#(the yellow lines not the patchwork) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tinytennisskirt · 3 months ago

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Small Victories

Summary: based on a request, Stanford tennis player! reader and Art strike up a new friendship as they're both pretty lonely at Stanford. It's platonic and fun, but reader is taken out of the tennis season after a serious injury ruins her leg. Recovery is hard, but Art is there the entire way insisting you get back to tennis- and as you slowly heal, he slowly falls harder and harder. It becomes undeniable that you two belong together when you finally get back on the court and win your first game post-injury... when things left unsaid can't stay unsaid.

Warning: mentions of broken bones and blood. Mention of sex. Kissing. A little angst, and a tiny bit of miscommunication if you squint. Slowburn friends to lovers. A good amount of fluff and fun. 13k words- brace yourselves.

It was your first day at Stanford after spending your first night in your dorm room. You had some free time so you’d been spending it unboxing and putting away more of your clothes and things. You covered the ugly boring walls with simple patchwork tapestry, and carefully hung your star-shaped string lights. You set up your computer at the provided desk, moving it to the corner where it was level with the table you’d set up your microwave and kettle on. You made the bed, organized your rackets, and you would have never been this clean if you were at home, but you were a little too bored and you were racking up the nerve to go and speak to people. Meeting new people.

It’s not like you were socially inept at all, but the anticipation was killer. Being so far away from everyone you knew, having this pressure to make friends here or being around wouldn’t be all that worthwhile. Yes, you loved tennis. Yes, you were so glad to be at Stanford. But could you enjoy it without any friends? No. When you decided your room was done, you logged onto your computer to look over the campus website to see if maybe there were any events tonight.

You found a few as you scrolled. They had a painting class led by an instructor, not your thing. They had an acapella group info night, which could be fun, but you couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. You scrolled down to the sports section. Football team info night, lacrosse recruitment, and you saw it, perfectly dated for today at eight, a tennis mixer for all tennis students in the far corner garden on campus, just a ten-minute walk. You shut your computer off and immediately started going through your clothes.

You ended up in your favourite jeans and a light purple tank top, pairing it with some casual Converse you’d had for two years, a nice belt, some pretty earrings, and the most dainty necklace you had. You did your makeup in the mirror, getting your eyeliner right in one try which was an absolute wonder, and finished everything off with a pairing of blotted lipstick and lip balm. You looked over everything in the mirror, fixing the curl of your hair just a bit before you packed the simple things into a small bag and headed out the door.

The garden was cute, it was a little corner boxed in with hedges, full of picnic tables and lawn chairs. You looked up and down the edges lined with pretty pink, orange, yellow, and purple flowers. The 90s music from a radio in the corner was fairly loud, but more dull than the conversation between who you assumed were your peers. A wave of excitement hit as you looked up and around these people, not exactly watching as you stepped backward, foot hitting the side of someone else’s and tripping just slightly in the same direction. Thank god you caught your balance, because without it you might have ended up on the person behind you’s lap.

“You okay?” He asked, hands up, ready to catch if he needed. You turned, fixing yourself, trying to hide your embarrassment. This was an amazing start, you thought to yourself, chuckling nervously. His eyes were soft and genuine, and he was asking.

“Oh, yeah, just not looking where I was walking,” You smiled. “I’m so sorry.”

He smiled back, “No, you’re good, don’t worry about it. I sit with my feet too far out anyway.” He said, getting up out of the chair he was sitting in with his drink. You noted just how nice his voice sounded, you’d never heard anyone with his tone. “My name is Art… Donaldson.” He extended his free hand to you and you were a little surprised but glad.

“Y/N,” You answered, unable to control the grin that came from meeting someone already, even if you nearly tripped into him. You eyed him up and down a moment. He was taller than you, thin, with blonde curls and a big smile. Bigger than one you would have gotten from anyone else you spoke to if you had ended up speaking to anyone else that night. “You’re in the tennis program?” You asked.

“Yeah,” He grinned. “And you too, I assume.”

“Mhm,” You nodded back. “First year. Nervous.” You admit, feeling like maybe he’d get it. And he did, no doubt.

Art ruffled his hair, “Oh yeah. I’m on residency, so it’s not much different from my previous school, but I don’t know anyone, so it’s a little weird. I had to check the campus website for anything to do to get out and meet people.” He spoke a lot with his hands, you noted along with the fact you had done the exact same thing. He was also just speaking to speak, you noticed as you nodded along, smiling. He was nervous too. “Are you on residency?” He asked, ending his little spiel. You’d let him talk just to hear him talk, finding his voice unique and a little bit pretty. And he was nice.

“I am, I spent the whole day organizing and decorating my room,” You chuckled, stepping aside to grab yourself a can of iced tea, and cracking it open. Art watched as you did, studying the dainty rings on your fingers, the way the one strand of hair fell in your face when you tripped and you hadn’t yet thought to move it. “Things are a lot harder to do without a staple gun.” You told him.

He sipped his own drink, “Mmm, right? Took me seven attempts to hang up my poster today with that stupid blue clay stuff.”

“Oh, that stuff is nasty.” He liked how you crinkled your nose. “I bought this glue-brand double-sided tape. It’s a game-changer, but so sticky.” And the embarrassment from nearly tripping eased away as the conversation enhanced itself. He was sweet and funny and kind and truly seemed like he was hearing what you said. Art was truthfully just glad he found anyone to talk to after Patrick left last night and as the conversation moved over the regular small talk, he found he didn’t really want to talk to anyone else.

The night went on and people were leaving now and then, but you and Art sat on the bench in the very corner of the corner garden unphased, just talking about your histories with tennis. Soon you knew all of his best victories and he knew yours and he also knew you liked music more than most things, tennis included, him making mental note of what songs to listen to when he went back to his dorm room. He felt a lot less alone in Patrick’s absence than he’d expected and you were so interesting. He also knew you were a big fan of iced coffee, had a lucky tennis racket, and had a love for star-shaped things. Just as you knew his best game was his doubles at the Junior US Open with his best friend who you’d heard a lot about now, just as you heard about his past at Mark Rebatello’s Tennis Academy, how his favourite thing to do in tennis is serve, and his favourite post-game meal is chicken wings. Your conversation naturally covered all the simple things and when the night truly had to come to an end, he gladly walked you back to your dorm.

“It’s been really nice meeting you,” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as you approached your door. Part of him knew he could probably tell you everything and anything about himself and you’d listen and that’s what he liked about you. “Glad someone spoke to me.”

“Well, I tripped, so we’re just lucky, I suppose.”

He twisted his mouth to the side, “I guess so, but who’s to say I didn’t do it on purpose?” He questioned with a teasing smile.

You laughed quietly, “It’s been nice meeting you too. I’ll see you around the court?”

“Probably,” He replied, shoving his hands into his pockets as you leaned against the door. “I look forward to it.” A grin slowly crept up his face, unable to hide itself. He was not in a particular lack, but gaining you was something he wouldn’t regret and he knew it. “I’ll see you around.”

You couldn’t help but grin right back- his smile was so wide it was hard to ignore. “Goodnight, Art.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

You saw him again the next day, more than enthused to see a familiar face around. You had your hair up in a ponytail, sporting a white skort and black tank top and he was in blue gym shorts and a sports t-shirt that was just a tad lighter than his shorts.

“Hey you,” You smiled as you approached. He turned, more than happy to see you as well.

“Hey,” he replied, setting his things down on the nearest bench. You beamed, doing the same. “How are you?”

“I’m good, how are you?” You asked, hopping up and starting to stretch. He had his hands shoved in his pockets. “Co-op doubles today, you want to be my partner?” He asked. You were nodding yes before he even finished the sentence.

It was that day that Art realized just how good you were at tennis and how distracting it was playing doubles when all he wanted to do was watch you play. It was almost hypnotizing to see you do your thing and he was honestly a little proud he’d made your acquaintance before you demolished the other team so he wouldn’t have had to look like a suck up approaching you afterward.

You jumped and high fived him when you two won the scrimmage and Art knew he picked the perfect tennis partner for sure. As for you, he impressed you vastly past your expectations. He was amazing at serving so no wonder it was his favourite.

“That was crazy,” Art huffed, breathing out. “That was amazing.”

“Your serves are crazy,” you gushed, turning to him. “You’re amazing, that was amazing that serve at the end completely threw them.”

Art shook his head, “As if you didn’t completely end the game with that last swing, that was incredible.” He gestured openly, then let his arms fall to his sides. “You want to go again?”

Technically you were supposed to switch partners, but Art just didn’t want to take that chance. He had you as a partner and he would have to swap it out? No thanks.

Your smile turned itself into a smirk, you had other thoughts. “Maybe after.” You said and jogged over to the boy you’d just gone up against and asked him to play with you and Art knew what you were doing. You wanted to play against him.

It turned out to be a problem because now Art had a full view of how you played and it really was hypnotic. You obviously had a well-learned method for every swing and situation and you knew exactly what was in your section and what was in your partner’s. Art was grinning, watching you play and honestly hardly paying much attention to the fact that he himself was in the game. He missed a few balls just because he was watching your swing. You were good, you were really good, and that fact being distracting was not very useful to a scrimmage.

When the game ended and you had a bit of a water break, you jogged over, “What was that?” You laughed.

Art shrugged, chuckling. “You’re really good.” He took a long drink from his water bottle, knowing the reason he gave you wasn’t very detailed but it was honest.

You and Art were partners for most co-op doubles that week, hanging out almost every day after or before. You two were fast friends- him enjoying how passionate you were when you talked and shared the things you liked and the way you went about tennis, you enjoying having a great partner for scrimmages and the things he talked about. Having a familiar face around all the time was the ease you needed to fully get yourself situated at Stanford. It was fun to have someone that you wanted to see every day who happened to want to see you just the same. You two were friends quicker than anyone you’d ever known, like something just clicked and fit into place- he was fun and a little bit wild when he wasn’t shy, and he loved music just as much as you did, it turned out, which was surprising.

You’d sit in his car for hours just talking with music in the background. “Okay, so McDonalds fries versus Arby’s.” You said, picking through the McDonald’s fries you two bought on the way back to campus. Art put the car in park and you were leaned against the car door, sitting facing him. “Don’t say Arby’s, I’m begging you.”

He smiled and shrugged a little sheepishly, “They’re thicker.” He reasoned.

“Uh-huh, I see how it is,” you said, rolling your eyes at him. He hid his face in his hands. “McDonald's are so classic.”

He raised his head, “True-“ he spoke with too many in his mouth and you smiled. “- But Arby’s are curly. Which means more.”

“Okay so you’re settled on the fact that it’s more food,” you laughed, popping a small one in your mouth. “Here I was going off of taste.”

“You can’t go off taste alone because quality is so important,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “McDonalds fries are good but the quality is shit.”

“You’re right but you can ignore that-“

“I have to ignore that while you ignore thicket and curlier?” He laughed. “No-“ he couldn’t get through his words laughing, “We are done here.”

“What-“ you laughed. “No, come on.”

He gestured wide, hand on your upper arm, sliding down to rest on your forearm, “You’ve just proven you can’t debate, it’s pointless-“ he couldn’t stop laughing, and from that point on neither could you. It was contagious and spread throughout the car like the air conditioning that circulated. It was good laughter, sweet, and unending because whenever one of you tried to stop, even looking at the other would cause you both to burst out laughing again. It was a cycle that made your ribs ache, your heart beat harder in your chest and your breath impossible to catch. The laughter only ended when you were both in too much pain to continue.

Art rubbed his eyes, leaning against the car's center console, catching his breath. He missed Patrick but not so much when you were around. He was glad he had you and that was one of the only thoughts in his head as he looked at you, catching your breath as well. Your smile was gorgeous was the afterthought but there was no afterthought to that thought itself, just that you were and it was. You moved your hair from your face and he thought again about the fry conversation and he nearly laughed again, but he tried hard not to.

The truth was Art did have thoughts like that often. You saw him every day, you were funny and talented, and Art loved how much you cared about everyone around you. How could he not, even for a moment, think more of you than what you two were? But he didn’t notice how often he had those thoughts because they were forgotten so easily, buried under something subconsciously.

You looked back at him, the atmosphere shifting once again. Art watched you glance at the time, “I have to get to bed, I’m so sorry,” He loved how you apologized for nothing. He’d tried to correct it at first but it was just something you couldn’t help. “I have that game tomorrow, the one I’ve been talking about, are you coming?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t miss it,” he grinned, pulling the car back into drive to bring you closer to your residency building so you wouldn’t have to walk. “Starts at ten?”

“I have to be there at ten, game at eleven.” You nodded.

“Sounds good,” He nodded back, a slight smile pulling at his lip. “I’ll see you there.”

“I guess you will. Or might. I need you there in case I need to make a run for it, I’m terrified to play that Roxy girl, she’s supposed to be so hardcore.” You pressed your hands to your face. “Thank you for hanging out, for a moment I forgot just how scared I am of tomorrow.” Your smile turned to a grin and Art’s followed. He was unable to control his smile around you.

He shook his head, “You’ll be great. You’ll kick her ass.”

“She’s Russian,” you replied. “She’s going to do more than kick mine.”

Art shook his head again, “No. Can’t think that way or else she will for sure. You kick hers, no other way.”

You took a deep breath, grin dulling back to a simple smile. “Thank you. I’ll need all the luck I can get though,” You opened his car door to get out.

“Okay, well, good luck if I don’t see you before the game, leprechauns, four-leaf clovers, break a leg, etcetera.”

You laughed and after saying goodnight, your laugh still echoed around his head. It did so until he went to sleep that night. But he didn’t think anything of it, there was no reason to.

The game the next day really did terrify you. This girl you were up against was hardcore, you spent the morning watching her games trying to figure her out but all you got was that she stepped twice before swinging left, no matter what as well as she was an amazing player. She had long sleek blonde hair that she tied up in a braided ponytail and icy eyes that seemed to stare into your soul when you saw her tennis poster. You wondered if her eyes followed you around as you got dressed into your pink skort and lilac purple tank top combo. Looking nice on the court helped a lot with your confidence.

You tied your hair up in two French braids to keep it away from your face and tried to take deep breaths as you grabbed your things and headed over to the Stanford court. It was a busy day, apparently, as a small crowd of people were waiting to get into the benches and you walked by them and into the building where you met your coach.

“You ready?” She asked and you really wanted to say no, the nerves getting to your stomach. The first big game of the season meant something. This is the beginning of what you were working for. Part of you was so ready for this all to begin, other casual games with small audiences were easy, but there was a Russian girl out there ready to demolish you. You took another deep breath.

“Yeah.” And you took your things to the court and unzipped your bag that you’d packed in a haste this morning out of pure nerves and no real rush to see that somehow, in some extreme mishap, that your lucky racket wasn’t there. You turned to your coach, who knew that when you laid all your rackets out on the sidelines that you were missing the lucky one.

And Art in the stands looked over, knowing the exact same thing. He turned to Patrick, who was visiting as of this morning, “She doesn’t have her purple racket.” He said as if Patrick knew what that meant. Art had spent the morning filling Patrick in on who you were and Patrick listened with a knowing smirk, but didn’t say anything about what he truly thought. “Patrick, she can’t play this without her lucky racket.” He urged as if it made a difference. The game was set to start in five minutes.

“Lucky racket?” Patrick understood. When he was younger he himself had the same thing, he knew the sentiment and the effect it could have on a game. That’s why Art, knowing Patrick, knew you were the same way.

“Fuck,” Art said, looking around to see if there was a clear path out of the bleachers, but there wasn’t. He looked back at you, talking to your coach with your hand over your mouth. He got up and stepped over a few people but was stopped by an usher.

“Game is starting in five-“ the burly man said.

“I know, I need to get out,” he urged.

“Sit. Down. Please.” The usher replied.

Art shook his head, “No, you don’t understand, this is vital to the game about to be played, that’s my friend out there-“

“Sir, if you leave before the first half, you won’t be getting back in.” He said. And that was that. Art couldn’t even make a run for it because this usher would make sure he couldn’t get the racket back to you.

“Fuck,” Art muttered, having to sit back next to Patrick knowing this wouldn’t be good. It put him on edge from the stands he couldn’t imagine the anxiety you were feeling if it was already bad and you didn’t have your racket. He rubbed his face, looking at Patrick, who knew exactly what you were feeling even not knowing you yet. “This is bad.”

You had to use your practice racket. Which was fine if you were anyone else, it worked just the same, but the feeling of confidence was hard to attain. You hit the court as the announcer called out you were to serve. You took what felt like the deepest breath, filling your lungs as you faced your blindingly blonde opponent. You let the breath go slowly, trying to convince yourself that this was fine. And you served.

The rally was good, you both had each other moving, but she was up in points within the first ten minutes. You weren’t doing badly, you were just behind. Art and Patrick were watching from the stands at how intense things were, Art worried the entire time.

You caught up and surpassed her points around the middle, but soon enough she bounced right back surpassing you again. You were getting increasingly more scared that this was exactly what you expected from a game without the purple racket. You took a deep breath and hit the ball as hard as you could upon serve, it going awkwardly sideways and immediately out. You tried not to swear too loudly. Art and Patrick did it for you in unison, Patrick was just as invested as Art.

When they called the halfway point, you were below her points-wise. Art couldn’t pay less attention to the way you walked off the court with your hand to your head because he was running, or trying to, through the sea of people who were going for washroom breaks and getting food from the stands outside. He tried to push through but more people kept coming and the stress of it alone had his heart beating. That was nothing on the beat of his heart as he finally pushed through and he started sprinting across the campus grounds trying to get to your residency as fast as he could.

He didn’t think he’d ever run so fast in his life but this was the only way he knew how to help. This was how you would save your game. He ran through the residency doors and up the stairs to the second floor and grabbed your key from behind the fire alarm trigger, unlocking your door. He knew you wouldn’t mind after this- he looked around seeing the racket leaning in the corner and he grabbed it, locking your door again and jumping the stairs, sprinting back.

It took a lot longer than he thought. He tried a shortcut that was stupidly a dead end and he checked his watch before launching back into his sprint and he had two minutes before you were back on. He was so fucked. This time he just about shoved people as he returned to the crowd.

He could hear the game resume and people did hurry to get back to their seats which helped a little- Art was still pushing to make it back to you, to get the racket to you before the second half truly started. He knew if he just got it out there onto the court you could switch it out between serves and that would be good enough and he was nearly through the crowd, cheers in his ears, people whooping and yelling, getting into the game and all of a sudden it was a simultaneous gasp. Art was confused for about a split second before he heard the scream in the silence of a crowd that held their breath.

Art pushed through the crowd and the sight he saw when he laid eyes on you on the ground was something reminiscent of some horror movie. The detail was too much but visible to him, from far away, was bone. And you were screaming, it was you.

He bolted over but not before the others did, surrounding you immediately locking him out and he looked over as your tennis partner ran to the edge of the court to vomit. The crowd was mumbling but other than that it was silence versus screams and cries and it was you. Art hated that it was you.

He couldn’t do anything, he wasn’t any help, 911 was already called and you were crying and screaming, and thank god the huddle shielded the crowd from the blood that pooled on the court.

Art did the only thing he knew to do and that was collect your things. It didn’t matter what it looked like he was doing, he packed up your rackets and your water bottle, numbing himself to the situation so he could at least do this for you as your screams rang out in the crowd of people still seeming to hold their breaths. He couldn’t get to you if he tried. Sirens in the distance meant it was time to get the fuck out of the way and he moved over as the paramedics worked quickly to tend to you to get you on the ambulance, doing what they could to stop the bleeding.

Art ran faster than he did to get your racket, even with your rackets on him. It was a good thing Patrick had gotten himself out of the crowd, meeting Art at the fence doors to get him to his car. He’d only known you a month or two, but you were still a person he cared a lot about and he knew your entire family was miles and miles away. You’d be alone in this and knowing you, and talking to you every day, he knew you were afraid of doctors and hated hospitals more than anything. He couldn’t let it be something you had to brave alone. He threw your rackets in the trunk as Patrick got into the passenger seat and Art tossed him the keys to start the car before he got into the driver's seat.

“Fuck, this is so bad,” Art said, pulling away a little faster than he should have. “This is so bad.”

He ended up waiting ten hours at the hospital. You needed surgery to fix your leg and nobody in your family could make it over in ten hours. It would take a flight to get to you. Patrick stayed about four hours with Art, trying to keep him occupied so he didn’t lose his mind in the waiting room, but Art wasn’t very talkative, just worried. You had easily become one of his best friends.

He ate hospital food and he slept in his chair against the wall. The nurses knew he was there for you and came to update him until one of the nurses told him to come back the next morning because by then you’d probably be stable and awake properly without the pain meds keeping you asleep. He hated that, he slept in his car.

Patrick came back the next morning, tapping on Art’s window at close to 11:30 in the morning. Art woke with a bit of a start, his hair messed up, his clothes from the days before still on. Patrick held up a bag from Art’s dorm room where he’d stay. You wouldn’t think Patrick to think of something like it, but he brought Art a change of clothes which he took gratefully and changed into in the hospital bathroom before going back up to see you.

Patrick gladly waited in the hallway when he went in. You were awake but you were staring blankly at a wall- it didn’t seem like you even realized he had entered. You’d gotten used to not minding the nurses and doctors that came in and out. Art approached slowly out of understanding and observed how hard you crying so silently. He thought he saw a tear but as he observed, it was a steady stream.

“Hey…” he said quietly.

You turned your head at the sound of his voice and Art swore when you met his eyes he had never seen eyes sadder than yours. It shook him a little to see pain so obvious in someone’s eyes. “Art-“ you sobbed, putting your head in your hands, unable to say anything else. He rushed forward, dropping his backpack at your bedside to give some sense of comfort. He didn’t know what to do, so he crouched next to you and his hands rested on your forearm, careful not to touch the bruising no doubt from the fall. He didn’t say anything else for a long while and neither did you, you just cried as Art crouched next to you, his hands gently grazing over your skin where they could. Soft, back and forth, just delicately.

It was the first act anyone had ever taken to make you feel okay, truly okay. You’d been intimidated and overwhelmed by the hospital lights, the sterile metals, and sounds and processes.

It was also the first true act of many that was something closer than what it should have been for you and Art. It was just you and him in that hospital room, empty aside from the machines, drips, a bed, and chairs, but the silence was so full that it occupied every corner that wasn’t already taken.

You did eventually speak, but that silence was so needed. It was a conversation about what had happened and you explained it all and how it felt, but Art informed you that you were ahead of her in points before it happened. He didn’t tell you he didn’t see it happen- he didn’t tell you anything about where he’d gone at the halfway point of the game.

Art slept in the corner chair later that night when you slept. Patrick eventually left after waiting for so long. When you needed your privacy Art got his meals from downstairs, heading back to the dorm and coming back the next morning every day for two weeks. He came by whenever he could to see you, the conversation was good and kept you distracted. You talked about everything and nothing just to pass the time in your lonely, empty room. Art brought you your iPod and a few other things from your dorm to keep you occupied when he wasn’t there.

Art was the greatest comfort until your parents finally got on a plane and flew out to see you, urging to somehow get you home but you didn’t want to go. You couldn’t anyway, and you were so glad. Your mom was surprised by the flowers you’d received from the Russian girl from the big game, who did come to visit you and was surprisingly very sweet, unlike her teeth-bared photo from her Facebook. But other than that, Art visited almost every day right after your parents did. They stayed at a nearby hotel as you were in the hospital recovering.

Patrick stayed nearby for Art who was fine, other than a little busy most days when he went to visit. Today Patrick came in with Art.

“Hey,” you grinned, sitting up just a bit when the two boys came in with McDonald’s. “Oh my god, you didn’t.”

“But we did,” Art said, kicking your tray over to your bed and putting the food down on it. “Patrick’s idea actually, which I hate- but he wanted to get Arby’s and I told him no.”

You smiled at him slyly, knowingly, but your attention turned to Patrick. “Hey! I’ve heard so much about you, this is crazy. I heard you were at the game.”

He grinned and you noted the dimple he had when he smiled. It was nice. “Yeah. Aside from the whole bone-out-the-leg thing, you were pretty good. I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

“Well, yeah,” you nodded, gesturing to your leg. You were fun, Patrick knew Art liked you but it was finally coming to be something clear in his mind as to why. You had high spirits. But both boys had no idea how hard you sobbed the moment they left. “Thank you for bringing me food, hospital soup and chicken are somehow both dry.” You said, opening the bag.

Art looked at Patrick for some sort of approval which he got with a look Patrick exchanged. “You’re welcome,” Art spun on his heel. He looked at the way your hair fell over your face as you peeked in, how pretty it looked the way it curved inward to frame your face. The hospital had hindered your will to do your makeup but you still somehow looked just as gorgeous, if not more. His fleeting thought lingered this time as he gathered the right words to say. “So how is your leg feeling today?”

