody sounded inside the house, and you took a step back, marking a distance for when the door opened. You looked down at your hands and fiddled nervously with your fingers, which were dripping from the rain. It was thirty-six seconds before you heard the lock turn and the door open, presenting the figure of Chris before you. You looked up nervously, not knowing what gesture you were going to get from him, but what you could glimpse was a state of confusion and hope mingled in his eyes. You parted your lips, still playing with your fingers.
"I..." was the only thing you could say before a lump rose in your throat and your tears wandered and mingled down your cheeks.
You turned your face and placed the palm of your hand on it, as if to hide the fact that you were crying. At that very moment, arms wrapped around your body and pulled you inside the house, making their body heat and that of the interior of the room cover your body. You broke down emotionally, you knew it was one of the things that could happen, too many emotions to keep them all hidden inside you. So soft sobs began to come out of your throat, you kept your eyes closed and your forehead resting on Chris's chest as he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer to his body.
"It's okay," he murmured against your head, letting out a sigh. "I'm here. I've got you."
After those words he placed a kiss on top of your head and then rested his hands on your cheeks, pulling away from you a few inches to search your face with his gaze. That was the last thing you wanted to do, because you felt confusingly embarrassed about the situation that was happening, he knew it, he knew you hated crying in front of people, but it was him after all. Chris gently lifted your chin to force you to look at his face, where there was a longing smile on his lips, but you averted your gaze, causing his smile to widen and he moved closer to your forehead to kiss it before he hugged you again.
"You're completely soaked," he whispered. "Come with me, the fireplace is lit, I'll get you some towels and some dry clothes."
Again the proximity was broken, but not the contact, Chris intertwined his fingers with yours, realizing something, you saw how he looked at your intertwined hands and then stared at you with his lips parted as if he wanted to ask, but he didn't, he preferred to ignore it. Your steps took you to your memories, when you entered the living room it was inevitable not to think about the times you both had occupied that sofa, or the times you had made love on that carpet next to the fireplace, it was an open diary.
"Make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back," he said, unlacing his fingers and heading upstairs via the staircase.
Your decisive mood with which you had left the car had collapsed at the mere sight of him, the little plan you had improvised in your mind had been cut short, putting you back on your own in the face of destiny. But what you were really sure of was what you felt, at least it was something you were sure of, it was him, only him, at that moment looking carefully all around you you realised that you never wanted to live again without him in your life, in whatever way it was, because in truth you were also in love with him, although you had tried to erase him from your mind during those two years.
His footsteps coming down the steps made you alert again, Chris entered the room holding two folded towels in his hands along with a sweatshirt you knew perfectly well and a pair of sweatpants, he stood in front of you.
"You can go and change in the bathroom, or if you prefer in the bedroom," he said offering you the set of items, "you know where everything is... if you want to give me your coat, I can put it in the dryer."
You nodded softly, still looking into his eyes, the warmth of the fire in the fireplace to your right washed over you, and the shadows created a pleasant ambience against the darkness outside. Slowly you undid each button of your coat and removed it from your body, offering it to Chris who took it in his free hand. You didn't know what happened in that instant, whether it was the intensity of your gaze, or the silence that was only broken by the raindrops and the sparks from the firewood, but you didn't stop. Just as you had undone the buttons on your coat you began to undo the buttons on your blouse, Chris's eyes shifted from yours to your hands and every movement they were making. As you finished you let the soaked blouse fall down your arms and onto the carpet, exposing your bare skin, covered only by a black bra.
In those moments, Chris's limbs seemed to be locked as he continued to hold the clothes and towels in his arms, still looking at your body with a look on his face that you couldn't describe. You offered him a few seconds of time to see how he reacted, but he said nothing, your hands slowly moved to the button of your trousers which you undid without looking away from his face, unzipped the fly and pulled your legs out through his thighs, leaving him again next to the blouse. That was the moment when Chris let everything he was holding fall from his arms and without a second thought he wrapped his hands around your body, pulling you closer to him, breaking the tension of the moment, wrapping your lips around his, kissing you as if his life depended on it. A gasp came from inside you as if the physical contact you were having wasn't enough, as if your chest was going to explode from one moment to the next. He brought his hands to your face pulling you away from him, needing to look at you to make sure that what was happening was real and not one of the fantasies wandering through his head.
"Don't stop," you murmured feeling weak as he pulled away from you.
As if on direct order Chris closes the distance again, but this time gently, caressing your lips tenderly, but the wetness of his lips and the roughness of his beard causes a moan of need to be reborn within you. His hands roam over your bare shoulders, gently down your arms, resting on your hips, as yours rested on his neck, preventing him from pulling away from you again. You felt small shivers of pleasure with every touch of his fingers on your skin, you knew that the situation would go as far as you wanted it to, that at that moment you had the reins, but really you had already lost them a long time ago. You dropped your hands until you reached the top of his sweatshirt which you pulled up indicating your need for him to disappear from his body. Chris acted, exposing his body to you.
Your fingertips scanned every nook and cranny that you thought you had lost, that you thought would never be yours again, but there they were before you. Chris brought his lips to your neck, making you lose your reason for being again, as he caressed your back and took the liberty of unclasping your bra, causing it to fall to the carpet. You knew then that you would never tire of the fluidity of his tongue running along your collarbones until it came to rest on your breasts.
A contraction arose in your intimacy making you realise the need you were exploring for him at that moment. Without hindrance you took it upon yourself to undo the button of his jeans that slid down his legs revealing his need for you.
"You can't imagine how many times I've thought about this moment," he mumbled against your lips, undoing his trousers as best he could.
His arms curved to grasp your thighs and encircle his hips, letting your naked bodies collide, that movement alone an action that brought you to lie on the woollen carpet. The softness of his fibres and warmth enveloped your back, as Chris's lips trailed across your belly while your panties trailed down your thighs until they disappeared from the scene. The shadows wandered between you, the fire seemed to want to be part of the moment and you appreciated it, it was warm, but no more so than his lips resting on your centre, sliding his tongue between your folds, making you lose your composure, letting him know the pleasure you were feeling at that very moment. The throbbing in your core began to intensify as his tongue brushed against your clit, until you could take no more and became a prey to your own pleasure, calling out the culprit's name over and over again.
But before you could even relax, before the throbbing could stop, you felt Chris want to be a part of it and gently thrust inside you, causing a deeper moan from both of you to fill the room. It had been too many years together, you knew to the millimetre the sensations the other person experienced, what made them feel the most pleasure, what they liked. Chris loved to feel your throbbing when his tongue made you orgasm around him, and that was a sensation he extrapolated. Inside you, however, he just felt you around the stiffness of his member, he barely made any movement, he just kissed your neck, lying on top of you, waiting for the calmness to take over and transport you back to paradise.
"Move, please," you begged, hoping to prolong the moment of pleasure you had just experienced, preventing him from leaving at all.
His movements began delicately, keeping himself propped up on his elbow while his other hand cupped your hip. Having him on top of you, the two of you lying on that carpet which had been part of your love on so many occasions felt like you had travelled through time. His ragged breaths came against your face, you wrapped your legs around his waist so that the depth of his member was greater. You could feel the rapport between the two bodies, the need to have each other again. Nothing seemed to matter in those moments, you felt his movements erase all the worries that were present in your mind, the only thing that mattered in those moments were the two of you.
His lips were pressed to yours, letting out gasps as his movements increased in speed. Your fingers were lost in his hair, as you kept your eyes closed, exploring how the pleasure continued each time his member slapped against your inner wall. And you felt it, his stiffness swelled inside you, you knew that's what it meant, he was close. You opened your eyes to find that his gaze was focused on you, that he was waiting for some sign from you that would prevent him from carrying out his release, but you merely trapped his lips between yours and placed a hand on his hip to keep him going.
A much smaller free fall than the first one you had felt engulfed you next to him, his moans projecting your name into the inside of your head, his movements becoming irregular and deep, making your bodies move across the carpet.
Calm, after a few minutes, came over you, making you feel the burn of your back from the rubbing of your nakedness against the carpet, making you feel the dampness of your hair still present and the flush of his cheeks from the heat of the fire in the fireplace. After Chris came out from under you and settled right behind you, you curled up sideways facing the fireplace. You felt his lips kiss every part of your reddened back and his arm went around your waist pulling you to him.
"Are you okay?" he asked as he placed a kiss on your bare shoulder.
"I think so," you replied contemplating the sparks from the firewood.
Fortunately you didn't have to project your feelings, he knew how you might be feeling right now, though he didn't get half of what you were really going through.
"I think you know that," he began in a soft tone that matched the atmosphere, "but I need to tell you that I love you," there was silence, as your torturous feelings came over you. "I know your head will be a complete mess right now, I don't want to burden you, I just want you to know that I'm here, that I'm still in love with you and that I intend to never part from you, if you'll let me."
Vulnerability came over you as you heard those words, you felt like you were a child again and you were faced with a decision you weren't capable of facing, you just wanted to feel protected, so you turned your body and came face to face with Chris. His legs wrapped around yours, agreeing to an even more intimate moment if that was possible. When you looked up into his face his smile was waiting for you to relax, to make you see that he was there with you, that everything was okay.
"Everything will be fine," his voice was confident, warm, his voice denoted the future.
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aquaticstyles · 4 years
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unchained
A while ago I was asked for a “Have You Ever Been In Love” sequel, and while this is probably not the direction you guys were expecting, this is what I came up with. Also, this one’s (loosely) inspired by the song “Scott Street” by the lovely Phoebe Bridgers (highly recommend listening to the spotify sessions version while listening). Fun fact, for forever I misheard the lyrics, thinking she was saying “unchained” instead of “ashamed.” After noticing that I have, in fact, been wrong this entire time, I realized I kinda liked my version better (sorry Phoebe). And, me being me, I ran with it and it spun into this quick, 1.4k part two. Reblogs + feedback help so much! Enjoy!! xx, Jane 
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“Have you ever been in love?”
Harry’s heart stops.
The question catches him off guard, and not just because he’s not used to interviewers asking such personal ones (he guesses this is what he signed up for when he agreed to be the first male flying solo on the cover of Vogue). It makes his heart stop because of his answer, because of the woman that had once asked him the same exact question.
Harry has never been one to linger in his sadness; he finds it unproductive, and quite honestly, completely depressing. After a break up, one can find the caramel-colored curls belonging to the world’s latest phenomenon sweating out his sorrow, or frustration, at the gym, pounding the boxing bag again and again and again. “Nothing another set can’t fix,” his trainer, Mike, would often tease the man in denial, knowing good and well by his posture upon entering the ring, slumped shoulders and an ever-present crease between his eyebrows, that another one had bit the dust the night prior. Mike had learned fairly quickly to never ask questions, to simply let Harry work out his emotions as he pleases, even if that means letting him walk out with wrapped fists masking throbbing, crimson knuckles.
Harry has never been one to talk about his sadness either; he finds it prolongs the pain rather than diminishing it, an annoying gnat swarming around an abnormally large bite from a crisp apple, halting his progression in enjoying his afternoon snack because he just can’t catch the bloody thing. His sister has tried to break him from his stubborn ways, even resulting to getting the lanky man drunk off tequila in hopes of him finally opening up about his incessant missed targets; however, that only ever ends up with Gemma’s arms holding up the giggling teddy bear and folding his bulky body into a taxi, mimicking cramming a cotton ball into a straw. Therapy was suggested and waved off with an inked palm, because if he doesn’t want to talk to his sister about it, how on earth is he supposed to talk to a stranger?
Never-ending claims of “I’m fine,” and “It just didn’t work out,” and “Don’t worry ‘bout me,” and “It wasn’t even that serious.” Sure, each breakup took a little something out of the man that insisted he was “fine,” but eventually, a couple dozen inked journal pages later, Harry would be back to his normal, happy-go-lucky, perfectly-kind self.
All of these rang true for most of Harry’s young adulthood.
All of these were common occurrences, that is, until Harry met you.
You were unlike anyone he had ever met. Selfless, but not in an over-bearing, walk-all-over-me kind of way. Funny, but not in an underlying-hatred, fake-laugh kind of way. Genuine, but not in a look-at-me, fake kind of way. Honest, in a I-want-to-know-everything-that-makes-you-you, ask-you-questions-until-the-sun-rises kind of way. Drop-dead-gorgeous in the most unbelievable, glowing, ethereal, kind of way that he constantly reminded you of. You were the perfect balance, the missing diamond to even out the coal on the other end of the scale.
Loving you felt like the ocean.
In the morning when there’s a hazy screen covering your lenses, clouding the soft sunlight in a muted, white-washed filter. It’s more gray, yet still golden as the shining mass of fire lazily rises from its slumber. It’s calm, clouds stretched apart like cobwebs in the faded blue sky above, waves leisurely, almost too relaxed, crashing along the bleached shore then disappearing back into the horizon. Still sleepy, still new, an entire day ahead of you.
In the afternoon when the sun is at its highest and hottest, radiating down ultraviolet rays that burn your skin, causing alarmingly red shoulders in need of aloe that soon progressively heal and turn into a bronzed exterior. Speckles of light dancing upon excited waves, similar to a neighborhood of children dressed in pink polka dots and orange overalls running towards the ice cream truck filled to the brim with dreams of sugary stomachaches. It’s saturated, every color its brightest and loudest, pops of cerulean and coral. It’s a blanket of comfort, a suffocating scarf. It’s sweet. It’s sour. A cool glass of lemonade sinking into a bed of quicksand. Annoying and astonishing.
In the night, when the yellowing presence is long gone in the awakening of the moon, the deepest indigo swirling in between pockets of stars dotted and flecked into the atmosphere like freckles. It’s black and blue. You don’t know where the earth stopss and the water begins, familiarity lost as the waves erase each new footprint in the sand. The tide is an abuser, sweet as it sings you in, terrifying as it pulls you under. Skinny dipping, vulnerable, exciting, adrenaline, heart thumping, diving, sinking, drowning.
The morning, the afternoon, the night. The happening, the honeymoon, the heartbreak.
Ever since it ended, everything Harry had ever known was cast aside, thrown out like a Gucci jumper from last season. For the first time in his twenty-six years of living, fourteen of those juggling the obstacles that relationships can and will bring, Harry was irreversibly numb, a pair of frozen, gloveless fingertips blue from the icy wind. Not only did he linger in the gut-wrenching grief, he was absorbed by it. Instead of waking up each morning tucked into the bare side of your body diffusing innocent warmth, sipping a steaming cup of black coffee received by hands much smaller than his own, he woke up with a stranger laying on his chest, cold, with a pounding headache the bottle of whiskey had gladly supplied from the night before. The days felt as if they lasted an eternity, time stuck in slow-motion, tick, tick, ticking, one second, one and a half, one and three quarters, two. He watched the seasons pass, the grass dying and regenerating into its natural emerald shade from his bedroom, dust pocketing in the corners of a picture frame containing two pairs of sparkling eyes and genuine, toothy grins sitting on the windowsill. Nights consisted of him lying sleepless on his back, eyes wide awake, thumbs twiddling as the echoes of helicopters overhead drone in and out. Dozens of missed calls remained unanswered: Mum, Gem, Mitch, Mike, Adam, Sarah, Mum, Mum, Gem, Mum, Mike, Mitch, Gem, Mitch, Mum…
He was stuck, a pancake glued to an ungreased pan, charred. It was when this melancholy had prolonged for nearly its sixth month, and all at home remedies (which included drinking, writing, drinking because he was writing, and writing because he was drinking) failed to provide any peace that he decided to give in to the recommendations from almost every single one of his friends: therapy. After the first session, he was ready to book it and sprint off to a deserted island with nothing but a coconut filled with rum to accompany his solitude. Turns out that one session was the mento to his coca cola of bottled-up emotions, exploding months’ worth of buried feelings and memories in an hour. It took the will of God (and Gemma purposefully lying and telling him they were going to get lunch) to get Harry back in the baby-pink-painted interior of his therapist’s office. After months of talking, sorting, compartmentalizing, yelling, crying, healing, unpacking, and reflecting, Harry tackled down the closure he had been chasing. A year and an album later, when he heard your name, he no longer felt trapped, heart beating rapidly, trying desperately to break apart his ribcage, he felt unchained—a prisoner uncaged, pounds and pounds of metal unlocked from his wrists, free.
Before, your name was paired with a colorless photo album, snapshots of vibrancy draining into black and white, frozen, lifeless, still.
Now, your name resembled a film reel of the best moments, your sweater hanging in his closet, your arm thrown around his mother’s shoulder in a polaroid candid, your laugh echoing in the acoustics of his shower after you nearly slipped on the lavender bubbles coating sudsy toes, your hands massaging his scalp, twisting curls into detailed plaits, your foamy lips smushing against a stubbled cheek, leaving remnants of peppermint mocha in the winter air, your satin skirt contrasting from his purple flares in his backyard, playing thumb war and whispering confessions in the moonlight. The good memories built a brick wall to block out the bad, dimming the light of your downfall.
“Have you ever been in love?” The question echoes again in Harry’s ears, causing a grin and a dimple to pop into his cheek. The fuzzies. Once, twice, three times. Click, shake, tape.
“Yeah, I have.”
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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years
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Fic: Safe and Sound
Summary: After discovering the horrific truth of Tucker’s experiments, Mustang faces a race against time to get Nina to safety and away from a life in a government lab. Out of ideas, he calls in the Elric brothers, independent alchemists of the people whom he knows to have an interest in human transmutation, and more specifically, reversing it. 
Determined to do what they can for her, Ed, Al and their mother provide a safe home for Nina, and over time, they work out how to help her back to her normal state.
Rated: T
Safe and Sound
“It’s a mess, sir.”
Roy looked out of the window at the rain teeming down outside the Tucker home. Hawkeye’s blunt summation of the situation hardly did it justice, but he couldn’t think of a more apt term to use. He turned to Tucker, who still seemed unable to see what he had done wrong in the name of scientific advancement, and he felt the anger begin to burn through his veins once more, even hotter than when he had first entered the place and realised with sickening horror what Tucker had done, and what he must have done two years prior as well.
He strode across the room, grabbing the front of Tucker’s shirt and lifting him bodily out of the chair he had been sitting in whilst Fuery had recorded his statement and confession.
“Colonel.” Hawkeye’s voice was sharp, and Roy glanced over at her. She was kneeling in the corner, next to the chimera (Nina, her name was Nina, she gave him a flower crown the last time he was here), who was watching the scene with wide eyes.
“Don’t hurt Daddy,” Nina pleaded in that low, uncanny, unreal voice, slow and pained but every bit in earnest. The anger in Roy’s blood roiled afresh, and his grip on Tucker’s shirt tightened.
“Lieutenant, get her out of here. Take her out the back way and get Havoc to sneak her into HQ.”
“Daddy…”
“Come on, Nina,” Hawkeye coaxed. “We need to go now. We need to get you somewhere safe.”
“Daddy…”
“Colonel Mustang needs to talk to your daddy, Nina. Come with me. Are you hungry?”
Hawkeye guided Nina out of the room. Once the door was closed and he could no longer hear the lieutenant’s soft cajoling, Roy sank his fist into Tucker’s face. It did not make him feel any better. He hadn’t expected it to. 
He let Tucker back down into his chair, leaving the room as Fuery completed the final bits of paperwork.
He needed to work out what to do about Nina. If anyone got word of her, she’d be locked up in a lab and experimented on as an alchemical freak of nature for the rest of her life. He needed to keep her safe, and if there was the slightest chance of getting her and Alexander back to normal, then he had to pursue it.
Roy was not in his area of expertise here. Human experimentation, bio-alchemy, the many varied and illegal and impossible forms of human transmutation - none of that had ever been in his remit and he had never had any desire for it to be. He ran a hand through his hair, desperately trying to think of a solution. Smuggling her into HQ was only a temporary measure and not a perfect one at that; there was still so much that could go disastrously wrong. He needed to get Nina out of sight and out of mind as soon as possible, hiding her away where the military would leave her alone.
A thought struck him and he moved through the house towards the telephone, dialling Falman at headquarters.
“Falman, can you find out if the Elrics are still in town?”
“Yes, sir. On it.”