“Fucked,” you replied, handing the boys their fries and burgers. “Hurts like hell and I’m still on the super strong stuff.”

“Well you couldn’t tell,” Patrick said, pulling up a chair.

“I think if I asked, they’d give me the good stuff.” You nodded. “But it makes me so tired, it’s awful.” You bit into your burger.

Art pulled a chair closer to you and sat in it, “So all this was just for some drugs, hm?” He teased. “And attention.”

“Oh yeah,” You agreed with a laugh between bites. Patrick chuckled and Art grinned, “All I had to do was fuck up my knee, have a surgery and a half, and ruin my tennis career.” Both boy’s smiles fell almost immediately, watching your tongue press to your cheek. The silence was loud, but you just continued eating. Art opened his mouth to speak but nothing came to mind. It could be true, you could very well never play tennis again, or with proper rehabilitation, you could be back to playing eventually. He didn’t know, he didn’t know what to say. You sighed, your voice monotone, “It’s fine. Most people who can’t play anymore start coaching. I just have to get better at teaching it.”

“No, you can’t just say you’re going to coach, you still have so much work to do. You could get back into it when you get better,” Art said, hating how willing you were to succumb to just… teaching. “You’re only starting.”

“True,” Patrick said, agreeing. “Would be badass if you got back on the court.”

You twisted your mouth to the side, not finding it very easy to even speak on the topic, even if you brought it up yourself. You didn’t want to cry, not right now, you usually waited until you knew Art was down the hall so you had a minute to cry before the nurses came to check on you. “I don’t know…”

Art looked at you with an expression that bordered on unkind- not toward you, but toward what you were saying. He’d played tennis with you- you were amazing and to not even believe that it could even get better was almost disgusting to him. You had so much potential, so much talent, “You do know.” He insisted. “There’s no way you want this to be career-ending, so don’t let it.”

Patrick, despite the seriousness of the situation, smiled watching Art all passionate about something. It had been a while since he’d seen Art so riled up about something even if it didn’t affect him directly. Patrick smiled because he was seeing something he knew Art himself didn’t see. He leaned against his hand propped up by the arm of the chair. And you knew Art was right, but not enough to see past the cast on your leg, not enough to see past the months of rehab, not enough to see the court again. As much as you wanted it, it wasn’t in the foreseeable future, so you let it feel impossible.

Your parents went back home a month or so in with the promise of returning, but it was getting expensive to stay, so they’d go return to their jobs. It was back to being Art and now recently, Patrick, whom you’d grown to be quite fond of. He brought out a side to Art that was not funnier, per se, but broadened his means to be. Patrick sometimes came to see you when Art had class so he wasn’t just sitting around Art’s dorm. Art would swing by after to join the card games and be told to be quiet by the nurses. It always ended up with you laughing so hard your ribs hurt more than your knee, even for a second. It was the only pain that was welcome in the hospital room.

It was evening and you were sitting on your hospital bed, just thinking over everything. It wasn’t rare for you to cry at random periods throughout the day, it was a little too normal, if you were honest. All of this was so hard- continuing school from a hospital room because of all the risks was awful. But tomorrow you’d be seeing a physical therapist and that would decide if you were ready for rehabilitation. You wiped your eyes from the tears that fell just thinking about whether or not you’d be fit to walk on your leg again, which would determine if you could run if you could play.

That’s when Art knocked on the door. He poked his head, looking around, but ultimately looking at you. You had the lamps that your parents had purchased for the room to be less overwhelmingly white in the top right and bottom left corners of the room, making for dim, comfortable lighting. Art swore he forgot how to greet you when his eyes met your tear-filled ones. The way your eyelashes looked when wet was almost hypnotizing, something that wiped all of the words from his vocabulary and out of sight almost completely. “Um-” He cleared his throat, “Hi,” He started, a weird pit in his throat. “You okay?”

“Not sure,” You confessed, wiping your tears off your cheeks. He had seen you cry too many times now, it was getting a little embarrassing. “How are you?” Art smiled just a little at the fact you asked while crying. He hated to answer that question when you were upset.

He pulled up his regular chair, but oddly it didn’t feel close enough. The feeling of it had been creeping up with every one of his visits, every time you were alone. But it got pushed aside. “I’m fine. Class was boring and tennis sucks without you, as usual.” He said, taking a seat. “The girl I’m paired with keeps hitting on me between rounds.”

You wiped more tears away, smiling just a little though your stomach felt just a little odd at the mention, “Really?”

“It’s bad.” He laughed, “She twirls her hair and everything.”

“And that didn’t immediately work on you?” You fake-gasped. Art was just glad you were smiling. “You didn’t get married on the spot?”

He chuckled, looking at his hands, “I don’t think it’s so easy. I don’t think I even know her name.”

“You don’t know Melanie?”

“Is that her name?”

“No idea,” You laughed, really laughed, and it was a gorgeous sound. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m mostly bedridden and confined to this room.”

He covered his face, rubbing his eyes, “That’s enough.” He groaned through a laugh, leaning against his hand, just looking at you.

“I say it’s hardly anything, imagine how fun I could be if I wasn’t broken,” You huffed. “But Melanie, whatever her name is, she’s like… she’s really pretty.” You noted. ‘Melanie’ had all your opposite features, it should be noted. She was pretty just the same, but she was your opposite.

“Mmm, not my type,” Art replied, scooting his chair just a little closer to the edge of your bed.

“So you have a type? What, Kat Zimmerman-like?”

Art groaned again, “I can’t believe Patrick told you that, that’s insane that you’d bring that up right now, I hate that.” He stressed the important syllables and covered his face again. You giggled, unable to keep it in. “No, not Kat Zimmerman, jesus christ.”

“So then what’s your type?” You asked, just curious. You weren’t sure what drove you to curiosity but you didn’t question it.

He shook his head, “I don’t think I have one. I know who I’m not into though and she’s exactly that.” Art said. Once again, to be noticed, the opposite of you was not his type. “She’s nice but we don’t talk much aside from when she compliments my playing and my hair and my arms and… all that.”

You felt a little twinge. It was so awful to be on the inside while life went on outside, you thought to yourself. That was only half the twinge and the only half of the twinge you could understand. The other half was something close to jealousy that went completely unnoticed, but not unfelt. “She does that?” You struggled to sound genuine and that was the only thing you questioned about any of it.

“Yeah, I hate it. What about you? You have a type?”

You thought for a second, “I’m the same, I think. I know sports guys… jocks- are not it.” And Art nodded. Something about it felt weird to hear. He qualified as a sports guy, right? He tried to shrug it off, but he internalized it.

The night went on and you talked about things you hadn’t before and it was all romantic context. Past relationships, elementary school crushes. It was something that was needed out in the open and it made for an occupying conversation though it was a little hard to get through when there were constant little fleeting thoughts in Art’s mind that were thoughts about how jealous he was of these boys who had gotten to kiss you, touch you, and have your romantic attention. However, the thoughts were so fleeting they flew by without being read or registered, but they were there even unnoticed. You were his best friend and nothing more and that was that.

When the doctors okayed you for rehabilitation you were so overjoyed you cried again. It was okay this time, it felt good to cry. All of these months in pain could be undone if you could just get into this and succeed. There was no guarantee it would work, there wouldn’t be at any point a guarantee and you knew that it would be a long, frustrating process, but it felt like it would be worth it. You remembered what Art told you about not wanting that career path to end and not letting this be the end of anything. This injury, in the long run, would not be able to take you from what you loved. Ever. Because you wouldn’t let it. You called to tell Art and you could hear Patrick whoop and cheer in the background. And you had your first session in your hospital room later that week and the now-wilting flowers Art and Patrick had brought you was amazing for motivation.

Your healing journey was up and down as expected but no matter if you could finish your session or not, Art came by to tell you how great you were doing and Patrick to reassure you that you were a badass. You even let them stay for a session and the physiotherapist told them to ‘shut up’ because they were cheering for you the second you started. You just laughed.

Patrick, for amusement, liked to sit back when you and Art were talking. He was no master, he was not a very scientific guy but your body language when engaging with each other was crazy obvious. You’d always sit super close no matter what, you leaned toward each other when you laughed, your eye contact was completely loaded with unsaid words and when you spoke it was 89% flirting. Patrick understood Art- you were gorgeous and you were strong and that itself was hot. You were funny and took jabs but you were honestly one of the most caring people Patrick had ever met. So yeah, he understood why Art liked you so much.

You got better every day, easing onto your crutches at this point, able to somewhat move on your own. Patrick visited that day and he had his intentions. “You heard about that girl who won’t stop hitting on Art between games?” He chuckled, dealing the cards for crazy eights. He watched for your reaction.

You pressed your tongue to your cheek, “Mmm, he mentioned.” You said, picking up your cards. “She’s still at it?”

“Worse,” Patrick said. “Asked him out yesterday.”

You looked up at Patrick with telling eyes and Patrick could have gone off of that alone, but he didn’t yet. He noticed your hands bending the edge of a card as you thought it over. The idea of him and that girl was something you could easily envision. He’d been her partner for over a year now and he had to know her name, they had to have been talking for her to just ask him out. Your jealousy was a fleeting thought that did burn close to the surface. “What did he say?”

“He said he’d think about it,” Patrick said, eyeing your response to that one. It wasn’t true, Art had turned her down at least twice now. The girl was pretty, but oddly persistent.

“Hm,” You nodded, putting down three cards right off the bat. “He said she wasn’t his type.”

Patrick shrugged, playing his card, “He’s pretty diverse I think. Me personally-” He placed a hand on his chest, “- Dark hair, dark eyes. I’m not limiting myself to it, but I think I have a type.”

“That’s very you, I feel,” You said, narrowing your eyes at him. “Are you an ass guy too?”

“Oh yeah,” He grinned a wide grin. You just smiled and shook your head at him. “What about you? You have a type?” He asked, trying not to make it obvious he was playing wingman here.

You picked up a card, “I don’t think so. Maybe tall, not too much muscle but not like bone-breaking thin.” You said. “And a good amount of hair. I can’t imagine being with someone with a buzzcut. I don’t know, I don’t think much about who I could want, more of what I don’t want.”

Patrick pretended like that body criteria wasn’t exactly Art. He smiled just a little, “And what’s that?”

“Okay, easy. No mommy issues,” You put down another card, “No weird patchy facial hair, nobody who doesn’t know the difference between too, two, and to, and no guys in sports.”

Patrick leaned in just a bit. “No guys in sports? You don’t date guys who play sports?” He clarified, a little bit of hope slipping out the window for his wingman act. All of everything could be wrong, could be pointless.

You shook your head, “I say that but I mean football, mostly. Jocks. I had a bad experience with two different football players. Broke my little heart,” You chuckled. “I’ve ruled out jocks.”

“But you’d date a guy in t-” he almost said tennis. He wouldn’t have been a good wingman to give away something like that. “You’d date a guy who plays something else?”

“If he’s normal about it,” You nodded. “I can’t be outloved by a sport. My ex, I swear he’d fuck a football if it had a hole.” You placed down two more cards, “Last card.”

The game finished with your win and Patrick was fairly satisfied with his work, though he intended to ask you a few more things and was cut short from his recon when Art swung in the room with a can of iced tea for you and Coca-Cola for him and Patrick. “How are you?” You asked him, taking the iced tea gratefully.

“I’m good, you?” Art sat at the end of your bed by your feet, putting a hand on your shin (on your good leg) just casually. Patrick noticed it, but it didn’t seem to phase you. He’d seen it the other day when you rested your head on Art’s shoulder, he’d seen it when Art moved your hair over your ear as you were reading a magazine they’d brought. It was painful how obvious this was- he didn’t have to ask anything else. He almost laughed out loud as he thought about it. He made a mental note to talk to Art about it.

He went back to the dorm early that day, leaving just you and Art. “Hm,” You hummed, pulling your hair to one side. Art snapped out of the trance he was in, hoping you hadn’t noticed that he was staring. It was something about the way you looked in purple, it was like it made your skin glow. That and your eyelashes as they fluttered when you looked around the room, that and the way your lower lip rested between your teeth as you checked over your textbook quickly making sure you were done with your schoolwork for the day. Art blinked all the thoughts away, but they clung on to your square-necklined purple t-shirt. Something about the way you looked in purple.

Art rubbed the back of his neck, taking his eyes off of you, but looking back a moment later. Your lip between your teeth had his full attention, his own lips parting just a little at the sight. And then there was your hair draping over your face now and Art wanted so badly to move it like he had before. At this thought, as it crossed his mind it stopped dead centre in his brain. Like a shift, but a shift from his own burying and blatant ignorance of any feelings to being completely in the know. You were here, and you were perfect and you weren’t even doing anything, and Art knew he liked you as more than a friend at that very moment.

But that was the issue. He was supposed to be your friend.

And that troubled him the next week or so. He was fine seeing you, being one of your close friends wasn’t an act, it was true to him with the addition that maybe he liked you but he always told himself ‘just a little bit’, he liked you a little. If it was full blown then it would be a crisis and the truth was that it was absolutely and completely full blown and there was nothing he could say to himself that would change that. He thought about you when he wasn’t with you, when he woke up, and when he went to bed. He thought about you when he saw something you liked, he thought about you in every spare moment he could get. It was so bad he couldn’t even tell Patrick- as if Patrick didn’t know and constantly teased him about it.

You were getting better and better and it was a surprising recovery, doctors said. Your mobility was far ahead of schedule and set to stay that way. Any setbacks from this point would be minor and you were making progress almost miraculously. And you were so glad to hear it every time they’d say it. Your parents came back around the day you took a real step alone and you wouldn’t forget your mom’s shriek of complete happiness. Your knee would work again.

Just Art brought you flowers that day, not him and Patrick.

But things stayed the same. You could leave and come back in for therapy and you were more than glad to be out of the hospital, though you’d gotten a bit used to it. Everything was falling into place, Art was there pretty much every step -literal and physical- of the way. He was amazing support and made things feel so much easier. When Patrick came around it was fun to have two people who’d add into the motivation. You got better and better and soon enough you swore you could walk just fine aside from your slight limp. That day you walked across the room when Art turned his back, he was surprised, to say the least.

When you could go out with a wheelchair and crutch the boys took you to the court. It was your first time on it since the incident. Your eyes fell on the spot where it happened. Patrick followed your eyes, grimacing just a bit. You’d forgotten Art didn’t see it- you still had no idea where he’d gone at the halfway point of the game. “I can almost feel it,” You said, a look of disgust on your face. “I think the gasp from the crowd was the worst part.”

“It was loud,” Patrick said.

Art looked at where they were looking. “But you almost have full use of your knee again. Who knows, you could be back out here in a few months.” He shrugged. You turned on your crutch, away from the spot, and looked at Art. “Okay, don’t give me that look, you know you just need to try.”

“I know,” You nodded slowly. “I just don’t know to what extent. I don’t think I could follow through with Stanford.”

“Why not?”

“It’s so top-notch,” You answered. Patrick kicked around on the court, grabbing one of Art’s balls and rackets and dribbling it around. “The people here are here for a reason and it’s to go pro.”

Art stepped closer to you, “But you don’t think that’s you?”

“Not anymore,” You replied, meeting his eyes. “Recovery is amazing but the risk is so high… I’m not even sure I can run yet, let alone sprint and lean side to side on this leg. I want to, I wanted to, but going pro after something like this just doesn’t happen. If I can play again at all, it won’t be good.” You explained. Art nodded through, listening with eyes that held sympathy and a little speck of sadness. “It’s okay, I just… It’s going to take me forever to get over it.”

He shook his head, “You still don’t need to get over it yet. There’s still so much t-”

“I know. I just can’t see it ever happening.” You said. Art pressed his lips into a straight line and he spun on his heel. Comfort wasn’t what you needed- it was a racket. Art lunged and snatched up the one Patrick was toying with and handed it to you. “What?”

Patrick caught on quickly. “Hit the ball.” Art said. “In any form.”

“Art…” You shook your head.

Patrick threw it anyway and even with the crutch, you instinctively stuck out your racket the way you knew how and hit the ball back to him, your aim still on point. “That was good! What the fuck,” Patrick chuckled. Even he couldn’t hit the ball with that much precision. Art laughed, clapping once- and you had your mouth a little open at the tennis reflexes that hadn’t gone anywhere after all this time. You looked at both of them in minor shock and awe and Art just smiled. He wouldn’t let you give up. He couldn’t. You spent the rest of the evening hitting balls where you stood, feeling a lot better about things.

Recovery continued, but so did tennis. In your spare time you were on the court, practicing your serves, hitting the ball, everything to do with arms and eventually when the therapist had you on the treadmill walking, jogging, he cleared you to do it with supervision. That was one of the biggest things you’d heard in a while. Art was out in the hall when you’d heard it and you left the doctor mid-sentence just to go tell him, Art surprised at the speed which you approached him at, being used to you only ever walking. “I can jog!” You said, enthusiasm and passion in your eyes and the familiar fire he knew from when you would play tennis with him.

Your soft hands grabbed his forearms in excitement and Art was a little bit more than aware of it, but the news was amazing. “That’s amazing, that’s crazy, you can jog?”

“I can jog!” You squealed a little as your mom who was in the room with you swung her head into the hallway.

“When he said could he didn’t mean away from him, Y/N, get back in here please!” She called, but she wasn’t pulling the full mom card, she was smiling ear to ear just as you were. “And hi Art.” She said, waving to him. Being your main visitors meant they were acquainted. Art went to coffee with your parents while you were in therapy the week prior, he wondered if they had mentioned it. He hadn’t. Art just waved back.

Soon it was you, Patrick, and Art on the court and your crutches were propped against the bench. You were still a little slow but you’d gotten good at playing where you stood, relying on reach alone and it was quite impressive. You worked on side-stepping instead of lunging and leaning and it helped a lot with having to move around when you needed. It was a lot of laughter but also took a lot of practice and focus to get right. Sometimes you could go for a while, other times not so long, but the rehab had done wonders. This time when you said you were done, Art served the ball and you did lunge for it- both boys afraid, cringing as they watched you rush and lean forward in what seemed like slow motion. But you hit the ball and it flew right at Patrick’s chest and came back into standing position like it was nothing.

“Oh my god,” You gasped. “I’m so sorry.” Patrick put a hand to his chest but both boys looked at you in wonderment, eyes wide, mouths a little open. To tell the truth they both thought you were done for again as you lunged but you were fine, no complaints, no second thoughts- but a second gasp. You realized the move you’d pulled and the second you realized, both boys started blurting out praise and pride and disbelief and you joined in on it. That was tennis. You’d done everything a tennis player needed to do and it was completed with the simplest lunge. Small victories every day.

Art was more than proud. Seeing you back on the court was amazing. He’d take you there alone most days when Patrick didn’t feel like it. This particular day you were both a bit disracted, but the reason why was something you both couldn’t place. Art gave up before you today and you both stood by the edge of the bleachers against the metal bar.

You took a sip of your water, “Are we going back out or are we done?” You asked. Art set down his bottle just past you, reaching around. He looked at you and for the moment he had nothing else in his mind but you. Not tennis, not anything, you.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” He said. You smiled immediately, leaning more against the bar next to you. But it just so happened to be closer to him. And you didn’t mind it, it wasn’t anything new but it was definitely close. Very close. You were close and you were smiling at what he said. He blinked a few times, observing your eyelashes, “Your recovery… I mean. It’s a miracle you’re back here.”

You nodded, that perfect smile on your face. You knew how close you were to him, but you didn’t think much of it. You were more focused on his words. Art was always sweet, you enjoyed that about him. “I’d probably be sitting somewhere with a book on how to coach tennis if you didn’t push me this far. You, you are incredible. I am just grateful.”

He laughed, “Me? I might have pushed but you snapped the bone in your leg but you’re out here on the court again because you’ve been at it everyday.” He said, sincerity coating every one of his words. “It’s all you.”

“It’s not all me-”

“With help and support, yes. But if you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be. You want this, getting here to this point was all you.” He swayed just a little closer, not even on his own account just because being close felt right. He wanted you to feel that it was the truth. You looked up at him and he could see his words meant something as your eyes reflected him in the golden light of the early evening. He’d never seen just how gorgeous your eyes are in this light… And you were thinking the very same thing as your lower lip found itself between your teeth.

You and Art shared a thought before stepping back and it was the reminder that you were best friends. Just friends. Good friends. And nothing more. It was the first time it had crossed your mind, but the hundredth time on Art’s. Neither of you would risk it.

The practice continued carefully. You had rest days. You’d been lunging on both legs at this point and your game was coming back around. You were off at a meeting with the Stanford tennis coach about returning properly in the fall, having the meeting so that you could make some exceptions. Art and Patrick sat in his dorm room, Art upside down on his bed, feet up on the wall, and Patrick in Art’s computer chair, spinning. The conversation had been about what to have for lunch when Patrick sparked something else up. “Are we meeting Y/N after her meeting?” He asked.

Art tilted his head back, “Not sure. I could call her when it’s over if you want. Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Patrick said, throwing the hacky sack he was fiddling with at Art’s head, hitting him in the face and chuckling. Art sat up, whipping the bean bag right back at him. “Oh come on-” He groaned. “I know you want to see her.”

“I saw her earlier,” Art deflected, recognizing Patrick’s tone.

“Yeah and?”

“So you want to see her?”

“Sure.” Patrick shrugged. Art shrugged back, pulling on a sweater, whenever Patrick was over, he turned the AC in the room way up. Wasn’t relevant, but the silence while Art was putting on his sweater was near unbearable. Art had the sweater half over his head when Patrick stuck his leg out and kicked him over. “I know you like her!”

“Huh?” Art said, sitting up and fixing the sweater. Patrick pushed him right back over.

“You like her! Y/N!” He said. He couldn’t take it anymore, the obviousness, how clear it was that you two liked each other. It was getting to be sickening. “I know you, I know you like her and you can’t tell me you don’t because I’ve waited this long for you to-” he shoved Art over again when Art came back up laughing- Patrick couldn’t help but laugh too, “-tell me!”

There was no purpose in a lie. “Yeah, I guess so,” Art admit, bracing himself to be shoved again and instead, punching Patrick right in the stomach as revenge. Patrick sat back in his chair in pain. “But Patrick, she’s my best friend. And your friend. It’s tricky.”

“I don’t think it’s that tricky, I mean, she likes you too and it’s obvious,” Patrick said through his stomach pain.

Art laughed again, “She does not. I’m not her type. We’re just friends.”

“You are entirely her type, her criteria is tall and normal build and that’s exactly you!” He gestured widely to Art.

“She did not say that to me when I asked. She told me she doesn’t date guys in sports.”

“She has two football exes, of course she doesn’t date jocks.”

“She said sports.”

“She meant jocks.” Patrick straightened out. “She likes you, Art. She pretty much admit it to me, you can’t tell me otherwise.”

Art just blinked. Patrick wasn’t right- there was no way. He’d had it in his head that he wasn’t even thought of when it came to anything like that with you. But Patrick was usually right, no matter how much Art hated it. “No, she’s-” he groaned, putting his head in his hands and bending to put his head between his knees. “She’s one of my best friends this would fuck everything up.”

Patrick shook his head, “It would be fine, you-”

Art groaned again, “And I tell her I like her and then what?” He brought his head up again. “She thinks I’ve just been here to fuck her? To get on her good side, to be with her through this just to get to her? I only started liking her, really liking her after the incident but I have no way to prove that! What would she think if all of a sudden I tell her and she actually doesn’t feel the way I do? This is so bad, Patrick.”

Patrick just laughed at him, but Art was now able to think about these things aloud. So he was loud. “I promise you she likes you. She’s flirting with you all the time, she’s touchy, she cares a lot about you- more than me, I can attest. She wants you. And as for the injury part- Art, it’s been over a fucking year. She’s not going to think you’re playing the long game.” Art just sighed, but Patrick shoved him over again. “Don’t be a pussy!”

“I’m not a-” he rolled his eyes and shoved Patrick right back, “-pussy. I just- she’s gorgeous and she’s friendly and she’s kind and caring and amazing and I don’t want to risk losing that just because I have some fucking ninth grade crush on her, you know?”

He nodded back, “But it’s not. I’ve seen you with your ninth grade crush and you were a lot more horny about it. You like her. She likes you. I don’t care if you tell her now, but I don’t want you thinking she doesn’t want you too. She does, it’s painfully obvious. And I’ll admit she’s hot as fuck, so I’d hate to see you miss the opportunity!” Patrick explained, hands wildly gesturing. “Plus the tension is fucking awful to be around, I don’t know how you do it.”

Neither did he. With it out in the air Art might have gushed a bit about you. Patrick had never seen him this way- he had so much to say about you and he ended up not calling you, just talking about you for what felt like forever to Patrick. But he didn’t mind.

You continued to get better and better and it was amazing. You felt amazing about your progress. You got up in the morning and your knee only hurt if you hit it off something. And that was normal for most people, so you took pride in it. You hurried over to Art’s dorm in a tank top and shorts, your hair in two braids. It was early morning, you knew that, but you knocked on the door anyway. Art, woken, opened the door and squinted in the light from the hall. He was gorgeous, you thought. His hair wild and messy from bed and his shirt hiked up a little too high from sleep, leaving his waist and mid-line exposed. “Hey.” He said, opening the door for you to come in, fixing his shirt.

“Hi,” you said, trying not to grin too wide. You couldn’t wait, you couldn’t. “I got cleared for a real game!” You squealed and you covered your mouth. You’d only found out late last night so you decided to wait until morning, but it really couldn’t wait. Art took a deep breath in but before he could say anything you were talking again. “It’s a small game. It’s local, it’s a tiny game but it’s a real one and it’s singles. I thought you’d want to know!”

“I- I do want to know, that’s amazing, oh my god!” He was almost as excited as you without the squealing and bouncing around. You were cute when you were excited. “A game is a game, it’s incredible, it’s- you- I-” He stopped himself. The excitement nearly got the best of him. But you were grinning ear to ear over tennis and that was all he cared about. “When is the game?”

“It’s next Sunday,” You giggled. “You’ll come?”

“Is that a question?”

“Well, yeah,” You said, your hands on his forearms like they usually were when you were passionate. Almost like you were scared the passion would sweep you away if you didn’t hold onto something. He loved it.

“No, I’ll be there. And on the sidelines if you let me.”

“You’re absolutely not sitting in the stands again.” You said, chuckling. He grinned.

And when the day of the game rolled around, your mother braided your hair in two french braids for you. She had ironed your entire outfit, even your socks. It was her nerves. But the most nervous one in the room at all times was you. You couldn’t eat, you had a hard time falling asleep, but you got up in the morning refreshed and heart pounding at the impending game. It meant a lot of action but you’d worked for this. It was a small local game at a local court with a few bleachers. It was hardly anything, you reminded yourself. This was your second chance just beginning. You slipped on your dark purple skort and your purple tank top and you made sure you had your lucky racket this time.

Your mom drove you to the court much earlier than needed because you were so on edge and you sat in the hall between changerooms under the bleachers, just doing your breathing to maintain yourself. You were more than glad when Patrick and Art showed up. They didn’t ask if you were ready, they knew it. They just asked where you wanted to go for lunch after the game and debated over if a hot dog counted as a sandwich until your Stanford coach walked in.

“You’re ready?” She asked, grin on her face. You blinked.

“What are you…” This was a local game, not Stanford. You looked at Art and Patrick who were bad at hiding their smiles.

Your coach nodded, “You’ve got this one.” She said. “Now hop to it, they’re waiting.” You looked back at Art and Patrick and they ushered you toward the door. It sounded a bit like a badly-engineered fan at first, going down the hall. Your stomach was already in knots.

They came completely undone as your coach opened the door and the roar of the crowd was near-deafening. You blinked in the daylight, half-shocked by how loud it was before you realized that it was the sound of people. And as your eyes adjusted, you realized that the tennis court bleachers were absolutely packed full of people and they were loud, cheering. It was a local game, you expected families of the players but no, there must have been hundreds of people in the stands. On the side with no stands there were people lining the fences and you could see people beyond people. You turned, taking it all in as they were calling your name, calling your praise. You covered your mouth seeing your peers from Stanford in the front row, including the girl who had been hitting on Art. You recognized all of them and more.

You looked at Art and Patrick who were behind you, unable to control their grins at this point and elbowing each other just a bit. Art was only looking at you. You felt so overwhelmed with gratitude, it rose in your stomach like the drop of a rollercoaster. “How did this- How- there’s so many,” You managed to say.

Patrick beamed, dimples on display, “They’re here for you, if you couldn’t tell.”

Art tugged one of your braids. “Patrick and I might have… posted about it on facebook. But it wasn’t an invite, just the general information of what had happened and that this was your first real game, so technically it was all you.” He smirked, but it couldn’t stay a smirk, just a really big smile. It matched yours.

“It was not me,” You sighed exasperated, but more than happy. Scared. But happy.

“If you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be,” He repeated to you. His thumb grazed your cheek when he let go of your braid. You wanted to hug him, you wanted to jump for joy and scream your head off at how amazing this all was. But you got called to serve.

The screams didn’t die down for any part of the game. You served and the game began and the girl across from you did not feel bad for you and that was clear. She was harsh and hardcore and violent with her swings but you hit almost all of them right back at her at a force and accuracy she couldn’t handle. Art and Patrick on the sidelines were into the game, cheering, calling out remarks on your moves. The moves they’d helped you get back. You were more than grateful with every point you scored. The crowd cheered for both you and your opponent but it was your name you heard screamed out in the crowd.

It got a bit intense at times, you fell behind for a while but came back, then went back down again, then came back up. The halfway point you spent thanking your best friends profusely while they urged you to rest and have water. You got back on the court after that, swinging, hitting, forehand, backhand, pulling a few moves that required the use of the leg you’d broken and though the crowd held their breath, they were more than impressed. Patrick watched Art stop cheering and clapping for a second, noting the way he was so honed in on you, Patrick was sure a bomb could go off behind Art and he wouldn’t notice. Art was proud, that was what he felt. Proud to know you, proud to be your friend, proud to feel the way he did about you because he knew that you were amazing and resilient and so fucking strong. He had never met anyone like you.

You locked eyes with him before your opponent served and he swore he felt something shift, really shift. When this game ended he had to tell you how he felt. He couldn’t go without it, he had to tell you.

The last quarter got increasingly more intense. You fell once at a move that required the leg you’d broken. The crowd gasped and Art lunged to help you up but you did it yourself. And you got right back up. The fall hurt, but no more than it would have a regular person. That was something that drove your confidence way up. You couldn’t even hear the score anymore. You just knew that you were there and you were playing and you couldn’t have been happier, even if you lost. But the buzzer went off and the game was done and it was almost like you went deaf. The cheers stopped, though they really didn’t, in fact they roared louder than ever before and the crowd launched itself into standing, their hands over their heads, mouths open wide absolutely wild.

You knew you’d won. But it wasn’t that important. You had one thought- find Art.

And he wasn’t hard to find. He was there on the sidelines or rather one of the many people who surrounded you when you won. Your other friends, your parents, your coach, Patrick, the staff of the game, and apparently a few nurses who came to see their patient play. But it was Art you reached for. You grabbed his forearms, bracing yourself, your eyebrows furrowing, “I won?” You questioned over the noise, over the hands that congratulated you.

Art, biggest grin on his face, “You won.” He answered. And he didn’t have a second to himself before you reached up, cupping his face and kissing him hard. There was nothing else to do in the presence of the win but kiss him. And he kissed you back just as hard. It felt like all the noise and all of the world was sucked away for a moment when his hands fell on your waist, pulling you closer.

It was a small game with big victories.

The kiss only lasted a few seconds but it was strong, and the feeling of him lingered on your lips when you parted. Nobody was surprised that you kissed. Not your mom, not the nurses, they’d known. You looked at Art and tried not to smile but it was over the second he grinned. You couldn’t help but grin right back as Patrick came in for a crushing hug.

“That was fucking incredible!” He told you. Your cheeks began to hurt from smiling as you hugged everyone over your win. Thing eventually died down after a while, people happily funnelling out, congratulating you. But at the end of things it was just you and Art. Patrick had headed out to bring the car around.

You twisted your mouth to the side, “I can’t believe how many people turned up.” You sighed, content.

“You have that pull.” Art shrugged. “You are probably my biggest tennis inspiration now.”

“Mhm? You want to be me when you grow up?” You teased, stepping closer. Art smirked, but once again he couldn’t maintain it, he just smiled down at you. “I’m your biggest inspiration…”

He wasn’t afraid to put his arms around your waist. “Maybe, maybe not. But you are amazing. And so fucking good at tennis, I’m scared for your real comeback.” He said. You laughed and it was gorgeous. The front part of your braid fell out and around your face. “You’re going to kick my ass.”

Your smile was brighter than the mid-day sun. “You bet.”

Your heart fluttered when he tucked your hair behind your ear again. You both heard the car horn as Patrick beeped from outside the court. “Can I kiss you?” Art asked, pushing your hair behind your ear. You nodded. And this time it was his hand on your jaw, his lips pressing against yours with all of his feeling. It was a kiss untouched by the rush of adrenaline and it was sweet. And it was slow. His lips grazing over yours between kisses, his breath minty from the gum he had just spit out two minutes ago. He held you close and the kiss was full of words yet to be said. You both couldn’t ignore anything anymore. It had been a long time coming. Patrick honked again, but it took you another second before you both pulled away with small smiles. Your hands gently holding his forearms, bracing yourself.

#challengers #art donaldson #patrick zweig #art donaldson x reader #challengers fic #challengers x reader #art x reader #tinytennisskirt #art donaldson fluff #art donaldson fic #art donaldson x you #art donaldson angst #art donaldson imagine #challengers angst #challengers fluff

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yuesgirlfriend · 1 year ago

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of birds and honey

part 1

(simon "ghost" riley x reader) medieval AU

summary: the year is 1312, and your fathers knight follows you to the wood.

The great hills surrounding the castle are a patchwork of green and yellows, as they always are during the summer months. Gray skies up ahead do nothing to dampen the mood of the castle; everyone is bustling about, preparing for the feast marking the new battalions arrival, as if their presence signifies something happier than impending war.

She can see them, now, where she is perched atop the highest wall-practiced, without fear- in a way her old governesses would have certainly called unbecoming of a lady. But did not the bible speak of the virtues of a young lady- justice, fortitude, among them?

(It takes great fortitude to learn the secrets she has learned, to climb over steep walls like they were bales of hay, to listen to words she would have heard anyway, had she been born a man. Listening from the eaves and skulking about is an act of justice, not a sin.)

The men, traversing down the trail, look like ants, she thinks- where she sits high above them, balancing on the stone, they look like children's toys. Tiny wooden figures, a small boy's idea of heroes, lined up on the yellow-green patchwork quilt.

When they finally ride over the moat and into the stronghold, they look like any other collection knights she has seen- some cloaked, some helmetless, all shining in the half clouded, setting sun.

That night is boisterous and rowdy, like any other feast. The courtyard is crowded with people- servants, villagers, everyone coming together to eat and drink and be merry. The tables are laden with the finest of foods. The smell of roast goose and heron, wine, and vomit hangs in the night air with the shouts and bawdy songs. The new knights drink and eat and throw things, singing their songs with everyone else. The castle hums with life, every voice and every soul another cell in one great organism.

(The whole time, she sits quietly as a lady should, but listens as a lady shouldn’t. No one notices, and why would they notice the Lord’s waif of a girl, silently eating at his right hand? The servants, the townspeople, even her father speak of her when they think she isn’t listening- she is, to them, as unnaturally quiet as a changeling and as likely to smile as a mourner. Such a shame, my lord, that her birth took your wife, god rest her soul. And for the child to not even be a boy…)

The stories that feast are rambling and, wine drunk, but the message is clear- they are hired soldiers with no Christian names, under orders from the king to protect the stronghold that is her home.

But one stands out. The only one still wearing his painted helmet, and as such doesn’t eat or drink with his companions. Instead, he sits on her fathers left side, speaking in low and gruff tones only when spoken to.

She picks at her food as her ears pick up words like more men and allies and a thousand dead, all spoken in an accent she thinks more suited to a farmer than a soldier.

As the feast begins to die down, dancers lying about drunk, he walks with her Lord father, presumably to show him a weak point in the castle walls.

She follows along, unseen, silent footsteps trailing behind them in the shadows. The knight with the painted helmet is tall and broad when he waves a hand at a wall that, upon closer inspection, does seem weaker than the rest. A chink in the castle’s armor, he says.

The fire dies out, people lay around in drunken heaps, and rats are scurrying for food in corners of the room by the time she retires for the night. Her maid is nowhere to be found- based on the way the Scotsman and her were wrapped around eachother earlier, it is likely best not to go looking for her- so she wanders alone to her quarters, a candle in one hand and a half eaten honey cake in the other.

The halls are dimly lit labrynths, and every footstep she takes makes a wet scuff along the perpetually damp straw covering the chilled stone floors. She does not believe in sneaking about when not needed, and enjoys a reprieve from constant surveillance as she licks honey carelessly from her fingers, focusing more on the sweetness of the honey cake than her surroundings.

And just as she turns the corner to the starcase, a hand shoots out from a shadow and grabs her arm.

Her gasp is muffled by a large hand, gloved. His other hand plucks the candle from her grasp, rests it on the narrow windowsill behind him. She scrapes and thrashes at the silver of his forearm, scrambling to reach for the knife at his side before he speaks.

“Pray, be silent, Lady- I know you are able.”

In response, she bites down on the gloved hand, hard. The man hisses but doesn’t let go, only roughly spins her to face him; and this is when she realizes it is the helmeted knight, eyes and armor shiny in the candlelight.

She shoves at his arms, and he concedes, letting her retreat three steps up the stairs before he takes her by the hand again.

“Release me, sir, or you will not enjoy the consequences,” She hisses. Something furious inside her is growing like a wildfire.

“I meant no offense, but only to warn you, fair lady,” he says, seemingly contrite, but with mirth in his voice. Is he smiling, behind that hideous helmet?

“Warn me?” She rips her hand from his. “Of what? Churlish knights, skulking behind corners?” She turns to go.

“You are one to scold on skulking behind corners, Lady. ” Her feet freeze where they are on the steps.

“Yes.” His voice is rough. “You are not as invisible as you may think- not to those trained to see, Lady. You should exercise more caution, when listenin’ from rafters and castle walls like a little bird.” He tilts his head, eyes trained on her, like a cat looking at a tree it’d like to climb. Or a bird it’d like to claw.

“I have been told you have a lovely mind. It would be a waste to see it dashed on a tower’s stony base.”

For the first time in ages, she forces her eyes to meet anothers. His are dark, redless, with what looks like coal smudged on his eyelids and undereyes. His eyes never falter from her stare, as would be proper. His pale lashes don’t so much as flutter.

She turns and continues walking upstairs- but before she rounds the corner, she looks behind and down to where he stands, at the base of the stairs, licking remnants of honey off his glove.

#simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #cod mw2 #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #cod mw ghost #cod mwii x reader #simon riley x reader angst #part 2 coming soon #call of duty #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley headcanons

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moondirti · 2 years ago

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bluebird

gif by @a7estrellas

pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader word count: 2k summary: the gaps in a grim reality warnings: mentions of morning spice and unprotected p-in-v, canon typical violence, mentions of gore, death and general unpleasantness, but it's mostly fluff notes: i had to air myself of the thirst before i could focus on a better developed fic for him. so sorry y'all, this lacks my usual substance. also, i did very minimal revision on this so sorry for any mistakes

Golden light broaches over the horizon; a deluge through dusty faux wood blinds, dawn spilling onto patchwork sheets. You feel it more so than you see – while your eyes remain closed, content, your skin bathes in the cresting warmth. Your hand smooths along the hairy forearm that wraps around your waist. His breath tickles your ear.

Things feel okay.

You know that they are not.

But the recognition flutters like a mote in your cotton-stuffed mind, lazy on its journey to your wavering consciousness. Half of it is ornery – an almost bloody battle against the grim reality that threatens to seep up into rotting floorboards. The other, softer bit, sings in poetic eulogies you’ve long forgotten, the romantics printed upon yellowed pages. You think you remember what they feel like, those books, rough and comforting underneath your wandering touch. You think you remember–

(Or, the sensation is mirrored onto the gruff man beside you.)

Either way, mornings tend to follow the same rhythm.

This; suspended animation on the verge of wakefulness. The rheum lining your lashes, and the punch of yesterday’s scotch whisky, dry on your tongue. Your head pounds like it does when you bleed out; festering, oozing like mud-soaked fungi. You sink into the knowledge that, despite it, you’re okay.

Him; steady, solid brawn slotted into your back. A beating heart – one you care for like your own – and muscles that tighten and curl around your frame. Sinew, tissue you’re familiar with on levels of lesions and starving attempts at survival, but are slowly growing to rediscover now. Here. The rough pads of his fingertips graze the waistband of your jeans. Instinctively, perhaps. Your mouth twitches with tired amusement.

Beyond; just outside the door, on the other side of the window–

No.

You centre in again on the beat of a bluebird’s wing. The gentle drumming that means nothing. Oblivious, quiet bliss.

(But the bustle of the world has already started edging along the tune. Bleary FEDRA announcements grow louder by the minute. It had been raining, the water perhaps cleaner than it had been pre-outbreak, though it certainly does not look that way. Crud stains glass panes. It’s the first thing you notice as your eyes peel open.)

Then–

“Had a dream about you.”

His voice. Hoarse, kindling logs on a bonfire; the rough whisper slices through the tranquillity. Your hips jolt, rearing into the source’s groyne.

“Christ–”

“Don’ tell me I scared you.” Joel huffs. “Assumed you were tougher than that.”

“I thought you were asleep.” You sniff, your retort missing the venom you wish for it, moulding to form an affectionate hum as you twist your head to face him. His nose presses into your neck before you get the chance.

“I was.” The confession is muffled, vibrating along the column of your throat. When you don’t respond, he takes to nipping the sensitive skin there, pinching your sweet spot between his lips until you squirm in place. His tree-trunk arms keep you from going anywhere, resolute – smelted tungsten.

(Those same ones, fit between your legs yesterday. Thick digits pistoning into the velvet walls of your cunt, feeding the hot coals that crackle in your core. You could have risen enough to melt him.

Fuck– you can’t– Oh my god, Joel–

Jus’ hold on and take it. That’s it… Atta’ girl.

You’d cum in some random alleyway, splayed open on dirty brick.)

“Mmm.” Biting your cheek at the feverish memory, you turn to mocking him. “Don’t tell me I scared you awake.”

“You?” As if to punctuate, he kneads the flesh of your hip. His grip verges on bruising as he does, seeking capillaries and bursting them, imposing himself upon more gruesome marks. Your gut lurches with brimming desire. “You make me feel a lotta things, darlin’. Fear ain’t one of them.”

“Oh, that’s priceless.” To steady yourself, you grasp his wrist, right above his watch, nudging the strap with your pinky. His bemusement rolls off him in lapping waves. “Had a good dream for once, then?”

He doesn’t grace you with an acknowledgement. Instead, his hands trail down to your hips, anchoring you down. Before you process it, your mouth cracks open to deliver another piercing jab.

Joel then grinds into the plush of your ass.

And it promptly snaps shut.

You lose your breath just as quick, the air pitching in a thin gasp, clawing desperately as though it’d been forcibly uprooted from your lungs. It hurts; it hurts because he’s hard, carved from rock, and it manages to batter the tenderest part of you.

Jesus, he’s still clothed, and yet–

“Better than good.” He husks.

You take a moment to digest it. Everything races faster than you can keep up with in this sleep-logged state; his beard – abrasive on your shoulder, chafing you there. Your underwear – drenched and still seeking more, aiding the slide of your thighs as you try to give it just that. You drink the timbre in his tone, that southern twinge that smoulders along the edge of every syllable. You blink with the slow roll of his hard-on, the length of it driving in between your cheeks.

It is against your will that bleak truths start to filter in too, trickling in through the slipshod cracks. They’ve grown teeth that are harder to shake, latched onto your shoulder, their putrid slobber priming the area for poison.

Your job, the virus, the grey world that taints everything in its colour.

Your nails press into the flesh of Joel’s wrist.

(No, don’t go. Please don’t leave me, not like this.

You’re used to loss. Doesn’t mean it hurts any less.)

You swim through the grief for your dawn’s promise, navigating through the molasses turned tar, then leverage your grip to flip and straddle his legs. The dizzying capsize knocks you off kilter, dousing you in a welcome numbness.

(The burden oscillates, like a rock skipping water.)

“Hi,” You simper once you’ve regained your wits.

“Hm.” He squints. His brows furrow, forehead wrinkling with the motion. Already, he senses what you’re about to lay on him.

“Donovan’s expecting his shipment by tonight. We need to head out sometime in the next hour for it to reach him by then.”

And while he might’ve expected it, his chin tips up with a drawn out inhale, the thumbs that rub your waist faltering. You’re glad his eyes are shut, if only for the fact that he doesn’t witness the frown that weighs your cheeks.

“Never a moment’s peace.” It’s spoken with a lilting tease. The stone that lodges in your throat nods contrary to the levity, though. You know that he’s right.

“No,” You agree, tracing the seams of his pants. There’s still the glaring evidence to your circumstance, thick and strained against the tightening denim. Verity aches like an open sore, borderline septic within the gummy recesses of your brain. You hope this’ll douse it, if only for a short while, in lemon disinfectant. “But I had to ground you for what’s to come.”

(You say lemon. It could be anything; spearmint, 100% alcohol. Anything but the ever present tang of putrefaction and bile.)

He opens his mouth to protest.

Your gaze flickers to his own, lidded one, and carries upward to take in the tousled bed-head he has yet to smooth out. “We can be quick.” You gripe, popping open the button that keeps the rest of him from you. “We will be quick.”

“You said it yourself,” He begins, but he doesn’t try to stop you. If anything, his fingers regain their charge, fondling closer to your core, rubbing like a well-oiled machine. “Within the next hour.”

“Tell me about your dream.” You interrupt, folding over to pepper small pecks across his jaw. The joint clicks in minute irritation as his palms spread over your ass.

“Nothin’ to say that isn’t well on its way to happenin’ already.”

“That so?” You purr, licking down patchy hair until you can latch onto his jugular. Your canines graze the curve of it, skimming the aged leather of his skin. He hasn’t told you much of his life before the outbreak, but you can imagine he’d worked in the sun often. He’s weathered in that way, bronzed and not quite as elastic as someone significantly younger.

“But you sure do seem to be takin’ your damn time with it.”

You pull away just then, admiring the mottled blemish that pricks in shades of eggplant purple and maroon. It’s more rushed than you would have preferred; your conviction warbles, flimsy between these walls, and you have to restrain yourself from diving back down to try again.

“Impatient old man.” You mutter, rucking your pants to your ankles as he does much the same. He doesn’t reply.

(You would think he doesn’t hear you. You know better than to suppose he misses anything.)

Instead, he cups his balls and pulls his cock from behind his briefs. He doesn’t give you the time to tug off your panties as he does; with one fell swoop, he jerks the soaked fabric to the side, his mushroomed head catching the seam of your cunt.

And there’s no symphony to it; no swelling orchestra that laments with plucking strings. It doesn’t feel like sex as it was, before – that avenue for abundant desire, something to be had on seven hundred thread egyptian cotton sheets. No; poetics can’t be prescribed to the way Joel pushes into you, semi-dry, desperate, like a voracious animal. It’s fast, and brutal, and painful in that delicious way where the burn is embraced.

He feels bigger when he’s in you – not that he doesn’t look the part. But you’re only able to process half of it when he’s caged between your fingers – another truth dampened. Self-preservation, maybe. A dam to redirect the hesitance one might feel looking at the thickset mass. The throbbing veins that branch up the side. The pearlescent precum that beads and slips down a purpling width. He’s huge, alive, and there’s no ignoring it when he pounds up into you like this.

Suppose it’s flaying pleasure, or the filth he utters over anything else. That string of obscene groans, grunted for only you to hear, his balls slapping your ass and his juices smearing milky white on sweltering walls. You suck him in deeper, deeper, urgent to gorge on this feast before you’re robbed of it. You fuck to the cadence of a ticking clock, manufacturing your own hypnagogia in this perennial moment where he swells up inside of you. And you don’t let him pull out once he’s fully situated, vacuumed in a squelching uptake. You push forward – buttressed on your haunches, your clit mashed against the wild crop of hair on his groyne – then swivel back again, his head marring your cervix.

(It’s not often you’re on top; he’s too snappy, too anguished to relinquish his grip on your hair and the sight of you pinned to a wall. But with the way his neck stretches, the tendons long and tense, running down to the bulk of his arms – you think he likes it.)

It goes that way, follows that same beat, for the next few minutes, until Joel hugs your chest to his. It doesn’t better the angle, there’s no logical – pleasurable – aspect to it. It’s all sweat and musk, the brine of body odour as you conjoin and soil yourself further with one another’s sins, grime. He pulls you closer for purchase, for warning – Wish I could cum this deep in you, darlin’. You’d love that, wouldn’ ya?, husked over the shell of your ear.

Or, it’s something deeper that is too volatile to acknowledge in this life.

There’s nothing to pinpoint about it. You try not to find deeper meaning in anything anymore.