Roy had first come across Edward and Alphonse Elric four years ago, when news of a couple of young but extremely talented alchemists researching human transmutation and Philosopher’s Stones had come to him through the state alchemist grapevine. With the military always interested in those with an interest in the alchemic taboo, Roy had been despatched to take a look at the lay of the land as regarded the Elrics, and potentially recruit them.
He hadn’t reckoned on their being quite so young, just eleven and ten years old, and he absolutely had not reckoned on their mother. Trisha Elric was a tiny, frail-looking woman with perpetually pale blue-tinged lips and a constant cough from the Frontline Flu that had almost killed her in ‘04, and she was a force of nature who had told Roy in no uncertain terms that her sons’ interest in Philosopher’s Stones was highly personal and that there was no way in hell they were becoming state alchemists despite the research opportunities it would afford them. 
Roy had reported back that the Elric brothers were a dead end, and had left them in peace to follow their own research, whilst still keeping an eye on them every time they came to Eastern City to the large library there.
With their secretive nature, their no-nonsense mother and their persistent interest in human alchemy, Roy held out the tiniest hope of Nina’s best chance being with the Elrics. 
Hell, anything was worth a shot at this stage.
“Sir?”
“I’m listening, Falman.”
“The Elrics are still in town, sir. They’re in a guesthouse by the station.”
“Thank God. Get someone to try and persuade them to come to HQ.”
“Will do, sir. And, erm, Ms Elric?”
“She’s here too?”
“Yes, sir.”
Roy sighed. “Probably best if she comes too.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up, winging up a prayer that this hunch would pay off.
X
“So…” Ed stretched out his legs, uncaring for who in Eastern Command might trip over them as they waited for Mustang to make an appearance and tell them why they were there. “What do you think the Bastard Colonel wants us for this time?”
“Edward.” The sigh that his mother gave was a long-suffering one rather than showing any real disapproval, and he could see that she was trying very hard not to smile.
“What? You call him the Bastard too!”
“Not in his place of work, I don’t.”
“Officer Falman was really quite apologetic when he picked us up,” Al mused. “Maybe something’s gone terribly wrong and they need us to fix it. You know. Someone outside the military.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “If that’s the case, they’d be better off picking anyone other than you two. You’d hold it over them as blackmail material for the rest of their lives. Honestly, I don’t know where you got your devious streak from. It wasn’t your dad, which leaves me with the uncomfortable conclusion that it must be from me.”
“Where do you think Dad is right now?” Al asked. “It would be just our luck if he chooses this weekend to come home and we’re not there. I can imagine him going over to Granny’s: ‘Pinako, I swear I had a wife and two children when I left but I appear to have misplaced them.’”
Mom laughed, but Ed didn’t respond. Although he now knew the full story of why Dad had left, the fact he’d left in the first place still rankled even now, and he knew that he would continue to view his father with mixed emotions until the man himself was back in the flesh and could answer for his own actions. Still, that hadn’t stopped him and Al from setting out on the current quest that had occupied them for the last four years, namely finding a way to get Dad back to normal so that when he did return, he and Mom could live a vaguely ordinary life together.
“I’m really sorry about all this.” Falman appeared in the corridor again. “It’s just that we’ve got a bit of a… situation.”
Ed raised an eyebrow as they got up to follow him, deciding to reserve judgement. Falman led them into Mustang’s office, where the rest of the team was clustered around the colonel’s desk with nervous expressions.
“Ok… Anyone want to tell us what’s going on?”
Mustang came over. “We have a situation that requires some discretion.”
Mom snorted. “You picked the wrong two for that.”
“I think when you see what we’ve got, you’ll agree with me.”
Intrigued, Ed approached the desk and peered under it. 
It looked like a dog, on the face of it, although it appeared to have some kind of mane of long dark hair, and there was something about the eyes and mouth that didn’t look quite right.
“Chimera?”
Mustang nodded.
“I’m guessing the majority is from a dog, but what’s it fused with?”
Mustang didn’t get the chance to respond before the chimera spoke, a soft, desperate whimper.
“I want Daddy.”
Ed’s blood ran cold. “Someone chimerised a human child?”
“Yes.” Mustang’s voice was deadly serious. “This is Nina Tucker. Her father decided to create a chimera capable of human speech. He’s in jail now.” He gave a heavy sigh. “If anyone gets wind of this, she’ll be shut up in a military lab for the rest of her life. We’re giving out that Tucker’s chimera didn’t survive the transmutation to try and buy us some time. This is the reason why I wanted you to see her. I know that you two are probably the leading state-independent researchers of human transmutation right now. If anyone can help her, you can.”
Ed looked at Al, who was staring at Nina with sad horror, and then at his mom, who was having a coughing fit. Falman brought her some water.
“Mom? You ok?”
She nodded, before slowly, deliberately, getting down on her knees and shuffling under the desk.
“Hey Nina,” she said gently. “My name’s Trisha. How old are you, honey?”
“Six.”
“You’re scared, huh?”
Nina nodded. “Want Daddy.”
“Your daddy can’t come, honey. He did something very, very bad, so he has to go away for a while.”
“A very long while,” Ed muttered.
“Don’t be scared, though,” Mom continued. “We’ll look after you, me and Ed and Al.” She reached out, carefully brushing Nina’s hair out of her eyes. “It’ll be all right, I promise.”
She was just being Mom. In her eyes, Nina was just a scared little kid. Mom didn’t see the alchemy or the implications. She just saw someone who needed a family to keep her safe.
Ed crouched down beside her. “Hi Nina. I’m Ed, and this is Al. We’ll get you sorted out, don’t worry.” He had no idea where he would even begin, but he had to do something to help her out. 
Nina looked at Trisha. 
“You… Ed Mommy?”
“Yeah, I’m Ed’s Mommy. Why don’t you come with us now, and we’ll take you home, somewhere nice and safe and quiet.”
Nina nodded slowly, and Mom looked up at Mustang. 
“I’ll look after her,” she said. “She’ll be safe and off the grid in Resembool. I can’t say we can help her, that’s up to the boys to decide what they’re prepared to try and what they’re capable of doing. But I’ll look after her, and in return, you make sure that the monster who did this never sees the light of day again.”
Ed was beginning to see why Mustang was scared of Mom.
X
The frenetic logistics of getting Nina home with them without being discovered by the military at large took a while to sort out, and Trisha couldn’t rest easy until she was safely behind her own front door. Winry and Pinako had been brought in on their secret, it would have been near impossible to keep it from them.
Actually looking after her proved to be just the same as taking care of any other child - she was just a little larger and more unco-ordinated. From the moment that she had seen Nina and decided that no matter what, she was going to take care of her, Trisha had not really given any thought to the difficulties that might be involved in caring for a chimera. At the end of the day, Nina was a little girl and Trisha intended to treat her like one, even if she didn’t exactly look like a little girl. 
She required a little more concentration than the boys had done, because whilst she could speak, full sentences were difficult simply because of the shape of her mouth, so articulating her needs wasn’t as simple as it could have been. But she would eat at the kitchen table with them if one of them spoon-fed her, and she loved to watch the boys practice their alchemy and listen to the bedtime stories they would weave her. 
Occasionally the odd trait that was definitely dog rather than human would forcibly remind Trisha that Nina was two beings in one now - most notably she preferred to sleep curled up behind the couch in the living room rather than in a bed - but generally, Nina was the daughter she’d never had. 
“Dad could fix her,” Al said one evening whilst they were sitting around after dinner. Nina was dozing, her head in Trisha’s lap. They’d taken to braiding her mane to keep it out of her eyes, and she’d decided on blue ribbons today. Trisha stroked the silky ends through her fingers. “I mean, he’s a Philosopher’s Stone, he should be able to do anything, right?”
“He probably could,” Ed agreed. “The difficulty would be finding him and explaining the situation. We haven’t known where he is for ten years, tracking him down now to break off from his quest and come home to un-chimerise a chimera wouldn’t exactly be the easiest solution.”
“Yeah.” Al sighed. “I guess it’s back to the drawing board and Dad’s books. I don’t really recall any of them talking about chimeras, but then, we weren’t really looking for any information about them.”
Trisha coughed, startling Nina out of her doze, and she looked around for a while. 
“Big brother Ed?”
Ed grinned. Trisha was surprised at how quickly Nina had decided on Ed as a surrogate big brother, but he was definitely the person that she seemed to have latched onto as her link into the family. Ed was Big Brother. Al was usually just Al. Trisha was Ed-Mommy. (Occasionally, when she woke up crying from nightmares, she was just Mommy, and Trisha would hold her as close as she possibly could.)
“Hey Nina.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
The grin dropped as quickly as it had appeared on his face. 
“Your daddy had to go away, Nina.”
“No… Ed-Daddy.” Trisha followed her sight-line over to the opposite wall; she was looking at her and Van’s wedding photo on the mantel. 
“Oh. He had to go away too.”
“He did bad?”
Ed snorted, and Trisha laughed. 
“I think that depends on who you ask, honey. No, Ed and Al’s daddy didn’t do anything bad. He’s travelling around the country at the moment. Ed’s daddy is a very powerful alchemist and there are some things he has to do to make sure everyone is safe. It’s sad that we don’t see him, but he’s the only one who can protect us. All of us.”
“Oh.”
They fell into silence again, until Al spoke up from the floor where he was sitting in the middle of a sea of books. 
“Maybe if we knew how Tucker did it in the first place we could reverse engineer it.”
“I guess.” Ed sighed. “I’d be afraid of making it worse, though. Sometimes I’ve thought about asking her if she can remember what happened, but I don’t want her to relive what was probably a very traumatic experience.”
“Exactly,” Trisha said. Nina’s head was resting in her lap and drowsing again. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t help her, boys. No one is expecting you to. You’re already giving her the care and love and safety that she needs, and that’s all that matters. If we do get a little girl and a large dog out of this, then that would be wonderful, but right now, Nina’s wellbeing takes priority.” 
She thought about the picture that Mustang had sent her, along with a packet of documents from the Tucker household that might be useful - birth certificate, medical records and the like. A sweet little girl and a huge, goofy-looking dog. She stroked one of Nina’s front paws sadly. Although she was mostly aware of her changed shape and size, there were the odd little moments where she forgot she didn’t have hands, and it always distressed her. Trisha wanted nothing more than for the chimerisation to be reversed and for Nina - and Alexander - to live normal lives, but if that wasn’t to be, then Trisha would just take care of the chimera for as long as she needed it. 
X
They’d settled into the routine of having Nina with them remarkably quickly, and Al was pleased by just how easily she’d become part of the family. It was very clear that Ed was her favourite, but he didn’t seem to mind that at all. It was strange, Al had never really thought of Ed as being particularly good with kids, but then again, they had never really come across all that many over the course of their research. He completely doted on Nina though, and whenever she and Mom had been making flower crowns, he would always wear the one Nina picked out as his without any complaint. 
Although he was used to Nina being around, it was still a surprise to see her bounding out of the house towards them as he and Ed made their way up the hill having been to see Winry in town.
“Ed! Big Brother Ed! Ed! Daddy’s here!”
Al looked at Ed, Ed looked back at Al, and they both started to sprint up the hill. Nina’s father was still in jail in Eastern City, there was no way he should be in Resembool, it had been given out that Nina was dead, who had spilled that she was here…
Al barrelled into the kitchen with Ed hot on his heels, and both of them stopped dead.
“Oh.”
It wasn’t Tucker. The man standing in the kitchen hugging Mom tightly was their own dad.
There was the click-click-click of Nina’s nails on the floor tiles behind them.
“Ed-Daddy,” she said proudly.
So that was what she meant.
Eventually, Mom let go of Dad and he turned to them. It must have been just as much of a shock for him to see them now, considering how small they had been when he had left. 
“I’ve been gone so long,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise how long I would be. I’ve missed so much. I’m sorry.”
“I…” Ed seemed to be having trouble taking it all in, and he shook his head. “It’s so weird. I’ve rehearsed this moment for years and now it’s here and I have no idea what to say.”
Al stumbled as Nina butted his legs and peered around him. 
Dad looked at her, curious. 
“I see our family has grown whilst I’ve been away. Hello there.”
“This is Nina.” Ed moved closer to her protectively. “She’s our little sister.”
“Big Brother Ed!”
Dad looked from Nina to Ed to Mom and back again.
“I’ll explain later,” Mom said. 
“It’s ok. I think I know what’s happened.” Dad came over, crouching in front of Nina and offering her his hand. She tentatively placed her paw in it, and he shook it gently. “It’s nice to meet you, Nina.” He smiled. “You’re like me, aren’t you? Made into something different by alchemy you had no say in.”
Al knew at that moment that he didn’t have to worry about his father not accepting Nina or not being prepared to help her. 
Much later, once Nina was asleep on her cushion behind the couch, and once Dad had explained everything that had happened over the last ten years - and before that - in his own words, and once Ed had stopped yelling at him, and once Nina’s situation had been explained, Al voiced the thought that had been at the forefront of their minds ever since Nina had come to live with them. 
“Dad, can you help her?”
 Dad didn’t reply for a long time, his brow furrowed in thought, but Al’s heart leapt to his mouth as he eventually nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I should be able to, but it’s the kind of thing that I’d only get one shot at. It would have to be perfect first time, because if I get it wrong, it’ll just make it worse.”
Al looked at Ed, and then at Mom, who nodded.
“I think it’s worth the risk,” she said. “She’s the sweetest darling just as she is, but I can’t imagine what kind of internal distress she’s in, and I think she’d be happier if she was back to her old self.”
“In that case, I will do what I can.”
It took a couple of days for Dad to work out exactly what he would need to do, during which time Al was incredibly conscious of the fact that although he had come home now, he had not come home for good and there was still a lot of work that he had to do around the country in order to be prepared for the Promised Day coming and everything that would happen then. He still couldn’t quite get his head around the scope of it all, but it was a reasonably valid excuse for leaving them for so long. If something went wrong and it ended up backfiring on Dad, then what would happen to them all then? It would all be for nothing if they were doomed into a massive transmutation circle in a couple of months anyway.
Eventually, Dad announced that he was ready, and Al ventured into the study. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and the most complex transmutation circle that Al had ever seen was drawn on the floor. Dad was kneeling in the middle of it, tracing out all the lines to make sure that there were no breaks. 
“This should separate her out into two separate entities again,” he said. “The souls should be able to provide the power needed for it.” 
Mom brought Nina into the room, and she shied away from the circle, hiding behind Mom’s legs. 
“Scared,” she said. Al couldn’t really blame her. The last time she’d seen a circle this large and complex drawn out on the floor was probably the time she was chimerised in the first place. 
“It’s ok, honey. I’m right here. This will make you feel a lot better, I promise.” She stepped into the circle. “Come on, Nina. I’ll be right here with you.”
“Mom, are you really sure that’s a good idea?” Ed asked. “Considering everything that could go wrong?”
Mom looked at Dad, who would have to be inside the circle as well in order for it to work. 
“I trust you,” she said simply, and she sat down, holding out her arms for Nina. 
“Scared,” Nina whimpered, but she padded across the floor and curled up in Mom’s lap. 
Dad looked up.
“Step out and close the door,” he said. “This could get disturbing to watch.”
“But…”
“Edward.” Dad’s tone was non-negotiable, and Al dragged Ed out of the study, shutting the door behind them. Ed continued to grumble for a while, but then bent down to watch through the keyhole. 
There was a deafening crack of alchemy, and bright red light flared out below the door.
X
The light was blinding, and Ed couldn’t really see much after Dad plunged his hands into Nina’s chest. The alchemy was roaring in his ears and he couldn’t hear anything useful, so he was forced to step back from the door and just hope that everything would be all right. 
It seemed to take forever. It was the kind of thing where once it was started, it couldn’t be stopped until it was done. It wasn’t a job that could be left half-finished whilst Dad took a break to get his breath back. He imagined what it must be like, having to separate out two souls and two bodies into two completely separate entities and not leave anything mixed up. 
He was glad it was Dad doing it and not him. He glanced across at Al.
“Do you think they’re all ok?”
Al shrugged, but his expression was just as worried as Ed knew his own was. 
“I guess all we can do is wait and see and trust Dad.”
“Hmm.” Ed didn’t trust his father with a lot of things, but when it came to alchemy, he couldn’t think of anyone he could trust more than Dad with something like this. 
The alchemy roared louder, and Ed could see sparks under the door. 
“That’s it. I’m doing something.”
“Ed, don’t be stupid, what on earth can you do?”
“I can do something!”
“Ed!”
Suddenly, everything was dark and silent. For better or worse, it was all over. Ed looked at Al, and after a moment, Al nodded.
Ed flung the door open...
“WOOF!”
...and was immediately bowled over by a very large, very shaggy dog. He could hear Al laughing above him, and he took that as a good sign. Finally managing to dislodge the mutt long enough to sit up, he peered into the room. 
Dad was flat on his back, drenched in sweat (or possibly dog saliva), and breathing like he’d just run the Central City marathon, but Mom was still sitting in the circle, and in her arms, clinging on for dear life, was…
“Nina, honey,” Mom said softly. “You can open your eyes, it’s all over now.”
Nina opened her eyes and looked around the room. 
“Al. Big Brother Ed. Alexander!”
She rushed over on slightly wobbly legs, throwing her arms around each of them in turn with the longest and most exuberant hug being reserved for the dog. Ed supposed he could understand that, he’d been her closest and longest friend, after all. 
Mom got to her feet and held out a hand to pull Dad up, slipping her arms around him and going in for a long kiss.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Thank you, Ed-Daddy!” Nina did not let go of Alexander, who seemed content to be hugged for as long as necessary, but she was beaming at Dad. “You’re right, I feel much better now.”
Dad smiled. “You’re welcome, Nina.”
“Come on, Nina.” Al was trying to shepherd her out of the room, and considering how gooey and love-eyed Mom was looking, Ed was happy to leave his parents to smooch in peace for a while. 
“Let’s get some cookies for you and Alexander. It’s a good job we keep dog biscuits here for Den when Winry brings her over.”
They left the study, Ed closing the door behind them, and the four of them made their way into the kitchen.
Nina had always seemed to be remarkably content considering what had happened to her, but seeing the sheer joy in her face as she was able to hold a cookie and feed herself again was wonderful. 
“What do you think happens now?” Al asked as he poured milk for him and Nina. “The colonel asked us to take care of Nina and help her if we could, and we’ve done that now.”
“I guess everything just stays the same as it was before.” Ed snaffled another cookie. “Nina doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, so we might as well just keep looking after her. What do you say, Nina? Do you want to stay here with us?”
Nina nodded. “Yes. I like it here with you.”
“I don’t think Mom and Dad would have a problem with it. I think Mom feels outnumbered by us sometimes and she’s enjoyed having another girl in the house.”
Nina just giggled, and then gave a theatrical sigh as Alexander found his way into the box of dog biscuits and got his large nose stuck in it, running around the kitchen with it over his face like a muzzle.
“Alexander!” 
Ed laughed. “Well, I think that the latest new arrival might take a bit of getting used to, but I’m sure Mom won’t mind him either.”
(They were all so absorbed in chasing the dog around the kitchen that none of them noticed the flash of red alchemic light under Dad’s study door again.)
X
To say that everything surrounding the Promised Day had been one big frantic mess of alchemy, planning a highly organised and highly secret coup, and learning the most extraordinary things about what had been going on in the world for the last few centuries would be an understatement, but at the end of it all, Roy was simply glad to have made it out of the other side unharmed. There was an awful lot of work still to do, but with the immediate threat gone, they could take their time a little more and not have to worry about the entire country potentially being made into a giant Philosopher’s Stone at a moment’s notice. 
Speaking of Philosopher’s Stones, though… Roy thought of Hohenheim. It was a small world, after all. He had been surprised to find out that their independent benefactor who had been working behind the scenes to stop Father and the homunculi for over a decade was the Elrics’ father, and moreover that he was the reason for their intense interest in human alchemy and Philosopher’s Stone research, but having met him, everything made a lot more sense. 
Everything was also a lot more confusing, but Roy got the impression that someone like Hohenheim just created confusion wherever he went, without necessarily knowing why or indeed intending to. 