Though your nerves flare, liquifying your guts into a viscous substance that sloshes around and sullies the duvet more than it already is. Your muscles tense, screwing into tight knots, your fingers twitching through the chest hair underneath you. You look for a stretch of flesh to bite, to kiss, when you unravel at the seams.

And that tells you all you need to know.

He pulls out to splatter his spend onto your stomach.

“That was my only shirt.” You whine.

“Jus’ wipe it off.”

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valkyrieromanoff · 1 month ago

Text

⚰️MATCHING COSTUME: SAM MONROE X YOU (day 7 of 31)

synopsis: You and Sam match Halloween costumes without knowing it.

warning: fluffy.

a/n: Hello theretwo days of Sam, well, you can already start to see a pattern there, hope you like it💖

ɪ ꜱᴇɴꜱᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ'ꜱ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴᴅ

ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟꜱ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʀᴀɢᴇᴅʏ'ꜱ ᴀᴛ ʜᴀɴᴅ

Halloween wasn’t necessarily a bad holiday, Sam admitted. Dressing up, pretending to be someone else for a night, getting bags full of candy, and stuffing yourself with treats—it had its moments. There was even a certain satisfaction in harmlessly vandalizing houses with the excuse of mischief, all in the name of "trick or treat." But tonight, the appeal of it all felt distant. Parties, loud music, and flashing lights were the last things he wanted to deal with.

Corey, his best—and probably only—friend, was hosting a Halloween party since his parents were away. A night of candy, snacks, smuggled alcohol, and teenagers crammed into every corner of the house didn’t excite Sam in the slightest. He’d tried to dodge it, saying he had other plans, but Corey had seen right through him. And now, here he was, standing in Corey’s house, reluctantly helping hang plastic ghosts and spider webs while teenagers filtered in.

Sam was already dressed. His face was painted in stark white and black to resemble a skull, and he wore a custom black suit with white pinstripes, the lapels and tie perfectly mimicking Jack Skellington from *A Nightmare Before Christmas*. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a window—his hollow eyes staring back at him from beneath the makeup. It felt oddly fitting.

"Should I hide my mom's china vases?" Corey asked as he draped fake cobwebs over the cabinets and lamps.

Sam rolled his eyes, biting into a lollipop he’d plucked from a pumpkin-shaped candy jar. "If you don’t want them broken or worse," he deadpanned, casually heading toward the kitchen.

"By the way," he added, ripping the wrapper off another lollipop. "Are you sure your sister’s even helping with this? Haven’t seen her lift a finger."

"She took care of things earlier," Corey shrugged, pouring vodka into the punch. "She’s probably getting ready now."

Hours later, the party was in full swing. The lights had dimmed, the music blared, and the house was packed with teenagers dancing, making out, or drunkenly laughing in groups. Sam, however, sat slouched in an armchair facing the stairs. Corey had asked him to "monitor" the staircase to keep couples from sneaking upstairs. Sam nearly laughed at the idea—did Corey really think a strip of tape was going to stop hormone-fueled teenagers?

Sam sighed, fishing a cigarette from his pocket, only to curse under his breath when he couldn’t find his lighter. He was about to give up when the sound of footsteps on the stairs made him look up, ready to scold whoever was trying to sneak past him. The words died on his lips when he saw the boots.

High-heeled, bluish-green boots with delicate black stitching. His gaze traveled upward, past the tights—also bluish-green, patched with jagged black lines—then to the vibrant patchwork dress. The mix of pink, plaid, yellow, and dark green with polka dots was unmistakable. And when his eyes finally landed on your face, painted with bluish makeup, with drawn-on stitches, long dark lashes, and soft pink lipstick, the cigarette slipped from his fingers.

It was you—Corey’s sister, dressed as Sally from *A Nightmare Before Christmas*.

“So, how’s the Pumpkin King doing?” you asked with a mischievous grin, hopping down the last few steps and landing lightly in front of him.

Sam stared at you, his usual guarded expression faltering as confusion flickered across his face. He scratched the back of his neck, trying to regain some composure. You frowned slightly, waiting for him to speak.

"You’re Jack, right? *The Nightmare Before Christmas*? Tim Burton?" you prompted with a playful smile.

“Yeah, uh, yeah,” Sam mumbled, his voice weaker than he intended. He wasn’t sure why, but seeing you dressed like that, with your bright, energetic smile, made something stir in him—something he didn’t quite understand.

You stood there for a moment, the noise of the party fading into the background as the two of you locked eyes. You weren’t exactly strangers, but you weren’t close either. You had seen each other plenty of times—passing in the hallways, grabbing snacks from the kitchen late at night, bumping into each other at family gatherings. But tonight, something felt different.

"Why Sally?" Sam asked suddenly, his voice quieter now, genuinely curious.

You raised an eyebrow, and your lips curved into a small, knowing smile. "Why Jack?" you countered.

Sam chuckled softly, appreciating the quick comeback. He took a moment before answering, his voice dropping as if admitting something he rarely shared. "Jack and I... we both feel like something’s missing, you know? We’re both lost, stuck, not knowing what to do with our lives. He wants more but doesn’t know what, and neither do I."

Your eyes softened at his words. You hadn’t expected him to be so honest, but it made sense. You stepped closer, brushing your fingers against his hand and pulling him to his feet. “Come with me,” you whispered.

The cigarette he had forgotten about tumbled to the floor, but he didn’t care. He followed you without question, climbing the stairs, past the noise of the party, until you reached a window. With surprising ease, you climbed out onto the roof, and Sam followed, pulling himself up beside you. The night air was cool, the sound of distant music muffled as you both sat on the slanted roof, your legs dangling over the edge.

“I chose Sally because... sometimes I feel like I don’t belong,” you admitted quietly, your gaze fixed on the stars above. “I try to fit into society, but no matter how much I try, something always feels off. Like I’m always waiting for something to go wrong.”

Sam turned his head to look at you, and for the first time that night, he really saw you. Not just Corey’s sister, not just someone he occasionally crossed paths with, but someone who understood the very same things he’d been grappling with for years. He shifted closer, the space between you shrinking as the weight of your words settled in.

"Life sucks," Sam said softly, nodding in agreement. “But... not living? Not trying? That’s worse."

Your eyes met his, and for a moment, the world seemed to quiet around you both. There was something so profoundly real in that moment, the unspoken recognition that you had both found someone who understood. Someone who saw the world the way you did—lost, broken, but still searching for something, even if you didn’t know what it was.

A soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips, and Sam felt it too. That rare connection—when two people, even through all their confusion and doubts, find a flicker of hope in each other.

You leaned your head on his shoulder, and he rested his head against yours. The night breeze carried the scent of autumn leaves and distant laughter, but here, on this rooftop, in the stillness of your shared understanding, it felt like the world had faded away.

For the first time in a long while, Sam didn’t feel so lost. He didn’t feel so alone. And in that quiet moment, it was enough.

"Thanks for pulling me out of the party," Sam murmured, his voice low, but the warmth in it unmistakable.

"Thanks for coming," you replied just as softly.

The stars above twinkled faintly, the night enveloping you both in its comforting embrace. And though neither of you had all the answers, you had each other—if only for tonight—and that made all the difference.

#sam monroe x reader #sam monroe x you #life as a house #sam monroe

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revelisms · 10 days ago

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I keep nosing through my half-written Arcane things and feeling the itch to write it again, so I finally dusted off this little ficlet. Short and sweet domestic oneshot about Jinx, Silco's oddball crime family, and card games 🃏

stratagems

WC: 1.6k | Rating: G | Jinx-centric | Domestic fluff, found family, gambling, character study Also on AO3

Tuesdays are slow nights at the Last Drop—the kind that smoulder on for hours, the neon dimmed to only a fractal prism across velvet booths and varnish-glossed tables: nights for myths and recollections spun to liquor-sweet grandeur, and books read aloud in grinning theatrics, and cards shlack-clack-clacked together between Sevika's weathered fingers, slicked across the table like darts to waiting hands.

When she was meek and younger and still reeling from it all, these nights felt magical. In some ways, they held a candle to those small, rare moments, carefully treasured, of when things in that dingy little storeroom, cramped between three others and Vander's bellowing laugher, felt okay.

It's different, now.

The storeroom's locked up; her brothers and sister-mother-Vi are all gone, gone, gone; Vander's dead, betrayed, rotting, deserved; she's older and restless and lonely and bored.

But there are three others, still.

Sat at a table across from Sevika's rippling hands—glinting augmentation and golden rings, shuffling cards with a magician's ease—is a mountain of a man, his sickly-pale skin littered with a patchwork of black tattoos.

Lock. Hemlock, when she'd told him Lock was a weird name—and then he'd glared down at her with his beady eyes, incense smoke-blue: gruffed, Don't you call me it.

He had a puggishness about him, not a hair on his body save the coarse clumps that lined his burly arms and flared out from the low cut of his tattered tank like a spit of soot. His voice was cavernous and dry: not like Silco's: like he'd swallowed rocks and kept the dust, rumbling and rough with a gravel that flowed like music on a foggy day; Lock's was deep and scratchy and altogether unpleasant, but warm. He wheezed more than laughed. His smile split his face to a crescent of yellowing pikes. He called her Little Devil.

He swipes up six cards between his bulky fingers, tongues his cheek, and skips two over to Ran—who Silco said once went by Rania; who kept their hair sharp as black fins. Jinx could count on one hand the number of times they'd said more than five words in passing to her. Their eyes were like dim violets, and they soothed her, in the strangest way: found the ache in her heart like a quiet beacon, and held it. They liked to tousle their metal fingers through her hair, muss her fringe to a squealing mess. They called her Blue.

At the bar, bent over a dissembled revolver carved with gold, sat dusty little Dustin, head in the clouds, painted nails flecked with gun oil and a rag in his ink-blitzed hands. Talking to him was like dissecting a parable. He spoke in tongues, seemingly flipping through his days on a catalogue of obscure references: a code one had to crack over a lifetime to understand. Jinx, though, had taken the feat to heart. She'd spent hours peering through his craftings and margin-scrawled notes, like one may study an abstract to glean its meaning. She would squirm next to him when the nights grew too quiet, painting in the chips of varnish on his nails and humming his strange tunes. He had eyes like black buttons, and freckles on his nose. His smile was the kindest. He called her Jay.

She didn't know which name she liked best—which one of them she liked best. But she liked the lot of them all more than Sevika.

At least they didn't glare at her, or call her brat or runt, or wait for her to screw things up, like always.

Then again. She was, first and foremost to them, some kid in their boss's care—she'd heard Lock grumble that more than once, like a warning—their boss, who had been nose-deep in a monstrosity of trade edicts and contracts and whatever else; who hadn't given her a glance when she peeked her head around the door to his office, huffing, Not now, Jinx.

That had been hours ago. He still hadn't come down.

She kicks the toe of her boot against her chair, sat in a knot with its back to her chest, and sighs.

The cards dance between Sevika's hands like a flurry of white-capped wings. Jinx watches from three tables away as she flicks out another round, a cigarillo embering between her teeth.

"Two for two."

"'Course you gives us that," Lock snarls. "Deck's loaded."

"All skills of the trade." A puff of smoke, the roll twisting between ambered fingers. "Dish 'em out, you brute."

The cards glimmer spell-like across the table. Jinx presses her chin into her arm, trying and failing and trying again to follow the strategy of the game. They moved in turns of three: trading in singles, drawing pairs, discarding all at once. It was too quick for her to follow.

Footsteps creak down the stairs. She whips over her shoulder, staring through her fringe. Thieram—Chuck, as she'd insisted on calling him, just to make his ears color—meets her eyes with a skittish blink, and beelines for the bar. She scowls, hunching back in her seat.

Ran wins the round, with a coy grin and a smack of their cards on the table. Lock pounds the varnish hard enough to knock the deck over.

Jinx aches to put on a gramophone record, to get up and dance, bang on that dusty old piano by the back tables, anything. More creaking down the stairs, glass rattling, Dustin humming his old songs, boots th-thump th-thumping slow over the panelling.

She smells the spice-sweet of his cigars before she feels him find his way beside her.

His presence is less a quiet comfort as it is a blistered, bleeding reconnection: the wash of his cold energy startling, and sharp, and soothing, all at once.

"At it again, are they?" Silco drawls.

Jinx pitters her fingers over her elbow. "Yeah."

He hums. He's wearing green today: a dark, blueish sort. "Give them an ounce of time to themselves, and they gamble it away," he grouses. His fingers tick. He sighs. "I've kept you." The words carry the start of an apology. "This week's dealings were—"

"Unexpected?" Jinx quips.

"One could say."

"Annoying?"

"Dreadfully."

"Mister Finn being a big stupid-head, again?"

"A horrendous one." A small smirk slides over his mouth, crooked at one corner: the one he reserves only for her. "But no matter."

It's a roundabout dismissal. It means, I'm sorry; means, My time is yours, now; means he will wait until she proffers an explanation for her gawping through the smoke-hazed green of his office, anything beyond I just wanted to sit with you, but anything beyond that would be a lie.

She presses her thumb into the chair's spine. After a moment, his eyes flit down to her. "They've not showed you how to play?" he mutters.

She shakes her head.

"It's simple enough." He folds his hands behind his back, tilting his head, and watches the whirlwind of motion that continues on before them. "You know the suits, don't you?" A shrug of her shoulders. "Well, then. Four kings; four aces. Hold either set of those, and you win. Anything in the middle is fair game to keep, or toss, or trade."

She frowns. "That's it?" It had seemed far more complicated than that, from all she'd gleaned.

"That's it." His eyes fall on her, mismatched. His fingers turn at his back. "Come," he murmurs, "I'll show you. One can hardly learn, without practice."

As seemed to be his philosophy for everything, for better or worse. Trial by fire, mastery through mistake, and all that.

(Who's to say whether one can sink or swim, without first giving themselves to the deep?)

He'd carried that philosophy like a mantle when he had sent her on her first missions, shadowing her movements with watchful eyes; or when he had tasked her with duties under Sevika's wing, or Lock's, or Ran's, or Dustin's. In things as small and simple as organizing his paperwork for him (client contracts on the bottom, client files above that, then industry reports, and industry-related headlines, and financial records); in things as precise as his daily injections of shimmer to his rotted eye, that she had learned and denied was killing him by inches, her finger shaking on the trigger that first and only time (nothing different from a bullet, child) and nimble as a fine-tuned machine, ever since.

He steps away from the shadows, into the gold, an unspoken invitation—and she watches, quietly intrigued, at the actions that follow: chairs squeaked, smokes raised, Sir's and Hey, Boss's bounced around the table. Sevika drags up an extra seat. He gives a nod to her reshuffled cards and Thieram's expectant glance, in turns.

A tray of carved glasses and a fifth of whisky is carried over, each gift deposited to the table in heavy thunks. Silco takes the first pour. The ambered sheen of the liquor fractures over the table like shattered glass. "Have a seat, child."

She's on her feet, sheepishly, in an instant: clumsy steps skittering over the floor: a birdish thing at a table of wolves, trying fruitlessly to don their fangs.

A chair is cleared for her between Lock's black-mapped shoulder and Ran's tick-ticking fingers. She slumps into it, quickly. Sevika's eyes burn into her.

Silco deals out thirty cards—six for each of them—with a lazying flourish of his fingers, and ends the litter on Jinx.

"A game of luck," he tells her, without care for the looming prowl of their company. The gravel of his voice has the strangest way of twisting the world on its head, as though it is only the two of them. It always does. "Welcome to Crowns."

He gives a touch of a smile, there and gone in an instant. She smiles sheepishly back.

Then, the five of them descend upon their drawings—and, quick as lightning, they play.

#arcane #arcane fanfic #ficlet #jinx #jinx arcane #sevika #arcane sevika #silco #silco arcane #lock arcane #ran arcane #dustin arcane #fluff #the messy dysfunctional crime found family is coming back for me #hhhhgh #writing

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angelofchaos001 · 3 months ago

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Meet Shale!

Okay I made a proper introductory post for Shale! (Schist will come once I figure out their design) I'll make them a separate post for all the dialogue I came up with.

some spoilers for the game but not a lot, also tagging time: @doodlebug091 @mellow-mooon @sawyer-is-eepy @a-crawling-chaos (Just poking at my followers/moots who I know like Outer Wilds)

Alright! Let's start the bidding at this beauty of a reference. I know it's got some messy colors and no I don't know which layer the two random dots are on to erase them, but I'm proud because I drew this without needing to reference someone else's posing art. I just used my own arms and legs to figure it out and winged it and it looks like a person. I'm proud.

While we're on the topic, I might as well discuss my thought process for their design. This is Shale when they're not busy exploring dangerous ice asteroids. I tried to make the design look comfortable, and that's the main thought behind it. Shale likes scarves. They like fingerless gloves. They like baggier shorts. They despise long pants. They don't like wearing bright colors. They like grays and browns. It's Shale in their peak of comfort.

And then we've got this one! Also done without a pose reference. I actually did draw a whole spacesuit originally, but then covered it up with that big coat they're wearing. Anyway, Shale's suit is designed to be bulky, thick, insulted, everything they'd need to explore space properly. But to add onto that, they brought the scarf and coat for extra warmth on the Interloper. A lot of their patchwork fixes were done by them on the fly, and they even made their viola case all on their own. Shale uses yellow as their bright coloration because they hate the color orange. They have a ton of rope, ice picks, and grippy boots because they knew they were going to an ice place. And that antennae on their helmet is meant to pick up distant signals, so far it has not picked up anything new.

Now it's time for what nobody came here for, the infodump about their history and personality!

Shale developed a fascination with space at a very young age. Extremely young. All it took was young Shale getting one look through a telescope to become completely obsessed with the idea that they, someday, would join the well-known travelers out there and do something legendary. Sometimes, when things lined up right, Shale got to opportunity to talk to the travelers over radio. They loved hearing stories of Feldspar's glory and dreamed to be immortalized like they were.

Once they were allowed to join Outer Wilds Ventures and start learning how to be an astronaut, Shale wasted no time being both a delight to teach and an absolute headache to watch over. Whenever they weren't learning or doing their part in the village (Shale helped keep the observatory clean), they were working on their own little project. With some help from Slate, they attempted to make a jetpack just like the spacesuits had. They got precisely two attempts at this before they were shut down, but the first attempt went off mostly fine. Despite the device not working, Shale landed mostly safely in the water and their only injuries were some scrapes and a sprained ankle.

Shale never stopped writing new ideas, but didn't physically attempt any more jetpacks for a while. Instead, they focused on studying and getting closer to the other trainees they were learning alongside. They did grow close to the protagonist, and another recruit named Tin, though weren't able to click as well with the slightly older hearthians, Schist and Bismuth. Most of their time was still spent with their mentors, but whenever hatchling wasn't working with Hal on the translator, Shale liked to be around them.

When they were a little older and nearing the end of their training, Shale made their second attempt at the jetpack, and came out with a promising result. However, this attempt went far poorer than the previous one. For one, they moved the attempt location to avoid being caught by anyone, sneaking away to some of the further-out geysers with Tin (in case something impossibly went wrong). They even snuck a spacesuit (yoinked from the Zero-G cave), since their plan was to launch from a geyser and leave the planet, just for a moment (They didn't take the jetpack there because the entire point here was testing theirs).

The plan went smoothly, with Shale indeed getting launched from the geyser and coming close to leaving the orbit of the planet, except for the part where their jetpack failed. Catastrophically. It actually exploded on their back, pretty much destroying the "borrowed" suit, but more critically, burning Shale badly. Luckily, they had brought someone else with them, so Tin was able to (try and) catch them so the fall wouldn't kill 'em and then get help for them.

Shale got taken to be medically treated, and everyone agrees they're incredibly lucky to have survived as well as they did. In spite of the massive burns, the suit protected them from the worst of it and it was really only their back that got hurt severely. While the smaller burns along their neck and arms healed fine, much of their back burns scarred and took a lot of time and effort to heal.

So. Obviously Shale got in massive trouble.

Such trouble that not only did they move their launch date back (both for recovery reasons and punishment reasons) significantly, but the others considered forcing Shale out of the space program. In the end, Shale was allowed to stay a recruit as long as they 1) Did not try that again 2) Agreed not to sneak around again 3) Helped repair the suit they'd broken and 4) Spent some time after healing not being in the program (think getting suspended). While in this suspension period, Shale got to watch Schist launch off, still fantasizing about that being them.

Shortly after Schist was Bismuth, and as Shale's own launch date approached they were eager. Tin launched a few days before their own, and so Shale spent a lot of time reassuring them that it'd be fine and they'd do great things. Eventually, it was finally Shale's turn. After camping with Slate (and having an amazing conversation about 'Why did you do the stupid thing' - 'Why did you let me do the stupid thing'), they set off for their ambition: The Interloper. They were determined to find out where it came from.

This ambition proved harder than they'd thought, but it didn't deter Shale from their goal. They became an avid studier of ghost matter by extension of their Interloper studies, and theorized a lot about what happened to the core of the asteroid and it's origins. They also spent some time studying how to make ships designed for deep space, hoping that the frozen Nomai ship they found on the asteroid could hold the answer for that.

Some time later, Tin sent everyone frantic radio messages to come back to Timber Hearth and that they'd discovered something new. Tin desperately tried to explain how they'd found a new hidden spinning disk thing, but as time passed with Tin being unable to provide real evidence, Hearthians began dismissing their claims. Shale was one of the last to give up on Tin's ideas, but eventually waved them off as mad like everyone else. They feel bad for Tin and their situation, but don't disagree with their grounding and truly believe their friend went a little crazy.

After that, some time passed, and then we hit the events of the game. They did radio Hatchling plenty of reassuring words before their launch, though!

#outer wilds #outer wilds spoilers #outer wilds oc #outer wilds hearthian #Im a lil beast who makes OC's

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trulybetty · 11 months ago

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Pickled Peña | Resolutions

Prompts: pickles, resolutions & "You stand there and accuse me, but where were you at the time?" Pairing: Javi P. x gn!reader Word Count: 1,041 Warnings: alcohol, hangovers, smoking, resolutions & maybe some angst? oh, and pickles if you hadn't worked that one out 😋 - oh, and author has watched like four episodes of Narcos and copious amounts of gifs! Summary: you had one resolution for the new year, yet somehow you managed break it before the new year could even really start AO3: Linked Masterlist: check out @pickled-pena for the full masterlist of entries 🥒

A/N: this is my entry for the first @pickled-pena challenge. The rules were simple, use all of the three prompts, a minimum of 500 words and have fun with it. If you want to join in on the fun, you have the month of January to post your entries. Head over to @pickled-pena for more information or feel free to reach out!

You blinked against the harsh sunlight streaming through the window, the remnants of last night's celebrations lingering like the dust in the air that could be seen in the streaks of light. You'd ended up in Javi's bed, the sheets tangled around your legs, a testament to the chaos of the evening before.

You groaned, you couldn’t remember much of what happened once you’d made it back to to his place. You tried to focus enough to look at the hands of your watch, but at that moment it was proving difficult without inciting a further pounding to your head.

What you could remember though was that it was January 1st, 1999, because last night you’d attended a New Year's party hosted by Javi’s cousin.

The house was silent and still, as if it were taking in a deep breath after the milestone of another year gone by.

With two failed attempts at getting out of bed, on the third you successfully swung your legs over the side, your feet sinking into the artificial shag of the carpet. You scrunched your feet, feeling the fibres tickle between your toes. The dark cherry hardwood panelling lined all four walls, only broken up by the sun-faded buttercup yellow curtains that framed the small window across the room.

The room, and the house encompassing it, were frozen in the fifties, the last time the home’s decor had received any attention.

Managing to pull yourself up you found the woollen sweater you’d had on the night before and after some searching managed to find your leggings on the other side of the room. The rest of your belongings had been strewn about the house in a pathway that led from the front door to the door of Javi’s room.

Stepping out of the bedroom to the living room, you were grateful the curtains were still pulled. The smell of coffee had you shuffling to the kitchen, pausing only momentarily to pull the crocheted afghan from the back of the sofa around your shoulders. The patchwork of colours was almost too bright in the light of the headache that had moved behind your eyes. You just hoped it’d stave off the cold that had settled in the house.

The kitchen tiles were cool under your feet, and had you bouncing on the balls of your feet. The cold too much coming off of the carpeted living room. You poured yourself a steaming cup of coffee. It was strong and black, the bitter aroma wrapped around you like a familiar embrace.

With the chipped mug cupped between your hands, you slipped on your boots and stepped outside. The air was chilly and the blanket wasn’t enough to stave off the cold, but it felt refreshing in your hungover state. Though very much a stark contrast to the warmth of Javi’s bed you’d left behind.

Shielding your eyes from the morning sun there he was at the edge of the property, where the land stretched out to rolling hills. He was leant against the fence, the one he and his father had built the week before, a cigarette dangling from his lips. There was an aura of peace about him that you couldn’t help but gravitate towards.

If he knew you were there, he didn’t make it known. Only acknowledging you with a brief nod when you handed him your coffee to hop up onto the fence before taking it back to fill your hands with the warmth it held.

Exchanging a look between the two of you, you accepted the silent offer of a drag from his cigarette. The smoke filled your lungs, a familiar burn that didn’t quite hide the taste of last night's mistakes.

“I broke my resolution already,” you said, the words floating out with the smoke from your lips.

Javi turned to you, a question in his eyes. “What was that?”

“That I wouldn't sleep with you again.”

You don’t know when he’d gotten that much closer, the heat of his body was in contrast to the chill of the morning. He nuzzled your jaw with his nose, a gesture so typical of him that it tightened something in your chest. “Why's that?” he asks, his voice a gentle rumble.

“You know why, Javi,” you reply, the reminder bitter on your tongue.

He smiled, a flash of teeth and mischief. “That was last year.”

“We got back here at 2 am, Javi. Hardly a new leaf turned.”

His chuckle was soft, almost lost to the wind that rustled through the trees. “Things got fuzzy after those shots.”

You both fall silent, the ridiculousness of last night's concoction making you grimace. “Who told Leslie-Ann that mixing pickle juice with tequila was a good thing?”

Javi just laughed, the sound echoing in the crisp morning air, as if the absurdity of the concoction was a fitting tribute to the absurdity of resolutions—and maybe, to the unpredictable nature of the relationship between the two of you.

He moved closer, the look in his eyes a mix of warmth and something a little more earnest. His hand found yours, fingers entwining as if they always belonged together. He leaned in, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that held the soft promise of the new year. It was a kiss that spoke of the years gone by, of the turbulent history shared, and the magnetic pull that kept drawing the two of you back to each other.

The kiss broke, leaving you both slightly breathless. You looked up at him, your eyes locking with his as you steadied your voice, “You stand there and accuse me, but where were you at the time?”

Javi's eyes softened, the playful edge giving way to sincerity, “I was right by your side sweetheart, making the same foolish decision as you to drink that shit.”

The intensity of his gaze held you captive, his words holding a deeper meaning tethering you to the spot. You felt the weight of the unspoken feelings between you, the years of near-misses and what-ifs crystallizing into a single, fragile moment under that New Year's sky.

#pickledpena #pickledpeña writing challenge #pickled-pena #pickled-peña #javier peña fanfiction #javi peña x you #narcos fanfiction #javi peña x reader #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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do-androids-dream-ao3acc · 7 months ago

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Yeah, I did another Buck/Tommy-Tevan-whatever ship name-fic!

Buck is finally taking his flight lessons, and of course they go wrong.

Tags: Character Study, Fluff, Whump, Hurt Tommy Kinard, Hurt/Comfort, Angst.

Read below the cut (4,691 words) or on AO3! And this is the song which gave this fic its name.

- Face the fear, grow stronger by the scars -

"Are you sure that's all right?"

Did he sound nervous? Buck let a broad grin appear on his face, if only to prevent this potential impression – he could certainly feel his stomach prickle, and it wasn’t because of Tommy. Tommy, who was sitting next to him looking very relaxed (and handsome), hands in his lap instead on the cyclic.

"Relax, Evan, and focus on what I've explained to you," the pilot returned.

Buck clung to the controls, almost squinting to watch the sky and the lights in the helicopter at the same time, pondering, geez, what was I thinking? He couldn't admit to Tommy that he was scared shitless, nor that he had never actually wanted to take flying lessons. He’d always thought it was a clever and somewhat frivolous metaphor because Tommy had more experience with men. Buck had thought that was some kind of gay code for yes, I want to try that.

Apparently not. Maybe Tommy was playing a prank on him, but even if the guy had a wry sense of humor, Buck didn’t believe he would do something like that. Tommy… he had changed. Or maybe he’d just evolved, had peeled out of his shell to finally show what was underneath. And Buck quite liked that.

That's why he didn't think he needed to pull this off to please Tommy (although he very much wanted to), but to be honest. He'd asked for flying lessons and got them, and it wasn't like him to look for excuses now – even if this was way more literal than he'd thought.

"Pulling up the collective increases the pitch angle of all rotor blades by the same amount," Buck repeated Tommy’s lesson.

"The pitch angle and…?"

"Uh… the… the angle of attack!"

Tommy's satisfied smile made fine lines appear next to his eyes, which caused Buck's stomach to tingle even more – only this time he knew the reason.

"You were paying attention after all, Evan," Tommy said, chuckling. "All right, well done. That's enough for the first time, I think. Watch out, I'll take over."

Tommy had used his connections and actually managed to get one of the training helicopters; these had dual controls allowing the flight instructor to intervene if need be. However, in less than an hour, real student pilots were waiting for the machine, and Buck was already looking forward to feeling solid ground under his feet again.

"All right."

Buck kept his hands on his cyclic, watched the altitude display and waited for Tommy to take over. The pilot’s hands were already on his own controls, and it was only when he nodded to Buck that the latter dared to let go of his. If he had his way, he would never get behind the controls of a helicopter again. That meant he would have to tell Tommy the truth at some point and that he would lose a little bit of coolness in Christopher's eyes, but the thrill just wasn’t worth it. Maybe Buck had also changed – or evolved –a bit. He cared for his life, and Tommy was one of the reasons.

"Fine day for a flight," said Tommy, casting a glance out of the canopy as he flew an extremely elegant loop.

And Buck had to admit that the view was fantastic. They had left the city’s concrete jungle behind, headed east, gliding across the Californian desert. The sparse vegetation beneath the helicopter was a patchwork of green, yellow and brown spots, occasionally adorned by incredibly colorful flowers, and it all looked much more exciting from up here. The same was true for Tommy, though... the telltale extra heartbeat that consistently filled Buck's chest when he looked at the man told him he didn't care where Tommy was. Just as long as he could be next to him. It sure was exciting, dating a pilot, but it didn’t quite explain Tommy’s overwhelming, mesmerizing charisma. There was way more to him than being a great guy with a fascinating job, much underneath, and Buck wanted to get to know these parts.

"Have you ever kissed up in the air, Evan?" Tommy asked abruptly, his smile way too confident.

"Well," Buck countered without flinching, "I'm a member of the High Mile Club, you know."

Tommy let out a good-natured laugh, filling the helicopter’s small cockpit with mirth. It ended abruptly when a warning light suddenly came on, its frantic red flashes announcing something that Buck believed bode no good.

"What's going on?"

Tommy stared ahead, his knuckles white from clutching the cyclic.

"Engine problem," he admitted, when shortly afterwards a signal tone was heard and more controls began to flash.

"Engine," Buck echoed, already feeling a hint of damp palms. "That's... uh, not good, right?"

"Don't panic," Tommy replied with a curt sideways glance that was apparently intended to be reassuring, yet wasn't at all. "If the helicopter's engine fails, autorotation kicks in. Remember? ’T was pretty much one of the first things you asked me."

"With the help of autorotation, we descend in a controlled manner," said Buck, who actually remembered, "and can make an emergency landing."

"Exactly. It's bound to be a bit bumpy, but…"

His words died away in a dull rumble shaking the cockpit.

"That's normal, right?"

By now Buck didn't care if he sounded nervous, the situation was clearly a cause for tension, and Tommy's petrified expression didn't make things any better.

"Autorotation makes for a rough descent," Tommy said, but the steep crease on his forehead was hardly promising. "It's just that…"

Whatever it was, it was immediately forgotten when a huge jolt went through the helicopter. Tommy tore at the cyclic and flipped a few switches, Buck felt them go into a tailspin. His left hand uselessly gripped the canopy, as if he wanted to hold either himself or the whole contraption together.

"Fuck," Tommy cursed, and that's when Buck knew they were really in deep shit.

Tommy grabbed his headset, apparently about to make a distress call – sensible, Buck thought, with a touch of relief – but at that moment the helicopter plummeted several miles. Buck was prepared for it to get bumpy, as Tommy had put it, yet there was no way to prepare for this. Buck's stomach plunged into infinity, and this morning’s sandwich was about to make its way back. The last thing he saw were Tommy's wide eyes, which held no fear, only regret.

———

Later, Buck had no memory of the impact, although it would haunt him in his dreams. Now, however, the high sun stung him hard, it seemed as if it wanted to break through his closed eyelids. He blinked, his vision blurred for a moment, and looked up into a bright blue sky. Such a beautiful day, he thought dazedly, until he wondered why on earth he was lying on the ground. Millions of sharp grains of sand seemed to drill into his back, but there was more, and then reality hit him. The helicopter. They had crashed.

Tommy.

As a first responder, Buck had learned to stay calm. It was just comparatively difficult when it was you, even more so when it was someone you clearly liked. And as much as Buck loved the adrenaline rush, this required a cool head. So he turned his neck very carefully, getting a first overview without moving. Strangely enough, he found himself lying outside the helicopter, he must have been thrown out on impact. So much for seatbelts. The grains of sand, of which there were undoubtedly plenty, turned out to be much less sharp than the splinters from the canopy, piercing his back.

Slowly, Buck sent impulses to his body, bracing for broken bones – he hardly hurt at all, but the human system provided amazing abilities, and he knew pain might come later and be all the more intense. He moved his fingers carefully, felt whether he could move his toes and worked his way from limb to limb. His overall impression was that, apart from a few cuts and no doubt some bruises, he had been incredibly lucky. Fortune favors fools, he thought, and it had probably been extremely stupid to tempt fate with flight lessons. The wreckage of the helicopter, lying overturned on its top and fuming, was witness to that.

The sight shot an extra dose of adrenaline through Buck's veins, and he suddenly felt wide awake. The angle was unfavorable, so he could barely see into the cockpit, but Tommy was certainly not lying out here. If he was still in there... Smoke means fire, Buck thought incoherently, and with a jerk, he ordered his body to straighten up.

Something dripped from his hair down onto his hand, almost hesitantly, and he felt a little dizzy, although he had expected blood. But that didn't matter. His headphones were gone, and as he slowly rose to his feet, he noticed he was missing a shoe –the fucking expensive Nike’s, sure –and his jeans had a few holes that weren't a fashion statement. Buck plucked a slightly larger piece of shard from his lower leg, limping to the wreckage. He prepared himself to simply find an emergency situation, he was familiar with it, he had experienced it hundreds, heck, a thousand times.

But Buck found that nothing could prepare him for this, and that cold fear was eating into his guts. Somewhere in this half-crushed mess of metal was actually Tommy. Frantically, Buck looked at the rest of the helicopter. Was it really on fire? Would the thing explode? Focus, he thought. He couldn't make out the source of the smoke, and as there was no open fire yet, there was need to hurry but not panic. At least that's what he told himself like a mantra in his head.

His bruised knees cracked as he crouched down next to what was left of the cockpit. There was Tommy, and his heartbeat quickened, but a deep breath forced it to calm. Tommy's belts were still intact and had obviously held, because he was hanging in them like a grotesque bat; after all, the helicopter had turned completely on its own axis. A dangerously jagged piece of glass distorted the view, and after Buck had frantically, albeit unsuccessfully, looked around for stones or the like, he smashed his elbow into the glass

without further ado. Then he took off his remaining shoe to remove enough broken pieces to finally get to Tommy.

Tommy's eyes were closed, the left side of his face barely recognizable beneath blood. Buck didn't notice that his hands were shaking as he carefully reached inside, uttering a much too quiet, too insecure "Tommy?" while searching for his carotid artery.

Time stood still, a vacuum of non-time enveloped Buck. His hands were functional, but not his mind, imagining things. Bad things. Buck had perhaps only survived because he had been tossed out of the helicopter as it crashed. And it was a miracle that he only had suffered a few scratches. Tommy, however, hung in his safety belts motionless, his face a peculiar mixture of paleness and blood. Some victims of an accident appeared completely peaceful but were already dead, some did not even reveal their previous agony. Others seemed lucky, happy to have survived a disaster yet died shortly afterwards from a brain haemorrhage.

It was all so wrong, so unfair; one heartbeat long, Buck felt the fearful knot in his stomach turn to rage. He was hot and cold at the same time, completely unrelated to the merciless sun. Worry, he knew, was a monster devouring the mind. But the sensation that rose up inside him, enveloping him from his toes to the tips of his hair, turning his guts inside out, making his nerves tingle... it was more than ordinary worry. His feelings were familiar, to a certain extend. He had already experienced this kind of fear, this vault of anxiety, with his friends, his family of the 118.

But this was different, and it was so strange. It wasn't supposed to be like this, was it? Tommy and he barely knew each other, two dates and a surprise kiss hardly justified that claim. There was nothing between them yet, nothing worthy of a name, right? Everything was still new, unknown, and yet... Damn, I still don't know how you like your coffee, he thought. I know what your lips taste like, but not your skin. What's your favorite movie, Tommy? Does your hair curl up in the morning? Buck knew nothing of the sort, and probably not much at all, but he knew one thing: he wanted to find these things out.

Buck's eyes widened in surprise when his fingers finally found the artery. Tommy’s pulse was faint, not quite steady; a trapped, restless bird under his equally uneasy grip. It didn’t matter, he was alive, a beating heart can heal, one of his grandmother's many sayings.

"I’ll manage," Buck said, mostly to convince himself, "we'll get out of this."

They would. Even if he didn’t exactly know where they were, other than somewhere in the Californian desert, less than an hour from the city, not the best conditions for an… Emergency call. Realization hit Buck like a bolt of lightning. It didn't matter that he didn't know where they had crashed, his phone could be tracked via GPS. The helicopter had surely been detected by air traffic control, the crash presumably also been registered. They were in the middle of nowhere, no roads to be seen, but the situation was far from hopeless.

Buck quickly changed his mind when he couldn't find his phone in the pockets of his pants, no matter how much he fumbled. First the shoe, then the phone; Buck clearly remembered how his mother had scolded him as a child when he had lost something. Not my fault, he thought, it was never really my fault. Nevermind, there were still options, weren't there? The helicopter's communication system, or Tommy's phone… Tommy. Buck almost slapped himself in the face to call himself to his senses. First things first. Saving lives was much more than his job, and right now, right here, he desperately wanted to save a life. He shook his head to ease the slight fog in his brain and took stock of the situation.

No tools, not even a simple pocket knife. Buck looked at the belts Tommy was attached to, and he had the absurd thought that he was prepared to bite through it, every single damn thread, if he had to. But of course he didn't have to. His gaze fell on the shards he had smashed himself, and a small, wry smile flickered across his face.

Despite all his care and caution, the shard he had chosen cut into his hand while he was working on the belts. Buck hardly noticed; he was concentrating on cutting the fabric, while at the same time checking again and again whether it would cause Tommy to slip. But that didn't happen, the angle at which the helicopter had touched the ground ensured that the pilot was reasonably safe even after removing the straps. Well, as safe as you could be when you were forced to sit upside down, anyway, and Buck knew it was time to change that.

"I'll have you in a minute," he said, as confidently as he allowed himself to be.

Carefully observing the still unconscious Tommy, Buck patted him down, looking for obvious injuries, open wounds, fractures, and any hints on internal bleedings. Only when he was reasonably sure that Tommy would survive the change of position – and actually he wasn't, but he had no choice – did Buck set about carefully pulling the man from his seat.

———

Grains of sand stuck to Buck's skin, cutting into it almost as much as the numerous shards, and the craziest infection scenarios popped into his mind when he had finally managed to free Tommy from the wreckage. He repeatedly checked his pulse and breathing, mumbled a few words, which again were only meant to calm himself down, and turned to the helicopter.

Amidst the endless, yellow stretch of sand with its occasional dabs of sturdy plants, the jumble of steel and shattered glass looked almost grotesque. A too-big insect that had fallen on its back and would never get up again. The flight school would probably not be happy. Buck stroked his forehead thoughtfully, felt the edges of a laceration and painfully came back to reality. He cast a hesitant glance at Tommy, but then tore himself away and cautiously approached the wreck. The smoke could probably be seen for miles, which was good, but as far as Buck could tell, there was no active fire. A smoldering fire, which bought him time. Those usually sizzled for a long time, and there was nothing he could do about it anyway. As long as they didn't directly breathe in the fumes, they were fine.

Well, fine. For the first time, Buck considered the possibility he might have suffered a concussion, but Tommy was clearly worse off, and that was for him to deal with. He dropped into the sand next to Tommy to examine him more closely. Strangely enough, he appeared... well, almost undamaged. Apart from the blood on his face and his obvious unconsciousness, of course. Very carefully, Buck cupped Tommy's chin, turned the bloody side to get a better view, and found a nasty but mostly harmless laceration near his ear. If they were found in time, and if someone with excellent suturing skills was called in, it would probably only leave a very inconspicuous scar.

Hen’s good at suturing, Buck thought wistfully, but this kind of memories needed to be pushed away. Yes, perhaps he felt something like… homesickness for the 118 because he was in a situation where he could normally rely on an excellent team. But he was neither helpless nor clueless.

"I got this," he assured the unconscious man in the desert sand. "They’ll soon find us, maybe even the 118, wouldn’t that be fun?"

Well, not exactly fun, but a relief nonetheless. Buck remembered Tommy's candor, in his kitchen, when he had admitted that he envied the team's closeness and familiarity. That was true, absolutely; Buck was convinced that Bobby would personally rush the firetruck across the desert if he had a chance to help him. And it was weird to realize that there was someone who felt like he had only a few years ago. Someone who believed that he didn't belong. Someone like Tommy, who was strong on the outside, didn't dare show a weakness, pretended to be something just to keep up appearances. But he had changed. He had opened, just like Buck had to. Because he had realized that this kind of honesty, as corny as it sounded, opened hearts.

It had certainly opened Buck’s.

The hairs on his arms stood up as he realized. That is, he didn't quite realize it yet, but there was something inside him that clearly told him he was on the trail of something big. He looked at Tommy, thinking, oh. They didn't have anything fixed yet, he hadn't even dared to think of Tommy as his possible boyfriend. But what was rising up inside him went beyond any usual concern for a good friend.

A lot of this was new. The feeling was irritating, almost painful, and at the same time it enveloped him like a cosy blanket. Buck knew passion, crushes and deep connection, and all of it felt different. And yet… Now was not the time, and Buck sensed that this feeling inside him was precious. A treasure that was better guarded before it was shown to anyone.

He turned back to Tommy, and now he noticed that his right hand was swollen. Buck carefully touched Tommy’s wrist and immediately felt that it was broken. The pilot had gripped the cyclic so tightly that the force had shattered his wrist at impact. But even that didn't explain why he was unconscious. Of course, it could just have been the impact itself; the forces acting on the human body at such speed were enormous.

Buck had a very clear idea of what injuries were possible, most of which did not have to be visible on the outside. This knowledge was both a blessing and a curse, but right now, it was a hindrance. Because this was Tommy, and the fact that Tommy was injured made Buck's stomach drop to infinity. So much could go wrong. So many ways to miss an opportunity that Buck desperately wanted. So many chances to feel warmth instead of this clamminess when he put his fingers on those cheeks.

He kept his fingers on Tommy's cheeks for a while longer, because what could he actually do? Apart from sheer will and the oppressive knowledge in his head, he had nothing to help Tommy, and that tugged at his nerves. So much so that he felt it physically. Or was that... Electrified, Buck leaned over Tommy, staring at him as if he could see through him, could see his innermost being and understand what was going on.

What was actually going on was simple and yet extremely longed for: Tommy opened his eyes.

———

"'Sup?" he slurred, and relief seemed to pour out of Buck's every pore, so much so that he began to tremble without really realizing it.

The pilot’s gaze was not completely focused, but clearer than one might expect. Buck was so close to him that he could make out tiny speckles in Tommy's eyes, and he placed that information deep in his brain before pulling back a little.

"We crashed," Buck explained, "and it wasn't my fault. I mean, uh, that's probably important for insurance or something."

"Are you saying it was my fault?" Tommy asked, blinking.

"What? No, no way, right before the crash you said something about the engine... wait, y..you're kidding? Now?"

"Now is as good as any time, Evan," Tommy said softly, and Buck's heart went into a big but very pleasant stumble. "Are you okay?"

"Me?"

Buck's exhale was half a laugh, and it must have been contagious, because the corners of Tommy's mouth went up, though he inhaled sharply a moment later.

"Easy," Buck admonished him sternly, "I don't know what's going on yet."

He repeated his palpation, tapping and stroking Tommy's skin, repeatedly asking if this or that hurt. Aside from bruises, cuts, and the broken hand Tommy was regarding with pursed lips, he seemed fine, at least until Buck got to his abdomen.

"Oh," Tommy muttered, as if surprised himself that this felt anything but good.

"Here, left side?" Buck inquired, yet Tommy's pained face told him enough.

Pressure-sensitive abdomen, stiff muscles… Buck's lips were dry, the sun added to it, but he gulped hard.

"Do you feel dazed, confused? Anything else? Blurred vision?"

"I see exactly what I need to see," Tommy said, perhaps a touch too dreamy for Buck's taste, even if it was flattering.

"Wrong time, I guess," Buck said, but he couldn't suppress a small, if shaky grin. "You might have injured your spleen."

"Happens," Tommy replied, seemingly unimpressed, but Buck saw through that facade by now. Then again... was it really that Tommy didn't want to show any weakness even now, or was he so confident that Buck had things under control?

"When will they be here?" Tommy asked suddenly.

"Huh?"

"Emergency services. Do you have a concussion, Evan? You've got blood on your face."

"I have blood on my face?"

It wasn't funny at all, but a dry, harsh laugh escaped him. Then he remembered.

"I've lost my phone. Maybe the helicopter's coms are still working?"

Buck cast a doubtful glance at the wreck, but Tommy slowly shook his head.

"Shortly before the crash, I tried to send mayday, but the radio had failed just like the engine. It's a miracle we're still alive, Evan."

"A miracle," Buck echoed, filled with strange satisfaction. He had defied death once before, he wasn't going to let this stop him after all.

"But," Tommy continued, his still unsteady gaze searching Buck's, "air traffic control had us on their radar, they noticed the crash. We’ll be found even if the GPS has failed, and that is very unlikely."

"As unlikely as a crash despite autorotation."

"Fair."

"I just wish there was something I could do," Buck said, his voice displaying his restlessness – he always felt this way when he wasn’t able to act.

He took another look at the wreckage of the helicopter, and this time something caught his eye. Tommy had been wearing a hoodie with the flight school logo when they'd met at the helipad – it seemed like days ago now, but probably two or three hours at most. However, he had taken it off before the flight, stowing it somewhere behind the seat. Technically, the garment was still behind the seat, except everything was upside down now, and the hoodie had fallen towards the ceiling. Buck quickly grabbed it, pulled it out and finally placed it on Tommy's chest and stomach.

"There you go. Keeping warm is important in case of internal injuries."

"We're in the desert, Evan."

"Right, but we don't want you to go into hypovolemic shock, better safe than sorry, Tommy."

"Don’t worry." Surprised, Buck realized that Tommy had grabbed his hand. "You're doing a great job. I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not flattering you, Evan Buckley, but I'm glad I'm here with you, in this mess."

"Really?"

Buck felt his face brighten, and he hid neither relief nor pride behind a mask of equanimity.

"Really. I mean... what kind of story is that? Just imagine that. We crashed, and my boyfriend saved me, and we both survived."

"Your… your boyfriend," Buck returned, stunned.

"Evan. Don't tell me you don't want this. I'm badly hurt, remember. Don’t hurt me even more."

Buck was thinking a lot of very confusing thoughts at that moment, but he heard the faint undertone of uncertainty, he saw the hint of vulnerability in Tommy’s face.

"I mean," Tommy added, "it's a bonding thing, isn't it? Two dates and a crash are enough for me to know what I want, Evan."

His gaze became searching, and Buck understood, and he could only hope that despite everything, he now radiated that confidence that Tommy obviously craved as much as he did. Tommy wanted him. Him, in fact, not the ideal image of a guy, not an exciting fireman, not a sex-addicted braggart. Himself, under all the layers, with all his experiences and the ones he was yet to have.

"I like it," he said quietly. "And I'll find out how you like your coffee, just wait and see."

Tommy's laugh came a little raspy, which was quite unsettling. Still, it was a laugh, and Buck liked the sound and what it did to the little wrinkles next to Tommy's eyes.

"You don't have to make an effort for that. It's quite simple, I like my coffee…"

His voice trailed off as his gaze became distant.

"Tommy?" Buck inquired anxiously, mentally going over the numerous complications that could happen.

"I... say, do you see that?"

"See what?"

Buck turned his head and looked out into the endless expanse, nothing but brownish yellow and green speckles, and he thought he had no idea what to do if Tommy's condition worsened now. But way back there, there was something else, a different color, and it reminded him of...