All of that explained why he was now on a train to Resembool to go and see the Elric family for himself, because after the dust had settled and Father had been defeated and Hohenheim had vanished off as suddenly as he had appeared, going back to his family for good now, a single thought had pushed itself into Roy’s brain and refused to leave. 
Nina.
She had gone with the Elrics months ago and they had promised to do what they could for her with their knowledge of Philosopher’s Stones. Now that they sort of had one to hand, surely something could be done? Or would it be impossible to undo Tucker’s work?
Roy made his way up the hill towards the Elric home, repeating the journey he’d first made five years ago when they had first come into his sphere of knowledge. He hoped that Trisha wouldn’t chase him down the road with a shoe as she had threatened to do on that first occasion. 
“Hello, Colonel.” He was pleasantly surprised to find her out working in the garden but still rather wary of the fork she was holding. “What brings you here?”
“I… I was actually wondering how Nina was getting on.”
Trisha smiled. “She’s doing well, Colonel. She’s settled in nicely. It’s as if we’ve always had her. Van and I would be happy to adopt her if you’re willing to sort out the paperwork for us.”
There was something different about Trisha, Roy thought. She seemed stronger, more vibrant, and her lips were a normal pink colour rather than the blue tinge he’d grown used to seeing on her. Something or someone had healed her lungs. 
“Colonel? You’re staring, sir.”
“Oh. Yes. Right. Yes. I mean, of course. I’ll get the paperwork as soon as I get back.”
“Excellent. Everyone will be so pleased.” She stood up, brushing down her apron. “Do you want to step in for a while, get your breath back after tackling the hill?”
“Erm, all right.” He stepped through the gate and followed Trisha up the path towards the house. The door opened before they got there. 
“Mr Mustang!” 
A large white shape bowled him over and started licking him voraciously, and he heard a familiar little giggle from the doorway. 
“Hello, Alexander,” he finally managed. 
Nina was standing in the doorway with Ed, who was smirking in the way only Edward Elric could smirk, and Roy knew that he’d lost all dignity in Ed’s eyes - if he’d even had any to start with. 
“You did it,” he said, looking from Nina to Alexander and back again.
“Well, Dad did most of the work,” Ed said. “But she’s safe and happy here.”
Nina nodded. “I have big brothers now! I never had them before. I’m kind of hoping for a little sister too. Maybe now that Ed’s Daddy is back and Ed’s Mommy is well again I’ll get one.”
“Oh no.” Ed threw his hands up. “We are not thinking about that at all.” He sighed. “Thanks, Nina. Now I need brain bleach.”
“Ed, Nina, are you going to let the colonel in through the door?” Trisha’s voice called out from inside the house. 
“I don’t know.” Ed looked down at Nina. “What do you think? Shall we let him in?”
“Yeah. We might need to get him a towel for Alexander’s drool though.”
Roy rolled his eyes as he got to his feet, following Alexander into the house. It was good to see Nina happy and thriving with a new family, who she seemed to have accepted readily as her own. It was good to see Trisha no longer suffering the after effects of her illness, and it was good to see the Elric family all together once more. 
He hung back in the kitchen doorway, watching them all for a moment, very much feeling like the outsider that he was until Trisha pulled him in to join them.
Considering that the state alchemist programme had been little more than a device in which to form potential human sacrifices for Father’s plans, Roy had no idea if it would be continuing into the future, but the thought still remained in his head even as Ed was showing him back to the front door an hour or so later. 
“Edward?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“You and Al, and your parents... don’t ever stop doing what you’re doing. Using alchemy to help people, and taking care of those who’ve been wronged by it.”
Ed grinned. “Oh, we don’t intend to, Colonel. You’ve got my word on that.”
Roy felt a sense of peace as he made his way back to the station. As long as there were people like the Elrics in the world, he could hope that everything would be all right in the end.
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clearlynotjanus · 3 years
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Loceit Appreciation Week: Day Four, Debate
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Chapter Summary: Tired of the neglect he experiences at the hands of staunch Morality, when Janus is sent to the Dark Side, Logan attempts to follow some years later. CW: Food mention, Moceit fight Word Count: 3448 Genre: Gen, Hurt/comfort Rating: Gen Ships: Platonic Loceit
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Though Logic and Self Preservation never had the chance to spend very much time together before the older boy’s disappearance, the conversations they did have were constructive, engaging, and supportive. Which was quite the opposite of what the others had to offer as the years dragged on. During the six that followed the unfortunate event, Logic found himself dismissed and belittled at every turn. Eight years old at the time, he didn’t exactly understand what had happened to his friend. It was confusing, and no one seemed willing to talk about it. The other Creativity mourned like Self Preservation was dead. Fear didn’t seem to notice. Morality cringed whenever Logic brought it up. He didn’t understand.
Time went on well enough then. Eight years old turned into nine, then ten, then eleven; then Fear morphed into Anxiety and the other Creativity disappeared. Even Logic could have called that one -- and he had. If only Morality listened to him and his advocating for the curly haired Creativity’s ideas. If only Fear had let him help more instead of jumping to improbable conclusions. All of it was a shame and it made Logic’s stomach hurt. He had liked that Creativity.
Eleven, twelve, and thirteen passed; then Anxiety disappeared as well, giving Logic a foreboding sense of loneliness. He didn't get along perfectly with Anxiety, but still. It felt like the Sides were dropping like flies. At this rate, Thomas would be more Dark than Light, Creativity said. Morality told them that was nonsense; as long as they three stayed good, Thomas would be fine. But Logic couldn’t help thinking this one was more his fault than the last. Perhaps if he had better communicated reality to Anxiety, things could’ve been different. Morality assured him it had nothing to do with anything like that; Anxiety just couldn’t be worked with. That didn’t sound right.
Through the beginning of his teenage years, the dismissal deepened. Too young, too inexperienced, too angry, too serious, too silly. No matter what Logic did, he couldn’t get through to them -- especially Morality, who seemed adamant that he had no idea what he was doing yet. The arguments ranged from petty to serious. No, Logic would say, Thomas can’t afford another Lego set, Morality, he has to save for textbooks next semester. No, Thomas shouldn’t have extra dessert just because he did his laundry today; he just had cake yesterday and God knows why. Irresponsibility began to overwhelm Thomas as he indulged in his Feelings more. He daydreamed a more fulfilling life, as he’d have himself convinced, through Creativity’s delusions. Logic was never considered. In fact, Logic was bad for insinuating everyone else was wrong.
At fourteen, Logic had had enough. One morning he woke up and decided he didn’t belong with the others -- with Creativity and Morality. He belonged with Self Preservation and the other Creativity. The one that he liked and the older boy who had always listened to him. The thought of enduring another day of disagreements and neglect dried his throat, so as the sun rose, he sunk out.
The Dark Side was, well, dark. Logic didn’t know what he expected but couldn’t find it in him to be surprised. He went to turn on the living room light but curiously found the switch already flipped, the bulb already illuminated. He went to open the blinds and found them already drawn. Rather than foreboding, as Self Preservation found it upon his initial arrival all those years ago, Logic found it fascinating. Not fascinating enough to keep his stomach growling though. Were the others already awake? Did they not have breakfast over here? Perhaps he was just early.
Unceremoniously, Logic grabbed himself a bowl, a box of cereal, and milk from the fridge to construct his breakfast -- a task Morality had always insisted he do for Logic until recently, when he spitefully went a full month of refusing to eat anything Morality made him. He was old enough to make his own breakfasts and lunches, thank you very much. 
“You’re up early,” A voice followed the sound of footsteps down the stairs. “Are you making breakfast for once, Vir--” Janus’ words and feet came to an abrupt end when he reached the bottom landing and his eyes rested on Logan; the teen was small but bigger than Janus remembered, bigger than he was the last time they had spoken for sure. He did the mental math quickly -- it’d been six years since he left the Light Side, Logan had been about eight at the time and had always been six years Janus’ junior; so the boy was fourteen. Logan’s back was ramrod straight at their table as he mindlessly sucked Cheerios off a spoon. Across the room, the television droned the news, but Janus was unable to hear it due to the ringing that pierced his ears.
“Good morning, Self Preservation,” Logan greeted after he swallowed, as casually as anything despite his stare that lasted a second too long. He noted the shine on one half of Janus’ face; the way one pupil had slit and changed colors. Fascinating -- but was he okay? He seemed okay at least.
“Self Preservation?” Janus said with a mask of amused absurdity. “When I left I was Prezzi.” The conversation was good, distracting enough to quell his panic as he glanced up the stairs again. Logic’s room hadn’t appeared -- or perhaps he had missed it?
“Sorry, I didn’t know if you still liked being called that,” Logan explained down at his cereal and Janus felt his heart breaking.
“Of course I do,” His brows knitted earnestly at the boy, a hand clutching his collar as though it choked him. Again he glanced up the stairs. “If you’re alright,” Janus took a step back, “For just a moment. I’ve forgotten something, I’ll--”
“My room isn’t here,” Logan’s voice edged with annoyance as he clinked his spoon against the bowl. “I tried everything and it just wouldn’t move,” He mumbled as he aggressively stabbed a Cheerio.
“You tried to make it move?” Janus’ voice gained a shrillness. He couldn’t believe the boy’s audaciousness! “Logan,” He reprimanded sternly but to no avail. The boy continued to sluice quiet mayhem through his cereal and Janus was at a loss. 
He glanced up the stairs a final time. It was early, Virgil wouldn’t come out of his room for a couple hours at least, if he did at all that day. His mind quietly asked what Remus would be doing, forgetting for a moment in the emotional chaos that he had run away to the Imagination months ago. Janus sighed and crossed the room.
“So,” He said in a decidedly conversational tone as he sat down at the table. “Anything interesting happening today?” He gestured at the television and Logan shrugged. Janus frowned. The topic of why he was here would have to be breached eventually, but as long as the Subconscious was refusing to move Logan’s room, Janus didn’t think it was an emergency. What was an emergency, however, was the poor boy’s emotional state.
“Do you want more cereal?” Janus offered quietly as he eyed the nearly empty bowl. Surely the Cheerios that were left were too soggy to be enjoyed at this point.
“I can get it myself,” Logan nearly spat with a venom Janus hadn’t heard from him yet. His brows raised, both concerned and entertained. 
The Logic he knew would never use such a tone, the contrast was almost funny. Though Logan hadn’t changed completely he noticed; Janus had several memories of Logan insisting he could do something himself. From climbing on counters for scissors he definitely shouldn’t have been using, to pulling bookshelves down instead of asking one of the older Sides to get a book for him, to stubbornly using the side of his fork with both hands to cut a piece of chicken when he would refuse help with dinner. But it would all be done with apologies and explanations, assurances that he’d be safer next time, growing understanding that though his mind was large, he was still small.
“Logan,” Janus said patiently, the humor in his expression dissolving to reveal patience and worry. The boy grit his teeth and continued to glare narrow eyes down at his cereal bowl. “Why did you come here?” Janus asked softly, leaning forward to try and meet Logan’s eyes. 
Then Logan remembered that in the short time they had been on the same side of the Mindscape together, Self Preservation had always listened to him. He had always been there to turn to when the others ignored him. Remembering this made his anger ebb away, though with that, the sadness he had been trying to ignore washed ashore. The hardness in his expression softened, but he still refused to look up.
“Morality and Creativity don’t listen to me,” Logan admitted quietly and shame filled his stomach, colliding with his breakfast in a way that made him nauseous. “I’ve tried everything but Morality always says I’m too young to tell him what to do,” His brow twitched and Janus watched as his sad expression morphed back into something more callous. 
The sight hurt his heart, but mostly it made anger warm his chest. What on earth was Patton doing? The root of all their issues so far had been a distinct lack of listening. From fighting with Janus over developing moral stances, to stubbornly refusing to consider nuance in the pursuit of art and self expression, to the apathetic dismissal of welling fear and anxiety as adulthood approached -- was there anyone Patton listened to? 
“So you came here,” Janus sighed, attempting and somewhat failing to keep the rage out of his tone. “Because I had always listened to you,” He guessed but then Logan shrugged and shook his head.
“Sort of,” He replied and Janus blinked curiously. Had he missed something? “Mostly I just assumed this is where we came when Patton hated us.”
The straightforward words punched Janus in the gut, knocking the wind out of him like he had just unexpectedly stepped off a building and was now free falling with panicked arms that reached for anything to hold on to. As usual, Logic’s assessment wasn’t incorrect. In a way, this was where the Sides Morality didn’t like ended up; but it was deeper than that. At least Janus had to hope it was deeper than that, or else he’d never find it in himself to forgive his closest friend. Janus swallowed his hurt and sat up, shoving his shaking hands under the table. It wasn’t Logan’s fault and he wouldn’t hold the injury against him, though he did need a moment for a deep breath before he was able to find his voice again.
“Patton doesn’t hate you,” Janus reassured baselessly on reflex, but then he stopped. He couldn’t think of anything else to say that wasn’t just blatantly lying -- which, of course, he had no issues with, but it was a sad realization, nevertheless. 
“Then why doesn’t he listen to me?” Logan asked as Janus faltered. “Why did he send you and Anxiety and Remus away?” He looked around the shadowed room as he spoke before meeting Janus’ eyes again. “Creativity calls this the Dark Side which implies that he and Morality make up some sort of Lighter half,” Janus’ hands became unsteady once more as Logan continued asking questions he didn’t necessarily have answers to. At least no answers he wanted to admit. “But if they’re just going to keep dismissing me, then I don’t want any part in that,” He said decisively and pushed his cereal bowl away like it contained the subject matter. “If being a Dark Side means being listened to, then that’s what I’ll be.”
“No, you won’t,” Janus said much harder than he meant to, making Logan’s eyes shoot up. “You’re going back,” he said resolutely, leaving no room for misinterpretation in his tone. Logan opened his mouth but then Janus stood, the chair squeaking loudly against the floor. “If Patton did actually hate you as he does myself and the others, your room would be here,” Janus pointed out, flaring his own heartache with the presumed fact. Logan frowned angrily and balled a fist on the table.
“I’ll just sleep on the couch then.”
“No. You won’t.” 
“Fine, I’ll sleep in Remus’ room. He’s used to sharing.”
“This isn’t a debate, Logan, you’re going back.” Janus said evenly, without raising his voice, which somehow made the seriousness in his tone and the steel in his eyes even more intimidating.
In the glaring silence of Logan frantically trying to think of more argument points, Janus’ phone vibrated in his pocket. With a short and aggravated huff, he fished the object out and rolled his eyes at the displayed message.
[SMS From: Patton]
PLEASE tell me Logan isn’t with you
“Well,” Janus sighed, “It seems we’re both in trouble now.”
[SMS Re: Patton]
Oh no, not at all. Whyever would you think that
“That’s Morality, isn’t it,” Logan guessed, looking miserably down at the table. He didn’t want to think about what Morality was saying.
“Yes,” Janus confirmed as he ignored the message that popped up almost immediately. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he sat back down quietly.
Logan was smart, far too smart for his age which is why everything was very difficult for him. Morality was childish and couldn’t see past the fact that Logan was the youngest. Even so, it wasn’t as if he was an actual child. He was the manifestation of Thomas’ Logic; undeveloped, easily frustrated, overwhelmed by his Feelings and in desperate need of acknowledgement for simply trying his best. But even when Janus would convey it to Patton in that way, there was no getting to him. 
The fear that Logic would be cast aside and hidden away in this Darkness along with him was real, however. If that were to happen, Thomas would be in a very dangerous situation. It was terrifying enough that his natural Fight or Flight was already over here -- that his very will to live was as well. Janus didn’t want to think about what metamorphosis Logic would go through in that process. From Fear to Anxiety, now to Paranoia; watching Virgil suffer was already more than enough heartache for him, which wasn’t even to mention what was happening to Remus.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so angry at you, Logan,” Janus spoke softly, folding his hands on the table. He watched with a frown as Logan continued staring down. “But I really need you to understand that this is no place for you.” He leaned forward, trying to meet Logan’s eyes again, to no avail. “I know it’s hard, I know Patton doesn’t listen, but you have to keep trying,” Janus’ tone and expression were beseeching and genuine, his brow creased with a deep worry he didn’t have words for. “You have to promise me that you’ll keep trying,” Logan looked up, defiance and confusion hardening his eyes. He opened his mouth but Janus continued. “You have to. Even when you don’t want to. Even when the others don’t want you to. You have to, for Thomas.”
Logan stared at him, confusion slowly overtaking his rebellion. Janus looked…sincere and earnest, but he didn’t understand why. What was the point of arguing with Morality and Creativity if they would never listen? What was the point of going back when even Self Preservation knew he’d always be dismissed? It sounded exhausting. At fourteen, Logan was already so tired of it. But there was something in Janus’ eyes that convinced him to stop fighting; something that told him there was more he just didn’t understand yet. If that were true, if that were ever true, he’d believe it coming from the Side in front of him now and him, alone.
“Okay,” Logan sighed and Janus smiled in relief. 
“Good,” He nodded at the bowl as he sat back in his chair again. “You can finish up your breakfast but then--”
“There you are!” Patton’s voice, coming from behind Janus, stopped his words dead in their tracks. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, kiddo!” 
“Morality,” Logan said, the word easily mistaken for a greeting. The boy glanced between Patton and Janus, the latter having lined his lips in a pensive, unhumored smile. 
“Whatcha doin’ over here, bud?” Patton asked as he approached the table. Janus rolled his eyes and leaned as far away in his chair as he could manage. 
Watching Janus’ reactions to Morality, Logan felt equally annoyed; both at the fact that Morality came here to get him, and also for how interrupted their conversation had become.
“Eating,” Logan said curtly, reaching for his cereal bowl.
“Well you know we have plenty of cereal in our kitchen, so why don’t you come on back and I’ll pour you some!” 
Patton’s positivity grated Janus like sandpaper. Years of assumptions and miscommunications soured his stomach. His body reacted to Morality like something toxic.
“Maybe he prefers the cereal over here,” Janus mumbled sarcastically and Patton bristled as though he had honestly expected Janus to stay silent this entire exchange. 
Logan bit his tongue to keep the appeased smile off his lips but his interest bubbled over. No Side had gotten under Patton’s skin like that since Anxiety was sent away. It was almost a missed sight.
“He wouldn’t know what the cereal over here was like unless someone made him try it,” Patton not-so-subtly accused as he reached for Logan’s wrist.
Logan refused at first, pulling with half strength against Patton’s grip. “I’m perfectly capable of pouring cereal myself, Morality,” He mumbled as he met Janus’ eyes. His sardonic and cynical expression seemed to say, it’d be easier to just go along with him I guess, much to Logan’s dismay. “But fine,” He sighed and let himself be pulled to stand, though he immediately shook off Patton’s hand. 
“Thank you,” Patton gloated as he turned to leave and Janus all but groaned out loud. 
Logan paused. The moral superiority that rolled off Patton was familiar, but at the same time something new against the kindness Janus had shown him. He could easily see why they didn’t get along; their methods were very different. Morality was overbearing, insistent, stubborn, rigid, and often narrow minded. Having developed from Thomas’ Feelings, Patton was silly, immature, and hard to take seriously. Self Preservation was the opposite somehow; smart, clever, flexible, nuanced, and able to see the whole picture with ease. Janus was sarcastic, mature, and deathly serious when need be as a result. Comparing them, it was easy to see why Logic had an easier time getting along with Self Preservation, and why it was pointless to hope that would ever change.
“I’m not doing this because you convinced me to,” Logan told Patton as he trailed after.
Patton turned to blink at Logan, looking mostly confused with a hint of offense. “Of course not,” He saved face, “You’re coming back because over there is where you belong.”
“No,” Logan said slowly, glancing behind himself at Janus, who stayed sitting facing away from them. “I’m doing this because Thomas needs me,” He informed Patton as he began to sink out. “And because you and Creativity would be hopeless by yourselves.”
Janus snickered, covering the sound with a cough into his hand.
“My word, Logan sure has developed quite the backbone while I’ve been gone,” Janus snarked once he and Patton were alone.
“What did you say to him?” Patton accused, his tone somewhere between antagonistic and wounded. 
“Why, nothing of course,” Janus mocked and Patton’s eyes narrowed. “We just bonded over our mutual dismissal, is all.”
“I don’t dismiss him!” Patton sputtered and Janus snorted. A tense silence rose before Patton continued. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be talking to him.”
Janus stood finally and turned to face Patton, his brows raised. “And why’s that?” 
“Because you’re gonna i-influence him or something! Like you did with Remus and then Logan will be over here too!” Patton stuttered and Janus scowled.
“Oh please, you know I’m the only reason he went back so willingly,” Janus waved a limp hand. “Though I doubt he’ll try this again anytime soon, so you don’t have to worry your simple little head about it, darling.”
“Well, good.” Patton finished, glowering at Janus’ smirk. He hated that expression. Why was Janus happy about them fighting? It certainly didn’t make Patton happy. He was anything but having to face him like this. Without much more to say, he sank out as Janus offered a caustic wave of his fingers.
“Good riddance.”
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Chapter Three || Chapter Five Part One / Part Two
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xiaomoxu · 4 years
Text
MLQC CN Victor - Chapter 37
SPOILER ALERT!!
A main story from CN server which hasn’t been released in EN server. REALLY contains detailed spoilers. A mixed feelings such angst, sweet and love-his-dummy by CEO Victor!
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PART 1
Downstairs LFG, the film crew is still busy in an orderly manner.
A month ago, LFG launched an unprecedented charity project, mobilizing all the resources of the group, and watching the last moment before the arrival of the comet group with all mankind.
In addition to regular material donations, psychological counseling, and medical assistance, there is also a special item one wish list.
In the last issue of "Miracle Finders", we selected this subject for reporting.
Photographer: Everyone pay attention, go one first, and prepare the light for one-
Teenager: Ok, can I just say the words directly?
Willow: To put it straight, there is nothing to worry about, we can do it again, let's do it again!
The teenager was encouraged, and smiled and showed two small teeth.
Teenager: I am seventeen years old. I am an ordinary high school student. Although you can't see it now, I have lived in darkness for these seventeen years.
Teenager: Due to chromosomal abnormalities, I have suffered from congenital blindness since birth...
Teenager: The doctors all said that despite the advanced level of medical technology, they are still helpless against such diseases and hope that I will accept the reality.
Teenager: But I still don't give up. I don't want to usher in death without actually seeing the world, so I contacted LFG Group with the last hope!
Just as the teenager expected, LFG quickly found a Healer Evolver on the Island, and treated him so that he finally saw the light.
Teenager: Although I can only look at the world for a short time, how many times in a person's life can I witness miracles happen? I am very satisfied!
After he finished speaking, he gave everyone a young and a little embarrassed smile. The beautiful dark eyes are full of light, especially bright in the night.
MC: ... That's nice.
Until the last moment, miracles continued to happen.
I raised my head and looked at the towering LFG Building in front of me, thinking back to Victor when he started the project and jokingly said-
"I hope everyone can be like an idiot, as long as they fulfill their wishes, they will be happy." The tone couldn't help but felt a moment of surprise.
I hope that the last issue of "Miracle Finders" will produce satisfactory answers to him.
With emotion, I strode into the LFG Building.
--
At this time, most of LFG's staff has left, and most of the work spaces in the building have been vacated.
Even if some are still willing to suspend their posts and help Victor handle some charity projects, they are no longer sitting here and only exchange information via phone and email.
Goldman: I have been waiting for you for a long time!
I was still in a daze, and Goldman came over with aggrieved expression. Probably because I told him that I was almost there an hour ago, but I didn’t come up because shooting for most of the day in the downstairs town.
As soon as he saw me appear, he cast a "God finally" look.
Goldman: The CEO handed it to you, I'm going to prepare for the next meeting.
He hurriedly put the previously prepared contract into my hand, lightly approached the door of the CEO's office, and knocked the door.
Victor: Come in.
Hearing Victor's voice coming from behind the door, I quickly hid the hand holding the contract behind my back.
Goldman opened the door halfway and walked in.
Goldman: CEO, can we conduct an induction interview now?
Victor: Interview? When is it scheduled?
Goldman: Yesterday, I remember it was in your schedule.
After a short silence, Victor gave instructions indifferently.
Victor: Bring it in.
I strode forward, held back a sneer, and stood still in front of Victor. Before speaking, Goldman hurriedly took the door out, leaving a room of silence.
MC: Hello, CEO! I am the candidate for interview today!
I said hello to Victor very politely, and even bowed symbolically, with a sincere expression when I raised my head.
Victor: ....
Victor let out a sigh of relief, as if he had lifted his spirits from a long and exhausting work, and couldn't help but laugh when he met my sincere gaze.
MC: Reporting to the CEO, although I have limited work experience, I am active in doing things.
MC: The CEO of the most ruthless venture capital company in the industry has won a 500 million investment!
MC: Moreover, the level of stress resistance is first-rate, no matter how big the challenge is, how many plans are rejected, you can face the difficulties!
MC: In addition, I am quite familiar with LFG's business and can start working in a short time.
Victor sighed lightly, probably because I was too noisy.
Victor: Only you can make such boastful remarks without blushing at all. You come to LFG, don't care about your company?
MC: The final issue of "Discovering the Miracle" will soon be filmed, and sister Anna will be responsible for the remaining post-production work. I don't need to worry about it anymore.
MC: I always find a place to shine and heat, right?
MC: Or I have to be a rice bug for a month...
MC: In short, I am especially willing to share the worries and problems for the CEO
Victor touched his lips slightly, revealing a smile.
Victor: Didn't you often say that being a rice bug is your ultimate dream? Now that you have a chance to realize your dream, but you are not willing?
He was so eloquent, so that scenes of past scenes of bluffing and saying that I didn't want to go to work really appeared before me.
MC: But I have already changed my dreams.
I stepped forward two more steps, narrowed the distance with Victor, and stared quietly into his eyes
MC: My dream now is to be with you.
The outline of Victor's smile on the corners of his lips curled up, and his expression sank duplicity, and put out the CEO's frame in a serious manner.
Victor: LFG’s attendance system is strict, and the consequences of absence are serious. Be mentally prepared.
I walked up to him, took out the contract that had been hidden behind my back, and unfolded it on the table.
MC: I won't be absent, I will do what you say.
Speaking softly, pressing his usual fountain pen directly on the contract, it seemed to be "forcing the signing".
MC: If I can't do it... I will be punished.
Victor hastily flipped through the contract, which was only a few pages long, and paused as his gaze passed by the post.
Victor: Confirmed?
MC: Yes!
I deserved to be confident and without any explanation. Victor raised his head and looked at me with a clear smile in his eyes. He turned the contract another page.
Victor: The contract is valid for three years.
MC: Huh? It should be the contract template copied by Goldman, right? Renew after the three-year period expires!
Victor neatly signed his name on the last page, stood up and took my hand.
Victor: Let's go, the meeting is about to begin.
MC: What meeting? Wait, am I going to work as soon as I start?
Victor: According to the contract, every minute of yours belongs to me, and it takes effect immediately.
Is there such an unequal clause? Goldman's drafting of a contract is quite tricky
MC: You capitalists are squeezing employees too much!
Victor was slightly late to me, with a smile on his lips.
Victor: Well, capitalists are like this.
The conference room was already full of people, only the first two seats were still empty.
One of them is where Victor often sits.
I remember when I came to LFG for a meeting for the first time, I could only sit on the small bench in the corner and couldn't see his face even when I stretched out my head.
 Victor: let's start.
I sat down next to Victor, glanced across the crowd, and leaned silently on the back of the chair.
Goldman opened the prepared PPT and stood in front of us.
Goldman: Now carry out the relevant reports on the work of last week,
PART 2
A sign hung at the door of Souvenir, which said that today is the last day of the restaurant’s business.
MC: Thank you for your preference for this restaurant, Souvenir will permanently close the store
LFG provoked too heavy responsibility, and Victor had no time to take care of Souvenir. I raised my head and looked at the blue light on the TV tower.
During the eternal night, the TV tower is bright yellow during the day and blue at night, marking the day and night. These days, people have been accustomed to measuring time in this way.
It seems that no matter what kind of predicament they are in, as long as there is a moment of peace, people are willing to steal a moment of peace and delay satisfaction.
I am no exception.
With Victor in front of the wind and rain, I even occasionally forget the reality that I am about to face, can let go of all my worries, and be silly in front of him carefree.
If time can be reversed, I can go back to the first time I stood in front of Souvenir...
I lowered my gaze and pushed the door into the restaurant.
MC: Mr. Mills, I
Before I could say hello, I was stunned by the scene before me.
Souvenir, who had always been cold and cold, is now full of voices, all seats are full of seats, even those who have never been before, and he has added new chairs.
Mr. Mills was busy between the tables with a smile on his face.
I hurried over to ask if I need help.
MC: Mr. Mills, shall I do this?
I was about to take the tray from Mr. Mills, but he shook his head hurriedly.
Mr. Mills: No, no, it's going to close in a while, the manager is waiting for you inside.
MC: Alright!
I walked towards the kitchen, and along the way, I was surprised by the food on the guests' table.
Like what the customer wanted to eat, Victor made something for them.
At the last moment, Souvenir's rules are no longer important.
Girl: Mom, this one is delicious, so delicious!
Six or seven-year-old children ate the little cakes with all their faces, holding their little hands and sending the spoons to their mothers, wanting their mothers to taste them too.
The young mother cooperatively ate the cream in the sentence and smiled hesitantly. She gently touched her daughter's head, but her eyes were full of sighs.
The family at the table next door talked about the topic of the younger son's college entrance examination this year, and they were rushing to plan for his future. They seemed to believe that someone would come out to save the world.
I stepped into the restaurant and walked into the back kitchen.
MC: Victor....
He stood at the window with his back straight. There was a deep night outside. I dazzled my eyes to see his black suit melt into the darkness, lonely and silent.
I walked over and pulled his sleeve slightly.
MC: Have you been busy all night?
MC: You can call me over in advance, and I can give you a hand.
Victor: With your culinary skills, you can't match up with Souvenir's back kitchen.
Victor glanced at me from the corner of the light, smiled faintly, and closed the slightly open window.
The moment he raised his hand, I saw that the pointer on his wrist watch was already three o'clock in the morning, but everyone didn't realize that the night was deep.
The world freezes in the dark, making time lose all meaning.
MC: The guests outside all had a good time.
MC: By the way, there was a little cake that a kid ate, with a few blueberries on top, and a layer of soft stuff inside. I don't know if it's ice cream... it looks super delicious!
Faced with my vivid expressions, Victor looked helpless as expected.
Victor: Three year old are not as good as you in eat. A pair of eyes fixed on the food all day long.
MC: Isn't it great? I will eat everything you make clean and happy, and I will change my way to praise your superb cooking skills!
I used an exaggerated tone to learn the child's way of speaking, trying to make Victor smile, but he still looked calm.
Victor: Ah, very good.
Those eyes that met me were as light as water, and they saw an unspeakable feeling in my heart. After he came back, something changed in his eyes.
I can't be sure, but I just faintly feel that the person standing in front of me at this moment is stronger than before but also lonelier than before.
In the past, silence was due to work habits and character.
The silence now means that no matter what you face, you can be calm and calm. The calm is strange.
MC: Victor, seven of the travel coins you gave me have not been exchanged. You said before that you would do everything you promised me.
I changed the subject suddenly, and Victor was still indifferent.
Victor: Seven? Didn't you secretly put a lot in the box again?
MC: … you’re not paying attention.
Victor: Really, when I don't pay attention?
The silence of the night was always reflected in his eyes, brewing the silence deeper.
MC: So you won't break your promise, will you?
MC: Everything you promised me will be honored in the future, right?
Perhaps it was because my words were too impatient to be too direct, Victor finally touched my hair as if calming down, and stepped forward to get closer to me.
The familiar temperature fell on the front of my forehead, which made my panic feelings find support.
Victor: Don't worry, I won't break my promise. Not now, and not in the future.
At this moment, I saw a slight surge of joy in his eyes.
Mr. Mills: Mr. Victor.
Mr. Mills walked in slowly, smiling.
Mr. Mills: Mr. Victor, after proofing today, I would like to continue to look after the restaurant. Please allow me.
Victor: Mr. Mills
Victor took two steps forward and solemnly nodded to Mr. Mills.
Victor : Of course. Over the years, thank you very much for taking care of Souvenir.
Mr. Mills turned to look outside the kitchen.
Mr. Mills: The guests all had a nice evening, and they hoped that I would convey my thanks to the chef.
Victor: It is..
Victor paused slightly and thought of something.
Victor: Excuse me, please take out all the wine in the cellar and give it to the guests tonight.
Mr. Mills: .... I understand. Do you need any congratulations?
Victor turned his head and looked at me, raising the corners of his lips indifferently
Victor: Just thank time for giving us abundant food and accumulated wine... With the feelings that have passed through the years.
Outside the window, the silent snow fell slowly in the dark night. In the cool night breeze in midsummer, a layer of untimely coolness blows off.
PART 3
Victor: Is this your specialty?
MC: Do you look down on tomato scrambled eggs?
Victor did not speak, but frowned slightly to express affirmation.
MC: The scrambled eggs with tomatoes are delicious. You can't judge the taste of a dish by its difficulty. I feel wronged for him.
When the Haikou that I once boasted was fulfilled, I vowed to make a rich meal for Victor.
Victor probably feels a headache for me to prepare a home-cooked meal and have to put out ten kinds of kitchen utensils...
He has been standing in the kitchen supervising the work since the beginning, and I don't know if he's afraid of what would happen to the kitchen or what'd happen to me .
MC: Can you stop staring at me like this, I'm nervous.
Victor: What is the guilty conscience?
MC: It feels like waiting for you to approve the plan.
MC: I dropped the eggshells into the bowl when I was beating the eggs just now, I was thinking that you must spit me out.
Victor took out a bottle of red wine from the wine cabinet and unsealed it skillfully.
Victor: I'm used to it as you are.
I dealt with the ingredients in my hand and smiled without saying a word.
In the fireplace in the living room, the wood made a snapping sound under the lick of the tongue of fire, and it sang softly to the piano music from the record.
The fine snow outside the window disappeared into the night as soon as it fell to the ground, and time seemed extremely long at this moment.
I carefully handled the ingredients in my hand, and did not notice Victor's gaze.
He put down the wine glass, the glass collided with the marble countertop, and there was a pleasant sound.
At this moment, the night snow stopped in the air, and the fire and the record were speechless. The whole world stopped, and everything was quiet.
Victor: If I let time eternally stop at this moment, would you think I am selfish?
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He murmured, as if asking himself or answering himself.
Staring silently at her profile for a while, he stretched out his hand and silently hugged her in his arms.
This is an overly tender hug, without a trace of strong attitude, even the palms that are close to the back appear cautious
MC: Victor...
I stretched out my hand and hugged him tightly without leaving any gap.
Victor took a breath, as if he didn't expect that I would break away from his Evol, but didn't say anything.
MC: If I were not the dignified Queen, I would be completely controlled by you. Your Evol is stronger than I imagined.
He laughed and teased me helplessly.
Victor: It's amazing.
Although he was smiling, I heard a dumb sigh in his voice, so I opened my arms as much as possible to hold him tighter.
MC: Not even...
I stayed securely in his arms, with no intention of leaving this embrace.
MC: It’s just that I always remember the reason why I want to fully awaken, because I don’t want to let you bear everything. Always remember.
This dinner took longer than expected. When we sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace with red wine, the night was already almost reaching the sky.
For all this time, I have a lot to say to him.
Whether it is the heated discussions in the recent issues of "Discover Myself" or the process of LFG helping people realize their wishes one after another, I am deeply moved.
A couple wanted to go to a very famous sea island to watch the sunset before the end. Unexpectedly, before the trip, the island disappeared overnight.
MC: In fact, I also feel that it was a pity that I couldn't help them realize their wishes. I had seen that island before on the Internet.
MC: At that time, it was also selected as one of the "Top Ten Scenic Spots to Go to Before the End", I did not expect to be submerged by the sea so soon...
Victor: This is what you often say, do what you think of, and don't leave any regrets for yourself. Sometimes impatient fools can do things that many people can't.
I listened to every detail and smile in his voice, and my fingertips drew across the texture of the leather on the sofa.
The more I get to this kind of time, the more I feel that even his laughter seems precious.
MC: But I was a little surprised. The wishes that everyone wants to achieve before the end are so simple.
MC: Look at the light, look at the world, eat a delicious meal with the most important person.
Victor: What people really want has always been very simple. Before that, it was only controlled by desire.
Victor: No matter how long this moment of tranquility can last, for many people, it is enough to enjoy the life they still have.
MC: It is not easy to find the true desire in the heart.
Victor put the empty glass on the coffee table.
Victor: What about you? What is your wish?
After drinking a few glasses of wine, my thoughts were empty. I only heard his low and hoarse voice falling in my ears, and many pictures flashed before my eyes.
MC: I want to see your heart.
I turned to Victor and wanted to find the answer to this question very seriously.
MC: I want to see the real Victor. Without the burden of the CEO, there is no need to worry about the world...
MC: I can put down all the responsibilities on my shoulders, just be yourself... In this way Victor, What will it be like?
He paused for a few seconds, but quickly laughed faintly.
Victor: People cannot put aside all the past and responsibilities independently. In front of you, Victor will always be the most true.
I turned to him, stared at his deep eyes carefully, then stretched out my hand and slowly touched the position of his heart.
When the five fingers fell slowly, I already felt the warmth under his shirt.
A little closer, and the fingertips rubbed the texture of the shirt, and soon, my palm felt the rhythm of his heartbeat warm and powerful.
Victor: ...
With a sigh, Victor reached out and held my fingertips lightly.
Suddenly, the scene before me changed.
PART 4
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This is a space I have never seen before.
The solitary galaxy and the dazzling sunlight are constantly flashing in front of my eyes, just like every ray of time that has been inscribed in memory, the brilliance of the moment only flashes, making it impossible to capture.
MC: Victor
He was sitting in the seat directly in front of me, proud and lonely.
All the changes in the stars passed through his silent and deep eyes, and he just stared lightly.
Time passed, he had been sitting like this, his back was straight, his eyes were firm, and he was silent without a word, yet he caught every light and shadow in his eyes.
He seemed to had been sitting here for thousands of years.
For a while, my heart felt like being held down by a deep sea-like loneliness, which made me breathless. After a slight pause, I walked along the long carpet to him.
I squatted down in front of him and looked up at him.
He lowered his head and met my gaze, as if waking up from a long wait, with loose eyebrows at the corners of his eyes.
I stretched out my hand, my fingertips slowly climbed over the edge of his slender finger, and squeezed him from the gap between the slightly bent fingers.
At this moment, I recovered, seeing Victor's eyes reflected in the fire of the fireplace.
We don't know since when we clasp our fingers together and hold our hands together.
In a silent night, only the firewood was still snapping.
MC: Victor, are you tired?
Victor: What do you mean?
MC: Everything.
*All the fatigue of endlessly walking through the timeline, all the tragedy you had to witness, all the pain that you had to bear, all the hopes that you've repeatedly dashed countless times .
MC: You said that it is enough to enjoy your current life before the end. You already know the ending, understand the truth, or do you want to move on?
Victor: Not enough.
Victor spoke softly, but every word made a sound.
Victor: I am not someone who can transcend desires, I also have my own desires.
He doesn't need to say anything, I already know everything.
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I curled up on the sofa, silently nestled in his arms, clasped his waist tightly with my hands, and fell on his sturdy chest.
Victor pulled the blanket and put a light hand on my shoulder.
With fire light and falling snow, the sound of two hearts beating is clear.
I know that I am embracing the most real Victor, the extremely real Victor.
PART 5
Time passed quietly, and it came to the last moment.
The whole city is shining bright neon under our feet. Busy and calm-as usual, as if we can wait for every night in the morning light.
MC: Victor, when you brought me here for the first time, did you expect the world to become like this?
Victor shook his head.