"A... a fire engine, I think," he stammered.

A fire engine racing through the middle of the desert, far away from any road or trail. And Buck couldn't help but think of Bobby and the crew, he almost knew it was them.

"You see? It's all gonna be fine, I told you," said Tommy.

"Did you? Hm. Wait. You were just about to tell me how you like your coffee."

"Yes, but I think you should find out for yourself, Evan."

I will, Buck thought, and he smiled.

#911 #9-1-1 #911 fanfic #911 fandom #Buck/Tommy #Tommy/Buck #Tevan #writing #my fics #evan buckley #tommy kinard #tommy kinard whump #kinley #firepilot #dailykinley

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heartbreak-one-oh-one · 28 days ago

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they say a clean break is for the best (but i’ve got a fracture in three places)

the press of your fingers

the bruise fans out

red purple yellow green

an explosion

a riot

a mess of colours

fireworks blooming and

your skin the night sky

(does it hurt still?)

the tentative brush of your fingers

barely there

smooth skin stretched over ridges

mottled

unbroken lines

a bumpy road

a mountain’s ridges

tectonics shifting and

your bones the earth

(do you hurt still?)

you fit the jagged edges together

as though sheer pressure can weld

broken pottery pieces together

as though any force in the world can resist

inevitability

indefinitely

as though sheer want can erase fissures,

water damage,

exposure to the elements

as though you can be made whole

again

a patchwork quilt of healing

bruises

misaligned

bone fragments

form a grotesque puzzle

as though incompleteness is a sin.

- d.l.y.y.

#back to writing #heartbreak #in my feels #poetry #poets on tumblr #writeblr #writers and poets #poems #poems on tumblr #love poetry #original poem #original poetry #heartache #you broke my heart #spilled words #words words words #wordporn

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tiptapricot · 8 days ago

Text

Kombatember Day 3: Tarkat(an)

No matter how many times Mileena visits the outlying Tarkatan colonies, she doesn’t think she will ever find them more bearable.

Today is another aid drop. Vital leading members of Baraka’s camp have fallen to the next stage of their disease, and from a rather urgent letter the palace received, they were unprepared for such a development. The colony is in desperate need of blankets, bandages, water, and an excess of clean, raw meat.

Mileena steps off of the royal stagecoach, signaling behind her for the line of aid carts to enter fully into the enclave. There are less than she wanted to bring, but the season has been hot this year, and several of their best work mares have fallen ill. Mileena can’t blame them. She’s had trouble with the warm air herself as of late. It brings a new itch to her skin now, one that burns beneath the flesh like a bad rash and leaves her tendons aching.

She hasn’t told Tanya of that development yet. Nor Kitana. Perhaps she will, soon.

“Empress!”

Mileena looks up to find one of Baraka’s right hand men hobbling towards her. Where usually the grounds of the colony would be peppered with Tarkatans playing or resting or working, it is starkly empty today.

“Skarteeth,” she greets, meeting him halfway. He seems panicked, and she offers an arm for him to lean on when he wheezes as he slows. His nails squeeze at the silk of her sleeve.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he says after a moment. “It’s nearly our entire group of healers, and one of our scouts. They… worsened over this past week, and last night… We have people tending to them, but there’s only so much we can—”

Mileena holds up a hand, summoning her best smile.

“No more must be said. Where should my people bring your supplies?”

The jagged edge of Skarteeth’s mouth that still has soft skin to move twitches, and he pats her arm in appreciation.

“This way. We are caring for them in the cool tent. You may talk to Baraka there.”

Mileena nods, turning back to signal to her convoy to follow.

They weave to the back of the enclave, where a patchwork leather tent is sticking out awkwardly from the rough stone of the canyon wall. Skarteeth ducks into the opening and calls for someone, before leaning back out and nodding for Mileena to follow. As she pushes inside, a few other Tarkatans brush past her to meet the troops and begin unloading.

The inside of the tent is much darker, the air hanging heavy with the smell of blood and salt, and a quiet wash of groans and hisses echoing off the walls. Mileena can see when the tent gives way to a small cave sloping into the canyon, the stones damp and uneven, and several makeshift sleeping rolls laid out along the walls. In every one, a writhing body lies, each in various states of infection. A few of those tending to them look up at Mileena as she passes, their yellow eyes cutting through the dark. She nods to them briefly, continuing to follow Skarteeth.

They find Baraka near the back of the cave, talking in low tones with a worried looking man in mage clothes. Mileena can see the tarkat growths sticking up through the silk of his robe.

“Baraka,” Skarteeth greets, bowing jerkily when Baraka looks up as they come to a stop before him. “The empress has arrived with supplies. I’ve already had Kalait and their men begin receiving them. They will start the distribution soon.”

“Thank you.” Baraka nods to the man he was talking to, dismissing him. “Bring the water and food first. I worry what our friends may do if their hunger reaches its peak.”

Skarteeth growls in discomfort, giving a small dip of his head in affirmation before hobbling back towards the entrance, leaving the two of them alone. Mileena’s eyes drift after him as he goes, her gaze falling heavy to the shapes of so many bodies curling in pain in the dark.

“It is an unpleasant sight,” Baraka says slowly, stepping up beside her.

She nods. “It never will be pleasant.”

Baraka laughs, a gurgling, harsh kind of thing. “No…” he breathes. “No it will not.”

A beat passes, long and weary. Mileena knows she should speak, should address him, should open some… professional dialogue, but she feels at a loss for words.

Baraka moves to kneel down by a nearby bed, lifting a sullied cloth from a bucket beside it to wipe the body’s brow. It hardly looks like a body in this state. Mileena can only see a mass of bony spikes, the heaving, limbed state of it the only thing to indicate its form as a person.

“Baraka?” Mileena broaches. She swallows when her voice comes out rougher than she means.

“Mm.”

“Is… is this the fate that befalls all of us? In the end?”

Baraka stills, only briefly, before resuming his tending.

“One of them,” he says finally.

Mileena swallows. “And… the others?”

Baraka glances back at her, eyes heavy in the dark. Knowing.

He sighs after a moment, coughing slightly as he pushes to his feet.

“How much does the palace truly know about Tarkat?”

Mileena rolls her eyes, disdain slipping into her voice. “Not enough. It seems those who came before me were not interested in studying, only exiling.”

Baraka chuckles again, like a wolf with his mouth full. He swallows thickly before offering out his hand. “Come with me.”

Mileena takes it, some part of her mind still shrinking away from touching him, but she knows it will make no difference. Not to either of them. They are safe in their sickness.

Baraka leads her back through the cave, his presence firm and gentle.

“Tarkat itself is a mystery. We know it spreads, infects, but it works in many ways unlike a disease. Some of my healers… believed it could be a kind of mutated magical parasite but…” He sighs through his teeth, tongue darting out against the points. “We don’t have the resources to tell.”

Mileena purses her lips, another guilty bubble of anger at her mother swelling in her chest. She’s had so many of those feelings since her death. It is… an awful thing, to think of her like that.

“Infection, too, varies,” Baraka continues. “You know it comes largely from blood contact but…” he takes a moment to crouch, plucking something up off the floor. When he straightens, he holds up what looks like a large shard of skin. “These…” he mutters, ghosting his hand briefly over the bony protrusions on his own chest, “these carry it too. Like shedded splinters.”

His eyes dart pointedly to Mileena.

“You’ll get them too, soon enough. Enjoy smooth skin while you can. Enjoy… touching people.”

Mileena’s heart sinks.

“I am prepared, Baraka.”

He tilts his head.

“Are you?”

He takes her arm more firmly in his grasp, turning it against his palm until he can trace his finger along her forearm. “Here, beneath, is where it will begin. The mutations. The spikes.” His nail pokes at one of her tendons, and she stiffens. He glances at her. “Up through the marrow, then through the flesh. Your joints will sting with every movement. Your veins will bruise. Your skin will stink of puss.”

Mileena tries to tug her arm away, a sound rumbling in her throat, but Baraka holds firm.

“Are you already in more pain? Already more agitated?” He growls softly. “There will be no respite, Empress. The hot weather makes it grow restless, but the cold makes our bones ache. We cannot hide.”

He turns her arm roughly, fingers closing around her wrist, and Mileena winces.

“Your treatments may slow it, but the cancer will spread. It will find more of your body to eat, more of your mind. It will construct itself to spread violence through your skin, to sow destruction in your flesh and in your bloodlust for others. How long until sparring becomes too dangerous? Until your knuckles are sharp enough to break skin? How long until your lips become a deadly spindle for your lover’s tongue?” Mileena feels panic blooming in her gut, her mind racing.

“In the end,” Baraka whispers, dropping his grip and gesturing wide to the room, “you will end up dead by your guard, or here, with us. It is only a question of what will go first: your body, or your mind.”

Mileena clutches her shaking arm to her chest, lungs heaving as if they’ve been lit on fire. The groans of pain echoing around her seem to heighten tenfold, her ears aching, her teeth acrid in her mouth.

“That was unnecessary, Baraka,” she hisses.

He scoffs. “Was it?”

There is anger in his voice, but his gaze this time is tired. He stares at Mileena for a long moment before he sighs, kneeling once again by the nearest bed. This body is clammy and still. Baraka lifts their wrist briefly before letting it drop limply to the floor.

“It is not meant to be pleasant,” he whispers. “Have you already forgotten?”

#kombatember #kombatember24 #another one! im like a day late when I do post each of these lol #skipped minigames bc idk what. to do for that myself #mortal kombat #mk1 #mortal kombat 1 #mk12 #mileena #baraka #baraka mk #the fruit is talking again #my fic #my-fic

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inkformyblood · 8 months ago

Text

a life known in patchwork (SubCody Week 23)

A very belated posting as I lost this in my docs! SubCody Week 2023 day 7 - cockwarming, hair cutting/shaving. Codywan, Tatooine Husbands. Minor hurt/comfort and past injury. Trans Obi-Wan.

Ben taps the binos against his hip before he raises them to his eyes, shielding the cracked plastic with his other hand. The world doesn’t bloom into sharp focus, it remains the same blurred distinction of rough shapes and patches of brown, yellow and darker brown but it’s enough for him to catch the steady movement of a single dark craft and its easy path upwards.

He watches it until he can’t any longer, grief and the heat tearing him apart in equal measure.

His perch atop the small hut isn’t the most secure and Ben knocks loose a cascade of stone as he slides down, judging the distance to not be that far. He’s wrong, as he’s finding he so often is recently, and his ankle throbs with every braced step back inside. He straightens before he knocks against the door — the same pattern every time whether it is against stone or wood or the back of Cody’s hand — and shifts his weight to something closer to equal, before he steps inside.

“How’s your ankle?” Cody asks, his dark eyes crinkling in amusement in the sweep of shadows across their kitchen table. Initially, Ben takes the parts scattered over their kitchen table to be blaster parts and something cold slips down his spine, but the thought is corrected in the next moment as Cody picks up a distorted coil and begins to try and smooth it back into compliance.

“It’s fine.” Ben limps as delicately as he can, trying to project serenity as if he does this all the time. He manages to support himself against the low shelf that Cody has constructed into something closer to a kitchen than what Ben had been subsiding on before him. The kettle is old but still serviceable, much like them both. “The ship has left.”

“Oh?” Cody tries to keep his voice level and fails utterly. His reflection slumps for an instant before he straightens, his jaw clenched beneath the freshly grown beard.

Ben nods, busying himself with two mugs. Picking up the small jar they use for caf, he peers into it, noting the visible bottom of it after their weeks of enforced isolation with the group of stormtroopers making a sweep of the planet. His tea had run out several days prior and it had only been strict rationing on Cody’s part that his caf had stretched out so long. “I watched the ship leave. Caf?”

“How much is left?”

Ben knocks the jar against his palm, trying to work some of the older mixture free. “Enough for a cup, my love. We’ll need to go into town soon.”

It is a strange measure of time that they have fallen into, doling out the days and weeks into scoops of caf or bowls of stew, torn between the need to keep supplies on hand and the equally urgent requirement to stay away from the town as much as possible. Cody’s face, as beautiful as he is, especially now when time has traced fine lines over the corners of his eyes and worry has been etched into his forehead, adding to the crop of grey sprinkled through his curls, is still one of the most recognisable in the galaxy and Ben doesn’t fare much better.

He scratches through the fresh beard he’s grown over their last few weeks of isolation, relishing at the rasp beneath his nails, the grit that falls free at his touch. Sand is everywhere on this planet, it feels only right that he should carry some of it with him. “And a shave wouldn’t go amiss either, Cody love.”

Turning, Ben watches Cody like he watched the huddle of stormtroopers picking their way across a distant town, trying to pick out the welded-straight backs of the troopers he might recognise amongst the huddle of fresh soldiers that he would only recognise by the fevour in their eyes — too young, always too young and Ben had thought he had experienced every cruelty the universe could have inflicted upon him and then they sent children to try and tempt him to the slaughter. He doesn’t know if the other troopers are going grey beneath their helmets. He doesn’t know if any of them are still alive at all.

But he knows Cody is alive. He knows Cody is here with him in all their fading glory in a life neither had thought of but hoped for a version of all the same.

“You’re thinking too much.” Cody holds up a piece of the vaporater, peering through it with a frown. A delicate circle of light flickers over his face as the remnants of the storm claw out a final gasping breath. “Shave first or later?”

“First, my love. I’ve missed you too much to wait.” Ben nearly misses the catch of Cody’s breath beneath the hiss of the kettle as their scant water supply rolls into a boil, but the press of Cody’s hands to his hips — a touch so familiar that Ben knows it as well as his own hands — is impossible to miss.

Cody’s hands don’t stay on Ben’s hips, one moving down over the front of his thigh while the other climbs higher, kneading into the soft muscle of Ben’s chest. “Missed me, my stars?” Cody mumbles, his nose pressed to the nape of Ben’s neck. “We’ve not spent a day apart in weeks.”

“Cody,” Ben sighs, relaxing into the other man’s touch. It isn’t purposeful, not truly, a casual exploration of places Cody already knows a thousand times over, and something twists in the base of Ben’s stomach, a clench and release in the promise of things to come. Ben tips his head back to the brace of Cody’s shoulder, ignoring the warning ache along the side of his neck that promised a limited scope of movement if he feels like pressing his luck for too long. Cody, ever a starving opportunist, kisses the crux of Ben’s neck, following it with a nip, a rasp over his fresh beard.

“Cody,” Cody whispers, mimicking the guttural hum of Ben’s accent, rounding his vowels in the Stewjoni way. “Lost your words already, husband?”

“Not quite, my love.” Ben straightens with some difficulty, the urge to sink further back into Cody at the mention of their titles — husband, they’re husbands by every count that matters and Ben could love him for a thousand lifetimes and it still wouldn’t be an accurate measure. “Shave first.”

Cody snorts, doesn’t bother trying to hide his laughter as he inclines his head to the side. It’s more difficult to see on his darker skin but his intent is clear as he presses his fingers against the side of his neck, brushing over the rough patches of irritation, the singular bruise bitten into the hinge of his jaw. “Oh, so now we’re shaving first.”

His thumb smooths over the jut of Ben’s hip, chasing the fold where his robes would have lain. “I can’t shave you.”

“I know.”

They had tried before, once in the early weeks when Cody was only still mostly himself, fraying at the edges and trying to hold himself together with nothing but gritted teeth and a knowledge what failing meant, but there had been moments that were harder than others and Ben, a towel thrown around his shoulders with soap on his cheeks and a razor in Cody’s hand had been too difficult to resist. The cut didn’t scar, Cody had smeared enough of their supply over it to make sure that it healed smooth and invisible, but they both knew it was there. They had tried again later, and again even later after that.

“No more,” Cody had said after the last attempt, his teeth imprinted on his knuckles deep enough to bruise and seconds away from tearing straight through. He had been made to be efficient in all areas, after all. Ben picked up their mirror, the razor tucked between three numb fingers, the universe still crooning in the space behind his eyes, and nodded.

“But I can shave you, love,” Ben says, sorrow layered so heavily in his chest that he can feel it shift as he breathes. He reaches for Cody’s hand, following the same path that Cody had taken and presses the pads of his fingers against the darker patch on Cody’s throat before he draws Cody’s hand to his mouth. He kisses the rough edges of Cody’s knuckles, tasting salt and the dull tang of oil. “Please?”

Cody’s face is grave, age having left more of an imprint over him than could ever have been measured by the lines on his face or the grey in his hair, but he nods, letting his eyes close for a moment. He steps away from Ben, letting his hands linger for as long as possible before releasing him and a shiver rolls up Ben’s spine, a heady mixture of longing and anticipation. He turns, bracing himself against the counter, all thoughts of their general day to day necessities now that the storm had subsided discarded in favour of watching Cody.

In the dull light, Cody is glorious. He peels away the shirt he wears, roughly tugging it free when it catches on the jut of his shoulders, and Ben’s grip on the counter only tightens until his knuckles ache with the force of it. He isn’t the same as he was during the war, the sharp angles of his stomach softening into a gentle curve, the protrusion of his hips dimpling instead, and his stance sits a little wider now, accommodating the additional heft in his core. His body had initially been made for war, now it is made for living. There’s a dark trail of hair running over the blank stretch of his abdomen, a few loose hairs over his chest but the bulk travels downwards, directing Ben’s attention to the low slung waistband of his trousers. As if he needed more of an excuse to admire his beautiful husband.

Cody folds his shirt, drawing the lines exact in the same places they always were and places it to one side, before beginning to tug on the cord of his trousers. Ben leans forward, a distant ringing in his ears, transfixed. When he’d been younger, when he’d been a different person entirely, affront braided together with a desire to find where his lax master’s boundaries had been just so he could cross them, he had snuck out and headed into the lower levels of Coruscant, searching for a rumor. The alleyway had been wide, a deep hollow carved through the press of the surrounding buildings and it had been awash with light spilling from thrown open doorways. Ben couldn’t recall the exact details, nerves and time smoothing over the edges until only an impression remained, but he remembered the need to stare, to drink in the press of bodies. A man had stretched out a hand towards him, cupping Obi-Wan’s cheek before he had moved away, and Ben call smell the scent of his perfume now, heady and rich.

“Going to join me, love?” Cody asks beneath the crosshatch of his lashes, impossibly dark and deliberate, his cheek indented where he’s chewing it. He shifts slightly, scuffing a heel across the floor.

Ben clears his throat, feeling halfway ruined already. “I will, just… let me watch you first?”

Before, Ben’s knowing of Cody had been entirely patchwork, stolen moments here and there to build the foundation for a life together. He’d known the exact way Cody would kiss at the nape of his neck, his mouth hungry for any scrap of skin he could reach but halting at the junction of Obi-Wan’s collar, before he had seen the full expanse of Cody’s back and the constellation of freckles he wore. He’d known the sight of Cody between his legs, Obi-Wan’s thighs spread wide to accommodate the bulk of him, and exactly how Cody’s grip would ident his skin, his right grip steadier than his left, before he had known how Cody would segment his fresh fruit ration into an approximation of even portions before eating it, licking the pads of his fingers to follow the track of juice. He wants to know every piece of Cody, to love him completely.

They have time, not as much as they could have, but they’ll make it enough, stretch it until it breaks.

Cody huffs out a low chuckle, ducking his chin as he tugs on the tie of his trousers, undoing the knot completely before beginning to loosen the waist. His thighs are wide, heavy-set with muscle and a ridged scar runs across the front, starting high beneath his right hip and continuing in a hauntingly familiar straight line to just above his left knee, still beautiful despite everything it means. Cody’s cock is proportional, soft along the line of his thigh, the same as everything else about him as Cody tends to point out with the same rueful grin he wears, hand on his hip for a moment before he braces himself on the table and kicks his trousers off. His socks stay on, an old worn set of Ben’s, worn at the toes and darned enough times that their original colour could be called into question.

“Beautiful, Codylove,” Ben breathes. He feels stretched too thin, torn between his fragmenting self control to keep himself fixed at this singular stable point and his desire to crowd his husband back against the table, to fall to his knees and worship. Cody wouldn’t thank him for the beard burn, however, and it’s that thought that makes Ben straighten and tear himself away, rummaging in the small cupboard above the sink for their supplies. The state of the sonic being what it was — primarily tiny and often broken in one way or another — it hadn’t been worth keeping an essentials in there. He lowers himself back onto his heels, briefly focused on the warning flare of pain from his ankle, and steadies himself once more.

“Here.” Cody scoops the delicate bowl from Ben’s hands, the lather following to be tucked beneath his elbow. He hesitates over the razor for a heartbreaking instant, his face carefully blank before he picks it up as well. His grip is looser, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, his arm rigid. He moves quickly, returning to the table and laying everything out, pausing to tap the handle to bring it back into alignment before he returns to Ben’s side.

His eyes are bright with amusement, a loose grin draped over his face. Ben glances downward, half-shuffling into Cody’s waiting embrace, running his hand over Cody’s waist, the curve of his hip, and the flex of his thigh, the muscle twitching at the light touch.

“I can make it over there myself.” It’s redundant to point it out given that they both know Cody’s made up his mind, filed the forms in triplicate and stamped everything as complete, but Ben still protests, out of habit more than anything.

Cody leans closer, slinging one arm across Ben’s back to stroke along the line of his hip. He’s warm in a way Ben craves, a lingering scent of salt from a hard day’s work and several weeks spent wrapped up in each other’s company moving with him, not unpleasant but merely there to be experienced.

“I wanted to do this before,” Cody says, his voice as even as he can make it, levelled of any extra fat until it is exposed bone. “Couldn’t then, sir, so I’d like to now.”

Ben laughs, leaning down to kiss Cody, licking over the cracks on his lower lip. “By all means then, sweep me off my feet, Cody.”

Cody, his beloved darling Cody, does exactly that. Ben has a moment of unsteadiness, a flip in the pit of his stomach as he is lifted, and he clings to Cody, only just remembering to temper the bite of his nails in the same instance. This close, Ben is free to draw a trail of kisses over the ridged curve of the scar over Cody's brow before he is carefully deposited next to the chair. He wavers on his functioning ankle, still half-draped across Cody’s arms and he marvels at all the years they had missed out on this, on the closeness they can luxuriate in after everything else had been lost.

“If you sit, love,” Ben says. “Then I can straddle you while I work.”

It takes a moment for them both to get comfortable; Cody sitting on the chair, Ben’s tunic folded beneath him with his hands resting on Ben’s thighs, and Ben on top of him, carefully sliding Cody’s cock into him. He’s so full, the stretch coming quickly regardless of how many times they have done this or however wet Ben is. They have some lube left, a little bacta that they can repurpose if needed, but Ben breathes out slowly, his trousers tangled around his good ankle as he carefully sits down, sinking further. His breath is shaky, ragged, and he whines, high in the back of his throat as skin meets skin, and he relaxes onto Cody. Glancing upwards reveals the pale imprints on Cody’s lips from his teeth, one eye squeezed shut even as Cody watches him through lashes beaded with tears.

“There we go.” Ben flexes around Cody, squeezing down on the intrusion, and Cody buckles beneath him, his stomach drawn inwards and his heels rising from the floor as he resists the urge to thrust. The moment passes, they always do, and Cody opens his eyes carefully, approaching his minute study of Ben’s face as if he’s trying to burn his visage onto the backs of his eyes. “How are you feeling, love?”

“It’s still a little odd,” Cody sighs. He relaxes in fragments as if he’s moving down a checklist, the behaviour still learned rather than instinctual. His legs stay wide but the twitching in his thighs lessen as the urge to thrust his cock, still mostly soft, deeper inside Ben passes. Pleasure will come later, Ben will make sure of it, but fucking while shaving is too risky even for them. He can keep Cody close, can tap his heels against the legs of the chair to negate the wash of empty hissing static that comes with his legs spread wide and all of his weight resting at the crux of his thighs, he can do all of this for him.

Ben reaches for the lather and the razor, and Cody bares his throat with a hum, his hands relaxing along the planes of Ben’s thighs at the quiet snick of the razor unfolding. It’s a poor imitation of what Ben can remember, constantly slightly too blunt to remove all of the hair on the first path, making Ben draw the razor over Cody’s skin far more times than he’d prefer. There’s a whisper of irritation running through the back of Ben’s mind, of blood and steel to try and slake the desert’s thirst, and every other mundane worry that had arisen with living this far away from anyone, especially with the dull pulse of pain in his ankle, but Ben sets all of them aside. Pleasure sparks low in his belly, fuelled as he shifts as he works, the same heady concoction that command had given him when Ben had first held Cody’s hand in his, the dirt of whatever planet still covering them both and said, “Good work, Commander.”