MC: So what was the anxiety in your heart when you stood here?
Victor turned his head and looked at me, then smiled.
Victor: It is impossible to completely hold a fool in his hand, hold it tightly, and keep her from leaving.
MC: Did I make you worry a lot? I know you have been looking for me for a long time.
Victor: Not long.
Victor: After experiencing real time, I only feel that the years when I found you were as short as you went to buy me a cup of coffee
Heard what he said, I couldn't help being reminded of memories long ago.
MC: I just thought you were really harsh and annoying. There were so many conditions for asking me to buy a coffee.
MC: .. Now, I really want to buy it for you again
MC: No matter how many weird conditions you have, I will never get it wrong again.
Victor looked towards the boundless sky with emotion. In the night, countless meteors slowly fell, dazzling light across the blue to dark night sky.
It's not long since 19:17.
MC: Victor, I want to do something very important.
Victor: I know.
MC: But I just want to be your dummy and live the most ordinary and ordinary life.
MC: Let you have endless heart and endless planning plans every day, and bring you all kinds of trivial troubles.
MC: Then in the blink of an eye, you can...
With tears in my eyes, crying was already entrained in my voice, so I refused to continue.
Victor: She also said that she didn't like crying anymore.
I took a few breaths and stubbornly held my voice.
MC: I didn't cry!
Victor stepped forward and held me tightly in his arms. Surrounded by the familiar smell, I closed my eyes and gripped the corner of his suit with my hands.
My only wish is to be with him.
It’s okay to laugh and being embraced in his arms like this, I don’t want others.
But more important than this wish...
It's him. He can't just usher in the ending like this.
MC: When I come back, I will bring you a cup of coffee.
I grab his arms and made a promise, and he softly responded by caressing my hair.
Victor: Alright.
MC: That’s all? Don’t you have anything else to say?
MC: In the past, you always remind me about the deadline of my proposal, you would remind me not to oversleep like an elementary school kids for the meeting the next day.
MC: At this important moment, don’t you have something else to say?
MC: I’m going to do something big this time.
Victor loosened his arms around me slightly and looked at me.
Victor: I know.
Victor: But you’re no longer a dummy you used to be, there’s nothing you can’t do.
I have already understood his calmness from his eyes. As expected, I can’t still beat him. 
I want to say something, but I felt something. There were snow-white feathers on my fingertips.
There is no time.
I subconsciously grabbed Victor’s hand--  
MC: Victor..
My heart was overwhelmed by the huge perseverance, I almost called his name from the deepest part of my throat.
As he was holding me, there’s deep complex look between his brows.
Victor: Are you afraid?
I kept shaking my head, shaking my head anxiously!
It is not fear, nor regret, no matter what is waiting for me in front of me, at this moment I will walk firmly.
But even so, I still want to stop for another moment, a moment is enough for me to call his name again, to look at him again. .
Even... hoping that time can stop at this time.
I don't want to let go of his hand.
Victor hugged me with one hand, lifted my chin, and dropped a deep lingering kiss. 
During the exchange of our breathing, I looked into his squinted eyes & saw a love that I had never seen before.
The tears that kept spinning in my eyelids were still drawn from the corners of my eyes when I was on my post. I gripped his shirt tightly, very tightly.
Aware of my silent choking, Victor clapped his hands and wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes with his index fingers.
Victor: Don't be afraid. No matter how difficult things are in front of you in the past, can't you always do well?
Victor: This time, there will be no exception.
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The scene in front of me and his voice were slowly dissipating, and I looked at him deeply, unable to say a word.
I clearly felt that Victor held my hand tighter, tighter than ever, as if he wanted to keep me too.
Like he didn't want to leave me alone.
He opened his mouth, what he was saying, but I couldn't hear anything and my senses were blurred.
Victor: ...Remember, to get me back.
MC: What?
I vaguely heard something, but couldn't be sure.
The white wings spread out in the dark night, and the sky is connected one after another, and the scattered white wings sit on the tall buildings together with the meteor, and fall into the street...
Victor let go of my hand and stepped back half a step, his eyes showed unprecedented joy.
MC: Victor!
Victor: I....
He was telling me something. His deep voice was mixed with a firmness that I've never heard before, but I could only vaguely recognize the words that I wanted to hear the most from his mouth. After that she calls his name
MC: Victor...
The sight was finally dark, and Victor's deep gaze disappeared in front of me.
The city fell into the night amidst the noisy shouts-
Victor slowly opened his hand and caught a piece of pure white feather in the air. The corners of his lips were gentle, his eyes drooping slightly.
That feather just lay quietly on his palm, soaked in moonlight, as slender as she looked at him at the last moment.
---- END ----
I’m sorry if there’s some mistranslation. Kindly tell me if you found some :) thank you for read it~ ^^
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shinazugawaswife · 4 years
Text
If I Could Fly - Harry Styles
This was just a cute little thing I had in mind and I really didn’t use that much time on it so it’s not perfect, but I still think it’s sweet and I hope you like it<3
Summary: Harry has to do a show on your anniversary, but he still finds a way to express his love to you
This is just pure fluff
Gif’s not mine, creds to the owner
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You and Harry had been together for a little less than a year when you wrote If I Could Fly together. You were sitting by the Piano Harry had placed in his living room around 2 am and the song almost wrote itself as you looked into each other's eyes, feeling like the world was yours to conquer. Maybe a little bit of alcohol had been consumed through the night, but when the song was finished after approximately thirty minutes and you stared into the green forest of Harry's eyes and he the blue ocean of yours (I'm really sorry if you don't have blue eyes I just thought it fitted), you were both sure that you wanted to spend a very long time together.
You wrote songs for a living. Writing them, selling them, and then often seeing them on the hit lists a couple of months later. You were talented and you had written many songs throughout the last couple of years, but never had you written a song with as much emotion as when you and Harry made If I Could Fly.
When Harry's fellow bandmates asked him one night about a week later if he had any new songs up his sleeve, Harry played them the beautiful song the two of you had written together. Both Louis, Niall, and Liam absolutely loved it and immediately started trying to convince him to put it on the album they were in the middle of making. Of course, they would've respected if Harry said no because they knew the song meant a lot to him. Actually, the song meant absolutely everything to Harry, and that was why he wanted it on the album. Because he was so in love with you that he wanted to scream it so loud that the whole world would've been able to hear. It had been physically impossible for him to do that though, so what better way to tell the world than through a song?
You were excited to see all One Direction's fans react to the song and once it was released many of them quickly figured out that it was about you and Harry's relationship because your names were the only ones on the credits given to the writers of the song.
Now, five years later, you and Harry still loved each other more than anything and you knew that you wanted to spend the rest of your lives together. You'd had If I Could Fly on repeat for many occasions during the last five years and the song had never failed to make you smile. That's why whenever you were sad you put on the song, whenever you and Harry were in a fight you put on the song, whenever he was on the other side of the world and you missed him like crazy you put on the song, whenever he was only ten minutes away but you still missed him you put the song on, but during the last scenario you would usually play the song on the way to his house.
Harry would do the same, but he would be listening to an old recording on his phone of the day you'd written the song together where your voice would echo beautifully through the speakers instead of the album version with his old bandmates.
The song meant everything to both of you and it had been written with so much love and emotion that it was almost impossible for you to listen to it without your eyes glassing over slightly, and that is exactly why Harry had planned to play it at his concert tonight. It was your six-year anniversary and even though Harry would much rather be cuddled up with you on the couch and watching old movies while drinking expensive wine as you usually did, he had been forced to have a show tonight.
When he had planned his tour many months prior, he had made sure to keep the date of your anniversary off his schedule so that he could grant all his attention to you solely, but his plan had been changed when it had been necessary to cancel one of his shows in London. He'd then been offered to change the date so that thousands of fans wouldn't get disappointed and of course, Harry had immediately said yes, disappointing his fans was the last thing he wanted. When Harry found out that they'd moved the date to today, your anniversary, he regretted the decision though.
Even though you'd told him several times that you really didn't mind he's still been unsure whether to do the show or not. "But I want to be with you" he had pouted like a puppy and your heart had completely melted. "You will be, I'll come to the show and we'll go home and be together afterward" you'd kept reassuring him. You'd always loved to watch Harry perform, so you were always happy when you got the chance to.
You did end up convincing Harry to do the show, but he still felt like he needed to make it up to you and he knew the perfect way how to.
All that led up to this moment, Harry on stage just having finished Sweet Creature, you backstage and the crowd screaming at the top of their lungs. "So," Harry started, the screams of the crowd dying down a bit, "today is a very special day."
"The day you realized you're shit at making jokes" a fan standing in the front line yelled from the crowd which had gone almost quiet. Laughter broke out through the room and Harry tried to look offended but couldn't quite keep his own laughter back. He walked closer to the edge of the stage to look down at the girl who'd yelled and pointed a finger at her once he found her. "I tell very very good jokes" he stated, trying to sound as serious as possible. The whole crowd broke into laughter again and Harry looked up with his mouth agape, "what? Why are you laughing? You shouldn't be laughing, I tell extremely good jokes" he said, playing offended.
He turned to you, standing on the left side of the stage, "y/n, my jokes are good, right?" he almost pleaded. The crowd went absolutely crazy at the mention of your name and you could only laugh in response which made him raise his eyebrows and his eyes widen, "why are you laughing?"
You blew him a kiss which he huffed at and turned to the crowd, "she blew me a kiss as if that makes it better" he rolled his eyes playfully, but the room went loud again as screams filled the air. "Let's get back to the point before my ego starts hurting too much," Harry said, making his fans laugh.
"I'm not good at telling jokes, but I still make you laugh don't I?" He just had to get his point through before continuing, which made the crowd erupt in laughter again. As he was proved right, he was able to continue. You shook your head at his narcissistic ass, but couldn't possibly wipe the huge smile you had on your face off.
"Today is a special day because," he squinted his eyes at the girl who'd offended his jokes before continuing, "six years ago I grew balls big enough to ask this girl out," he said and your heart automatically sped up as the crowd screamed uncontrollably, what was he doing?
"I love her a lot and I want today to be very special for her," he said as another microphone was carried onto the stage and placed beside his. Harry turned to you and motioned for you to come onto the stage as the screams from the thousands of people in the room went crazy. Your eyes widened and you quickly shook your head, whatever he had planned you weren't doing it. You knew Harry and all his "good ideas" and you were not doing something which required you and a microphone and a whole lot of people. Harry put up his finger and spoke to his fans, "one second" before running across the stage and towards you.
When he approached you he didn't say anything, just gave you a quick kiss on the cheek and pulled you onto the stage with him. He placed you in front of the microphone next to his own before holding your hand up in the air, "y/n everyone!"
Being in front of so many people had always made you uncomfortable, but Harry's naturally relaxed personality always shined through in situations like these and you immediately felt more comfortable being next to him. You locked eyes with him as he let your hand back down and he quickly leaned over to give you a peck on the cheek, before turning around and sending a thumps up to his band.
The melody to If I Could Fly started and a smile broke onto your face at the sound of your favorite song. You looked at Harry who was already looking at you with the goofiest smile you had ever seen on his face, and your smile only grew as he started singing the first line of the song.
"If I could fly, I'd be coming right back home to you" he sang and the crowd went crazy at the sound of the familiar song. His eyes remained on yours though as he continued, "I think I might give up everything, just ask me to."
"Pay attention, I hope that you listen 'cause I let my guard down" he gave your hand, which he was still holding, a squeeze, "right now I'm completely defenseless."
"For your eyes only, I'll show you my heart For when you're lonely and forget who you are I'm missing half of me when we're apart Now you know me, for your eyes only For your eyes only"
He finished the chorus and gave you a reassuring nod, encouraging you to sing. You eyes didn't leave his once as you sang,
"I've got scars even though they can't always be seen And pain gets hard, but now you're here and I don't feel a thing Pay attention, I hope that you listen 'cause I let my guard down Right now I'm completely defenseless" He joined you as the song came to the chorus again and your voices melded together beautifully and you knew you were never gonna forget this moment, with the screaming fans in the background. Harry was a very private person towards the public, so you knew that him presenting you to the crowd like this meant a lot and even though you'd been taken aback by his request to sing with you, you realized at that moment that there was nothing you loved more than singing with him.
When Harry was just about to start the third verse of the song, he turned his microphone so it was facing you, and let go of your hand to grab your microphone and turning it as well. You were standing face to face as Harry started singing, making your heart almost burst with all the different emotions currently occupying it.
"I can feel your heart inside of mine" he sang and you smiled, his voice had always been the most beautiful sound to you.
"I've been going out of my mind, know that I'm just wasting time" you continued before he finished the verse, "and I hope that you don't run from me."
As you sang the chorus together again, you looked directly into each other's eyes, your faces close as you sang your hearts out. You got lost into the deep depths of his eyes and it was like the rest of the room disappeared, only you and the man who carried your heart present. Harry looked at you and you were the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. As his eyes pierced into yours, they carried all the love he had for you and as the song ended he embraced you in a tight hug and you couldn't stop the tears welling up in your eyes.
"I love you so much, baby" he whispered into your ear and kissed you on the forehead before letting you go and made sure you returned to the side of the stage safely to watch the rest of the show.
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blubberingmess · 4 years
Text
[Little guy: Bubba] *your view*
Soulmate AU
Pairing: Bucky/chibi!bucky x male!reader
• yes, there will be another part but in Bucky's view :) sorry not sorry
Summary: A life with your grumpy chibi, before you met your soulmate.
Warning: none
Ideas for what chibi!bucky looks like (minus the ears and tail - maybe next time). Drawings aren't mine, also the gif below.
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More info about the AU (Please read):
There's no particular time or date when the small version of their soulmate-- or what most people called chibi-- would randomly come out from nowhere, dressed in their favorite/mostly used clothes. They mostly appear when one turned eighteen to twenty-five. On some rare occasions, some chibis won't show up until the person turned to their thirties.
No one knows how it works, not even the scientists. They have never experimented on one because they can't, for chibis cannot be killed no matter how you tried. They only disappears when the real version of them dies. But! They can get hurt, it won't bruise or anything but they can feel the pain.
Chibis don't talk, they communicate through actions and facial expressions from what you've heard. Your soulmate's mood affected the chibi version of themself, will mostly find comfort from their 'guardian' but that's all. People will affect their chibis emotionally, but not physical feelings like pain, hunger, etc.
They also have different personalities, the same personality your soulmate already have and also the personality they would build themselves from how you would treat them.
They eat, drink, sleep like normal people would. They have a mind of their own and as smart as the person they represent.
They also age, their skin wrinkles and their hair grays as well. One woman you found out that her soulmate is twenty years older than her, a few gray streaks of hairs can be seen on her chibi.
Also, they are as small as the size of you hand - even taller depends on your soulmate. But the chibi with the size of your palm are almost always be 6ft < your soulmate. That means if you're smaller than him, your chibi self will be smaller than your palm which means it'll be so much smaller than your soulmate's palm which is.... oh god. You'll get squished! But that's okay, your chibi self can't die ;)
While your soulmate is the person representing your chibi, your chibi's soulmate is your soulmate's chibi :) chibi's are much more emotional - the real emotion of the person. For example; your soulmate is angry at you while his chibi self is not, then that means he isn't actually angry.
More info about them as you read through the story :)
Ask me anything about it if your ever confused or curious and I'll try my hardest to answer it ♡ or this AU is already made, then I apologize if I explained something wrong. This is just how I see this AU would work :)
Also, if you don't like or against fics like this, you are very much welcome to ignore this or unfollow me (igaf, boo) I support LGBTQ+ wether you like it or not~
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[Chibi!Winter Soldier]
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It was a cold night of December when you first met your chibi, a rather scary meeting to be honest. You were just making yourself a cup of hot cocoa when you heard a shuffling behind you, it was almost inaudible but you heard it.
Slowly turning around, you didn't see anyone, but you did saw something move on the counter just behind the large bowl of fruits you have. There's a pair of steely blue eyes on top of the bananas, quickly ducking down as soon as it saw you snapping your eyes at it. Though, it was no use, it has already been caught and the mop of brunette can still be seen from your point of view.
"You know I can see you right?" Your voice laced with amusement as you spoke, already knew what the small guy is. The chibi tensed, the top of its head poking up more from behind the yellow fruit.
"Its okay, little guy, I'm not going to hurt you," you coaxed the chibi with a soft voice, letting them know you genuinely don't mean any harm. Regardless of how calm your voice sounds, your inner self is currently freaking out at this moment. Heart hammering against your chest as you anticipate on what's about to happen; excited to finally meet your chibi, the mini version of your soulmate!
Slowly but surely, you sees him peek half of his head to the side. Frosty blue eyes staring up at you cautiously-- curiously-- as he analyze your face for a moment before slowly completely stepping out from his hiding place, an arm behind his back.
You immediately noticed the mask that's covering the lower part of his face, and his clothes; some type of tactical gear.
Is your soulmate a soldier or something? An agent?
You were about to take a step forward to properly greet the chibi when he suddenly pulls out a knife from behind him, held by a metal arm, the same arm he's been hiding as he stepped out. A small, but surprisingly intimidating growl emits from him making you lift your hands up in surrender.
"Woah there, buddy! I thought chibis were supposed to be soft and loving? I didn't know they would also want to stab you in the freaking face!"
Another growl before he pulled out something from his thigh holster; a handgun.
You gulped. "Or two. Damn."
He didn't do anything but glare at you, and if looks could kill, you would've been six - no, sixty feet below right now. The chibi's action confuses you greatly, especially after hearing about them being really clingy and sweet towards their 'guardian'; not this!
My soulmate must be a real hot-headed motherfu--
Your thought was cut off by a low rumble that reverberated throughout the whole kitchen, disrupting the tense silence between the two of you. Looking around the kitchen and back down at the small, feisty chibi, you gave him a nervous smile and asks, "You hungry?"
The chibi's eyes flickers at the warm mug behind you then back up at your eyes, silently asking - no- commanding you. You cautiously and slowly dropped down your right hand, stiffening as you heard him cocked his tiny gun.
You doubt it could actually kill you but it still looks intimidating, especially the little guy who is aiming it at you.
"I'm just gonna give you the mug, see?" You grabbed the now warm cocoa and a thin straw you didn't know you'll actually need until now. Slowly making your way towards the counter where he stands, you carefully placing the coffee beside him before walking backwards on your previous spot.
He gingerly lowers his weapons, tucking them back inside his pocket and holster and walked towards the mug, not before giving you a warning look.
"Cookies?" You didng wait for a reply as you began searching through your cupboards, it's not like you expected it considering chibis can't talk.
The intimidating chibi watches you as he took a sip from the thin straw, following your every move with curious eyes. He can't help but feel guilty from his not-so-friendly first impression, it's his instinct to pull out a weapon - well, it's actually your soulmate's instinct, but there's truly nothing in his mind that could push him to actually hurt you.
Your soulmate would've done the same.
Placing the small plate of assorted cookies beside him, you crouched down and watches as he took a broken piece and began nibbling on it, giving you a chance to get a closer look at him.
His mask is now off and resting close to him, making you see his whole face. His lips are pink and a bit upturned on the sides, stubble around the lower part of his face. He looks gloomy and tired, like there's something bothering him for days - even months. No doubt there's not, from how he looks and how he acted a few minutes ago, you could instantly tell that your soulmate isn't like anybody else.
It scares you and excites you at the same time.
You came back to reality when you noticed that something is being pushed right in front of your face, it's a mini chocolate chip cookie. Trailing your eyes from the cookie and to the chibi who's holding it out for you, a smile adorned your face when you saw him looking to the side with a nonchalant look on his face, a small blush on his cheeks.
"Hey bubba? Have you seen my pen?" You mutter-ask from your spot on the couch, looking around for your pen. Bubba (What you decided to call him) opened his eyes from the armrest of the couch on your left, looking up at you while still nibbling on his plum.
It's been three year since your first meeting with your chibi and living with the little guy isn't as bad as you thought it would, just scary. He would still glare at you and send you frosty looks but only when you would do something stupid or idiotic, but he immediately warms up at you after a few days.
Bubba gave you an 'are you serious' look before lifting his flesh hand up and tapping his ears two times before lowering them back down on his half-eaten plum. You kink an eyebrow before reaching up to your right ear and felt the pen you've been looking for the past five minutes, propping your left arm on the armrest behind Bubba.
"Thanks, little dude!"
Bubba just sassily rolled his eyes before he resumed nibbling on his beloved plum, eyes closing in bliss and instinctively leaning back on your arm as he do so.
Who knew the grumpy chibi likes to cuddle and curl up against you when you're reading or working inside your office, sometimes would even take a nap on your shoulder, on top of your head, or your lap kid he feels like it.
What you also noticed is that the little guy likes to eat, a lot, he would practically order you around to make him something sweet or savory, maybe even both. You don't actually mind, you like taking care of him, you just wish you could also take care of your soulmate like how you would take care of the chibi.
You learned that if your chibi would act this way; asking for different kinds of foods and demands affection from you, that means your soulmate is craving them just as much. But sadly, you're not there to actually give him what he needs, you doubt the chibi version of yourself could... maybe?
Oh how it breaks your heart everytime.
Speaking of breaking your heart, how many times had you woken up at the sound of Bubba's whimpers and cries at early mornings around two or four. Everytime he would curl up against your chest, crying and clutching at your shirt as you let him soak your shirt with his tears.
"Hey-hey, it's okay. It's okay, Bubba. Shh, you're okay. I got you, don't worry." you cooed, scooping the chibi with both of your hands. Bubba's shaking immediately subsides the moment he felt your soft, gentle touch on his back, breathing heavily while tightening his hold on your thumb like it's his lifeline.
Glossy blue eyes looking up at you in pain and sadness; almost begging, lips quivering as tears began pouring out from his eyes. Your heart clenched inside your chest as you watched him breakdown in your hands.
You want to calm him down. You want to help him so bad to get rid of the pain, the sadness, but you can't. Unless your soulmate can't calm down, the chibi in your hands won't.
Thankfully, episodes like that don't happened often and doesn't last long - not anymore. A small mood swings here and there but it would almost always immediately diminished after a minute or two.
Your soulmate's chibi must be calming him down. Good job, me that is also not me.
When you go out which isn't that often considering you work from home-- also seeing that you don't have that much friends outside to go away with-- Bubba will be guarded and on your shoulder at all times with his small metal hand on the back of your neck. He'll always have that deep scowl on his face that only softening up when looking at you or when you offer him sweets - ice cream preferably.
You did left him one time, only coming back to a very stressed out and dishielved looking Bubba. Thinking at first that your soulmate is in another one of his heart wrenching episode, but it wasn't. You noticed it the moment you stepped inside the living room and seeing him perched up on the windowsill, his eyes immediately brightens up when he sees you - before frowning once again, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away from you with a pout.
You just sigh and didn't even make a move to hide the smile on your face.
Your chibi is such a drama queen.
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[Chibi!Runningawayfromeveryone!Bucky]
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You felt something lightly tickled your cheek but you're still sleepy to do anything about it, ignoring the next one your forehead, then on your other cheek, and then your temple. The small of plum and something woody with a hint of gun powder enters your nostril, a familiar scent you grew accustomed to for the past five years with your chibi.
"I'm awake. Geez, Bubba, good morning to you too." you chuckled, patting the said chibi on his head. Bubba grin up at you before giving you a sweet kiss on your nose then began nuzzling into your neck, sighing in content.
The temperature in Bucharest this time of year is quite cold but you're happy that it doesn't bother your chibi, he actually likes it. You decided to have a vacation; just you and Bubba, away from New York, your migraine inducing work - your family. It's all just too much for you to handle.
Bubba was the one who actually chose Bucharest for some unknown reason, he really wanted to go there and who are you to turn him down? Especially when he looks up at you with those big, pleading eyes of his.
Ugh. If this what your soulmate looks like, you don't know if you can handle him. You don't even know if you can say 'no' to him! Now that's scary.
Lifting up your gaze at the ceiling, a frown quickly replaced the soft smile on your face at the thought of your soulmate.
It's been five years since your chibi appeared and you're still yet to see him. You've hang out with the small group of friends you have, relatives, and even visit places you've never visited before with Bubba by your side, but it's all fruitless.
Maybe he's gone? No, Bubba is still here (snoring soundly). Maybe he don't want you? Can't be... right? Bubba likes you and find comfort in your touch. But... maybe it's just Bubba himself and not really your soulmate.
"Bubba stop moving around!" You hissed, gently grabbing the said chibi from your head. He started wriggling around like an excited puppy and tugging at your hair the moment the two of you stepped out from the hotel building, it's a weird behavior you haven't seen him in before.
"What got you so excited, little guy? We're just visiting the market nearby to buy some peaches... Maybe some plums as well. Actually, I'm craving for some corvig."
Bubba half-heartedly listened to you ramble while his eyes roams the market sharply, ears peeled and nose constantly sniffing the air. What you didn't know is that chibis will act like that-- excited and eyes darting from one place to another-- if it means your soulmate is nearby, their senses are tingling and they can feel their heart getting warmer the shorter the distance you are from your soulmate - also Bubba's too.
You stopped in the middle of the market, looking for the particular stall that sells peaches. Bubba is also looking around but for a different reason, absently clutching at his shirt where his supposedly heart is located.
"Why's there no fruit stalls around? Is it on the other side of the market?" You groaned, pulling out your phone. The people around you gave you looks, some with confusion but most of them are uneasiness, thinking you're somewhat scolding your chibi before going back to what they were doing, but now all of them had stepped/walked away from you.
It's not like you cared, the first thing on your mind right now is peaches and plums, also corvig.
You suddenly heard Bubba let out a noise, a squeak-like of grunt before scrambling off your shoulder and down to the pavement with ease. It took you a few seconds to comprehend what just happened before snapping out of it and sprinting towards where Bubba run off to.
Damn, didn't know chibis could run so fast.
"Bubba! Where are-- you." Your last word changed it's aim from Bubba to the man before you, staring back at you with the same surprised expression on his face. His hands are half stretched in front of him before dropping them down to his sides, straightening his back.
Your eyes swing down to the two chibis who are currently busy hugging each other, giggling as hearts and flowers practically floats around them. You watched as Bubba kissed the other chibi on the cheek before nuzzling his head on his shoulder, who squeaked in happiness before burying his face on his chest, obviously much more smaller that Bubba.
The chibi is... you - a chibi version of you exactly; dressed like you and almost looks exactly like you.
Gazing back up at the big version of Bubba or your soulmate, you cleared your throat and was about to step forward to introduce yourself when he suddenly took a step back, his left hand quickly moved to his back.
And then he growls.
You whole body steeled once you heard the sound left his lips and your hands are lifted up in a split second, enough to for him to notice but not enough draw any attention towards the both of you.
With him ready to pull out a weapon behind his back whilst glaring at you with ice-cold, guarded look in his eyes, and you with your hands up in surrender was all too familiar it makes you want to laugh and crack a joke.
"I thought soulmates were supposed to be soft and loving? I didn't know they would also want to stab you in the freaking face!"
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Please tag me if you ever tried this Soulmate AU. I really want to read one 💕💕 I hope you enjoyed it. There's a part 2 but in Bucky's view of chibi!You suddenly popping up in his life like fairy god mother.
If there are misused words or wrong grammars, don't be shy to tell me!
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tchallasbabymama · 4 years
Text
Potential Breakup Fic
Yes, this is inspired by the re-release of the classic “Potential Breakup Song” by legends Aly & AJ. Check out the rest of my Masterlist HERE. Enjoy!
Word count: 2223
CW: Niggas aint shit. Kiana sat on her couch and tried not to cry into her glass of merlot. She took off her heels and got up to unzip her dress and take off her bra since she knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight. She checked her phone again and was met with an empty screen. No notifications, no missed calls. She threw her phone down in anger, and was thankful when she noticed the screen didn’t crack.
“I can't believe this nigga.”
She looked at the clock and shook her head. It was 12:07am, and her 25th birthday was officially over without so much as a word from her boyfriend. Just last night he had told her to be ready by 7, and she hadn't heard from him since.
They had been together, on and off, for three years. They met their junior year at Howard, but didn’t hit it off right away. He was too slick for her liking, but over time he eventually weaseled his way into her heart. His smile lit up the whole room and his big brown eyes could seduce anyone just like that. And he did, constantly. T’Challa was a huge flirt, and it was cute when they were still single and just getting to know each other, but even now T’Challa turns his charm on for every pretty face he sees. Kiana had brought it up to him many times, letting him know how disrespected she felt. He would always say the same thing.
“But entle, I’m just being nice. You know I only have eyes for you.”
She did know that once, but that ended about a year and a half ago when she was casually scrolling through twitter on his phone and caught him cheating.
“T’Challa!”
“Yes, my love?”
“What the fuck is this?!”
“Why are you on my phone?!”
“Don't fucking raise your voice at me, I’m not in the wrong here. I saw a funny tweet and started scrolling when YOU got a text from some bitch named Jasmine talking bout ‘I miss you daddy’ and sending you pictures of her pussy. Care to explain?”
He reached for the phone and she pulled it away from him.
“Nah-uh, talk.”
He sighed in exasperation. 
“If you give me the phone I can explain, sithan-”
“Don’t you fucking ‘sweetheart’ me, answer the goddamn question. How long, T’Challa?!”
“Just once. Eh, one and a half maybe-”
He was interrupted by a throw pillow to the head.
“How the fuck do you halfway cheat nigga?!”
“She just gave me head the first ti-”
“That’s still cheating!”
“Will you lower your voice? You have neighbors.”
“Fuck! Them! Did you even use a condom?”
“Yes, Kiana I’m not-”
“Stupid? You’re not stupid?” Kiana laughed. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
“My love, I-”
“Oh now I’m your love? Where the fuck was that energy when you were balls deep in this other bitch?!”
T’Challa stood there dumbstruck. He had never seen Kiana get this angry and didn’t know what to say. He knew he was wrong when he did it, but seeing the tears streaming down her face made him truly regret what he’d done. She had been so busy with school and work that she barely had time for him anymore. He had needs and just so happened to stumble upon someone more than willing to fulfil them. 
He cursed himself for not locking his phone or at the very least, turning it over. 
“How many, T’Challa...” Kiana sniffled.
“I told you, it was only twice-”
“How many women?!”
He froze, not knowing if he should mention Lisa since that was so much earlier in their relationship.
“Oh my god...oh my god...oh my- are you fucking serious?! I-I have to...I have to go get tested, I-”
“Kia-”
“What?!”
She looked at him with such fierceness that he shrunk under her gaze.
“I-I am sorry, I didn’t do it to hurt you, I was-”
He was stopped by a heavy-handed slap across his cheek that nearly knocked him over.
“Get the fuck out.” She said, barely above a whisper.
Six months later they ran into each other in the grocery store and decided to catch up over a cup of coffee. Kiana had healed and moved on, but T’Challa was still stuck on her. They had spent almost two good years together before he ruined what they had, and he just couldn’t let it go. He loved her, and he was determined to make it work this time.
Or so he really, truly thought before he met Marci...and Tanisha...
T’Challa knew he wasn’t a one-woman man, but he just couldn’t let Kiana go. His dalliances were never serious, just enough to scratch his constant itching. Sometimes they were a one-time thing, but others stuck around if they were good enough and knew how to be discreet. No matter what though, he always came back home to Kiana because despite his trash behavior, he really did love her in his own toxic way.
However, he didn’t love her enough to double check his calendar before leaving work on her birthday, or any day leading up to it. He had forgotten what day it was, and when he told Kiana to be ready at 7 he just meant for a regular date night. 
It had been a long day at the Wakandan Embassy and Kiana’s Prince Charming needed a drink more than anything. He stopped at the first bar he came across that looked halfway decent. T’Challa walked up to the bar and caught the eye of the beautiful barkeep.
“Hiya, what can I do for you?”
T’Challa smiled his panty-dropping smile and she smiled back, revealing her perfect, white teeth. There was nothing he loved more than a pretty smile.
“Well, miss…”
“Tanisha,” she responded while using both arms to mix a shaker full of liquid courage and ice. His eyes avoided her chest, slyly watching in the periphery only. 
“Well, Miss Tanisha, I had a horrible day at work and I am in need of a whiskey on the rocks. Preferably Jack, but truly anything will do.”
“We all have those days honey. Here’s a double on the house,” she said as she slid the drink to him across the bar top with a wink.
T’Challa licked his lips and lifted his glass to her before taking a sip of the warm amber liquid. He let out a sigh and his day seemed to melt away. 
Tanisha kept coming back to check on him and they would chat when the crowd died down. T’Challa was on his third double when she came over with a plate of wings.
“You’re an angel.” He dug into the wings and made a complete mess on his shirt, so he went to the bathroom to try to wash the stain out. On his way back to the bar he noticed a very tall and sweaty man leaning over the bar trying to talk to Tanisha. From what he could see, she wasn’t feeling the conversation, but he kept approaching her anyway. When T’Challa returned to his seat she immediately gravitated towards him. This angered Mr. Tall and Sweaty, who drunkenly attempted to punch T’Challa in the face. T’Challa dodged the lazy punch and knocked him out cold with one hit. Security saw the whole thing go down, and removed Tall and Sweaty from the building once he came to. 
“What you got planned for the night, handsome?”
“Nothing at all, why do you ask?”
“I get off at 9, wanna hang out?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, now here’s a water.”
“Thank you, angel.”
By 10pm he was already halfway inside her, and when his phone started vibrating he was too wrapped up in her to think anything of it. Without looking he quieted the annoying sound and turned the phone off so he could focus on the task at hand.
Two and a half hours later, T’Challa was creeping out of Tanisha’s bed right as Kiana was sliding into hers. She had washed off all her makeup, but she didn’t have the emotional energy to tie up her hair. Normally she would wear one of T’Challa’s t-shirts, but she was too angry with him so she slept in a cute nighty she never wore. She admired herself in the mirror for half a second before bursting into tears and pulling the covers up to her head. She tried to stop crying, but the tears kept coming and she eventually gave herself a headache. How could he miss her birthday?
Kiana got up and threw on her plush maroon robe before she padded to the bathroom to grab some Advil. On the way she noticed her phone getting multiple notifications, the first of which was from her best friend Bebe.
“Have u seen this?! Sis, I’m so sorry. When we slashing his tires? Just 3 tho, this nigga needs to pay $$$.”
“What the fuck is she talking about?”
Kiana clicked the link and saw that it was Bebe’s cousin Darrell’s Instagram Story. Apparently there was a fight at the bar where he was celebrating a coworker’s promotion and he had filmed it for all of Instagram to see. Kayla stared at her phone in shock. There was her aint-shit boyfriend at a goddamn bar on her fucking birthday. She watched him punch a guy in the face on her birthday. At a bar. Without her.
She thought the kicker came when she saw him turn around and flirt with the bartender, but the story after that just about killed her. There he was, leading her out the back door with his hand too far down on her lower back to be simply platonic. Even the caption read “Ooooh someone’s about to get some ‘thank you’ pussy. That damsel in distress pussy hit different!”
Kiana saw red and almost cracked her phone for a second time tonight. 
She grabbed the remaining merlot and downed it before throwing the bottle at the picture of them on the fridge. She watched the glass shatter and cut their faces while the trace bit of deep red wine seeped down the picture like blood. She wanted to trash the whole place, but remembered she would have to clean it later. Kiana started to hyperventilate and felt like she needed to get some air when she heard the lock turn.
“Kiki, what are you doin- are you ok? What happened here?”
Kiana ignored him as she walked towards where she threw her phone, silently pulling up the story and handing it to him. She watched his face go from confused, to shocked, to fearful. No regret, though. 
“Ki-”
“Give me your key.”
“Kiana, please let me-”
“The key. Now,” she said with her voice completely devoid of any emotion.
T’Challa assumed she would be angry and yell or throw things, but this quiet storm terrified him. To him, it felt like she didn’t even care anymore. He was right.
He slowly reached his hand out and she snatched the key ring, removing hers and tossing the rest back to him.
“I’ll have your stuff packed by the morning. It’ll be outside my door by 8am. If it’s still there when I get back from work it’s going in the trash.”
T’Challa couldn’t bear the coldness in her voice. Tears rolled down his face and his knees buckled.
“Kiana, please. I can explain, I didn-”
“I don't give a fuck what you did or didnt do. You know why?”
“W-why?”
“Because it was my birthday, T’Challa. MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY and YOU forgot it. Not only did you forget it, my gift was you fucking some other bitch and leaving me lonely yet again. So no, I don't care if you fucked her or not even though I know your sorry ass did. I know she’s probably not the only one because I saw how easily you slid on in there in that video. You were way too comfortable, so I don't even want to ask you how many because it doesnt fucking matter anymore. Now you can stick your dick in every fine ass Black girl you see without remorse, oh wait...you were already doing that. So fuck you, get out my apartment before I call my brothers.”
“Kiana…”
“5, 4, 3,...” Kiana counted as she dialed her eldest brother Trey’s number, ignoring T'Challa's pathetic excuses. “2, 1… Hey Trey, I’m sorry did I wake you up?...Yeah I have a situat- oh look at that, his bitch ass is leaving-”
“I am sorry, Kiana,” T’Challa said one last time before she slammed the door in his face. He could hear her on the other side of the door explaining the situation to her brother, and when she started to cry it finally hit him. Her wails broke his spirit and more tears fell from his eyes. 
He knew Trey would be over soon to comfort his baby sister and he needed to get the hell out of dodge, so T’Challa left Kiana’s apartment and never came back. Not even for his things, which turned out to be the best thing for Kiana because she and her girls got to burn it all up in Trey’s backyard fire pit and finally release that toxic man from her life.
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briefinquiries · 4 years
Text
Luke Alvez x (daughter) Reader: Through Flames
Request: @literallyprentissstwin requested; an imagine where Luke’s teenage daughter gets kidnapped and the team has to save her. 
Tagged: @ssaic-jareau​​ , @alvezstan​ , @saintd0lce​ , @ogmilkis , @reidswords​ , @akimagies, @literallyprentissstwin
Word count: 4.5k
Warnings: Kidnapping tw
A/N: this was emotional writing, luke as a single, super protective dad makes me rly soft so thank you so much for this request!  
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Luke has to excuse himself from the round table when the call comes through his phone.   Normally, he’d let calls go to voicemail when he was at work, but you were always the exception. 
“Hey, we’re in a meeting,” Luke begins to explain, but he’s cutoff. 
“Daddy-” your voice is a hushed whisper.  It’s enough to make Luke freeze in his tracks, his full attention shifting to you and the phone call.  
You had turned seventeen years old a little over a month ago, and only ever called Luke ‘Daddy’ when you were either trying to evade trouble or get something you wanted.  
Suddenly, Luke remembers you being ten years old again.  That was the first time he ever remembers you calling him “Dad” instead of his coined title.  
“Dad?” he had raised an eyebrow at you in the car as he drove you to school. “Since when do you call me dad?”
“I’m not a baby anymore,” you had said, crossing your small arms in front of you.  “Daddy is for babies.”
“Well you’re still my baby,” he’d assured you.  
After dropping you off, the smile Luke had been wearing faded.  He was secretly disappointed by your sudden declaration.  Being called ‘dad’ was just another indication that his girl was growing up, something he’d been dreading since the day you were born.  
For the longest time, it had always been just you and Luke.  When you were only six, your mom had walked out.  There was little explanation as to why she left, other than her wanting another life, which Luke could never understand.  Who could want a life away from you?  You were his life- his girl, the only one that mattered.  
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked through the phone, his voice serious.  
“Th-there’s someone in the house,” your voice is barely a whisper when you respond, but it sends shockwaves through Luke’s entire body.  It’s enough to send him back into the conference room, where the rest of his team is gathered.  
“What?” he spits.  “Who’s in the house?” 
When you answer, Luke can detect traces of panic in your voice, “I don’t know…”
He pulls the phone away from his ear, the attention of the entire team is trained on him after overhearing the last bit of his conversation.  “Send units to my house,” he says, without explanation, before speaking to you again. 