Cody, his wonderful beautiful Cody, had nodded, the very picture of professionalism, but Ben felt his grip tighten for an instant, the Force suddenly awash with a burgeoning sunset and he had known that he was never going to let Cody go, not really. They’d been apart for so long but never separated.

“You’re doing so well for me, love,” Ben murmurs, his chest heaving as he pulls in a breath scented with a dull smokiness and the ever-present tang of salt, concentration robbing him of every other impulse. Inside him, Cody’s cock twiches, beginning to harden in response to Ben’s words. Sometimes, he doesn’t and Ben would draw Cody’s hands to his clit and gasp out his release beneath his husband’s clever hands, his cock still soft inside him, before Ben would swallow Cody down, pressing a finger inside him until Cody would spill, a quiet gasp as telling as a shout. But this is not one of those times.

Turning Cody’s head to the side, Ben presses his thumb into the side of Cody’s jaw, just beneath his ear. He follows the motion with the razor, beginning to clear the dark hair from his face. It’s a quiet meditation, punctuated by the gentle rasp of the razor and Ben’s murmured praise as the light outside bleeds beige then gold, and darkens. Inch by inch, beneath the gently fragrant soap and careful attention, Cody becomes visible. He’s still mostly soft inside Ben, his breathing a sweep along the curved expanse of his belly, and his eyes are half-lidded, a single fragment of light catching on the blown-wide expanse of his pupils. He’ll follow any order that Ben gives him and it’s a heady realisation, making Ben clench around the intrusion, feeling himself begin to leak freely. His tunic will be soaked through by the end of this, he realises, his body acting as an oasis even if his fluid intake is scarce. Ben sweeps the razor over the final patch of hair, clearing Cody’s face completely, and leans back to take him in.

“Good, Cody. Very good.” Ben pauses, reaching around Cody to deposit the razor back on the table, carefully retracted once more, and he begins to tighten the lid onto their small container of lather. He can keep his own beard for slightly longer, tending to Cody is both more important and what he wants to do. “I do think you would look ravishing with a moustache.”

“That’s why I can’t, love.” Cody’s voice is mock-grave, coming from somewhere within the depth of his chest and catching on every broken bone on the way up, rasping along with the even timbre of his breath. “I would be too attractive and I would never get any work done with you in my lap all day. That’s not even considering the planet at large.”

“You would be nothing but a distraction, my dear. I would have competitors trying to steal you away from me constantly, not just whenever we go to market.” Ben rolls his hips, testing out the angle like this, pressed against Cody with all of his composure knotted in the muscles of his thighs. He can’t rise and fall like he would need to if he was wanting to draw this out, but that isn’t on the cards. They do have to go into town at some point that day if he didn’t want to resort to brewing their morning caf out of the tin directly. It left an unpleasant aftertaste after a few minutes.

“Wouldn’t go with them.” Cody groans. He pitches forward, pressing his forehead into the curve of Ben’s shoulder. His skin is freshly smooth, strangely cool as he shifts to mouth at Ben’s collarbone. He’s hardening quickly, filling out and reaching deeper, his cock gloriously made to bring Ben every scrap of pleasure with the same devotion that Cody does. He loves him fiercely, every piece of him.

“No?” Ben’s hips roll in an easy rhythm, chasing the crest he knows is about to wash over them both. He’s mostly cut-off from the Force but he would have to be a fool to not be able to ratchet the tightness in his belly tighter, sweat beginning to bead in his hairline as he moves, Cody’s hands solid and grasping on his thighs, his nails leaving behind perfect indentations. The marks wouldn’t last long, longer than they would have done, but time would wash away everything eventually.

Cody’s teeth press against the line of his throat, smooth skin against the rasp of Ben’s beard and Cody gasps, his hips stuttering in an aborted thrust. “No, just you, only you, Ben, Obi-Wan, please!”

Ben sinks down as much as he’s able, widening his stance utterly so he’s suspended entirely on Cody’s cock, and Cody spills with a shout, muffling the fractured end in Ben’s throat. Ben reaches down between them, frantically thumbing over his clit, and Cody reaches over to join him, his thumb broad and practiced, and Ben comes, his toes curling until they cramp.

They wait, breathing heavily, Cody’s teeth lodged in Ben’s throat for a moment longer before he retreats. Cody frowns, reaching up to rub at his cheek. “Your beard itches, love.”

Ben breaks into laughter, Cody following him shortly. It’s a strange life that they built together, but it’s theirs, completely and utterly.

#codywan #star wars #commander cody #obi wan kenobi #lemon #subcody week 2023 #subcody week #my writing #tatooine husbands

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smallgodseries · 2 years ago

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[image description: A black, jackal-headed, fellow stands in the desert. White marble-clad pyramids with golden tops rise behind him. His yellow eyes show discomfort and embarrassment about the translucent cone around his neck. Text reads, “#2 Herman Ubis, The Small God of Mortification.”]

Some people try to call him a patchwork god, like the act of fusing two things into one is somehow new, or unique, or shameful. He hopes they’ve never eaten a peanut butter cup in their short, tormented lifetimes, because if they have, they’ll have some explaining to do when they get to his corner of the afterlife.

Hermes, God of Travelers and Thieves, and Anubis, God of the Afterlife and the Underworld. How anyone thought of mashing the two together is incomprehensible even to him, and he is, as the people say, literally a god. The god of mortification, to be specific, of the sacrifice of sin, the slow purification of the self and the soul.

Of course, who got to define “sin” was always a flexible thing, because with so many routes to divinity running back to so many pantheons, anything could be a sin if looked at from the right angle.

Herman doesn’t believe in sin, which is a little awkward, since it’s literally his reason for existence. A universe cleansed of sin, however, would be a deadly boring place, and since every pantheon has half a dozen gods, both large and small, dedicated to creativity and the arts, he’s pretty sure he’d be sinning against them if he took their purpose away by grinding inspiration out of the human spirit. So instead of targeting sin as a nebulous and unreachable concept, he goes for the next best thing:

Hypocrisy.

Oh, there’s probably a god of moral contradictions someone who’ll swear the hypocrites and the liars belong to them, and maybe they’re right; maybe he’s coloring a little bit outside the lines by going about things like this. But at the end of the day, a toothy smile and the question “Are you really sure about that?” has gotten him a very, very long way, and he doesn’t see any good reason to change the way he’s been doing things.

When you’re a man with the head of a jackal and a fluent grasp of classical Greek, you have to make your own fun.

Herman Ubis is having an absolute blast.

#Small Gods #smallgodseries #seanan mcguire #lee moyer #icons and stories

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xxwitchylanexx · 1 month ago

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From the Keys to Your Heart

Rebirth Retold Chapter 6

The parade in Junon isn't until the end of the week so maybe a little side quest to Crow's Nest to kill the time.

This is my longest chapter yet, and you should reread chapter 7 cause the beginning has changed a bit to fit in this new chapter. Thanks everyone for reading! Feel free to comment and let me know what you liked, and if you feel like this fits our Cloud <3

Masterlist

Chapter 7

Side quest spoilers

*~*

Under Junon didn’t exactly embrace your group with open arms, but you’d take what you could get especially since the members were labeled as eco-terrorists. The mayor, a hardened woman from years being crushed under Shinra’s boot, turned a blind eye and pointed you in the direction of a cozy inn in the heart of the fishing town. You had your reservations: the glint in her stare were practically made of dollar signs, and how she sat at the entrance like she was waiting for them, not to mention the bounty on your companions heads could drastically increase the quality of life for her residents. But who were you to turn down her hospitality when the prospect of a real bed outweigh your reservations.

You were eager to walk along the uneven cement pathways, the stone was so worn down from decades of traffic that the path was nearly just gravel now, as you imagined what these houses, warehouses, and businesses looked like before they deteriorated to the crumbling patchwork structures they were now. The town was probably charming, maybe gentle, before Shinra installed gaudy support structures and the big steel plate above their heads, what once gave hope for a city metropolis now sucked the life and sunlight from the very heart of the under city. You could almost see it in your mind, cute vintage houses made of the finest dark wood, with olive shutters on the windows. Aesthetically pleasing open verandas that connected right to a shopkeeper’s house so they could run their mom n’ pop shop right outside their homes. An intricately designed harbor that really gave the town its spirit with top of the line boats to fish, after all Junon was known for its fishing.

Now those darling houses were patched with driftwood and corrugated tin, most houses had spiderweb cracks in more than half of the windows, and the shutters were long since abandoned. The shops were still open but the owners eyes were hollow and shaky on their feet, too weary from the day to day fight to keep breathing. The docks were in shambles, the planks throughout its entirety had more holes than wood and what was patched was half assed with whatever material they had on hand, but the most devastating aspect of Under Junon was the ships and the sea. Each vessel was anchored on the shore under Shinra’s order. The nets were moth eaten and moss grew along the sides where the boat met the water. The sea was polluted and greenish yellow particles floated within it, the air was smoggy and thick. Without their boats you assumed the people were going hungry. What once was a bustling port town was now the slums 2.0. Meanwhile Shinra turned a blind eye, the only ones hearing the townsfolk’s protests were the foot soldiers who operated the elevator.

You sat in the town square on the circular benches near the anchor they immortalized when they first founded Junon, it was the very first anchor they dropped on their first deep sea fishing voyage, that's what the plaque says anyway. Your inquiring eyes moved over to the colossal skeletal fossil of the towns greatest rival, The Terror of the Deep. Its maw hung open and its empty sockets bore into your own. Funny how their symbol of liberation, now foreshadowed their impending doom.

The sun had set beyond the horizon an hour or two ago. The others split apart to gather any potential info on where the guys in robes were going next or any details on the big event that Shinra was preparing for at the end of this week. You heard whispers, but nothing solid. However one thing seemed pretty clear from a rumor that everyone seemed to be repeating. Rufus Shinra was coming to town, and where the president goes the Turks follow.

A shrill scream pierced through the evening chill, and panic followed. “Help! Priscilla is in trouble!” You seen Cloud dart out of the inn, a hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of his sword. The others soon joined him in a circle, hovering over the narrow stone stairway that led to the docks. Please…. just don’t get involved… Your inner voice pleaded. Your head wasn’t in the game. Aerith’s teasing and Gabe’s implications weighed you down significantly. Your body was sore and tired from falling down a mine, sleeping on a rough rocky terrain, and riding chocoback for a whole day. Overall your head was foggy and sluggish, your edge was dulled and your instincts lagged behind.

But of course they were going to help, they always did, and despite every muscle in your body begging for relief, you hauled yourself off of the bench to follow them into danger.

*~* Who would’ve thought you’d save two people from drowning within two days, and why on this floating rock through space does no one else know CPR? You groaned, your shoulders slumping with the breath that left your body, as you stalked back up the stairs from the utter disaster of battle. You reeked of fish, and brine. Your clothes were wet from the slimy terror splashing in and out of the too warm sea. Your back ached from bending so far back that you almost fell over, all to avoid being smacked by a fish tail. You only wished you’d stabbed the overgrown goldfish harder. The only thing reigning in your fiery temper was the free room, all to yourself, with a shower and a laundry facility.

The inn was one of the only buildings that still held a calming warmth. You traced the pattern of the sage green wallpaper with a fingertip as you passed through the halls, taking time to admire the paintings of sea creatures cased in handcrafted golden frames.

You ascended the staircase to the next floor and rounded the corner at the top, walking right past a door that was left ajar thinking nothing of it before stopping in your tracks just past the frame as Cloud’s voice filtered past the doorway. His words were dry, almost emotionless, but if not for that underlying sadness you would’ve thought nothing of it and carried on.

“Was that another test?” You braced your weight alongside the wall, your palm brushing against the ridges and dips along the surface.

“What? No!” Tifa sputtered, her voice high and defensive, before heaving in defeat. “Why try to deny it. I guess it was. I’m sorry.” Your pulse quickened as the room remained silent the only thing to be heard was the rush of blood in your ears. You didn’t need to be inside to feel the thick tension that built between the two much like the twisting nausea that crawled inside your stomach. >Just how close are they?

Cloud huffed. “We’ll find time to talk, just the two of us. Figure things out.” Your nostrils flared, your esophagus began to burn as the bile worked its way up. This was none of your business.

Your feet carried you swiftly away from there, much like a mouse running from a cat, past the next door and stopped in front of the room designated to you. Your vision tunneled and your surrounding grew hazy as his voice replayed ‘just the two of us’ in your head. Your eyes stared blankly at the 203 on the doorplate. You could faintly hear your name being called, but you were unsure if it was real or just the quiet yearning of your heart that you were struggling to accept.

You closed your eyes and propped your head against the door, inhaling deeply to calm your rapid heart beat, and turned the handle of the door and slipped into the comfort of the rooms closed walls. Your lungs expanded freely without the eyes of your friends around, as you sagged against the door frame. It's none of your business. You reminded yourself as you tilted your head towards the ceiling letting your eyelids slide close.

You slowly peeled your eyes open to look around. This room was similar to the rest of the inn as far as wall style went, only this one was a rich red instead of earthy green. A queen bed, all done up in blankets of cream and tan, was pushed right up to the right side of the room. It was well lit with a square fixture on the ceiling overhead and a few table lamps. A round rug covered the wood and provided a layer of insulation from the cold creaking floor.

With a strangled groan you pushed yourself off the door and shrugged off your equipment, leaving it to fall haphazardly to the floor. Every muscle in your body burned as you lumbered over to the bed, your clumsy feet catching on the rug a few too many times. But every moment of pain was worth the relief you felt as your face nuzzled into the plush mattress and warmth flooded you as you buried yourself under the blankets.

Regardless of the pure exhaustion that plagued you, sleep had continued to evade you. Your head swam with the event of the day and thanks to Aerith’s little accusation yesterday you came to the conclusion this horrendous feeling must be jealousy, though if you admitted it you’d have to accept the fear and anger that’s welling inside you too. Gods you angry. Not at her, or Cloud, or Tifa, but yourself. How the hell did this happen? You don’t do feelings, and you certainly didn’t do romance. Seduction and infatuation, sure, but never love. It was a liability, a weakness, one could exploit if they wished. So where did it all go wrong?

It didn’t help that his room was right next to yours. Only the thin drywall between your two headboards separated you, and his thumped against the plaster rhythmically, his raspy grunts muffling through to keep your rapid thoughts circling the thought of him. Were those reps he was counting? Leave it to him to have a nightly workout.

You sighed, and mentally imagined as the conflicting emotions, the jealousy, the wishful thinking, the ghost of possible feelings, all the warmth and comfort, and pushed them all into a tiny metal chest at the deepest and darkest place that house all the other memories you kept locked away. You can’t be jealous because you don't care. You just needed to keep your distance and in a couple weeks you’ll be at the saucer and can put this whole fiasco to bed. A tiny murmur of sadness shined from the useless organ in your chest, which you quickly stamped down too. This will pass. After all you’ve gotten rather good at separating your mind from pain. You don't see how this was any different.

Once you did finally achieve the sweet release of unconsciousness you were submerged into the hideous atrocities of your childhood. Usually your subconscious could identify when you were reliving one, and change the course of the dream world, but after all of the challenges today- and yesterday- brought, your body and mind were just to exhausted. Your collective presence was pulled down into the sedation of lethargy.

It started back in the saucer. You had just won the last race, beating out the slimy asshole Chuck, and now you stood in the glamorous stables, a brush in hand and a treat in the other. It felt as if your head, or eyes, was vibrating as you ran the brush through your silver chocobo’s feathers. You heard sniffling, but kept your eyes on your bird. The last thing you wanted was to catch his attention. “No…please, stop…” Your pulse spiked, and blood ran white hot with fury. You set your brush down calmly, and assured the bird in front of you that everything would be okay.

But when you turned around to beat the shit out of the guy, you were suddenly clawing desperately at the gritty ground. Adrenaline flooded your brain as pure desperation clutched at your chest and constricted your airways. No… not here… Not again… Footsteps dug into the gravel and the ground under you vibrated. A group of men circled around you, four at least. The one closest to you gripped your ankle hard enough that it would bruise and began to drag you back into their makeshift circle. Tears fell rapidly, and your nose ran like crazy. You tried to focus on the taste of your own tears to distance yourself from the burning pain in your fingers as your nails cracked against the tiny pebbles and pieces of cement as you clawed at anything to get away.

You found that escaping was futile, so changed gears trying to kick frantically to open a chance to escape, all you needed was an ounce leverage. A small part of you just wanted to stop. Your lungs burned. Your fingers were bleeding. Your vision blurred. Your ears rang. Why fight it? There was no hope. You will die here.

A sick sadistic cackle seeped through the static. His gravelly voice, like an old muffler that rusted through where it should’ve connected to the carburetor, told the others to stop. You couldn’t make out his words, your consciousness was distorted like you were being held just beneath the surface of water, but his tone sparked fear in every fiber of your being. And like a match the embers of your resolve caught flame and blazed brightly once again. You kicked and screamed and scratched and even bit, as the other men shuffled around trying to grab whatever they could get their hands around to hold you down, but the moment you heard the clicking and shuffling of a belt coming undone you crumbled.

Your eyes filled with tears that refused to fall. Your mouth felt dry and your own cries, pleas, and begging sounded funny to your own ears. You searched for anyone, anything that might help. You knew hope was lost when your frantic gaze landed on the nosy middle aged woman in the window across the street. She held her silk curtains open with her fan, her cold impenetrable chocolate eyes watching you like it was the best entertainment she’d seen that night with no intent or sense of urgency to help.

Darkness pressed in on you until everything faded to nothing. Whether it be that you didn’t remember exactly what happened or if it was just so horrible that even your unconscious mind didn’t want to relive it, you would never know, but when you came to everything was red. No matter how many times you’ve relived this nightmare it always returns here. Your vision was streaked in crimson, bodies lay in piles around you. Some were intact, others were heavily injured, the rest were in pieces scattered around you. All of them in pools of their collected blood. Their eyes wide, still, and lifeless. Their expressions frozen as if they were screaming for their lives that never reached your cotton filled ears.

You caught an image of yourself in the rippling reflection in the puddle around your bare feet. You looked like an emissary of Odin himself. S/c skin smeared with blood, and every fiber of your awkwardly torn clothes soaked as well, and dripping down the planes of your thighs. Your sunken eyes were hollow, and lifeless beyond the flicker of wrath held within. Sobs convulsed through your tiny malnourished body and the rusted knife shook violently in your hand. A scream pierced your ear drums and everything began to shake violently. Pressure began to build and squeezed and—

You shot up from the mattress like you were struck with magic, gasping for a clear breath and clawing at the clothes that clung to your form. Loud knocking rattled the door, and a voice you weren’t entirely familiar with yelled at you from the other side. Your thoughts were far away when you stumbled to the door. You took a deep breath and collection your carefully collected facade before pulling the wretched door open. The ninja girl that you saved yesterday smiled widely at you, her lips moving a mile a minute but nothing reached your ears. You weren’t sure if you should consider her a bad omen or a breath of fresh air.

She barely gave you enough time to fix your hair and put your boots on before she herded you into Cloud’s room for weird introductions and strategy planning. Only to find out that the mayor did, in fact, rat you out. You couldn’t find it you to be angry with her though.

An engine roared to life just outside the inn, as Yuffie escaped out the rattling window. The obnoxious revving made your ears ring again and your head throb behind your eye. You’ve met some weird people while traveling with the gang but you never would’ve guessed Cloud had a biker stalker, and surprise surprise hes another soldier. You’ve been awake for all of an hour, and you were so weary you nearly said your goodbyes and parted there. If it wasn’t for that small masochistic part of you that was comforted by the chaos you would’ve been on the first chocobo home.

Once you all regrouped you discussed what you should do now. Shinra wouldn’t arrive until the end of the week when the parade was scheduled to begin. You had three days to kill, and it didn’t seem like a smart move to go topside until the day of. Barret and Cloud didn’t exactly blend into a crowd. So Barret sought out the mayor with a bone to pick as you kept to the back. You just felt so out of place. You didn’t belong with these people. Every piece of you just fought to stay upwards under the immense pressure.

Though here you were, listening as the mayor explained why she did it. She even gave him a portion of their bounty in exchange for the trouble, and the argument stopped there. She pulled her dry brown hair back into a tighter pony before returning her gloved hand to her hip. “Well, since you clearly didn’t have anything better to do, think I could out source you to work?” The mayor, Rhonda, spoke. Barrett nudged Cloud’s shoulder before shuffling in front of him. “The remainder of your bounty- I need it delivered to someone. I’ve already got a porter picked out too.” She whistled and a gray whippet dog came running before sitting back on his haunches at her feet. “This here’s Salmon. Since he’ll be the one making the drop, it’s your job to get him there safe.”

“Doesn’t seem like too much if a hassle, but… who exactly is this money for?” Barret rasped, crossing his arms over his chest.

“My son. Haven’t seen him in a spell, not since he left town… and never looked back. This gil is me washing my hands of him.” She mimicked hand washing to accentuate her point. “He’s a grown man. Can’t be clingin’ to his mom’s skirts- or her pocket book.”

“We’ll take the job, for a price.” Cloud said as he shifted his weight.

“Much obliged. Once you make it to the Crows nest, find Toby. He’ll make sure you get the reward. But if I find a single hair outta place on Sam, you won’t live to enjoy it. You keep my boy safe.” She said with a finger pointed at his chest. You scoffed, you hardly doubt that she would last a minute against Cloud, let alone you.

*~*

You decided that Barret was just a man made up of intense contradictions. He was loud, brash, quick to jump the gun, yet could be incredibly gentle, and cautious. He was as stubborn as he was loud and nearly six feet and four inches of hulking muscle. A walking intimidation, yet the first to go to bat for his people. His face, while moderately attractive, was made of sharp lines, and a strong jaw. His glare struck in many through the dark lenses of his shades, and his resting bitch face had people running for the hills. Not to mention the gargantuan canon grafted to his arm. He was both a fierce, loving, and protective father, and the paragon of terrorism- something Shinra monopolized on that.

So the scene unfolding just before you really struck a chord in you. You were never intimated by him personally, you had nerves of steel and skills to back you up, but to see all that muscle, all that bark, hunched over this white and grey mutt scratching behind an ear and cooing his promises to keep him safe with puckered lips like he was speaking to an actual child really dispelled all illusions of his tough guy persona.

“Don’t you worry. Any monster that wants to getcha is gonna have to go through me.” He gave one more scratch under the dogs chin then straightened out to his full height. Salmon, the dog, turned on his heels and scurried down the beaten and barren path that led away from the rotting stench of the sea town. You followed along at the back like a captured spy now held hostage.

There was no joy right now, your circumstances and inner mockery only intensified the emptiness that lingered, but you tried your hardest to focus on the changing terrain, the rocky footpaths slowly fading into something a little more green. There wasn’t much of point you discovered as the back of Tifa’s head beckoned your scrutiny. Every swish of her perfect brown hair ticked like a bomb under your skin just waiting for the clock to hit zero. Her motherly nature shined brightly and lessened Aerith’s concerns, and in that moment you wished you were more like her. Tifa could easily validate someone’s feelings while providing a soothing direction. You actually envied her ability to connect with people, something you struggled with, and it occurred to you that this may have been the first time you’ve ever viewed someone as competition, and the notion left you uncomfortable especially since you truly did enjoy Tifa’s company.

There was still hours of hiking left, and you didn’t want to stare daggers at her back for the remainder of it, so you picked up your pace and slipped between the two of them until you took up a place between the guys at the front. Out of sight out of mind, right? Thankfully for you, Barret was loud enough to drown them out, although being up here came with it’s own challenges. You tried to subdue the rapid thoughts that created the lingering weight that plagued your body, and resisted the deep seeded temptation to sneak a peak at the blonde man to your right. You kept telling yourself that this new stubborn obsession stemmed from curiosity, that’s why, no matter how many times you swiped away the words that formed behind your eyelids, the question always circled back to the forefront of your mind. Was Cloud and Tifa an item? A wistful sigh slipped past your bow shaped lips. You didn’t need to see him to know his eyes were on you, searching for a reason for your distress.

You saw his mouth open to say something out of your peripheral, but before he had a chance to voice his concern Barret was barking out a question, and his heavy gaze finally moved on both giving you a sense of relief and longing. “Hey, Cloud! Remind me, how old were you when you left home?” Fortunately, or maybe not, Barret’s inquiry also piqued your curiosity. You certainly didn’t need to know anymore about him, but the topic was a good distraction from the chaos brewing in your head.

“Fourteen.” He answered simply, his attention returning to the trail in front of you. “No, wait, it was spring so thirteen.”

Barret sucked his teeth a moment in thought. “Suppose that’s usual for small town boys like you. What’d your mom have to say?” As if you didn’t have enough problems rattling inside your skull, as the word mom hit your ears your heart squeezed painfully in your chest. You didn’t think about mothers a whole lot, specifically cause you didn’t really have one. Though now that you were thinking about it, it was hard not to wonder what his mother was like. She must have been a strong woman to have raised such a stubborn man. What would you have been like if your own mother had survived?