Luke swallowed, only now realizing how dry his throat felt. “Where are you?” 
“I’m hiding- under my bed.  I-I don’t know what to do.  I’m scared, Daddy.” 
Your words shoot through Luke like a knife, twisting their way into his skin until they pierce through his heart.  His head is clouded with a feeling of helplessness and desperation.  “It’s okay. It’s okay baby, I’m here.  The police are on the way.  Stay on the phone with me, do not hang up, okay?”
Instead of answering, you respond in a hushed, terrified tone.  “He’s coming- he’s coming up the stairs!”
Luke squeezes his eyes shut and can’t help the burning tears that are threatening to spill over.  All he can do is coax you through the phone and pray to whatever God might be out there that you’d be okay.  So that’s what he does. 
“Stay on the phone with me,” he orders.  He doesn’t even recognize his own voice, but he needs you to stay calm. “And be quiet.” 
He hears your labored breathing through the phone.  It’s choppy and uneven, but you do as he says.    
There’s a pause, a moment of complete silence that was probably only a minute, but to Luke, felt like an eternity.  He doesn’t even realize he’s been holding his breath until now. 
When you finally do speak, your voice is still quiet. “I think he’s gone.” 
Luke’s shoulders visibly relax, and he’s about to exhale a sigh of relief when there’s a crashing sound on your end of the line, followed by an earth-shattering scream that makes Luke’s entire body go cold. 
He yells your name through the line, but there’s nothing else he can do, there’s no way he can help you. 
“Daddy!” you scream, “No! Daddy, please!”
Even after the line goes dead, Luke doesn’t hang up.  He just listens to the empty dial tone, unable to move or think or do anything at all. 
When in doubt, always revert back to victimology.  That was the first rule of profiling that Luke had learned upon joining the BAU.  The team spent hours on cases examining and comparing the Unsub’s victims.  They’d look for commonalities or links between them, anything to link it all together.  They’d assess the reason that person was targeted and any known connections among other victims.   
Most often, perps would choose their victims based on some sort of fantasy.  That person would fit into a mold, or have certain characteristics that match what the Unsub was looking for.  Generally, these were distinguished attributes; hair or skin color, age, profession.  Sometimes, the links weren’t so obvious and the team had to work a little harder to connect the dots. 
Then, there were the surrogates.  These people were chosen because they resembled someone in the Unsub’s life; a scorned lover, an abusive parent.  Someone the perp needed to recreate for one reason or another. Once you found out who the victim resembled, you could narrow down your suspect pool and catch your guy.  
Oftentimes, Luke’s favorite part of a case was to examine the victims.  He liked how concrete and factual it all was. Victimology was so important- it had solved so many of the BAU’s cases. 
The second rule of profiling was: don’t forget that this is a job. 
Level headedness, clear thinking, and a calm demeanor were essential in finding an Unsub.  It was never a chance to be a knight in shining armor, or a way to get fifteen minutes of fame.  Sometimes cases ended well and sometimes they didn’t, no matter how well you profiled it and no matter how textbook they were.  But no matter what, you couldn’t take it personally. 
But Luke had known from the get go of this case that he was never going to be able to follow that rule.  This was a different situation, completely uncharted territory for him.  Since Garcia had been digging, she had found four other missing girls in Virginia, D.C., and Maryland that were all the same age as you, all taken from their homes in the middle of broad daylight.  God knows how many of them were dead.  And one of them was his kid. 
“You know I have to take you off of this.  You can’t be in the field.”  Emily was suddenly standing in front of Luke.  “But as a courtesy, I’m letting you stay in the BAU.  You can help Garcia here.” 
“Emily-” Luke started to protest, but she cut him off. 
“No,” her voice is firm, it’s final. “This one is too close.”
He knows he can’t defy her orders, so instead, Luke hangs his head.  First, he couldn’t help you over the phone.  He’d stood by, helpless while you’d been abducted out of your own home.  But now he couldn’t do so much as his own job to help save you.  What kind of father was he?
Emily senses Luke’s uneasiness and places a reassuring hand on his sunken shoulder.  “Luke, we will find her.”  
She sounds so sure of herself.  
“We will not rest until we do.”
When your mom still lived with you and your dad, she had a painting of a potted plant hanging in the hall.  
“Why don’t we just get a plant?” you’d asked her, imagining a real snake plant would be much prettier than this dull painting of one.  
But she’d shaken her head, “I can’t keep a plant alive for the life of me.  Plants die.  But a picture will live forever.”
You’re staring at a similar painting now hanging up on an unfamiliar blue wall.  It’s wild and green and the leaves are all spilling over the edge of it’s pot.  They’re growing in all directions, some combing towards a window, some stretching towards the sky.  There was no logic or gravity or sense in it.  But that plant was going to live forever. 
The same couldn’t be said for you. 
“Are you sure, Garcia?” Emily asked.  Her, Reid, and Luke were gathered in the conference room, sitting in chairs around the table.  
Garcia nodded, her laptop clutched tightly in her hand. 
“I’m sure, the other four girls’ families all received distressed calls roughly six hours after the initial abduction.”
“Why did no one tie these crimes together until now?” Emily wondered out loud. 
“Because he crossed state lines, there was no communication between the stations, so no one made the connection,” Garcia explained. 
“Wait-” Luke interrupted, not entirely sure he heard his coworker right.  “You’re telling me that I’m gonna get a call from her?”
Garcia nods slowly. “If he follows the pattern.”
Luke’s mouth feels dry.  “Can you trace it?” 
She shrugs, shifting the laptop into her other hand.  “I can try- I mean, I’ll definitely try.  It just depends on if it’s a disposable, how many cell towers are in the area, how long the call is-”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” Luke mumbles. 
Luke watches the clock like it’s his job for the next hour.  He concentrates his eyes on the digital numbers on his phone screen, trying not to let his mind think about anything else.  By anything else, he meant you and whether or not you were still alive.  
When six hours past your abduction came and went, Luke was beside himself.  
“Why isn’t she calling?” he asked, there was a knot in his throat reminding him that he was on the verge of tears any second now.  
“Some of the calls were made up to seven hours after abduction,” Emily reminded him.  “She’s going to call.”
Luke continued staring at his phone and his lockscreen.  It was a picture of you and him he’d snapped at the park from earlier that year.  You were both sitting in the grass, you with your phone in your hand, leaning into Luke, and a cheerful grin spread wide across your face.  
“You take selfies at the wrong angle!” you’d laughed at him.  “You’re supposed to hold the camera higher.”
“What? Like this?” he’d asked, extending his arm.  
“Yes! Perfect!”
That’s when he’d taken it. 
Luke’s thoughts are interrupted when an unknown number suddenly flashes across his screen. For a moment, he can’t believe what he’s seeing and he freezes in place.  Garcia clicks a key on her computer, then gives Luke a thumbs up, indicating that she was ready to begin tracking the call.    
Luke’s hesitation is short lived and after only a moment, he hurries to answer the phone.
“Daddy?” he hears your voice say. . 
“Hi sweetheart,” he answers, trying to decompress the emotion in his voice.  
Luke remembers when you were a baby, learning to walk, and were stumbling all over the place.  You would always look up to him when you’d fall, and if Luke looked concerned, you’d burst into hysterical tears.  But, if he seemed calm, you’d pick yourself up and keep going. 
“Are you hurt?” 
“N-no.” You pause. “Daddy, I’m scared-”
Luke bit his lip.  “I know you are, baby.”
He looks to Garcia, hoping to see any indication that the tracking was successful.  She shakes her head and mouths to Luke, “I need more time.”
Luke nods. “I want you to know how much I love you,” he says.  
He could practically hear the panic rise in your voice when you responded, “Are you telling me that because I’m going to die?”
“No,” he says sternly.  “No, baby.  You got everyone looking for you, we’re going to find you..”
“He says- he says that he’s going to take good care of me-” he can hear that you’re crying now in the hiccups between your words.  You always hiccuped when you cried.  
Emily slides a note towards Luke from across the table just then.  He peers at it and reads, ‘try to speak to the Unsub directly.’
He nods.  
“Baby,” he says calmly.  “Can you ask the man-” he swallows. “Can you ask the man if I can speak to him?”
Luke hears muffled voices on the other line, then a shuffle, before it’s quiet again. 
Garcia, meanwhile, is staring at her screen and typing frantically.  She mouths to Luke the word, “almost.”
When Luke hears shallow breathing on the other end of the line, he knows it’s his daughter’s abductor.  His insides fill up with rage, but he muscles it down.  He needed to remain calm. 
“My name’s Luke Alvez-” he speaks into his phone.  “I just want to talk.”
There’s more muffled sounds and then a deep, male voice speaks. “I have nothing to talk about.”
“What about Y/N?” Luke spits out, desperate to keep the Unsub on the phone.  “You must want to talk about Y/N.  It’s very clear that you care about her.”
The words taste like poison in Luke’s mouth.  But he was willing to say or do whatever it took to get her back. 
“More than you ever have!” the Unsub shouts.  
“You don’t think I care enough about my daughter?” he asks, trying to keep the conversation open ended.  As long as Luke kept him on the line, you had a chance.  
“No!” he hollers. He sounds agitated and unsteady.  “I’ve been watching her for a while now.  I see the way you leave her alone, sometimes for the entire night!”
Luke continued to press. “You don’t think seventeen year olds should be left alone?”  
“No child should ever be left alone!  That’s when accidents happen.  You can’t protect them.”
“Protect them from what?” 
Luke has to swallow back the bile that rises in his throat when he hears the Unsub sneer, “Men like me.” 
With that, the line goes dead. 
When you were little, you used to be scared of the dark.  You’d make your dad come in, after you were tucked under all the covers, and check out the whole bedroom- in the closet, under the bed, all the drawers of your dresser.  Sometimes, you’d wake up crying in the middle of the night, convinced that you’d seen something hiding in the shadows of your room.  Your dad would hurry in, quick to sit on the edge of your bed and hold you tight. 
“Monsters aren’t real,” he had assured you, his large hand tracing circled on your back. 
But now you knew he was wrong.  Monsters were real.  
Now, you sat in the dimly lit room of your capture’s house.  The sun was setting outside, soon it would be completely dark.  You were sitting against a wall, your hands now tied tightly together in front of you. 
Your capture paced rapidly on the opposite end of the room.  He ran his long fingers through his blonde hair and muttered to himself.  Whatever your dad had said to him over the phone really rattled him.  
You had faith in your dad.  He knew what he was doing.  But you wished he would’ve just stayed on the phone with you just a bit longer.  Just the sound of his voice made you feel safe. You closed your eyes and tried to hear it in your mind.  
“Were you able to track it?”  Emily is hunched over Garcia, gazing at her laptop screen with intent. 
“Not completely,” she says, frazzled.  “I was able to narrow it down.  It was a cell phone, and it pinged off from one of these two towers.” She points to the screen. 
“That’s what? A thirty mile radius?”
Garcia nods solemnly. 
Luke huffs out anxiously.  “So what?” he barks.  “What? We have nothing?”
“No-” Emily interjects.  “We have the profile.”
Hours passed since your abduction, and Luke was desperately trying not to lose hope.  
He’d attempted to call back the number you reached him on three times now.  Each time, it went straight to an automated voicemail.  
He tried to help the team, but his mind was too scattered and he couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few moments before he was worrying about you again.  
Currently, he was slouched over in the same chair he’d been sitting in all day, his arms crossed across his chest and staring up at the vision board Reid had created.  Your driver’s license picture was taped to the board, your smiling, eager face looking back at him.  
He remembers the day he’d brought you to the DMV.  He’d secretly been hoping you’d fail, but only because he was so worried about you driving on the road.  His biggest fear was one day receiving a call that you’d been in an accident. 
Turns out he should have been worried about other things. 
His thoughts are once again interrupted, this time by JJ.  She’s bursting through the conference room door like she’s on a mission. 
“Guys-” she announces.  “They just ID’d the remains of three of the four victims. They were burned in a fire pit in the radius Garcia narrowed down.”  She crossed the room and put a tack in the map Reid had taped up.  “Here,” she said.  
“Burned?” Rossi asked, narrowing his eyes.  “That’s an odd means of disposal.  Do you think it’s a forensic countermeasure?”
“I don’t think so,” Reid mused, narrowing his eyes like he always did when he was in deep thought.  “There were fingerprints and DNA all over the crime scene.  The Unsub just wasn’t a match in CODIS.  If he were so concerned with hiding evidence, he wouldn’t have left so much more behind.”
“So why burn the bodies?” JJ asks. 
Reid shrugs. “Maybe it’s part of his ritual that we never considered.”
Luke thinks back to his conversation with your capture on the phone, trying to uncover any incriminating evidence in his words.  
“He was really upset that I would leave Y/N home alone,” Luke stated out loud.  “That bothered him more than anything, he said she could be harmed.”
“What if our Unsub lost a child?” Reid mused.  “Think about it- he’s more concerned with Y/N’s safety, than anything else- which indicates that he sees her as a surrogate daughter.”
“And the taunting phone calls, to the parents- it’s to make them feel guilty for not being able to protect their children,” JJ adds. 
Reid continues, “What if that represents guilt he felt?  For not being able to protect his own child?”
“I can narrow down child deaths in the radius I was able to locate,” Garcia suggests.  She’s already typing away at her laptop. 
“Did the Unsub mention anything else?” Rossi asks Luke.  
Luke bites his lip and thinks back to the line that stunned him the most.  “He told me that ‘No child should ever be left alone,’ and that ‘that’s when accidents happen’.” 
The team mused over the quote for a moment before Reid spoke up.  “Garcia, narrow your search to child deaths by fires.”
“What’re you thinking?” Tara asks Spencer. 
“The burning of the bodies,” Reid explains.  “I think he’s making these families experience what he did.”
“Bingo,” Garcia announces.  “Megan Charles burned to death in a house fire just over a year ago, three weeks before the first victim disappeared.  Her father, Doug Charles, came home late from work one night to find the house in flames.  Firefighters couldn’t get her out in time.  She was eighteen years old,” she finished sadly. 
“You know what to do-” Emily said, as she and the rest of the team were already standing up and charging out the door. 
Luke stood up from his chair but she shook her head. 
“You can’t Luke-”
“Emily-” he pleaded, the tears he’d been holding back all night finally threatening to spill over. “Please, she’s my kid, I can’t just sit here-”
“Luke,” Emily said sternly. “You don’t have to be a hero.”
Luke shook his head. “I’m not.  But I am a father.”
Luke watches as she truly considers his plea.  “Fine,” she says, her voice softening.  “You can come, but your gun stays here and you're waiting in the car.”
“Thank you,” Luke mouths.  He strips his holster and gun from his belt and shoots after the rest of the team. 
I didn’t do the dishes, you thought as you waited for your imminent death.  
You wondered if your dad would get home and be mad to find that you didn’t do the one thing he’d asked you to do while he was away at work.  
Now that you think about it, your dad rarely got mad, he got disappointed.  You hoped disappointment wasn’t the last thing he ever thought of you.  
As Luke rode towards you and the Unsub, he thought about the day you were born.  He and his wife had been at home watching HGTV when her contractions started.  They were getting closer and closer together as Luke drove like a maniac to the hospital.  He left the car in the loading zone while he hurried his wife into the delivery room. 
As soon as the doctor placed your bundled blanket in his arms he knew that you were the very best thing that would ever happen to him.  
Your first word was ‘dada’.  And you’d cry if he ever left the room. He taught you to ride a bike and he let you paint his nails all the colors of the rainbow.  He took you hiking through all the trails in Virginia and would always bring the ingredients for s’mores on your camping trips.  He’d watch dramatic teenage TV shows he had absolutely no interest in just to spend time with you.  You’d talk about everything from which character from The Office you felt best represented you to why mothers leave their children sometimes. 
When the SUV pulled into the driveway of the Unsub’s house, Luke unbuckled his seatbelt by habit.  He was about to open the door to the SUV when Emily stopped him. 
“Alvez, stay here.” She ordered. 
Luke wanted to protest, but deep down, he knew she was right.  He wasn’t sure what he would do upon seeing the man who had taken you away from him.  And what if the team was too late?  Luke knew he wouldn’t hesitate before killing Doug Charles with his bare hands.
He nods while biting his lip harshly.  “Bring back my daughter,” he pleads. 
Emily nods.  “We will.”
This wasn’t how, or when, you thought your life would end.  You were only seventeen, afterall. 
As this complete stranger walked towards you with a knife and a devilish look in his eyes, you thought about how much you wanted to do.  Like go to Europe- or see Niagara Falls.  You wanted to skydive and snorkel in the ocean.  You wanted to drink coffee in Paris and ride a camel in Egypt.  You wanted to fall in love.  
You were running through the list in your own head when you heard a smashing sound from down the hall.  
Your eyes went wide with fear while the man above you snatched you into his arms.  He hoisted you to your feet and barreled his arm across your chest, the knife pressing into your throat threateningly. 
“Doug Charles, FBI!” A familiar voice boomed.   You recognized it as Matt’s. 
Footsteps grew closer until the door between you and the hall was opened hastily.  
A handful of known faces filed into the room.  Your eyes first land on Rossi.  You’d been to his house before for spaghetti dinners.  He’s holding his gun out in front of him, much like everyone else in the room.  You searched their faces frantically for your dads.  But you quickly realized that he wasn’t there.  
“Drop the knife,” Emily says slowly.  
You struggle to breath against the pressure of the man’s arm over your chest.  You feel the blade against your skin, it’s sharp and ready to slit your throat at any minute.  You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remain as still as possible. 
“Doug- we know what happened to your daughter.” You recognize the voice as Spencer’s.  “But what happened wasn't your fault.”
You feel the man’s grip tighten on you. “Shut up!” he boomed.  
“What happened to Megan was horrible,” Reid pressed. “It was horrible, but it was an accident, and it wasn’t your fault.  You can’t blame yourself.  Killing Y/N isn’t going to bring Megan back.”
“Look at her,” Emily interjects.  “She’s a seventeen year old girl.  One year younger than Megan was.  She’s innocent, Doug.  Just like Megan was.  Don’t hurt her, let her go.”
To your disbelief, after a few moments, you actually feel the grip on you loosen before it’s released altogether.  You use the opportunity to launch yourself forward towards what you presumed as safety.  Spencer was the first one to catch you.  He wraps his arms around your shaking shoulders and shields you as he hurries you out of the room before you can see anything else.  You barely hear Emily’s voice as she reads the man his Miranda Rights in the distance. 
“M-my dad-” you spit out, your voice wavering. 
“He’s outside,” Spencer assures you, his grip around your shoulders tightening as he feels you growing unsteady.  “I got you,” he assures you. 
Before your eyes could even adjust to the darkness of the outside, you hear a voice calling your name. 
Dad, you thought. 
Your legs, despite being wobbly, stepped forward towards the voice, until you could see him pushing past the other officers and EMT’s on the scene.  
“Dad!” you shouted.  
“Y/N, oh my God,” he took three giant steps forward before crushing you into his arms.  He held you so tight you almost couldn’t breathe.  But you noticed that as soon as he touched you, you stopped shaking.  
“Are you okay?” he asked. 
You nodded against him.  
“You’re not hurt?” he pulled away, holding you at arms length.  There was worry and concern written all over his face, and he stared into your eyes as if trying to gauge the damage done.  
“I’m okay,” you told him.  
Luke nodded only once before pulling you back into his embrace, and at last you felt at peace.  Luke realized that holding you in his arms felt like a plane touching down in his own city again, when he’d realize that the only reason he ever left in the first place was to remember what it felt like to come home. 
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drivingsideways · 3 years
Text
Misaeng review
Ok, it's been almost a week, so I feel like I can get my thoughts (somewhat) in order. As usual, I'm late to the party, given that Misaeng aired 6 years ago, and is already considered a kdrama classic. Still: thoughts!
(under the cut)
I came to this drama with quite a lot of expectations, both because I'd seen it on a lot of rec lists, and also because I'd watched director Kim Won-seok's Signal and My Mister, which are justifiably as beloved as Misaeng. I'm happy to report that Misaeng mostly lived up to those expectations!
The writing & direction work together to make Misaeng a very immersive experience, which is good, considering the entire run time is over 20 hrs. The level of seemingly mundane detail of the operational aspects of running a trading firm that they delve into (and other dramas might have avoided for sake of pacing) seemed odd to me at first, but eventually result in a world building that's incredibly well fleshed out. The (formerly unlikely!) high stakes of a misplaced piece of paper or octopuses in a shipment of squid end up being parts of an emotionally wrenching narrative whole fairly seamlessly. Still, at 20+ hours, Misaeng also does get into the kind of pacing issues that most of the slice of life kdramas I've watched so far have. And it didn't need to! I think it had a wonderful ensemble of characters, and if they'd maybe given a little more time and space to characters other than Jang Geu-Rae (Im Si wan) and Oh Sang-sik (Lee Sung-min), the mid portions may not have felt quite so, well, stuck.
But more than the strong writing and direction, it was really the actors who delivered. They made what could have easily been a dull-ish office drama into a heart warming story about human connection and the joys and troubles of leading an "incomplete life". I'd never watched Lee Sung-min in anything before, and about half way through the series I was like, HOW IS HE MAKING A SHORT TEMPERED, ALCHOHOLIC MIDDLE MANAGER SO SEXY? Like, serious props, dude. Lee Sung-min is by turns annoying and brash and too shout-y and stubborn and funny and so incredibly vulnerable as a man trying his best to live by his principles in a world that thinks they are an impediment to "success", that you forget that he's playing a fictional character-- he's someone you know, he's someone you've seen in the mirror.
His performance as Oh Sang-sik is very ably matched by Im Si Wan's Jang Geu-Rae. This series would not have worked if these two actors didn't have the chemistry they do, and play off each other in every scene. I had watched Im Si Wan recently- in JTBC's "Run On", in which I liked his performance quite a lot, but I absolutely loved him as the naive and endearing Jang Geu-rae. Misaeng, is in part, a bildungsroman narrative centered around Jang Geu Rae. Im Si wan brought a kind of vulnerability to the role that might have felt cloying and emotionally manipulative in the hands of other actors, but Im Si-wan manages to do it with a light touch. I feel he's one of those actors that uses his whole body in a scene, not just relying on facial or verbal expression, and it's a joy to watch.
Each of the other actors in the ensemble also bring that dedication and talent to their roles, even if it's in a single scene. There are lots of one-off characters that we meet during the course of the series, and every single one of them leaves an impact.
But! I'm going to pick a fave from the supporting cast and that's Byun Yo-han, whom I'd last watched as the broody, troubled (and very sexy) swordsman Lee Bang-ji in Six Flying Dragons. I can't imagine a character more in opposition to that one than Han Seok-yul in Misaeng, but Byun Yo-han just knocks it out of the park as the scheming, cheerful and mostly inappropriate clown with a heart of gold; Han Seok-yul is the definition of Chaotic Good, and you're equal parts horrified by his antics- which include sexual harassment dont @ me -- and yet charmed by him. I wish they'd given him a few more scenes and a larger plotline to work with, but I also suspect that he might have just walked away with the entire series if they did that. (Am I plotting that series in my head as I write this? MAYBE.)
Alright, this is getting a bit too long, so I'm going to get to the bits that disappointed me. That's really one major thing: the gender politics. I don't know how different the show is from the web toon it's based on, so I can't tell whether they made significant changes to the basic plot and characters. As in- I have no idea if the webtoon was as male dominated in every way as the show is, so I'm not sure how much of the show's treatment of women as a class, and its female characters in particular, I should lay at the door of the original writer vs the screenwriter and director. I'm also lacking the Korean context in which this was written and made and aired, so you may take my criticism with a pinch of salt, if you please!
That the show features mainly male characters is perhaps unsurprising and realistic, since we know that the kind of corporate life it depicts is very male dominated, top to bottom. The show also portrays the very real and horrific overt and subtle misogyny that women face in the workplace and out of it; mainly in the character of Ahn Young-yi, played with steely determination and quiet suffering by the lovely Kang so-ra. There are only 3 other female characters that have any sort of real speaking role- Sun Ji Young (played by Shin Eun jung), a senior manager at the company, Jang Geu-rae's unnamed(!) mother (played by the amazing Sung Byoung-Sook) and Oh Sang-sik's unnamed (!) wife (played by Oh Yoon-Hong, who's a delight in every tiny scene she has). There are other women who appear but in very minor roles, and often in "comedy" moments that often rely on sexist tropes to start with.
Anyway, right there you can see one of the problems- 4 women characters that have any kind of real screen time, and only 2 of them are named. Aigoo! Screenwriter Jung Yoon-jung is a woman, and like, I don't like putting the burden on any one woman to y'know fix structural misogyny, but I can't also help feeling disappointed that she overlooked even this "small" thing among the larger things.
But that apart, the main issue for me was that while the show doesn't shy away from depicting egregious sexism in the form of sexual harrassment, verbal and physical and certainly emotional abuse, in a manner that's clear that we are meant to be horrified by it--it falls short of depicting how women deal and work with it. It just doesn't give enough space to women or their worldview.
It's very comfortable depicting victimhood, but doesn't put work into depicting the ways in which women survive by finding solidarity with other women. We have a scene or two where Ahn Young-yi who is this show's poster child for female victimhood interacts with the older women who offer sympathy and understanding, but no real strategy or support. And yes, we see men also being targeted by their seniors for the grossest verbal and physical abuse; and it's men who help Ahn Young-yi strategise on how to deal with her situation. Real life experience tells me that it's the women who do this work for other women. I have certainly been on both sides of this equation, for one, and so has every woman that I know in corporate life. And yes, one of the show's core philosophies is that those who endure, survive--but it is none the less extremely painful to watch Ahn Young yi "endure" the kind of abuse she does as a coping strategy and a survival strategy.
At the end of it, when she slowly manages to gain the support of her sexist team, it's shown as a victory-- though naturally imperfect, because this show takes its Realism very seriously (right until the end where it makes a tonal shift into quirky that I was a little ?? about)-- and y'know, sure, it is a victory. And I absolutely understand the choices she makes and why she does it-- I guess I just got annoyed by the fact that other antagonistic figures in the narrative get a more straightforward comeuppance for their egregious behavior, but Ahn Young-yi doesn't even get a goddamned apology from her abusers. Instead, we have a half humourous, half serious moment where she comments on how she's working at turning herself into "someone cute"- because she understands now that sometimes the right strategy is to "go with the flow". Be the water that slowly wears away at the rock. It's an interesting moment- the men she tells this to are taken aback by her bluntness, but also a little clueless about what she means. It's the kind of nuance that I would and do enjoy. Unfortunately, it also closely follows one of the show's most annoying scenes at the tail end of the series- where it tries to play off workplace sexism and misogyny as comedy- boys being boys-Reader, when I tell you that I had to WORK to unclench my jaw--!
I'm not saying we should have a single and obvious narrative of female emancipation. I'm not against realism in fiction, but god, sometimes, please do remember that when we look for escapism, we are actually imagining a better world. The first step toward liberation is allowing yourself to imagine it.
And the show does allow other characters its moments of unfettered fantasy- Im Si Wan parkour-ing all over the rooftops of Amman- and having a semi mystical + Indiana Jones moment in the deserts of Jordan--so why, I ask, are the women not given that gift?
*looks into the camera *
Tl;dr: I enjoyed it, it made me cry every episode, and I cared about all the characters, and if you haven't watched it yet, treat yourselves.
PS. Yes, Han Seok-yul is a disaster bi, sorry, I don't make the rules. Yes, hotties Oh Min Seok and Kang Ha-neul are canonically naked in a hot tub six feet apart because they are bros. Yes, I will be writing the fix it in which they fuck like angry bunnies. Yes, I am going to put my shipper cooties all over this gen slice of life show, deal with it.
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sanktnikolais · 4 years
Text
Unknown King
A/N: me and @wafflesandkruge​ have synergized again for like the 90387459th time on a new project and here’s some TIDEMAKER NIK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time to rewrite canon and have more Tidemakers bc Leigh never gave us any Tidemaker aside from Council of Tides who didn’t even make an appearance in SoC/CK i’m super salty
This is set pre-KoS tho
Word count: 2630
Nikolai Lantsov wasn’t a man with a lot of secrets. Being someone of a royal bloodline meant little to almost no privacy, and along with it were rumors sometimes dangerously close to the truth while others were just downright absurd. But perhaps he understood why people would talk; they loved having something to pique their attention. Even if it was something strange and impossible—improbable, as he preferred—they would twist the ‘truth’ to their own liking and satisfy their belief.
         There were many things the people could handle. The one thing they could never manage was the truth.
         And for the current king of Ravka, him being Grisha wasn’t something anyone could accept.
---
Staring blankly at the cup of coffee in front of him, Nikolai didn’t mind the rising voices from his Commander and some duke from Ivets. Or was it Os Kervo? Arkesk? He didn’t remember. But wherever he came from, the disrespectful tone he was currently using with Zoya was starting to make Nikolai’s ears ring.
         “I have sworn fealty to the crown,” the duke was telling Zoya. Nikolai had even forgotten his name, which was new. He always remembered names. “You do not get to talk to me about issues of loyalty, because my kind had never turned against the throne.”
         It ticked something in Nikolai’s attention, making him look up from the mug in front of him. He raised an eyebrow in the duke’s direction, but the latter seemed to be focused on trying to overpower his General.
         There was a shift in the mood, and the atmosphere had become colder. “What did you say?” Zoya said, her voice quiet and laced with underlying anger that was begging to be released. “I didn’t quite understand what you meant by that, Duke Reznov. May I ask you to repeat that?”
         “I believe I didn’t stutter, General,” Reznov replied. “Don’t presume we’ve forgotten who created the Fold that affected us for centuries.”
         Zoya’s hand twitched, and she lowered it to her lap to hide her now clenched fist.
         “No one is forgetting that, Sir Reznov,” Nikolai said mildly. He remembered the man now. The duke of Os Kervo—Ravka’s port city. He tried to offer a smile to the duke, hoping that it didn’t look forced to give away his rising temper. “But can I request you to watch your tone? You are still speaking to the General of Ravka.”
         He knew Zoya wasn’t the type to have someone defend her as he trusted her to be able to do it on her own, but their current situation deemed it necessary.
         “I was wondering when you would speak, Your Highness.” Reznov gave him a polite smile, his expression changing as if he weren’t just trying to insult the General a moment ago. “Should we get to the actual business?”
         Nikolai had already anticipated the direction the conversation was going, and yet he still found himself slowly getting peeved. Perhaps he himself wasn’t that pessimistic and expected the better from the duke. He shouldn’t have set his expectations that high for someone of West Ravka.
         “We were already talking, Duke Reznov,” said Zoya. Her voice had lowered to a much deadlier tone. But if the duke noticed it, he didn’t bother acknowledging her. “Maybe you should—”
         “Maybe I should make it clear that you are  on my property, Nazyalensky, and you are not the king,” Reznov said with enough spite to make Nikolai’s almost nonexistent rage resurface. He was trying to look neutral, but a look of disgust was evident in the duke’s eyes. “If you want something from me, I will speak only to the king, and the king alone.”
         The whole room became silent, and there was no denying the sudden tension that spiked in the air. Tamar, who was guarding the door alongside the duke’s head of security, almost looked like she was ready to lunge at Reznov the moment Nikolai allowed her to. She turned her gaze to him, but he only shook his head lightly, and Tamar relaxed.
         It wasn’t the time to let emotions get the best of them. Business was business. And if the duke would continue to be the donkey’s ass Nikolai knew him to be, then he should probably give him a hindsight of what he knew.
         He glanced at Zoya out of the corner of his eye. This was one of the rare times he would allow her to act out her anger and cut the air out of the duke’s lungs for a moment—a warning of what she was capable of. She had every right to, after everything Reznov had said to her. He wouldn’t let one of his close confidantes be talked down by someone of lower rank than her.
         But more than two years of having to endure people still being hostile around his Grisha Triumvirate had made her an expert of putting on a neutral face. Even though her jaw was set and her eyes were burning with fury, she only huffed, leaning back in her chair. He could already hear her sharp tone in his head, when she would go off on a tirade of insults in the confines of their war room or his chambers.
         More patience was needed than he expected. Duke Reznov was all too smug and egotistical for his own liking, and Nikolai decided to take matters into his own hands.
         “Very well,” Nikolai said. He leaned back in his chair, mustering the calmest look he could offer and smiling subtly. “Let us indeed talk, Sir Reznov.” He took the teaspoon on the small plate on the side and began mixing the coffee in his mug again. “Perhaps we should start with the taxes you somehow were able to evade for the past three years?”
         Reznov’s face became pale, and Nikolai had to fight a smirk on his lips. There was a reason he made Tamar the head of intelligence. Her network of spies always did wonders when gaining information.
         “Is this a threat?” asked Reznov, his voice rising an octave. He huffed in disbelief as he looked at Nikolai, and then at Zoya. “Is this because I refused to talk with your General?”
         Nikolai shrugged. “Maybe.”
         “And then maybe I should make it clear that I do not negotiate with her, Your Highness,” the duke said, emphasizing the word in disgust as if it were some lowly scum begging for scraps. “I do not negotiate with Grisha.”
         The coffee in the mug suddenly erupted, its contents spilling on the table as the cup tipped sideways. Nikolai felt his jaw twitch with suppressed fury as he tried to calm himself down. He felt everyone’s attention on him. It didn’t help. The fear of them knowing the truth caused his thoughts to fall into shambles. He could feel his control slipping away with each second.
         Quick. His hand was still holding the teaspoon, and he focused his attention there.
         Our abilities are like our emotions, Your Highness, Tolya’s voice during their time on the seas echoed in his head. If we prefer to not show it, then we should learn how to control it and separate it from feelings.
         He wished he hadn’t let his anger take over that one morning when he was eight. If he knew even before, would it have been different?
         Nikolai nothing.
         His late brother’s voice overpowered the voices of Tolya and Tamar trying to remind him to regain control.
         The young Nikolai had been consumed by anger back then, the immediate force of his power rushing through his blood, and the peaceful waters of the lake were disturbed and he was directing the waves towards his older brother.
         He would never forget the look of horror and disgust both his father and brother gave him when they knew of his abilities.
         A gentle nudge on his arm jolted him out of the nightmare, and Nikolai turned to see Zoya staring at him with a mixture of confusion and concern. She jutted her chin down, gesturing to his side. He blinked, and it was only then he became aware that his other hand clenched in a fist was trembling badly. His mind panicked.
         Did she come to realize it was him?
         But when she didn’t do anything else besides letting go of his arm, he figured she hadn’t caught up yet.
         Good, he thought. No one else needs to know. She didn't need to know.
         The twins were some of the few people who knew about his secret, and they had been a huge help to him when he was learning how to manage it again. But he figured maybe his abilities were just too tied with his emotions to separate them.
         Nikolai looked forward again, his gaze returning to the duke, who still had a bewildered expression on his face. He offered him a smile. “My apologies, Sir Reznov,” he said, unclenching his hand at his side. Deep breaths. “I believe my hand suddenly had a mind of its own and decided to tip the cup.”
         Reznov's eyes were hard, but his tone was calm and composed when he said, "That is no problem, Your Highness. Please leave it, the servants will take care of it later."
         Movements from the door caught his eye, making Nikolai look up, and he met Tamar’s narrowed gaze as if she were saying, what was that. He almost felt guilty for forgetting all the things they taught him. With a small grimace, he gave the guard an apologetic look.
         He could feel Zoya’s gaze on him as he turned his attention back to the duke, who was now looking at him with hostility that he only gave Zoya earlier. Maybe it was time to remove the mask of the considerate king and show the manipulative persona he had developed after years of traveling the seas.
         “Then let’s get back to business, shall we?” said Nikolai. He ignored the look of protest on Reznov’s face. “I will get straight to the point, Reznov.” Time to drop the pretense of being calm. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I do not take lightly to people who are trying to deceive the crown and its people. What you’ve done is a serious offense, and the sentence is how many years in prison again, General?”
         “Six years,” replied Zoya. The smugness in her tone returned, and he could practically see her fighting back a smirk. “Minimum.”
         Nikolai nodded in understanding, as if it was his first time hearing about the information. “Six years is quite a long time, don’t you think?” He furrowed his eyebrows when a thought clicked in his head. “I wonder how would the duke of Arkesk react when he learns that the person who asked for his sponsorship for the additional ports is suddenly charged with tax evasion?” He leaned back in his chair and raised his hands casually. “He wouldn’t be able to embezzle a part of the overpriced port fees now, would he?”
         By that time, Reznov had gone completely white, and he looked like a puppy backed into a corner with no way out. Nikolai regarded him with a mere raise of an eyebrow. Everything was starting to tilt back to their advantage. Perhaps the way he dealt with the situation was cruel, but he wouldn’t have laid down his cards if Reznov had been at least friendly from the start.
         “You—you have no evidence that I did it. My assistant will show you the records—”
         “Your assistant was more willing to talk than I expected.” Nikolai sneered, and then he laughed lightly. He could never forget the look on the assistant’s face when Nikolai and the twins paid him a visit sometime last week. “Didn’t even need to finish the question for him to start spilling everything. He even gave us your real financial records. I have to say the numbers were quite...unusual. So far from the fake ones you use for the sake of having a government record.”
         He could basically see the duke fuming, and if it were some other time, he was sure he would have savored the look on Reznov’s face. But Nikolai didn’t feel anything else other than resentment, and it was mostly towards himself. There was still a part of him that said this wasn’t the right way to handle things.
         Not the time to have a moral dilemma, Lantsov, he told himself. It was the only way to make it through this meeting without doing something even worse.
         The tense silence stretched in the room, with Nikolai and the duke having a stare down. Whatever authority Reznov thought he had earlier dissipated to nothing, the defeated look in his eyes slowly becoming evident as he shifted his gaze back and forth to Nikolai and his general. It only took him a few more moments of consideration until he spoke.
         “What do you want?”
         Nikolai felt a triumphant smirk twitch on his lips. “Five ports for my own ships,” he said, raising a finger when Reznov looked like he was about to protest. “And twenty percent of the total revenue of the rest of the ports will go directly to the country’s funds.”
         Reznov huffed in disbelief. “This is extortion.”
         “Tell that to honest sailors and workers that were still paying your overpriced rates. The money that was supposed to be for the people just went straight to your pockets, Reznov. This is the least you could do.” Nikolai shook his head. “Do we have a deal, then?”
         The duke of Os Kervo didn’t answer right away, the unwillingness to agree to the terms evident in his angry gaze. Nikolai knew Reznov had no choice other than to accept, unless he wanted to see the rest of his trading business shut down because of bankruptcy, so the king of Ravka did what he did best—take advantage of the situation as much as he could.
         And that was exactly what he did.
         You’re no different from your father and the kings before him, his conscience said. But he shoved it away. It wasn’t the right time to lament over things he had already done, otherwise he might risk losing control again and giving his identity away.
         People were already hesitant to trust Grisha working for the crown. What more if they knew that their king was of the same kind they were so adamant against putting their faith in?
         He had been lying to them his whole life, he could still lie for a much longer time.
         The duke’s voice came later, and when he finally spoke, it was in a begrudging tone. “Done.”
         Nikolai heard Zoya release a breath, and then he gave Reznov a smile that looked more mocking than grateful. “Thank you for consideration, Sir Reznov,” he said. “You have done greatness for your country today. Such an act won’t be easily forgotten.” He stood up and held out his hand for a shake, but the duke didn’t as much as move from his place and just stared at his hands on the table, refusing to acknowledge the gesture. Nikolai almost pitied him. He let his hand fall to his side. “Well, then. I think we’re finished here. Zoya?”
         His general stood up without another word, stepping back to let him pass first before she followed him. He knew he should be feeling triumphant, they just got a better deal than they had planned. Coming all the way to Os Kervo wasn’t a waste, after all. But he felt nothing. Empty.
         And as he walked out of the duke’s office, then out of the estate, his hands were still trembling.
         There is no place for a Grisha king.
         Nikolai was starting to believe it.
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