“Not much.” The words left his lips so casually as he shrugged. “Didn’t try to stop me- like you said nothing unusual about it. But…”

“But?” Barret badgered.

“Two-thousand gil. She offered me that. ‘Make a fresh start’.” You looked to your shoes to hide the yearning look on your face.

“Guess mom’s are the same, all over.” You scoffed inwardly. Yeah, if only that was true. The mother-like figure you had to endure was a far cry from a good role model. She hadn’t even provided the basic safety and shelter, at least not for free. In her eyes you were just a cash cow, and the debt you racked up just living with her was enough to keep you there forever if not for Sam.

“I turned the money down though. Didn’t need it. I was planning to enlist straight away.” You raised your head to sneak a glance at him for the first time since yesterday. The slant of his mouth inched upwards, a ghost of a smile, like he was recalling the memory. You wonder, did she worry about him? Was she sad to see him go? Was she lonely? It might be sick to wish someone to be sad, but for his sake you did. What kind of mother would she be if his absence didn’t bother her?

“But you still can’t help settin’ your price at two grand. Sentimental ain’t cha?” Barret wiggled his eyebrows at him, Cloud’s lack of response answered his question.

About two hours in your party approached the coast line, and your inner turmoil seemed to mellow out like the slow crashing waves against the rocky shoreline. You held your hand above your eyes as a make shift visor as you looked up at the scorching high noon sun. Something course rubbed along your calf had you casting your stormy e/c eyes down to the source. Red’s large golden eyes, albeit spotted with burning circles that swam as your eyes readjusted, peered up at you as his fur brushed lightly against your skin.

“Are you alright?” He asked, the timbre of his voice so smooth it did put your heart at ease, maybe a litter bittersweet but it was something nonetheless.

“Yeah.” You lowered a hand to ruffle the fur on his head. “I appreciate your concern, but I'm okay. I didn’t get much sleep.” Your gaze wavered from Red to Barret briefly as Barret belted on a “Okay, hear me out.” which usually meant trouble for the rest of you.

“What?” Cloud snapped, his patience for the hulking man nearly spent already. You cocked an eyebrow at Red as you gave him a toothy grin. You angled your head towards the men hoping that Red caught your drift. You sincerely enjoyed the banter and nitpicking between the two.

“Ya know how some parents stop their kids from leavin’ the nest? Claimin’ ‘it’s too soon’ or ‘they’re not ready’” Barret ranted waving his arms here and there to make a point. “Any excuse to keep them at home.”

“What about it?” The crease between Cloud’s eyes returned and his frown deepened.

“Loads of parents’re like that, but I told myself I’d be different.” His big meaty palm thumped at his chest right above his heart. “I’d never keep my little girl from flyin’! I don’t wanna clip her wings! I want ‘er to soar!” Both arms raised through the air, flapping childishly like a bird. Cloud scoffed with an exaggerated eye roll, the barely noticeable smirk not going unnoticed. Barret swirled around to get into his space. “I hear you scoffin’. You think I can’t do it?! You think I’ll keep er all to myself!”

Cloud stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms, his baby blues amusedly gazing over the hulking man. “Oh yeah.” You snickered.

“And that’s what scares me!” Barret erupted, his arms falling heavily to his sides. The two of them moving their feet once again. “As much as I wanna let ‘er fly, I dunno if I’ll be able to let go when the time comes! Maybe I’ll panic- get in her way, hold her down, all to keep her safe! Oh, Marlene! I wish you could be my baby girl forever!” You stared wide eyed at his hysterics. You couldn’t believe what you were looking at. Is he crying? You shot a look at Red to see if he was seeing this shit too. He heaved a heavy sigh, and shaking his head. He wasn’t nearly as entertained as you.

Soon the coast line faded and the path led you higher up hills, and up a rocky cliff past an old decaying boat, an old weather worn flag still lamely adorned the mast. The crumbling brittle ferns were replaced with lush leafy plants and full swaying trees the farther you got from Junon. It wasn't until you passed one of Chadley’s information towers that the gravel path ended and you came across patches of little yellow flowers. Each patch bloomed with different shades of yellow; some light like the sun, others deeper like the hues in Red’s eyes and your favorites were pale and light like the color of a Woodland chocobo or the spikes of his wild hair.

“Oh my sweet baby girl!” His cries took you by surprise, but the tears streaming down his cheeks really left you dumbfounded. This can’t be the same guy who blew up a reactor. It just can’t.

“What now?” Cloud snapped, his steady loss of patience over the day coming to it’s end.

“Your daddy… your silly daddy… he’s gonna…” Barret’s sobs were briefly interrupted as he sniffled wetly between deep shaky breaths. “He’s gonna fail you! Oh, I can’t let you go! I just can’t!”

“Barret, get your shit together!” Cloud snarled. “Marlene’s barely out of diapers. You got time!”

“Right, right. I’m just getting worked up over nothing! Yeah! She won’t be leaving me for awhile!” His sentence started a bit crestfallen before perking up towards the end.

That seemingly was the end of the conversation, but then a few minutes later as you were passing one of the beaten down chocobo rest stops you seen a wicked smirk form on Cloud’s face from the corner of your eye. “Then again…” He trailed off in a mocking tone. You couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Barret chastised him with a stern ‘Hey’ then the two of them turned to look at you as you doubled over in hysterics. It just caught you so off guard. You hadn’t seen Cloud really joke around, but this fucker was turning out to be a mischievous little shit just like Aerith.

You straightened up and took a deep breath to compose yourself. You reached out and pushed against Cloud’s arm with a wide smile on your face. “You’re such an ass!” His smile faltered as the light force made him take a step back before it changed into something more gentle, more intimate, and you quickly turned to Barret. He stood there frozen and quiet which you didn’t actually think was possible. The girls giggled along behind you, Aerith giving you a pat on the back and then you started moving again. “I wouldn’t worry Barret. After all you clearly know what’s best for her.”

“You mean it?” he asked. You nodded.

“Just look at now. You left her behind to keep her safe, even though I’m sure you’re missing her.”

“You’re right!”

“Also…” you snuck a glance over at Cloud before finishing your train of thought, “Just like Cloud’s mom when she offered him money, you can let her fly and still be the air under her wings. Support is everything.” You heard him sniffle again and you rolled your eyes. Gods he was so unexpectedly emotional. His steps thundered loud against the ground was your only warning to the crushing hug he enveloped you in.

He wrapped his arm around you from behind and squeezed you to his body, picking you up off your feet in the process. You squirmed in his embrace, kicking your feet trying to free yourself before you submitted to your fate. The girls came to your rescue, and tried to pull you free, each pulling on an arm. Aerith even tried to tickle him to get him to release you. When he finally set you down your eyes caught Cloud’s again. The gentle smile, and softened eyes made your chest warm and fluttery. You swallowed it down, and chalked it out to be lingering exhaustion, and stretched out your now sore back.

Salmon started barking from up ahead, and your hand dropped to the hilt along your back out of habit. You couldn’t see anything, but your ears trained on a rhythmic flapping sound, and the hairs on your arm stood up. “There!” You yelled. The others looked up and seen the giant winged fiends. Sandstorm Drakes. “Take cover!” You ducked behind a giant red tank as one of them cast aerora, and you cursed under your breath. You peeked over the metal tank as Cloud grabbed your arm and pulled you back down to cover. Heavy winds soared above you as your chest heaved with adrenaline.

“You okay?” He asked looking no worse for wear.

“Yeah.” You let the quiet settle you as you thought out a plan. You weren’t bad at aerial fighting, but in this instance you didn’t have any long range weapons. You could jump, but you doubted you get a good enough range to land any hits. If you could time it right to use the tank for height you should be able to reach. Cloud shifted besides you and another idea formed in your head as you registered the sound of his sword clanking against the metal tank. You did have materia. You gaze flicked to his, and a sly grin spread across your face. “I can give you an opening.” You could hear Barret screaming at the flying creatures as he shot at them and chime like music of Aerith’s magic hitting its mark. The screeching of the drakes continuously got louder and louder along with the increase pressure of the wind whipping around the battlefield ringing in your ears.

He gave a curt nod before jumping back out there. You creeped around the side of the tank and clutched at the bangle around your wrist concentrating on the green materia slotted into one of the chambers. The orb began to glow before you released the spell and aerora was cast on the closest drake. Its wings beat heavily against the current, but its protective aura faltered and disappeared. You jumped into the fray and scurried behind Aerith’s shield clutching your bangle as you prepared another spell.

A sharp cry pierced the sky as one fell to the ground with an echoing thump as Cloud pierced it in a upward arc. Your second spell landed much like the first however as it’s shield flickered out it became enraged and locked its eyes on Cloud’s falling form. It began to swoop and before you could fully think it through you raced across the land and jumped. Of course you wouldn’t reach its height on your own but as Cloud descended he held his blade flat on its side. As you gained height you planted your feet firmly onto the blade and pushed upwards giving yourself more momentum to gain altitude.

You pulled your sword free from its scabbard and angled back. As soon as the you were in range you plunged the sword into its chest. It’s screech pierced your ears and made them ring painfully the proximity disorienting you for a moment. You firmly brought one foot to its chest and kicked with all your strength to free your sword the movement adding an extra distance between you and the carcass. As fell you realized the fiend was following the same path down only a few feet beside you and there was no way to change direction or move out of the way before it crushed you. You sheathed the sword, the weapon only to cause more harm if you were land on it, and turned you body so you would land sideways. The impact will painful, but you’ll be able to roll away before the drake’s crushing weight would flatten you like a pancake.

Here it comes. You thought as you tucked your arms in before your body met the unforgiving ground. You bit your lip to contain the scream that died in your throat as your arm took the brunt of the impact. You rolled three times before coming to a halt.

You flopped your head back for a second to just process the pain shooting through your body, a warm heat radiating from your forearm. You took a few shaky breathes as the intensity faded. Nothing that a simple cure spell wouldn’t heal. You propped yourself back on the uninjured elbow to make sure everyone else was okay. Aerith dusted of the bottom of her dress, Tifa was messing with the straps of gloves, Barret was adding extra bullets to one of the fiends, Red sat back licking a paw, and Cloud was faced away from you slotting his sword back onto his back. Looks like no one else is hurt.

As the fiends broke down and return to the lifestream in ribbons of twirling luminescent greens you tuned in to the way the Planet welcomed them home. You always wondered why humans didn’t return to the planet the same way. Souls, yes, but the bodies are usually sent out to sea or buried, sometimes even cremated. You weren’t sure if other people could feel it the way you do, but it felt different when the two species returned. Fiends are warm and accepting of the change as if that was what they were born to do. Humans felt more complex, though it could be because you were the one to send them ‘home’. Some fought it, other times the strands felt empty or sad, or extremely angry, but no matter the emotion the lifestream was there to accept them, leaving their empty husks behind. You could only hope that people who leave this life to cross to the next, who died of natural causes, went more peacefully.

Does Aerith feel them too? It was a valid question. As a Cetra you imagined she could feel the lifestream better than you. Could she hear them?

The hand that was outstretched towards you came into focus as you blinked yourself back to reality. “You good?” Cloud asked as you took his gloved hand in your own.

As he pulled you to your feet a sharp pain blazed across your forearm. You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from reacting though his blue eyes flicked down to the offending appendage. You huffed as you regained your footing cocking your good arm on your hip to mask the throbbing. Damn thing is probably broken. “Why does everyone keep asking me that today?”

“That wasn't an answer.” He shot back as he scratched at the back of his neck.

You huffed and poked his forehead with a finger. Your eyes narrowing as you studied him. “You’re to observant.” You spoke low and smooth, then retreated from where you wished to be.

Salmon barked down the road and if the windmills, and tattered fences were anything to go by you were close to Crow’s Nest.

*~*

Cloud followed after Toby into the wooden walls of Crow’s Nest and down the rocky trail that led into the fortress. Toby rambled on and on though it all went in one ear and out his other, you consumed every little thing that raced through his head right now. He’d taken his eyes off you for a second as seven of you entered and in that second you were gone, and if he was being honest he wasn’t sure if he’d find you again.

Walking in he couldn’t help but notice the sturdy structure, safety was always his top priority. It was smart that they used the rough rocky mountain as part of their defense, he’ll give them that, but they needed a much gate and guard system. Then there was these sand bags piled up along the left wall, and he could only hope they weren’t there to hold up the wall— it wouldn’t surprise him though.

At the bottom Tifa and Aerith also broke off the main group to take a look around, and with some luck one of them would run into you. The gravel under his feet turned to smooth stone, albeit uneven, as he descended into the heart of the town. He paused to scan his surroundings, that’s what his excuse was anyway, but really he was searching for you. He relented before climbing up the stairs to the bar after Toby, Barret and Red close behind him.

He caught the gist of what Toby wanted. Fiends at the lighthouse, and Kyrie causing more trouble. He huffed and rolled his eyes, a hand landing on his hip in irritation. With Red’s nose and his annoyance directed at the wannabe merc they decided they should probably deal with this. They could set out in the morning, take care of it, then make their way back to Junon in time for the big event.

He didn’t spend another minute taking about it though, he was already down the stairs and looking for their lodging for the night. With that injury he thought that’d be the best place to start his search.

When that came up empty, checked out the cliffs that overlooked the sea. More often that not he’d run into you- on purpose, but he’d never admit that- on your own away from their make shift camp for the night basking in the quiet of nature. He liked to think it was the privacy you craved, much like himself, though when you were asked you said you just felt more relaxed under the open sky. But, now as he stared out and the sunset over the cliff side you were nowhere in sight.

He seen the flow of the skirt of Aerith’s dress before he heard her. “Looking for Y/n?” He turned to see her better at the pier just up the staircase next to him. Both of her hands were clasped behind her back as she swayed along with the wind, the wood creaking beneath her feet as she moved.

He didn’t hesitate, or grow embarrassed, this time. “Have you seen her?”

She skipped down the steps her smile growing in diameter as she stepped up to him. She opened her mouth to tease him, he was sure of it, before her brows wrinkled and a frown replaced her smile. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her since we came in.”

“Right.” He nodded and mumbled a quick ‘Thanks’ before stalking off, with just a bit more gusto, to resume his search.

You’ve been acting strange since last night- no-before that. Whatever Gabe said to you was the beginning. You distanced yourself from everyone leading your chocobo behind the rest of them. You masked it with a charming smile and deflected questions, but he noticed. He always notices. The light didn’t reach your eyes as you joked around, and you didn’t even try to scold Barret for being obnoxious. He seen the way your movements were sluggish, how you stumbled on your feet as you hacked at the Terror of the Deep. He waved it off as exhaustion, so much has happened in just two days. Even he was wearing down. He hoped a good nights sleep was all you needed.

But you looked worse than just exhausted as you slumped over the door in the inn. All worry and doubt he felt from his conversation with Tifa disappeared when he seen you. You looked so defeated. The door the only thing keeping you on your feet as you stared vacantly at it. His chest tightened and he stumbled closer. He didn’t know what to do. Comforting people wasn’t exactly his specialty though when called out to you that seemed to help. His heart dropped to his stomach when you just shrugged him off and slipped inside your room leaving him to stare where you were just moments before. He warred with him self for a moment between knocking on your door or leaving you be, ultimately he turning back to his down and going inside with a slump in his shoulders. Had you even noticed that he called out to you?

He couldn’t sleep of course, not that he ever did anymore. Even the tiniest of sounds were enough to have him stirring, but last night he was filled with a restless energy. Every time he closed his eyes your crestfallen expression appeared. He tossed and turned for upwards of an hour before giving up, settling on some sit ups until his muscles ached and his eyelids drooped.

When the first rays of sunlight filtered in through his window everyone was herded into the room, and that’s when he started to think he’d done something wrong. You lingered in the back, you didn't offer any suggestions, you wouldn’t look in his direction at all. Every time he checked on you you had that same far off look glued onto your pretty face. He couldn’t think of anything he did to upset you, unless he creeped you out in the mines- and honestly he wouldn’t blame you. The timing just didn’t make sense though. You got along fine until you left the ranch. He spent most of the day agonizing over how to mend the situation, and frustrated that he was too awkward to know what to say.

Then out of nowhere you brightened up again, your laugh as breathtaking as the radiant smile on your face. Pride swelled in his chest and a heat rushed to his cheeks. He made you laugh. His heart still throbbed when he thought about the way your hand felt so warm against his upper arm as you pushed him playfully. He didn’t think you’d been listening to Barret’s nonsense either, yet there you comparing the knucklehead to his mom.

He really thought that would be the end of whatever was going on with you, but now he thinks he may have overstepped. He was just going to tell you your fighting was good as always or maybe something less lame when he held out his hand to help you up. But he saw it. Your lips pushed together in a thin line, your eyes slid shut, and if it weren't for his enhanced senses he would’ve missed the sharp breath that you sucked in. His eyes flicked down to your arm. Your arm tensed creating an unnatural shift of bone underneath the skin. He just stared dumbly at it. “Why does everyone keep asking me that today?” Playful tone and a clever deflection once again. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed the issue. You clearly were hiding it from everyone, which made him irrationally angry. What you said next worried him. With a finger pressed to his forehead your whispered words cut sharply into him, “You’re too observant.” Your eyes cold and hardened, but he swears there was an underlying fear beneath the icy exterior and then he realized maybe you two weren’t that different.

You built this solid wall around yourself to keep everyone a safe distance around you never being aloud to cross the distance. You can’t get hurt if you never let anyone in but in reality you just cage yourself in. He did the same, only he used his broody nature and impassive strength. Until the plate fell he was able to do a job with no concern for the client, keeping a barrier between their problems and his feelings, now with this journey being so entwined with Sephiroth it was hard not care. Maybe that’s why he feels drawn to you. For the first time he wants be the one to reinforce your strengths. He was determined to reach you even if he had to break the damn doors down himself.

His hand threaded behind his neck up to scratch at his nape as he went re-climbed the steps to the bar taking two stairs at a time. He stalled at the top as a familiar remedy. The gentle and harmonious hum echoed through the open frame leading into the unfinished bar.

Melancholy and nostalgia filled him and constricted his chest like a vice. He ambled slowly to the wooden framing and settled himself against the smooth stone to watch the scene unfolding before him. He had expected Tifa to be the one playing this old song. Instead there you were. Sat straight on the black wooden bench your fingers gracefully pressing against the old piano keys creating the melody song he heard growing up in Nibelheim. The song took him back to his childhood bedroom listening intently to the girl, Tifa, next door practicing it at all hours of the day. You were the only one consuming his thoughts now, and what a vision you were. Your e/c irises were hidden behind closed eyelids. The smooth planes of your face looked relaxed, but dejected. His awestruck stare followed down the slope of your perfect button nose, and over the bow shape lines of your down-turned lips The low lighting from the lights strung above the both of your heads emphasized the highlight in your hair swayed back and forth around your bare shoulders in time with the glide of your fingers as you recalled each note meticulously from memory.

He glanced quickly around the bar finding nothing but empty seats around round tables. His legs brought him closer to you out of their own volition as if the very thought of you beckoned him closer. “Where’d you learn that?”

Your fingers faltered on the keys, and your body lurched in fear, a tiny squeak escaping your lips. Cute. “Son of a-” You took in a deep breath to calm yourself before the full weight of your glare was on him. “You’re the only one that has ever snuck up on me! Stop it!”

He laughed, the noise sounding odd to his own ears. “Sorry.” He scratched at his nape once again as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He propped Hardedge against the wall then closed the distance between you. He felt silly for lowering himself onto the narrow bench so slowly but he wanted to make sure you had no objections. The bench had just enough room to sit comfortably apart, but with a newfound sense of courage he slid closer to you, feigning ignorance to the available space, so the sides of your arms rest against one another. His pulse pounded in his ears and his hands grew clammy as they rested on his knees.

“I was at a ranch near Nibelheim. The owner’s daughter taught me the song.” You looked up at him with curious orbs. “You grew up in Nibelheim, right?” He nodded his head. “Tifa, too?”

His throat clenched at your inquiry. Nibelheim wasn’t something he usually talked about, the mere memories enough to dredge up a rapid river of intense emotions. Fear, hatred, devastation. He often found it to be a topic of great discomfort. It could've been the song that eased the wounds or possibly all the discussion of his mother this morning, but for the first time in a long time he wasn’t so hesitant to talk about home. “Yeah.”

You looked back down at your fingers that hovered over the keys. “You guys must’ve been close.” You mumbled.

He shrugged, “Not really.” He was hyper focused on the way your arm brushed against his as he readjusted. “I was… I’ve always been… like this.” Awkward, and unsociable. He wanted to say.

He hadn’t realized the difference in your height before now as he towered a head and half above you. His soft gaze falling down to your lips. It was enough that he’d have to lean down to—

“But, you guys seem really close now.” You peered back up at him through the loose strands of hair framing your face. He quickly turned his head to stare at the wall to hide the heat that was spreading under his skin.

“I guess…” His relationship with Tifa seemed to be rocky as of late, but he couldn’t deny she was important to him. “She’s like a sister.” His answered lamely as he turned his attention to the keys before him.

“Really?” The inclination of your voice pulled his eyes back to your own, the warm hue soothing the wave of anxious jitters he was experiencing. “I would’ve pegged you guys to be more than that.” You bumped the ball of your shoulder against his bicep.

“What? It’s not like that.” He quickly huffed. His reaction pulled another musical laugh from you, something he was slowly becoming addicted to he feared.

“If you say so.” You teased.

The tension in your body practically dissolved with his answer, and the sparkle in your eyes that he’d grown accustom to returned casting the once dull and emptiness back to the recesses from which they came. He relaxed and exhaled the bout of nerves that plagued him before he settled into the comfortable silence. You returned to playing the Nibelheim lullaby, the warmth of your arm rubbing against his taking precedence at the fore front of his mind, when he remembered why he was worried about you in the first place. He observed your facial expression at first looking for any signs of discomfort and when he saw none he moved his attention to the offending appendage. His frown deepened as he looked for any unnatural shift beneath your skin. It appeared to be fine. There was no bruising or swelling. Your movement was clean and precise. You must have snuck off to mend it in privacy, but even with healing materia it must be sore. “How’s your arm?”

Your e/c orbs narrowed slightly, your nostrils flaring as you exhaled sharply. He was actually beginning to like this side of you. You’ve been level headed and witty the entire time, along with being a good conversationalist and polite when speaking to anyone. So to see your temper flare and an attitude when this didn’t go your way was almost refreshing to him. Perhaps something was fundamentally wrong with him, or maybe a part of him took pleasure that he was the only one to see it. “Nothing materia couldn’t fix.”

He itched to press the issue further to see more of your fiery personality, but her erred on the side of caution. Your answer was satisfactory so he supposed he could drop it. He peeled his eyes from you, now slightly embarrassed he’d been staring for so long, and looked down to the keys on the old instrument. He let his own fingers slide over the naturals and pressing onto each note softly creating a different song he’d learned in Midgar. Your fingers slide off and landed in your lap. He could feel the way you gawked at him the weight of it nearly burning holes into the side of his head. He felt heat rush to the tips of his ears as you propped yourself up on an elbow to watch him.

“So Mr. Soldier, when on Gaia did you have the time to learn piano? Or was that part of your training too?”

He realized he never actually told anyone this, and the thought of sharing it with you made him feel exposed. Yet he wanted to share this piece of himself with you. “I got homesick… when i enlisted. I had a lot of time on my hands before I climbed the ranks.” Your bought your hands back to the ivory notes pressing down on a few to play a complementary part the song. The two of you sat together of upwards of an hour side by side playing a few different melodies you’d learned over the course of your travels.

You movements stilled and fingers hovered above the keyboard. You turned around, your back now facing the piano, and looked above to the sky through the holes in the ceiling. He too let the music die there and angled towards you. As you admired the sky he shamelessly stared at you. His chest tightening as his eyes trailed over the slope of your nose and glazing over the smooth strands of hair illuminated by the twinkling lights and rays of moonlight.

Your irises moved down to meet his own as a smile graced your lips. “Thank you.” You voice sounding smaller in comparison under the stars. “I feel lighter now.” His brows scrunched minutely as he briefly pondered your words. He didn’t have to chance to linger on the statement, though, your soft warm hand inched towards his. You gently laced your fingers through his and giving his a small squeeze before pulling away and standing up. With one more pat to his shoulder you walked towards the entrance. “Good night, soldier boy.”

He gazed up and the night sky hoping to find what you found so intoxicated by the moon, and he caught himself smiling. He didn’t know if your growing relationship was romantic or not, but he decided that he wasn’t going to shy away from it like he did with almost everyone. No, if he wanted to be the air under your wings then he too would bare his soul to you.

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